The little things about houdini

[wudangzhenren]

 

Houdini is very good for advanced 3d tasks,but sometimes you will find it lacking many basic functions.Those little things will slow down our process.from a c4d user and motion designer’s perspective ,I really hope houdini will pay attention to those little things.

01.permanent autosave option.i know there is a script,but you should really give user the option to turn it on or off natively in houdini.

02.a little icon showing the project has changed,and you haven’t saved,in c4d it’s a * .

03.Hip file preview thumbnail.this will be a lifesaver,please,please.

04.drag and drop support.again,there is a python script,but you know.

05.multi-window support.when I want to open more than one project at the same time,it’s so annoying to start another houdini.

06.the curve node.it really needs some big improvement,the functions now are so limited.you can’t even select multi points at a time,it’s miles away from c4d’s spline module.

07.the font sop.houdini’s fonts manager is very outdated,you can’t scroll up and down,the font does not have a preview.

08.the ui.maybe a more modern and flat version?i don’t know,I just feel it’s not so intuitive now.

Those little things will have great value for motion designers,if houdini wants to attract more c4d users,please pay attention to the details.

Sorry for my English.what’s your opinion?

[kleer001]

I've been using Houdini for over 20 years. You? What I mean is, have you spent long enough working in Houdini to get used to it?

These are just my opinions.

01. If it can be easily changed with a line of code in the 123.py then it doesn't need to be hard coded in the gui.

02. You say project a few times. That's not the terminology. It's a hip file, or document. The project is part of the hierarchy that contains a directory for hip files along with other directories. But yes, a "*" next to the file name saying it hasn't been saved after the latest change would be great. You should submit an RFE for that. I bet other people have.

03. Preview of what? A view of the network? Which network? The last render? Which render? Where would the preview go?

04. Nah. Why? Cross platform drag and drop is sketchy. If you can do it with a script then you already have it. Importing with a file SOP is reliable.

05. It's not annoying to open another Houdini. I do it all the time. These aren't web browser tabs. If you want to work across a bunch of hips consider putting them in the same hip file or building digital assets.

06. The curve SOP? The draw curve shelf tool? What's missing? You can absolutely select multiple points.

07. Yes, the Font SOP kind sucks, but it's bare bones and works. Houdini is not a text editor or a vector design tool. If you need something fancier then do it in Photoshop, Gimp, illustrator, or Inkscape then import it as an eps or ai or exr or png or whatever.

08. Yea, the gui customization could use a tool for tweaking it, but I'd put that way on the bottom of the list. Houdini Dark/Light/Pro is kinda lame. But it works well enough for me and keeps too many people from sliding down the endless rabbit hole of pointless gui customization. And sure, the gradients are a little funky, but whatever.

 

[Librarian]

 HOUDINI IT'S the BEST VECTOR PROGRAM  ( including )...in my opinion

[schwungsau]

don't worry, it will change soon 

[wudangzhenren]

6 hours ago, kleer001 said:

I've been using Houdini for over 20 years. You? What I mean is, have you spent long enough working in Houdini to get used to it?

These are just my opinions.

01. If it can be easily changed with a line of code in the 123.py then it doesn't need to be hard coded in the gui.

02. You say project a few times. That's not the terminology. It's a hip file, or document. The project is part of the hierarchy that contains a directory for hip files along with other directories. But yes, a "*" next to the file name saying it hasn't been saved after the latest change would be great. You should submit an RFE for that. I bet other people have.

03. Preview of what? A view of the network? Which network? The last render? Which render? Where would the preview go?

04. Nah. Why? Cross platform drag and drop is sketchy. If you can do it with a script then you already have it. Importing with a file SOP is reliable.

05. It's not annoying to open another Houdini. I do it all the time. These aren't web browser tabs. If you want to work across a bunch of hips consider putting them in the same hip file or building digital assets.

06. The curve SOP? The draw curve shelf tool? What's missing? You can absolutely select multiple points.

07. Yes, the Font SOP kind sucks, but it's bare bones and works. Houdini is not a text editor or a vector design tool. If you need something fancier then do it in Photoshop, Gimp, illustrator, or Inkscape then import it as an eps or ai or exr or png or whatever.

08. Yea, the gui customization could use a tool for tweaking it, but I'd put that way on the bottom of the list. Houdini Dark/Light/Pro is kinda lame. But it works well enough for me and keeps too many people from sliding down the endless rabbit hole of pointless gui customization. And sure, the gradients are a little funky, but whatever.

 

 

 

For old hardcore vfx user，these little things maybe are not a deal.But for motion designers or new users,that means a lot.I’m talking attract more regular people,not coding genius.

