Houdini 17 Wishlist

[Iskander]

On 2/8/2017 at 0:14 PM, Thomas Helzle said:

I haven't touched H16 yet, but if the VEX editor isn't changed significantly, I'd still make it my number one FR to have...

 

•  

What about this one amazing,it's not from sidefx,but who cares.)
https://github.com/paulwinex/pw_Houdini_VEX_Editor

Edited February 15, 2017 by Iskander

[Thomas Helzle]

10 minutes ago, Iskander said:

What about this one amazing,it's not from sidefx,but who cares.)
https://github.com/paulwinex/pw_Houdini_VEX_Editor

Thanks Iskander.

While I applaud the effort I found it rather tedious to use in reality, as is the Sublime-Text extension for VEX.
I guess it may work better for people who do large amounts of VEX in one go, but my code usually grows in many little steps, so all the editors that aren't directly there when I click on the wrangle make things a lot more tedious.

This functionality is something that belongs right inside the core, as important as VEX is in Houdini. In every tutorial I watch on VEX, I'm told to look up the syntax in the helpfile, which is a total waste of time. I can remember the most important commands just fine after a while, but not all the variations on the parameters they have. So instead of just typing along happily like in every other good code editor, I have to stop and open the helpfile all the time. It breaks the stride and the train of thought (and the documentation isn't the most clear one I've seen in my life either...).

So my FR stands :-)

Cheers,

Tom

[acey195]

2 hours ago, Thomas Helzle said:

Thanks Iskander.

While I applaud the effort I found it rather tedious to use in reality, as is the Sublime-Text extension for VEX.
I guess it may work better for people who do large amounts of VEX in one go, but my code usually grows in many little steps, so all the editors that aren't directly there when I click on the wrangle make things a lot more tedious.

This functionality is something that belongs right inside the core, as important as VEX is in Houdini. In every tutorial I watch on VEX, I'm told to look up the syntax in the helpfile, which is a total waste of time. I can remember the most important commands just fine after a while, but not all the variations on the parameters they have. So instead of just typing along happily like in every other good code editor, I have to stop and open the helpfile all the time. It breaks the stride and the train of thought (and the documentation isn't the most clear one I've seen in my life either...).

So my FR stands :-)

Cheers,

Tom

I also tend to use the built-in editor for those reasons. Usually I'll have the documentation open in chrome/firefox on a secondary screen;
Usually I just need:
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini15.5/vex/functions/
and then just use the browser's ctrl+f to find stuff

Using a wrangle and editing the code using alt+e works reasonably well enough I suppose.
The function names themselves already have auto-completion suggestions.
the only real thing that would be really nice to have, would be a preview of the variable overflows as soon as you type "(" after a function call,
or something to that effect.

For example, you could get the stuff below after you type "vertexattrib("

type vertexattrib(string geometry, string attribute_name, int linearvertex, int &success)
type vertexattrib(int opinput, string attribute_name, int linearvertex, int &success)

 

[f1480187]

@acey195, if you write function name, place cursor inside it and press F1, it will open help page for that function.

[LaidlawFX]

1 hour ago, f1480187 said:

@acey195, if you write function name, place cursor inside it and press F1, it will open help page for that function.

Where did you find this hidden bit of wisdom, lol! Thanks!

[acey195]

3 minutes ago, LaidlawFX said:

Where did you find this hidden bit of wisdom, lol! Thanks!

Yeah I also was unaware of it, lol... I guess if you are really patient it will give you the tooltip when you hover your mouse over a function long enough..

but aint nobody goh time fo dah, imma right ?

[Thomas Helzle]

On 2/15/2017 at 1:24 PM, acey195 said:

I also tend to use the built-in editor for those reasons. Usually I'll have the documentation open in chrome/firefox on a secondary screen;
Usually I just need:
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini15.5/vex/functions/
and then just use the browser's ctrl+f to find stuff

Using a wrangle and editing the code using alt+e works reasonably well enough I suppose.
The function names themselves already have auto-completion suggestions.
the only real thing that would be really nice to have, would be a preview of the variable overflows as soon as you type "(" after a function call,
or something to that effect.

For example, you could get the stuff below after you type "vertexattrib("

type vertexattrib(string geometry, string attribute_name, int linearvertex, int &success)
type vertexattrib(int opinput, string attribute_name, int linearvertex, int &success)

 

Well, IMO there is a lot more that could be done. The auto-complete could also offer local variables, existing attributes and group names to prevent typing errors etc. - showing the parameters of commands would be of course the most helpful thing.
Then the whole slew of helpful code editing and formatting functionality that most editors have today like editing all occurrences of a variable name at once, highlighting other occurrences if one is selected, etc. I guess we all know better code editors than the one in Houdini...

More helpful error messages would also be great, often I have no clue from them what they are about.

I personally will continue to hope that now that the nodes saw a lot of love, the editor is next.

Cheers,

Tom

[nisachar]

On 09/02/2017 at 9:44 AM, marty said:

Has anyone found a way to increase the size of those onscreen viewport sliders? I want non-delicate large controllers in the viewport

 

Nit sure if you found the answer yet, but selecting and dragging the rightmost diamond shape stretches the line. Not sure if it scales it proportionately though.

