Houdini 17 Wishlist

[Masoud]

I wish Houdini adds:

1) A Path Deform modifier.

2) Make any viewport to a perspective from that point of view (Like 3ds max viewports)

3) Change each viewport separately to a Wireframe, smooth shaded mood ...

4) Changing size of a node in Network view, to highlight it.

5) Select multiple objects in a viewport and rotate  all of them around center of selection ( and to do this I don't want to parent them to a null).

6) Align an object or an UV to viewport.

7) Add a method to control curves using "Bezier handles" (like 3ds max).

8) Add a "Select border" to selection, like 3ds max.

9) Changing view port Background color to a custom color ( Light-Dark-Gray-Custom )

Edited April 2, 2018 by Masoud

[nisachar]

Attribute Vops
    - Capacity to display any custom attributes in the left ‘attributevopglobal’ node without having to use ‘bind import’ 
        - Eg : if I create a custom attribute “aa” and pipe it into an AttributeVop, it should automatically be visible in the list of inputs.
        - Similarly we should be able to export the custom attribute out via the ‘geometryvopoutput’ node without having to use ‘bind export.
    - Auto insertion of conversion nodes.
        - Eg : while piping an integer output to a float input, Houdini should automatically insert an ‘integer to float’ conversion node in between.
        - While we are at the topic of auto conversion nodes, maybe a smaller, unique node shape can be used to for such nodes to help visualise and free up available screen space for large networks.

Edited April 5, 2018 by nisachar
grammar

[Stalkerx777]

On 4/1/2018 at 2:35 AM, Masoud said:

I wish Houdini adds:

1) A Path Deform modifier.

2) Make any viewport to a perspective from that point of view (Like 3ds max viewports)

3) Change each viewport separately to a Wireframe, smooth shaded mood ...

4) Changing size of a node in Network view, to highlight it.

5) Select multiple objects in a viewport and rotate  all of them around center of selection ( and to do this I don't want to parent them to a null).

6) Align an object or an UV to viewport.

7) Add a method to control curves using "Bezier handles" (like 3ds max).

8) Add a "Select border" to selection, like 3ds max.

9) Changing view port Background color to a custom color ( Light-Dark-Gray-Custom )

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHjm-zfP6sM  
2. ...
3. Display Options -> Apply Operation To All Split Views
4. ...
5. Select objects, enter the rotate tool, right click on the manipulator in the viewport -> Global Control
6. ...
7. Path Tool. Although it's very clumsy.
8. ...
9. Help->Example Files->Python Panel Examples->Viewport Color Editor.

 

[dyei nightmare]

just one thing and the most important one,  FAST MANTRA!!  is such a shame that you have long render times AND with noise, thats not posible!!!  not worthy!!  the noise reduction workflow doesnt even work in subsurface renders or you end with a very long render times

[asmartkid]

3 minutes ago, dyei nightmare said:

just one thing and the most important one,  FAST MANTRA!!  is such a shame that you have long render times AND with noise, thats not posible!!!  not worthy!!  the noise reduction workflow doesnt even work in subsurface renders or you end with a very long render times

Totally agree, sadly... I mostly love the results and understand ray tracing can only optimized to a point (Arnold is also slow as hell most of the time, for instance) but sometimes I think something is broken inside Mantra. 

[Daryl Dunlap]

5 hours ago, asmartkid said:

Totally agree, sadly... I mostly love the results and understand ray tracing can only optimized to a point (Arnold is also slow as hell most of the time, for instance) but sometimes I think something is broken inside Mantra. 

Psst...Redshift3D!  *poof*

[asmartkid]

18 hours ago, Daryl Dunlap said:

Psst...Redshift3D!  *poof*

I know, I know... I'm just trying to learn Houdini at its purest form...

Edited April 6, 2018 by asmartkid

[asmartkid]

BTW, any prediction on when 17 will show up? I can't wait to the promised lighting and Mantra improvements....

[seifdune]

houdini 17:

Need wrap deformer like maya.

spacing chat for animation and inbetween tool this will help to quickly create animation.

mirror poses.

update bridge tool(allow select to polygon or edges and apply bridge direct this way will help to enhance modeling speed in houdini, the current way it's very slow first select source then destination hope the update it.)

Loop slice like modo(loop slice allow to slice polygon like edge loop but advanced one which allow to add symmetry loops at each end or uniform edges and also has free mode, this give flexibility and speed to quickly modeling.)

allowing to create short cut using most common used keys like ctrl,shift,art and space by mixing themselves this give wide range of creating shortcut keys which can be accessed  easily by fingers. 

allowing to switch pie menu by using short cut keys instead of selecting every time.

[LaidlawFX]

Update node preset system for this decade... well maybe for next decade, too, as this one is almost over.

[bobc4d]

I would like to see a camera calibrator like in Cinema4D, to more easily integrate 3D objects into a photo

[MENOZ]

On 13/4/2018 at 3:10 PM, LaidlawFX said:

Update node preset system for this decade... well maybe for next decade, too, as this one is almost over.

what do you have in mind?

[Hamp]

On 13/04/2018 at 11:35 AM, seifdune said:

houdini 17:

Need wrap deformer like maya.

