Houdini OpenGL Poll

[Macha]

I thought it would be interesting to poll the user experiences with the H12.x OpenGL viewport. I've noticed grey hairs since I started using H12. I'm not claiming it is related. Just saying..

It would also be interesting to find out on which platforms, OS, and drivers the most problems appear but perhaps it is beyond the scope of this thread.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Macha

[DaJuice]

Alright I'm glad to see this thread because I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one that was having serious viewport issues. I don't have access to my computer right now but I'll make a detailed report when I get back in a few days. In short, my experience with ogl in houdini:

H11: good

H12: not so good

H12.5: pretty bad

Linux 64-bit, consumer nvidia card, driver 304.something if I remember correctly.

[Annon]

I've learnt to live with it, but there's a lot of viewport bugs that sometimes forces a restart to get them working again.

Normals don't scale if I put the display scale up a bit without turning normal view off then on again.

Volumes aren't well represented sometimes unless I select other nodes.

Sometimes display of attributes just disappears and won't come back without restart.

Both on OSX (worst) and CentOS.

[3__]

yep I've noticed a pattern:

• COP2 viewport (laggy, very buggy, one view pane) around v4.
  
• UI (vrey laggy & buggy) v9 - was super fast in v8, except on a 1st gen eeePC where it was a bit sticky.
  
• Channel graph (laggy, stepping in curves, no full-width function field) v9 or 10.
  
• 3D viewport (very buggy, fussier about HW) v11 and up.
  

[jkunz07]

With 12.5 I've noticed a pretty annoying issue where some geometry may become "stuck" in the viewport. Turning the display flag off on that particular geo container has no effect. I've found it requires a restart or switching to a different display driver to fix this issue.

Ubuntu 64-bit, Nvidia 304.xx

[jujoje]

I'm glad someone made this topic: I've been finding the viewport display on OSX a bit frustrating and have been idly compiling a list of issues with the vague aim of submitting a bug report at some stage. I'm curious to hear how everyone else has fared with the new viewport, and whether I'm the only one with these issues.

The main issues that have been vexing me are that:

• Selecting and transforming points leaves the points floating in the air. (video)
  
• Unselected points/primitives appear selected when they are not.
  
• Also selected points/primitives appear unselected when they are selected.
  

Which means I not quite sure what I have selected at times (particularly when using the ` key to add/remove points from an existing node). These selection issues do not occur in the H11 viewport display. However the H11 display particle sprites don't render and I've had the same issues as Christian with volumes and normals disappearing or not rendering correctly.

On Windows 8 I haven't come across any major issues with the viewport, and it sure is a lot prettier (a bit slower but given my graphics card that's to be expected). However I don't use Windows much so it may from lack exposure rather than there being no issues.

MacBook Pro

OSX 10.8.3, GeForce 650m

Windows 8, nvidia 306.97

Houdini 12.5

[tjeeds]

With 12.5 I've noticed a pretty annoying issue where some geometry may become "stuck" in the viewport.

I haven't seen this happen since gold, though it used to be a serious problem. Can you verify this is still happening in newer builds? The main thing I've seen is disappearing geometry, templating still works but displayed geometry is invisible.

Turning the display flag off on that particular geo container has no effect. I've found it requires a restart or switching to a different display driver to fix this issue.

Easier than that, opening a new scene view can sometimes take care of these issues.

The GL viewports are certainly production usable, despite sporadic problems. In all fairness, there are times where the H11 viewport fails and you have to switch to GL. The GL modes definintely need more work but considering they were barely usable in 12.0 I think they're coming along alright.

[jkunz07]

It's definitely happening a lot less since gold, using 12.5.351 I've still seen it happen from time to time.

Thanks for the new scene view tip tho, I'll be sure to give it a try if it happens again.

[gui]

I think the 12.5 viewport is worst than 12.0. I´m using a quadro 4000 on win8. Will go back to win7 soon, but I´m still having issues that I had on win7, and win8 is suported now.

One thing that makes me crazy is when I´m moving an obj in viewport and I click somewhere and and can´t move the obj anymore, although I´m still seeing the rotation and translation handles.

I´m using dual screen and I´m having a lot of problems because of it. When on dual screen mode, I can´t open new floating panes (like those ones to select nodes or select files in the hd). The panel usually opens, but seams to be hidden.

Transparency problems too, just to name a few.

Houdini is great, I I´m trying to "sell" the idea to use it for character animation, but with this kind of bugs, no animator will want to switch from maya.

[Skybar]

Sometimes the selection of points/edges/polys bugs out for me. If I try to, for example, select a few points on a mesh they won't turn yellow. They do get selected, but I have no way of knowing. Or the other way around, I select all the points and try to unselect a few - they get unselected but they are still shown as being selected.

