Jump to content

Houdini 17 Wishlist


LaidlawFX

Recommended Posts

I agree the new group and copy sops are confusing. I lay down one, oh that didn't do what I wanted, I lay down another, oh still not it. It might be a case of just getting used to, but on the old ones you had a pretty clear overview with the tabs - which is easier if you aren't yet sure how to do something. Switching tabs and trying different parameters versus laying down multiple nodes and jump between them. I might change my mind when I've used it more, but it feels quite cumbersome atm.

I'm also one of those building everything in one geo node because jumping up and down is so annoying, so it could just be me. On that note though the new bookmarks/quickmarks looks really nice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, marty said:

Graph readability, so the tabs are exposed, and performance?

I would say this had something to do with scheduler optimization (CompiledSOP and such). Striping away problematic things (stamping) allows to optimize core functionality (copy/instancing). If statistics is like 1:10 for latter one, it's a good reason to split them apart. 

 

hmm, me thinks at least...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, michael said:

"... for no good reason..."

what if we had good reasons?

You sure had - from your perspective. I probably just don't share that perspective or don't know those reasons... ;-)

To me it looks as if the attribwrangle, pointwrangle, primitivewrangle and vertexwrangle are exactly the same, other than one dropdown being preselected differently - this never did any good for me while I started learning, since it created the impression that I had to have the right one and couldn't do the other things with it. Now I no longer bother but always use pointwrangles and switch to what I need.

Volumewrangle and heightfieldwrangle at least look identical.

I didn't analyse all of them and probably didn't use/see more than 5-10% of the available nodes yet anyway, but I'm sure getting lost regularly since the names don't always help. Instead of having the same nodes with different names, I personally would rather improve the search function instead, so that the same named node is found by the right tags.
See my earlier proposal for fuzzy/tagged search and tooltip-help directly in the node list.

That of course is my perspective and my "good reasons"...  ;-)

Cheers,

Tom

Edited by Thomas Helzle
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, marty said:

USD from Pixar? Is it worth getting excited for it.

If you are in the field of passing entire scenes between packages its good. It's a container for fbx, alembic, obj, shaders etc... so you can theoretically author from houdini, maya, or modo with out embedding any authoring ability and read from another one of those packages. More like a ifd, ass, or rib in a certain sense, of beign "scene description format" as opposed to a .hip, .mb etc.

Whether everyone implements it seamlessly is a completely another story. Pixar has pull, but that is only soo good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think USD is interesting for much more then just going between packages, it seams great for going between departments, or scene assembly in general. You can layer information on top of information to end up with a final composited scene that is ready for rendering.

There are some interesting demo video's 

 

Cheers,

Koen

 

1 hour ago, LaidlawFX said:

If you are in the field of passing entire scenes between packages its good. It's a container for fbx, alembic, obj, shaders etc... so you can theoretically author from houdini, maya, or modo with out embedding any authoring ability and read from another one of those packages. More like a ifd, ass, or rib in a certain sense, of beign "scene description format" as opposed to a .hip, .mb etc.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cool stuff - I got the email for Multiverse Studio, got interested in it again:

http://multi-verse.io/

 

Quote

 

Easy, efficient, unified Alembic & USD I/O solution for studios. 
Designed for Houdini  Maya  KATANA interoperability.

Multiverse Studio introduces Hyperspace: 
a new API for unified I/O (Alembic, USD) asset plug-ins 
and renderer-agnostic procedurals.

 

 

Edited by tar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, kev2 said:

Versioning ala Nuke's versioning.

 

not like in nuke(with "_v" - maya's "." is way better ) - houdini versioning(in backup folder) is a good one.

 

A shortcut to save a new major/minor version and global variable for $HIP_WITHOUT_VERSION_:) would be a nice addition.

Edited by pxBomber
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd like an option in the Tree View to show objects in a hierarchy view. I want to have a maya outliner-style view or C4D object list view, just for /obj level objects (or subnets). I'd like to be able to organize them how I want and have the option to sort them alphabetically, if desired.

I still want timeline markers...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Thomas Helzle said:

You sure had - from your perspective. I probably just don't share that perspective or don't know those reasons... ;-)

 

among other things having less complex nodes (in our code) less complex to use (for the users) easier to update/change without affecting other functionality etc...

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, michael said:

among other things having less complex nodes (in our code) less complex to use (for the users) easier to update/change without affecting other functionality etc...

 

For the copy node(s) that makes sense, for the multiple wrangles and vops (if they are indeed as identical as they look to me) not really?

What I mostly referred to was the nodes that exist under multiple different names with no real differences but one simple setting. That to me looks like node-inflation that blurs/bloats the overall usability and I can't see your above mentioned reasons apply to them? The only reason seems to be to have them show up in the node list with a nice name.
Especially when in the beginning I created a point wrangle that then in the interface showed up as an attribute wrangle I got quite confused.

But hey, I probably can get used to worse stuff than that, but I can totally relate to what kev2 mentioned in his post when he wished for a way to hide such duplicates.  ;-)

Cheers,

Tom

Link to comment
Share on other sites

those are a stupid one

- edit > color settings > color scheme > houdiniPro -> the network view keep the dark color scheme, bring back the mid-grey color would be nice

- the big Houdini Indie Tag on the network view is kinda annoying and attract the eyes

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@kev2 @marty @pxBomber - Versioning

There are some good hou module saving controls in the .hipFile. saveAndIncrementFileName() . Shotgun actually has this function done nicely if you run with it, otherwise you can add it to the MainMenu.xml pretty quickly. There is also the environment variable to redirect your backup directory, and change it up via the Preferences > Save and Load Options

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/hom/hou/hipFile

Albeit I Would highly, WISH SideFX put it as a native option under Save As... called "Version Up" with a python hook for an additional python module in the HOUDINI_PATH you can override for a custom function if you need to check into your repository. Then nobody would have to reinvent the wheel...

... The File Cache nodes needs lots of love too. Here is my version with the features I wish were native, plus it handles the versioning too. http://www.orbolt.com/asset/LaidlawFX::filecache::1.0

Edited by LaidlawFX
File Cache
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, sebkaine said:

- edit > color settings > color scheme > houdiniPro -> the network view keep the dark color scheme, bring back the mid-grey color would be nice

I actually like the dark color palette a lot. I wouldn't want it to change back. I have way too many screens to stare at. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...