Does the point deform not perform even better for you? It does for me, but maybe I'm not getting some special feature of the wrap deformer...

[LaidlawFX]

On 4/14/2018 at 1:49 PM, MENOZ said:

what do you have in mind?

The previous preset of .idx used to be ascii before they made if binary to optimize performance, however, this reduce the amount of control you can have with the system. Source and revision control are impossible in a binary format. You can longer edit by hand in each preset which is really needed for production control. Additionally you want to be able to have per project control of presets, which I can not at the moment recall if the previous ascii .idx could handle i.e. for each HOUDINI_PATH variable you have be able to add each new preset to the list for studio and project control. The previous system of having all the presets in one file, I'm not personally a fan of as I would like each preset to be it's on file. The old presets have their own custom format, which was not intuitive, so documentation and a standard jason or xml format would be helpful. For those not used to hand editing presets, which I'm guessing is nearly everyone in the last five years or more, perhaps a UI from within Houdini.  This UI could also help all the new people. Also allowing for some more complex preset controls, like node name, color and shape that are now maintained by different systems. This may include also other on name change, ondeleted, on input change actions. Which it would be nice to perhaps have a way to subscribe a bit to the presets, and maintain more of an active link, so that you know that this node is actively prescribed to that preset so when the studio updates the node preferences they can update. While perhaps dangerous in some ways, in the course of a large production, in order to say change a whole sequence of .hip files or Houdini Engine .hda options for a level team. A studio could change the options on demand instead of tryign to change the defaults on the node which may not be at issue for the other half the studio. For instance, all volumetric redering mantra nodes need to have a better tweak, or you need to autocorrect all the settings because some juniors keep messing with the settings and you want to lock down or hide the parameters. Something I am not a total fan of but perhaps needed in the world of Orbolt where people are selling assets, is to be able to add these presets to the .hda. In production this would generally be more a piece of shit decision, but in the world of smaller teams this may be helpful to store all related items of an asset together, especially now that we can store asset in their uncompressed version. 

The current work around for this system is to make your own python preset system. Which is a bit on the companies burdensome side. This also means you now have multiple preset systems to maintain. The old Gear Menu setup, the newer wrangle drop down menu setups, and then your own studio one. Additionally this brings to light that unlike the L-System preset, now with wrangles people expect presets to live in multiple places. A lot of newer people not even being aware there is a preset menu in the gear menu. One of these should be eliminated in preference of the other. So that means to take all of one system and put it into the other including making it more production friendly. Which in reality means going to all the wrangle nodes and putting those options in the gear menu, to make one homogeneous system.  Additionally fixing all the under the hood reason why those options were not included in the gear menu solution. While in theory it is OK to have two different preset options in two different places, when accounting for studio options it really makes three. At the end of the day this really just highlights the issue at hand that the original system needs to be upgraded. 

[Alexey Vanzhula]

Lazy selection like in Modo or at least ability to change selection click box size (to select components in the air). It can speedup modeling a lot

modo lazy selection example video

Edited April 18, 2018 by Alexey Vanzhula

[Alexey Vanzhula]

Show wireframe on model subdivided with '+' shortcut:

subdivision wireframe example

[acey195]

a toggle (or default) for the findshortestpath node,

so when you do not output paths,
that it does not delete the geometry
when there are no points in the "Start Points" group,
but instead sets the "Cost Attribute" value(s) to -1, like it does to all points it can normally not find a path to (when there is at least one point grouped as a start point)

This behaviour is useful to do quick floodfill operations (to see if a certain point is connected by another point, while also taking into account directed primitives)

Right now you have to add a: delete, switch and attribCreate node for every findShortest Path to do this safety check.
 

[mifth]

On 13.04.2018 at 12:35 PM, seifdune said:

houdini 17:

Need wrap deformer like maya.

spacing chat for animation and inbetween tool this will help to quickly create animation.

mirror poses.

update bridge tool(allow select to polygon or edges and apply bridge direct this way will help to enhance modeling speed in houdini, the current way it's very slow first select source then destination hope the update it.)

Loop slice like modo(loop slice allow to slice polygon like edge loop but advanced one which allow to add symmetry loops at each end or uniform edges and also has free mode, this give flexibility and speed to quickly modeling.)

allowing to create short cut using most common used keys like ctrl,shift,art and space by mixing themselves this give wide range of creating shortcut keys which can be accessed  easily by fingers. 

allowing to switch pie menu by using short cut keys instead of selecting every time.

Hello! I have Wrap deform and mirror Pose tools. 

I can share here. 

Do you need?

[koanix5]

Houdini 17 will be up at the end of this September or at the start of october. Jeff Wagner said it in the H16.5 Illume Webinar - Collisions Part 3 in the last 10 minutes when he was talking about the Cloth tools and from the way he was talking.. It seems like H17 will bring updates to the Cloth tools as well.

[mifth]

On 20.04.2018 at 12:41 PM, mifth said:

Hello! I have Wrap deform and mirror Pose tools. 

I can share here. 

Do you need?

I attached my wrap tool example if someone is interested. "uv_wrap" node has some parameters. Check it. )

temp_wrap1.hiplc