Houdini 16 Wishlist

[malexander]

36 minutes ago, LukeLetellier said:

SideFx did confirm that it is a bug, and that they're working on it.

It's not so much a bug as a missing feature. There is currently is no way to set the display options corresponding to the various texture limits in the OpenGL ROP, so you're getting a low-res 3D texture for your volume. It's based on the detected VRAM of your card (and if you're on OSX, it has no idea because Apple doesn't bother to expose those vendor extensions).

[LaidlawFX]

44 minutes ago, malexander said:

It's not so much a bug as a missing feature. There is currently is no way to set the display options corresponding to the various texture limits in the OpenGL ROP, so you're getting a low-res 3D texture for your volume. It's based on the detected VRAM of your card (and if you're on OSX, it has no idea because Apple doesn't bother to expose those vendor extensions).

YEAH APPLE!!! lol

[LukeLetellier]

On 4/29/2016 at 4:34 PM, malexander said:

It's not so much a bug as a missing feature. There is currently is no way to set the display options corresponding to the various texture limits in the OpenGL ROP, so you're getting a low-res 3D texture for your volume. It's based on the detected VRAM of your card (and if you're on OSX, it has no idea because Apple doesn't bother to expose those vendor extensions).

SideFx just reported that the bug has been fixed, and it will be implemented in the release of H15.5.

[Skybar]

The console is really annoying. Would be great with an option to make it print stuff to the Textport instead, then you can have it as a pane in Houdini and look at it whenever you need to.

[LaidlawFX]

1 hour ago, Skybar said:

The console is really annoying. Would be great with an option to make it print stuff to the Textport instead, then you can have it as a pane in Houdini and look at it whenever you need to.

You can show the python pane, and scripts writing to python will write to it instead of the console when it is displayed. 

[Lutojar]

Update to fur tools.

1. Grooming tools - look how easy it to add or remove interpolated guide curve in Blender, Xgen, Yeti. It is fastest way to create style - start from simple setup with just couple guide curves, and then add more and more when needed. Now There is no way to do it easily. Here guy use blender for WHOLE grooming process and it is still fastest way.

2. Mode important - rewrite mantra Fur procedural sader - it is still very limited in terms what could be done using CVEX shaders.

- ability set more segments in fur than guides have. Ideally there should be simple enough guides for fast simulations and render hairs with more segments for more detailed deformations on render time.

- ability to iterate over each hair in cvex in loop like I can do in SOP. Things like Bend, Twist or Carve are impossible to do in cvex guide shader, however easy to do in vop sop - just because I can keep data between loop cycles, and, for example rotate current point of individual hair around previous point.

 

 

 

[Mandrake0]

2 hours ago, Lutojar said:

Update to fur tools.

1. Grooming tools - look how easy it to add or remove interpolated guide curve in Blender, Xgen, Yeti. It is fastest way to create style - start from simple setup with just couple guide curves, and then add more and more when needed. Now There is no way to do it easily. Here guy use blender for WHOLE grooming process and it is still fastest way.

 

is the new way that bad? i haven't used it in production but when i test it was pretty fun to work with....

https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3041&Itemid=408

 

 

[Lutojar]

Groom tool is OK in general, but lacks couple important things that blender and yeti, for example, have:

1. Easy - one click adding of new guide, automatically interpolated between nearest existing curves - right in point where you click on a surface. Or just select and delete some guide curve.

Houdini plant hair brush could add guide, but in strange way - generating curves in random places around brush. And for just deleting some curves lots of extra moves required.

2. Selection masking - in other software (even crappy shave'n'haircut) I could quickly select set of guides to work with, and all brushes will affect only them. I didn't found how to do it in houdini. Also yeti has kinda automasking - when screen brush affects only hairs originated from front faces of geometry.

Sounds Like not a big deal, but just couple of this small things (especially second one) speed up grooming process dramatically

Edited May 3, 2016 by Lutojar

[abvfx]

I have been meaning to update that video. I initially did it because it felt like i kept seeing the same question again and again. 

