Beware the default!

[Jason]

Anyone notice any defaults which could be bad?

*) RayBounce is set 1 by default. While nice and fast, I think 2 should be the default for this. I think this because people fall into this trap a lot.

*) Raytraced LOD is set to 1 but mantra is pretty aggressive with its tessellation, especially when displacement is involved on polygonal primitives, which is the most common case. Defaults should be good for the most common case.

*) My personal favourite: SOP-Level Secure Selection is on, but now Object level is off (thank you!) I am not a fan of SS on by default in either context.

Any others?

J

[Mario Marengo]

We probably all know about this one by now, but it bears repeating:

*) Wherever you see a parameter with a name like "Index of Refraction", or "Eta" , in any one of the OPs that ship with houdini, chances are exceedingly good (100% chance for versions up to and including H6.5.95) that the default is wrong. Use the inverse (1/number) of the number shown instead.

[edward]

I've been thinking about the RayBounce. I can change the default to 2 but that will probably break all hip files.

[Wolfwood]

*) My personal favourite: SOP-Level Secure Selection is on, but now Object level is off (thank you!) I am not a fan of SS on by default in either context.

You all are dead to me.

SS is the only way to work.

[thekenny]

sometimes all the craziness makes sense when you listen to jim.

SS just gets in the way.

on by default is clunky and gets in the way. this is especially true if states are work differently thinking it is on all the time. i'm sure everyone has put themselves into a state at one time or another which expects the user to have SS turned on.

makes me shudder.

-k

[Jason]

Hear hear, Kenny. Shut it, Jim.

The RayBounce thing: it used to be a high number, now its one. There wasn't any concern for breaking hipfiles then

Also, it'd break files in a good way. It'd make reflective objects look nicer.

[Mcronin]

I hate that "select entire subnet" is on by default, but only because I seem to use that morph tool more than anything else now-a-days. I hate that all the SOP generators default to "primitive". They should all default to polygon except Sphere which should default to mesh and append a convert SOP to itself automagicly I hate secure selection. I hate that color coded transform jacks aren't on by default everytime I install a new version of Houdini. I hate all the attribute SOPs, actually any SOP that defaults to vertecies rather than points... I mean look at the selection bar, points are right there on top, the default selection type is points... Why does it seem like every SOP defaults to vertex selection?

I'm switching to XSI.

[Mcronin]

Oh yeah, and I loathe polysplit. Snap to midpoint, Quadstrip, and close path would be my prefered defaults.

[hoknamahn]

Mcronin

[Marc]

Why is the "Center zoom on mouse" not turned on by default?

Does anyone not use it?

[mark]

agreed about polysplit. it would be nice to have a 'make default' which is permanent change, problem solved! then maybe a 'revert to factory settings' to change back. RFE?

[Marc]

If you right click on the parameter you can select the "Make current value default" button.

Its not 100% permanent (won't carry across versions)... but its as close as you're going to get

[mark]

thanks Marc but im sure that only stays current until you restart houdini? maybe i had better check first

edit: oops i better spell your name correctly

[Marc]

Nope, it should save it into your home directory and maintain it across sessions. If it doesn't, then make sure your $HOME/houdini<ver> is working properly

[Jason]

Also, in the SHOPs and VOPs viewport, I'd make the default background "Checkerboard", Transparency ON, and place the light in the typical highlight-in-the-top-right-of-the-sphere position. It seems like I do this all the time.

I'd also perhaps leave the Playbar in Dopesheet mode, and have the range exposed.

Perhaps the Bricker section in the Divide SOP should also be 10x10x10. I've had a few mistakes on that one with terrain geometry and buildings. Not so bad now that you can interrupt cooking, but still pretty dangerous.

[old school]

Nope, it should save it into your home directory and maintain it across sessions.

Sorry Marc, the current preference is only for the current Houdini session. The make permanent defaults option died when assets came in for H6.