[Guest tar]

@nisachar thanks! - I remembered that too after posting - is there any way to make the larger version the default? Also more vertically height would be most useful.

Maybe even other controls would be good. i.e. a vertical up/down parameter and a radial control too. Sort of a dashboard heads-up system.

[nisachar]

1 hour ago, marty said:

@nisachar thanks! - I remembered that too after posting - is there any way to make the larger version the default? Also more vertically height would be most useful.

Maybe even other controls would be good. i.e. a vertical up/down parameter and a radial control too. Sort of a dashboard heads-up system.

 

Welcome. This is Houdini. I am sure, someone has a trick to dig into some text file in the application folder and tweak the default what you are looking for.

[Guest tar]

Small one. navigation in the Attribute Wrangle like a shell - jump foward/backwards a word with option/alt left/right arrows - it currently navigates the node graph instead.

[Tesla's fan]

dop: sparse field

dop: FEM and FLIP can interact.(gasfeedback node can apply feedback forces to the FEM object)

dop:

Narrow Band FLIP
This is a open source project. someone implement it in houdini. I hope next version SESI will implement it.

Edited March 3, 2017 by aty84122
add some new staff

[Erik_JE]

I'd like them to steal the raytraced viewport workflow from clarisse. It's nice being able to show everything shaded in the viewport even if grainy. Bonus that you don't have to set up opengl shaders.

[kev2]

I would like the option to download a version of Houdini that doesn't install any deprecated node. 

Also, an option to install a version with consolidated nodes, i.e., instead of 5 wrangles, one attribute wrangle, instead of 3 copy nodes, the old one was fine by me. Or at least an option to not "see" the nodes I will never call up. I've reached max node retention.

Another version that does both of the above.

[LaidlawFX]

1 hour ago, kev2 said:

I would like the option to download a version of Houdini that doesn't install any deprecated node. 

Also, an option to install a version with consolidated nodes, i.e., instead of 5 wrangles, one attribute wrangle, instead of 3 copy nodes, the old one was fine by me. Or at least an option to not "see" the nodes I will never call up. I've reached max node retention.

Another version that does both of the above.

I would agree with this too.

However, if you are feeling adventurous you can use the $HFS/houdini/OPcustomize in your Houdini Path and you can hide all those nodes, one by one... And sometimes there are sesi environment variables per each version to hide those older nodes and contexts like the higher level pop context. You might need to ping SESI to see if they put any of these into play this round.

[Thomas Helzle]

On 2/22/2017 at 9:38 PM, kev2 said:

Also, an option to install a version with consolidated nodes, i.e., instead of 5 wrangles, one attribute wrangle, instead of 3 copy nodes, the old one was fine by me. Or at least an option to not "see" the nodes I will never call up. I've reached max node retention.

+1

Yeah, that feels rather silly. Houdini has so many nodes already, duplicating them multiple times for no good reason is the wrong way to go about it. I no longer bother with the "different" wrangles for a while now and just stumbled upon the multiple copy nodes in 16, which I find confusing instead of helpful.

I don't think it will help newbies either, since one of the major hurdles IS the sheer number of nodes. Finding out some of them are actually the same makes one feel rather more confused than enlightened...

Cheers,

Tom

EDIT: My first impression when opening H16 was, that the different copy nodes are more of the alias-kind of duplicated nodes like the different wrangles and vops. It is those that I find confusing and rather pointless, having been a total newb just half a year ago.
Sorry for the confusion ;-)

Edited March 1, 2017 by Thomas Helzle
Clarification

[kev2]

Yup, I've lost millennia not knowing about some nifty node or another that was buried in the nodal noise...

 

[Guest tar]

3 hours ago, Thomas Helzle said:

I don't think it will help newbies either, since one of the major hurdles IS the sheer number of nodes. Finding out some of them are actually the same makes one feel rather more confused than enlightened...

 

My theory is the more technically trained people get confused and annoyed by this aliasing, whilst the more artistic and less technical people don't.

[acey195]

I generally do like what they did with the group nodes though, making it more consistent with normal attributes.
And you gain a bit of performance if you need to do less than 4 operations on a single old group node.

If you create an empty group by pattern, extend a group by edge, remove some points with the help of other groups in the combine tab, and remove another group in the delete tab at the same time...
Then the old group node is faster (than having them as 4 separate, of the new nodes)

I can imagine the same goes for the copy sops.
Also "duplicate" and "copy and transform" are now both in the tab menu, but create the same node type.
I guess for legacy..

[michael]

16 hours ago, Thomas Helzle said:

+1

Yeah, that feels rather silly. Houdini has so many nodes already, duplicating them multiple times for no good reason is the wrong way to go about it. I no longer bother with the "different" wrangles for a while now and just stumbled upon the multiple copy nodes in 16, which I find confusing instead of helpful.

I don't think it will help newbies either, since one of the major hurdles IS the sheer number of nodes. Finding out some of them are actually the same makes one feel rather more confused than enlightened...

Cheers,

Tom

"... for no good reason..."

what if we had good reasons?