Houdini 13 Wishlist

[abvfx]

From a short usage experience, maybe the possiblity of customizing/switch the space key with alt, navigation-wise and the whole E,R,T model to the classic Q,W,E,R , all with simple toggle buttons in the options menu so new users dont have headaches working with multiple programs at the same time?

I thought that would be a jarring experience when i first started using Houdini but its one of the few times ive never had a problem with the Space key setup. Saying that im not swtiching all my other programs to use Space instead of Alt so i understand your need.

As for the E,R,T are those not editable in the Hotkey editor?

[vi_rus]

Add arrays support in VOPs.

[jonp]

I'll add to the VEX wishlist:

- struct support in VOPs

- datatypes double and long (64bit float and int)

Add arrays support in VOPs.

[magneto]

Defining functions inside an Inline VOP would also be a huge win in H13

[Erik_JE]

Defining functions inside an Inline VOP would also be a huge win in H13

You could just include the same file containing the helper functions in each node but I guess you already know that.

[magneto]

You could just include the same file containing the helper functions in each node but I guess you already know that.

Yep I know that one. But the problems with that one are:

1. You can't include a file coming from within the asset itself (i.e. Extra Files).

2. When you have some trivial functions, you don't want to create a new file to define those.

It makes sense when you have pretty complicated functions but #1 is still a bottleneck for digital assets.

Also VEX Builder Types allow this, only Inline VOP doesn't. So I am sure it's not a whole alot of work

[damuhong]

How I wish Blender would operate inside Houdini, Just for modeling... Think about it! That would be great! ...'aint it? Maybe an operator(Blender) inside the SOP would be enough..

A full blown application (Blender) inside Houdini...Geez... that would be somethin'. First ever 'an app inside an app'. Whoah! Ahsom!

[abvfx]

I think it would be better to have an app to app workflow like goZ, but with Zbrush/Maya/Blender etc. I just recently bought 3D-Coat so i will try that out that connection but embedding a complete 3D app into Houdni would be a bit of a waste in development time/money. (In my humble opinion.)

[damuhong]

Yeah...I know, but if ..ah... say.. just the modeling code in Blender(no dynamics, no animation part, etc..) .. just the modeling part with all the interface for it.

I've used Blender for modeling characters, and in my opinion, it's the best 'intuitive' polygonal organic modeler out there. And it's free, right?

moving all the codes of modeling in one operator, say.. with the double click, voila you're in the modeling mode of blender inside the interface of Houdini.

[fxrod]

Mine are a bunch of higher-level wishes.

• Viewport needs to be revamped. I've witnessed new users be severely turned off by Houdini because off the poor viewport functionality.
  
• WAY more documentation. I know Houdini is open, but it takes a significant amount of time to dive in and really master a subject through trial and error. Peter Quint gives the clearest and most concise tutorials on a subject. I asked him how he acquired that knowledge, since much of it isn't explicit in the docs. His answer was that he dives in and commits time to investigation. Maybe I'm lazy? But, there's so much to know! I want to speed up the learning curve and avoid having to make poor assumptions on how something like the 'combustion model' works.
  
• Edge support. Real edge support.
  
• Scalability. Side FX's demos are notorious for not accounting for true production quantities. They demo well, but they don't necessarily scale well. Bullet, for example.
  
• UI Design Tools. This one goes out to mister Laidlaw. I agree 100% that their interface design tools can be greatly extended. Here's some examples of what my inner typographer yearns for.
  
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  • Justification
    
  • Button size control
    
  • Spacing
    

  [*]Fracture Tools. The voronoi fracture tool is almost there. Johner made incredible inroads on that one. (Hats off). This is such a commonly used effect. Why not put more time into making the tools more sophisticated.

  • Cookie SOP is sub-par. On this very forum, there are references to other methods that are superior. Such as power booleans, for example.
    
  • Automatic UVs of interior faces in the voronoi tool.
    
  • Ability to add noise to the surface edges on the voronoi fracture tool, not just the interior. Especially on curved surfaces. (I'm passionate about this one)
    
  • Faster. Make these fracture tools faster.
    

  [*]Tool Shelf Versioning. The ability to check-in and check-out tool shelves via RMB commands.

[magneto]

As much as I love to see real edge support, I don't think it's gonna happen. If you noticed the edge support that's coming into Houdini is still in the form of "p7-4 p7-3 p7-6" i.e. Group SOP. So I would be surprised if this was how it will be done all around temporarily until a final pass to turn all these into actual edge numbers.

My guess is that this requires so much work, in terms of code refactoring, structural changes, etc. You will also need procedural way of selecting edge loops/rings, and more.

[malexander]

Viewport needs to be revamped. I've witnessed new users be severely turned off by Houdini because off the poor viewport functionality.

We're in the middle of overhauling it currently. Do you have a more detailed breakdown of what you'd like to see fixed?

[Korhon]

- Fully threaded pops.

- Open vdb!

- Builtin HOT! and make it fully threaded, its kinda slow. This would make life for so many easier.

- Flip speedups

- Multithreaded occtree generation in mantra. It can take forever to start a displacement heavy render with raytracing. It uses 5-10% cpu in startup

- Irradiance caching for mantra

- Fur grooming tools. Houdini fur is so awsome , but it comes with no builtin groom tool for stylized hair and long hair. Now i can only do short fur with shelf tools. And make it faster!

- Make mantra more ram efficient so we can throw more polys and points at it

And speed speed speed And mooore speed

[LaidlawFX]

We're in the middle of overhauling it currently. Do you have a more detailed breakdown of what you'd like to see fixed?