This just happens randomly, I haven't noticed I do something in particular to cause it atleast.

I'm on Win8 using an Nvidia 670, just for the record.

Edited April 15, 2013 by Skybar

[Guest mantragora]

I'm on Win8 using an Nvidia 670, just for the record.

Win7+geforce is the same.

Display primitive normals can take coffee break sometimes too.

Edited April 15, 2013 by mantragora

[jujoje]

A while back, when H12 launched I was wondering about the lack of openCL and OpenGL 3.2 on OSX and received an illuminating explanation from sideFX as to the reason behind the osx viewport lagging behind windows. Thought it might be of interest; it's nice to know there is actually a good reason behind this disparity.

Check out twod's replies at the end of this thread here

[FR3D]

i have also big issues with my view port:

-no shadows from lights

-object flickering

-object displaying while hidden

-"flat shaded" option renders as "smooth shaded"

win 7

GTX titan drivers 314.22

Houdini v 12.5.375

Edited April 21, 2013 by FR3D

[Macha]

Something I have noticed recently while switching on the fps indicator in the viewport:

Every now and then fps grinds to a halt. Switching to another opengl version and back usually resolves the problem. Occasionally I have to restart Houdini.

[TheAdmira1]

I'm glad someone made this topic: I've been finding the viewport display on OSX a bit frustrating and have been idly compiling a list of issues with the vague aim of submitting a bug report at some stage. I'm curious to hear how everyone else has fared with the new viewport, and whether I'm the only one with these issues.

The main issues that have been vexing me are that:

• Selecting and transforming points leaves the points floating in the air. (video)
  
• Unselected points/primitives appear selected when they are not.
  
• Also selected points/primitives appear unselected when they are selected.
  

Which means I not quite sure what I have selected at times (particularly when using the ` key to add/remove points from an existing node). These selection issues do not occur in the H11 viewport display. However the H11 display particle sprites don't render and I've had the same issues as Christian with volumes and normals disappearing or not rendering correctly.

On Windows 8 I haven't come across any major issues with the viewport, and it sure is a lot prettier (a bit slower but given my graphics card that's to be expected). However I don't use Windows much so it may from lack exposure rather than there being no issues.

MacBook Pro

OSX 10.8.3, GeForce 650m

Windows 8, nvidia 306.97

Houdini 12.5

This is exactly what I am seeing, along with the handles jumping to arbitrary locations from time to time. Overall, on my Mac workstation at work, the viewport is unbearable.

Mac Pro

Dual Xeon 5150's

OSX 10.6.8

QuadroFX 4800

[mightcouldb1]

I think Houdini will run best on Linux with a higher grade quadro card. I would be curious to hear someone reply here with those stats. Windows 8, I've heard is very buggy and OSX is lagging behind with their OpenGL implementations.

My guess is the guys developing the software are fans of Linux.

[symek]

Although I agree current state of a viewport needs more attention, I'm far from being disappointed. Actually I've recently spent 10 days on grooming and rendering fur, which I consider heavy viewport duty - lots of painting, groups selections, uv space painting, curve displaying, deformed geometry updating, custom attribs etc - and I haven't experienced a single crash on Gforce 660Ti (Centos 6.3, 304.xxx). There are problems with magically disappearing geometries in some lighting modes, which is quite annoying (is is related to GLSL compiler errors?), but it can be fixed by switching OGL versions back and forth. This is actually much better from what I hear from "the other side" of the open space: 5 times a day yelling unparliamentary expressions when crashing software yet again.

One note related to switching from the old Quadros to recent goforces, performance is great, but overall experience not so much. Funny enough the only crash related to video card I see now, is hardware acceleration of Flash (most probably), crashing X-server (instant re-login).

[rsd]

• Almost invisible selections of all types.
  
• Buggy shadowing.
  
• Crashes with >=310.xx nvidia drivers.
  

System: Gentoo linux-3.5.4; nvidia gt555m 304.88-bumblebee.

[Macha]

In general I see no difference between quadro and gt. We used to swap them to see if it helps with some of the problems.

Just today I noticed normals not being displayed correctly. It appears that sometimes the normals drawn on screen are calculated on the fly rather than taken from $NX $NY $NZ. A few clicks on a node usually resolves this but it can be misleading.

[goshone]

I haven't seen this happen since gold, though it used to be a serious problem. Can you verify this is still happening in newer builds? The main thing I've seen is disappearing geometry, templating still works but displayed geometry is invisible.

Just had this happen today, now I'm in this thread.

Using H 12.5.376 on CentOS 6.2 (not sure about the nVidia driver).