Neil78 Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Never used xsi I'm really intrigued. I find the Houdini UI to be very slick and elegant. I wish you could have a floating viewer and hide it show it quickly like in nuke. I just discovered the space -z shortcut for orbiting / centering on any geo, as well as space -shift-z for changing origin to any point on geo. These are fantastic and make viewer spinning a breeze. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tar Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Never used xsi I'm really intrigued. I find the Houdini UI to be very slick and elegant. I wish you could have a floating viewer and hide it show it quickly like in nuke. Try option-shift-c. It pops out a floating viewer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koen Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I still sort of consider the 3d viewport in houdini to be a read only feature, every time I want top interact with it, unexpected things happen. I often miss the gizmo when I try to do something, losing the selecting (which of course I could lock, but I was not expecting to lose my selection). Or jumping between sop and obj level automaticaly, etc. It did get a lot better with the newest nvidia drivers, but I dont have those anymore. I agree with others, interacting with the viewport in XSI is by far the best I have used. Very well thought out, sticky keys are brilliant, working with subd's was a pleasure even 10 years ago. The biggest issue I had was moving from xsi to maya, all my scenes had millions of keyframes since I was still going for the "s" key all the time to tumble... That being said, I very happily gave up the 3d viewport for all the power you get with houdini. No matter how much I love houdini, I avoid modeling (and to a lesser extend animating) in houdini. If something requires a lot of interaction, I rather use something else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil78 Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Try option-shift-c. It pops out a floating viewer. That's nice, it clones whatever context your in, but i was thinking more like Nukes work flow where you can then just have the screen dedicated to your nodes, and call up a viewer only when you need it. Just a thought Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skybar Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 That's nice, it clones whatever context your in, but i was thinking more like Nukes work flow where you can then just have the screen dedicated to your nodes, and call up a viewer only when you need it. Just a thought That would be very cool actually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tar Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 (edited) That's nice, it clones whatever context your in, but i was thinking more like Nukes work flow where you can then just have the screen dedicated to your nodes, and call up a viewer only when you need it. Just a thought oh cool - yep - that would be good On OsX the hack for this is; make the node graph full screen - cmd B, then float a window and set it to viewer, then cmd ~ to switch between node & viewer. Edit: Much better; just added ` to the Hotkeys Manager for 'floating windows' and now this works pretty much like Nuke. Should work on Linux too Edited January 24, 2014 by tar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tar Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 First time I run Houdini it was version 6 something. It was at the time when I was looking at each application trying to decide which one is for me. It was before shelf tools, when there was still start scene opening when you turned Houdini on. Houdini was the ONLY application in which I couldn't figure out how to create ball . And that's how it started for me. All the other apps looked like copies just with different name. With ton of icons and menus. Houdini was so clean back then. At this point in time the only application that still looks almost as clean like Houdini back then is Fusion (and maybe Unity). Later SESI started to make it a little Maya like and it started to confuse people. Thankfully they stopped. Don't try to make it work like other apps and complicate things. Cleaner is better. There are some things in other apps that I would like to see in Houdini but Maya like customization is the last one I would like to see. Out of interest what do you has been lost by making Houdini more "Maya like" since version 6? Do you think a "cleaner" interface makes for different or better workflows that is now, sort of, a lost art? i.e. Too many screen widgets today define a particular way of thinking; a trodden path that everyone walks along instead of exploring new and interesting processes. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jordibares Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 (edited) Seems the conversation is drifting to incorporate Maya-like interaction and behaviour into Houdini, PLEASE DONT, Maya is well known for having the worst workflow. If there is any workflow to be inspired (not copy) have a look at XSI and MODO. Sorry for the bold carpet bombing statement, I just don't have time to go over all the details right now Edited January 25, 2014 by jordibares 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil78 Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Yeah Maya is messy, and endless scrolling in the attribute editor, too many 'ways, to access tools. Houdini is sleek, the shelf tools, which I think are the maya styled bit, are great for setting up quick systems and learning from; but hide the shelf tools and you end up with elegance and nodal romance. Gotta try that floating viewer hot key thanks Marty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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