Not sure what fxrod wants and hope he bounces back more detail, but imo

This could be a issue tied with the ogl support of the shaders. In programs like vue, modo, or zbrush your shader to viewport connections are very direct, locked in so they can't be broken or moded, and more guaranteed to work so as you work you get decent colors and textures support, plus reflection and spec. Quality game level graphics at the minimum. Houdini you have the option to create and make these connections so your viewport always looks kind of lack luster. When your at a big studio you don't care as much, but when you first pick up the software you look at the viewport 2.0 from maya, or in vue, or modo, and your work looks alot cooler.

Functionality wise the light options don't always show you something nice. Like an environment light on default geometry, or partially modified geometry does not light up. Technically I know if my geo has bad normals its good to know it from the view port, but if I put down a default primitive sphere and a environment light I don't want it to be black by default. Fake the normals for me I'll appreciate it more. Also non-big studio and esp schools have way better graphic cards, so make it look cool with soft light, specs, and color when I do light attenuation and falloff with out of the box options. I'm sure the connections and hooks will follow. The quality does not need to be render view quality, but half way there with games graphics.

As far as the faking the normals for me on a primitive sphere and viewport. It may help to delineate the viewport two ways, one as a technical method of gathering information(I don't have normals, give me stats on what I see on the geo in the viewport), the other as the pretty images you get to work with in real time(I'm a lighter that has been doing this for days on end, or a first timer, and the only way I can work is to render it. You get sick of looking at grey shapes all the time, esp when headlight view is the best method.) Maybe technically have "display" geometry be a lot more fake in the viewport, only P, with fake normals, and only show my extra attributes if I call them out.

More interactivity in the viewport perhaps.... I don't like this personally, but maya and max have a lot more viewport controls to work in "expert" mode, and beginnger mode with annoying graphics controls like the view box.

For the non-fx artist the Viewport is the main area they care about, network pane is secondary, only Houdini/technical people think of this as the other way around. It's a very art centric way of thinking to look at the viewport first.

def a rant, but the pretty stuff makes it easier to stare at this software everyday....

[magneto]

It seems like every major 3d app moves in that direction. Max has Nitrous viewport, Maya has viewport 2.0. Maybe except XSI unfortunately. But we all know why that is.

[sanostol]

- More robust transparency in combination with textures

- More options to work with reference plates, like working with hidden line showing the roto image through it (screen, transparent, stuff like that)

- per object visibility options, one object wireframe, one shaded

- fast viewport subdivision

- display of custom attributes needs some love

- displaying more floats draws them on the same place, should be drawn on different places

- would be very cool to get a paramater drawn from inside a vex op, for example I want to see the result of a operation righclick on the port and show it in viewport

- matrix3/quaternion display on points without creating a particle object, by the way the axis is broke right now

- support or arrays to display

- full edge support

- multiplier for rest length on cloth objects per point/vertex

- a way to exlcude points form the collistion detection in a cloth object for collision / self collision

- animateable timescale for all simulations

- dynamic arrays for vex, different arraysize for every point

- For the UI designtools it want to add, something like a simple textfield that has more than one line to get a place for annotations

- way to add parameters to many objects at once

- a tiny little more options to create parameter layouts, they get messy and its hard to design a clean interface

Edited December 4, 2012 by sanostol

[abvfx]

• UI Design Tools. This one goes out to mister Laidlaw. I agree 100% that their interface design tools can be greatly extended. Here's some examples of what my inner typographer yearns for.
  
  • Bold
    
  • Italics
    
  • Justification
    
  • Button size control
    
  • Spacing
    

I agree with your other point but especially these one i have outlined. I would also love the ability to have generate list boxes in the UI with just standard python, no need for wxPython. Also the ability to have gif/jpgs as button or UI elements. Would help make tools more customized and will be very good for rigging UI's.

[fxrod]

We're in the middle of overhauling it currently. Do you have a more detailed breakdown of what you'd like to see fixed?

• Front-face only selection doesn't work. If I select a front-facing point or poly using the drag selection, it'll select some back-facing points or polys.
  
• Context-sensitive selection is confusing. I don't like that I can select points from object level and that it jumps me down into the SOP net. Sometimes, I make a mistake, and I'm popped into a whole other network! Instead, you should first be in the SOP network before you can even use point/prim/edge select. Same thing with DOPs. I should only be able to select a DOP object from the DOP network. I realize this doesn't necessarily work with the toolshelves, but trying to accommodate all context selection from the viewport needs to be rethought. I don't think I have a good answer for this.
  
• Group-display. I should be able to filter for groups named 'chunk_*' and see them in the viewport.
  
• Speed. Our proprietary tools, as well as Maya, are FAR faster than Houdini's selection tools.
  
• Highlighting. Highlighting prims and points by proximity to the cursor. This helps me to know which primitive I'm about to select.
  
• I'll post more as I think of them.
  

[fxrod]

For the non-fx artist the Viewport is the main area they care about, network pane is secondary, only Houdini/technical people think of this as the other way around. It's a very art centric way of thinking to look at the viewport first.

Hey Ben:

You are right about the art-centric way of working in the viewport. This is mostly what I meant about new users being turned off because of lack of viewport support. The shelf tools were a step in the right direction. However, I must say that I don't feel the viewport needs to be the primary area of work because it's tough to reconcile it with a procedural/node-based workflow. I just think that people need to be able to trust their actions in the viewport within the existing procedural framework. It just needs over-all streamlining.

Here's another example that trips people up.

1. Select a point
   
2. Edit a point
   
3. This places an Edit SOP.
   
4. Hit Enter
   
5. Try to re-edit from that operator. You have to know to hit enter in the viewport while having the operator selected, then hit the '~' tilde button to reset your actions. Even this does some weird stuff sometimes. Too many orders of operation.
   

[almatea]

I want tiled volumetrics same as Naiad tiles (with dynamics support of course).

Edited December 3, 2012 by almatea