goldleaf

I have both a left and right Evoluent Vertical mouse. Just switching between left/right helps of course, regardless of the mouse, but I like how these feel; the left mouse is nice too, in that I don't have to change any system settings for LMB/MMB/RMB to use the same fingers on my left hand, as they do on the right. I hid the right mouse for a few days, to force my self to get used to the left; now I can alternate as needed. The Logitech M570 is also a favorite, especially if I have to work on a laptop. I can't use a regular trackball, but the thumb trackball is awesome. No idea how it compares to their new version, but it's pretty affordable, cheaper than the newer MX one. I'm also a big fan of the Goldtouch keyboard, as I can adjust angles until they feel just right, and I like the keyboard pressure. Good luck!

You could try PolySoups + Packed Prims to efficiently get super high geometry counts. One of the SESI devs did that to render a trillion cubes: https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/30134/#post-138595

Some relevant information in this article, on the memory bandwidth of 12/16 vs 24/32 Core Threadripper. https://www.pcworld.com/article/3298859/components-processors/how-memory-bandwidth-is-killing-amds-32-core-threadripper-performance.amp.html

Another one is in the Graph Editor, you can press 'Y' and get the Box Handles for key frames.

Finally finished this example that's been sitting on my backburner. It's a really simple demonstration of how you can use the Pose Tool and Pose Scopes to get invisible rigs and motion paths in Houdini. Has anyone used them in production, by chance? What's been your experience? Caveat: that hip file is definitely NOT an example of good rigging practice, by any means! Industrial Robot Arm by UX3D on Sketchfab (CC BY-NC 4.0) invisible_rigs_motion_paths.hipnc

Here is a version using 15.5, which is as far back as I have installed. Often times, these warnings can be ignored (you know if the scene works, hehe). In this case, a fair bit didn't work. @elemnum is a pseudo-variable, which will refer to the point or primitive, depending on the type of wrangle it's running in. Hopefully you can get 16.0/16.5 as soon as possible, there are lots of excellent quality-of-life improvements (i.e. Group Expression). addpoint_perprim_modified_15_5.hipnc

This might help get you where you want to go (probably much more clever ways to do this), but this is how I'd approach the problem. There are a few things happening here (uses some ideas mentioned on other point-to-prim-center threads too): Point Generate SOP to add the points, avoiding the creation and deletion of geometry in a wrangle (to create/delete geometry, at some point VEX has to stop threading to do those operations), which probably only matters on larger geometry, but good to be aware of In a Point Wrangle, move the points to their corresponding primitive position Split apart primitives using Facet SOP, with the Unique Points toggle on After the particle sim, use Primitive SOP to transform the primitives using the particle network Group and delete primitives whose corresponding particle is dead You probably would be safer to setup an attribute dedicated to the particle-primitive relationship, but hopefully this helps a bit! addpoint_perprim_modified.hipnc

I wouldn't guess it would affect Ubuntu at all (I feel like I used to install that package, but I can't recall for sure). You can get a better idea of what it'll provide (since it's a meta-package) with apt-cache showpkg: $ apt-cache showpkg ubuntu-restricted-extras Package: ubuntu-restricted-extras Versions: 65 (/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_multiverse_binary-amd64_Packages) Description Language: File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_multiverse_binary-amd64_Packages MD5: 5625deefba56f767d8e27098e82e3e9d Description Language: File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_multiverse_binary-i386_Packages MD5: 5625deefba56f767d8e27098e82e3e9d Description Language: en File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_multiverse_i18n_Translation-en MD5: 5625deefba56f767d8e27098e82e3e9d Reverse Depends: ubuntu-restricted-extras:i386,ubuntu-restricted-extras Dependencies: 65 - ubuntu-restricted-addons (0 (null)) ttf-mscorefonts-installer (0 (null)) unrar (0 (null)) libavcodec-extra (0 (null)) ubuntu-restricted-extras:i386 (32 (null)) Provides: 65 - Reverse Provides: And if you look into ubuntu-restricted-addons, it lists more codecs: $ apt-cache showpkg ubuntu-restricted-addons Package: ubuntu-restricted-addons Versions: 23 (/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_multiverse_binary-amd64_Packages) Description Language: File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_multiverse_binary-amd64_Packages MD5: d4aa4cd0f0f949dc257017988928544e Description Language: File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_multiverse_binary-i386_Packages MD5: d4aa4cd0f0f949dc257017988928544e Description Language: en File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_multiverse_i18n_Translation-en MD5: d4aa4cd0f0f949dc257017988928544e Reverse Depends: ubuntu-restricted-extras,ubuntu-restricted-addons ubuntu-restricted-addons:i386,ubuntu-restricted-addons Dependencies: 23 - gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly (0 (null)) flashplugin-installer (0 (null)) gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad (0 (null)) gstreamer1.0-libav (0 (null)) gstreamer1.0-fluendo-mp3 (0 (null)) chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra (0 (null)) oxideqt-codecs-extra (0 (null)) ubuntu-restricted-addons:i386 (32 (null)) Provides: 23 - Reverse Provides: So if you want to avoid non-codec stuff, you can just install the gstreamer and libavcodec packages. That'll leave out the rar, font, and flash packages. Hope that helps!

Here is a breakdown of how I made this bear made out of duplo blocks: The video isn't super comprehensive, I mainly cover setting up the constraints in SOPs, though I briefly touch on some other parts too. But the hip file is available to pick apart! Thanks! duplo_bear.zip

There is HOUDINI_UISCALE, which is a percentage scale (so 100 is normal).

Try using the Surface Constraint on your animated mesh; it can constrain to a position inside of a primitive, so you don't need more polygons. surface_constraint.hipnc

Thanks Matt!

Christian Arnesen did an awesome piece of animation with MASH, and I wanted to replicate it in Houdini: Here is the breakdown of 3 techniques for doing so, using Alembic caches, Copy Stamping, and VEX (file is attached below or at the link): Hope it's helpful! arnesen_cubes_in_houdini.zip

This came out of the blue, very surprising! Hope everything works out for the team. http://fabricengine.com

You can just edit the title ad add [Solved] or something like that. You never know when someone else will have the same question, no matter how trivial it might seem.