If you are bent on having default operators or assets come in a particular way, you can always override the Houdini mechanism of calling a script each time an operator is added. Here's how to do it.

In your $HOME/houdini7.0 directory or anywhere in the HOUDINI_PATH, create a scripts directory if there isn't one.

Next create a directory for the network type you are interested in in lower case letters. Options for nodes are: chop cop2 obj pop sop vex vop

Now go to the right directory and create a text file with the real operator's name with a .cmd extension.

Now edit the file using regular hscript.

Here is an example to take a copy SOP and turn off the option Transform Cumulative as I don't like to have this on for my own personal tastes.

# Default script run when a copy sop is created.

# $arg1 is the name of the op to create

\set noalias = 1

if ( "$arg1" != "" ) then

[Marc]

Wow... nothing like taking something simple and replacing it with something very much the opposite. I was just reading this and thinking, "Good thing I never try and do this or I would be immensely annoyed".

Actually, speaking of annoyed and defaults. Does anyone else hate the fact that 'recompute normals' is on by default in the edit & transform SOPs? I can't think of a single time where I've actually wanted to edit points and have the normals recomputed at the same time.

I can however think of a number of times where I've wanted to edit/transform something with very specific normals (ie I've gone to great lengths to get their normals to look like that), and get very annoyed when they get recomputed.

It doesn't help that there seems to be some issues with merely turning off the toggle too. I've edited something for a little bit, realised my error, turned the toggle of... an lo and behold, the normals don't go back to what they were originally...

bah!

I think I need coffee....

[old school]

I was just offering a solution that works... Don't hurt me. I do have to throw out that this method allows you to go beyond the defaults in that you can put expressions and all kinds of other nice hscripty things around a node. Good for the power user, no? This issue has come up before and the ability to make permanent defaults has been missed.

I do agree that operators at their defaults may not have the best options set for certain uses but the defaults are there for a reason. If there is a case to be made then I can certainly see changes being made.

I can't think of a single time where I've actually wanted to edit points and have the normals recomputed at the same time

I sure can but you have a point especially if you are tweaking at the end of the pipeline and the geometry is loaded with predefined attributes including normals.

If you are modelling on some geometry inherited from another package that has normals on it, or somehow normals were added to the geometry and you start to sculpt that geometry then you will quickly get incorrect shading at the very moment where shading is most critical in the viewport. How do you edit geometry in shaded mode and get reasonable surface topology feedback? The ony way I can do it is with flat wire shading where normals are not used for shading. How do you do it?

One of the critisisms and limitations of vex SOPs is their inability to recompute normals. The exact opposite problem so obviously there is a need to recompute existing normals upon deforming the geometry.

There is no easy solution realy so....

Bring back permanent defaults. Yes? No?

Now what about using operator presets. Yes, I know that this is a second step but they are very useful and do offer a real easy way to get an operator to several different states and all should be aware that that is possible as well. Most of the operators can be used in many different ways depending on what presets are set and what local variables are used.

[renderpipe]

I think we need to wikify this thread. Very good info here about defaults.

I was trying to figure out defaults and why they would not work across sessions. Now I know.

Thanks

[old school]

Don't forget that there is the H7 Early access forum for this stuff if you want to make specific requrests.

Perhaps the Bricker section in the Divide SOP should also be 10x10x10. I've had a few mistakes on that one with terrain geometry and buildings. Not so bad now that you can interrupt cooking, but still pretty dangerous.

The Divide brickering is really dicey as it is completely dependent on the size of the incoming geometry. Perhaps an initialize button that gives you reasonable starting values before you jump over the deep end and hit the display flag? We seem to add more initialize buttons on more operators. I am sure we all have had to interrupt our fair share of bricker operations before we realize that the object is 1000+ units in size.

Why is the "Center zoom on mouse" not turned on by default?

Legacy I would imagine. It should be center zoom on mouse IMHO. I certainly like this preference and now that we support the roller wheel to zoom in and out of networks, it makes it even more useful as a default.