In Houdini 14 there were some really cool changes but in my honest opinion, not ready for prime time. Responsiveness was an issue for me. In H15 it was dramatically faster. But there are still some issues when it comes to control.

Freestyle masking would be the only thing needed to make it somewhat complete. At the very least  allow groups on the skin geometry to allow clumps of hair to pick sculpted on without drop more nodes. Either way that looks like new functionality and not something that can be achieved with existing nodes.

That being said, there are some very clever tools with Fur 2.0 however i will wait for 15.5 before i do a video update on it. 

Edited May 3, 2016 by abvfx

[Lutojar]

what it Fur 2.0 ?

[LaidlawFX]

20 hours ago, Lutojar said:

what it Fur 2.0 ?

It's like upgrading from an ewok to a wookie...

[abvfx]

Ha in a sense.

Some nodes in Houdini have version numbers on them ie shrinkwrap sop. You can see it in the Operator Type Properties or by holding your middle-mouse  button over the node.

[Lutojar]

23 hours ago, LaidlawFX said:

It's like upgrading from an ewok to a wookie...

Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!

Anyway, if yhat uprade means rewriting of procedural its great. They did it before - I remember when it was only way to use guides - as curves originated on vertices (like in shave).

 

abvfx, what build is it?

Edited May 6, 2016 by Lutojar

[Arthur Spooner]

1 hour ago, Lutojar said:

Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!

This isn't a Star Wars convention. 

[LaidlawFX]

In the help docs the average cycle cost per each node...

This would seem insane, but maybe relative to their function on one of the test objects. In shading you can count the number of cycle each piece of math cost, a sin or cos is more than a multiply per say, and you can count the exact clock on an xbox. I understand everyone's hard ware is different, but this would help a lot in vops, sops and in hdas, along side the performance monitor pane. Even if it was a relative cost spectrum vs other options in the package. If I have to performance monitor different methods of doing something to shave off ms, this would help. The older noise vops have a bit of this already in them. Maybe start with vops, do it for sops, then try for the more complex system like dops after. A merge or multiplication could be the relative base factor of 1, and the zero can be the time transmit through a null.

[Arthur Spooner]

Sorry if this was already mentioned; Improvement on modeling tools. A little better workflow, I love I can go back and literally edit the contents of the nodes, sometimes the results can become unpredictable, in that sense, it's best not to make changes.  Overall compared to Maya, whereas the only solution is undo; no surprise technically Max is excelling in terms of technical features, it's core was better designed.  I still favor Maya over Max but anyhow little more efficiency in Houdini modeling

[6ril]

47 minutes ago, Arthur Spooner said:

Sorry if this was already mentioned; Improvement on modeling tools. A little better workflow, I love I can go back and literally edit the contents of the nodes, sometimes the results can become unpredictable, in that sense, it's best not to make changes.  Overall compared to Maya, whereas the only solution is undo; no surprise technically Max is excelling in terms of technical features, it's core was better designed.  I still favor Maya over Max but anyhow little more efficiency in Houdini modeling

now that's a very specific wish !

Congrats! your broad conclusions about max and maya are really going to help fine tuning the modeling tools of houdini...

I'm starting to know you better and better Arthur, so let me help here too.

dear developers, arthur would like easier buttons.

And while I'm at it, let me add another wish that I'm sure Arthur would love :

Dear developers, could you please make some translation of VEX for each country? Why only English ? You should make VEX in Italian, French, Chinese...

 

 

(ok... off to bed.)

[Arthur Spooner]

Hrm, no that is not what I mean't.  

[edward]

2 hours ago, 6ril said:

Dear developers, could you please make some translation of VEX for each country? Why only English ? You should make VEX in Italian, French, Chinese...

Japanese is already done: http://www.serenelight3d.com/blog55/?p=2587

[magneto]

57 minutes ago, edward said:

Japanese is already done: http://www.serenelight3d.com/blog55/?p=2587

It's not for sale though from what I can tell from Google Translate.

As for a wish, it would be really useful to have generics/templates in VEX so we can write the same code for many attribute types. Doing this with the generic set/getattrib functions result in significantly slower code unfortunately.