Edited September 13, 2019 by wudangzhenren

[vinyvince]

Respect to everyone here but in my humble opinion, its does not reflect today production reality to think you need 10 or 20 years of experience in Houdini to be able to reach your deadline with great results. That s not how this industry or the world works today and Sidefx is trying to reach a larger audience now, smaller team, with wider mixed experience. I believe it could be beneficial for everyone and i would be interested to have thing natively working as drag and drop instead of having prebuilt HDA to make a building, pipe or whatever.

Not saying this to someone personally here but , Years passing, and the more you have specialized yourself in to software and the more technical, sometimes on the other side the narrow your vision could also become. 

That s why working with open team spirit is invaluable and will always be

 

[konstantin magnus]

I just imagine a long-time Houdini expert opening a hip file created by a bunch of "everything-must-be-simple" designers showing a "it's gotta work like my program" attitude..

He probably dies instantly 

[bobc4d]

I've been using Houdini for about 2 years now (came from C4D also) and the one thing which drives me nuts is how sometimes things do not happen as expected. like I create a node and then click enter and I have no handles in view port, try again nothing, select move - enter no handles, rotate - enter no handles, scale - enter no handles, back to show handles - enter for third time then they pop up. ARG  

Edited May 24, 2020 by bobc4d

[davpe]

On 13/09/2019 at 3:36 PM, wudangzhenren said:

 

Houdini is very good for advanced 3d tasks,but sometimes you will find it lacking many basic functions.Those little things will slow down our process.from a c4d user and motion designer’s perspective ,I really hope houdini will pay attention to those little things.

01.permanent autosave option.i know there is a script,but you should really give user the option to turn it on or off natively in houdini.

02.a little icon showing the project has changed,and you haven’t saved,in c4d it’s a * .

03.Hip file preview thumbnail.this will be a lifesaver,please,please.

04.drag and drop support.again,there is a python script,but you know.

05.multi-window support.when I want to open more than one project at the same time,it’s so annoying to start another houdini.

06.the curve node.it really needs some big improvement,the functions now are so limited.you can’t even select multi points at a time,it’s miles away from c4d’s spline module.

07.the font sop.houdini’s fonts manager is very outdated,you can’t scroll up and down,the font does not have a preview.

08.the ui.maybe a more modern and flat version?i don’t know,I just feel it’s not so intuitive now.

Those little things will have great value for motion designers,if houdini wants to attract more c4d users,please pay attention to the details.

Sorry for my English.what’s your opinion?

Hi, my opinion is this:

while I can agree to some of your points and definitely many things could be better, I guess it's just silly to complain about Houdini not having the same strong points as C4d, while demanding to keep the strong points it already has. I could too do a list of another 50 things that bug me, and you can do such a list for any vfx application, but let me rather contemplate on why no 3d app is never perfect. 

First - today, alongside with Blender, Houdini seems to be the fastest growing general purpose 3d creation platform. With every release SideFX brings incredible amount of improvements, and is often introducing innovative tools that make really difficult tasks easier (or even possible). Very few other developers can do that with such rate. Ultimately, these improvements are saving me much more time and effort than having better spline tools or more polished interface. With more polish, we'd have less power now. Polish takes an incredible amount of time to do right and I'm glad Sidefx gave way to innovative features rather than new icons or something. Honestly, complaining about not having a scene thumbnail, or an indication of not having saved my file since I last clicked, feels like a joke to me in this context.

Second - it all comes down to what kind of user are you and what kind of work you need to do. Many people are very visual, they pay a lot of attention to aesthetic and design of everything, and they don't want to think about anything technical. They don't even need to as far as they do small scale projects that aren't too complex (technically). In this world, C4d is perfect - very slick, polished, super user friendly and as easy to use as possible. But then you see veteran users migrate from C4d to Houdini precisely because - C4d developers spent an enormous amount of time making their product polished with great user experience, but hey, this new project we've just been awarded is simply not doable with it's tools and workflows. I mean, it's not C4d is bad, it's just not been built to be used as either a heavy duty framework, nor a coding paradise for technical artists. On the other hand, Houdini emerged exactly from that environment thus it's obviously strong in different areas, and you can't really expect the same experience with scene thumbnails. It's like you're used to driving Porsche, but now you have a 4x4 - you can use any of these cars to drive to work but it's silly to expect the same driving experience (or to drive Porsche offroad).

I don't mean to imply we shouldn't call for feature improvements or not to look at other apps. If it feels important to you, send them RFE. But I personally hope they will keep spending development time on innovations and making things solid, rather than adding convenience tools and polishing up interface (even thou Font SOP and working with curves is killing me too sometimes).

Cheers.

[vinyvince]

On 24/05/2020 at 3:12 PM, konstantin magnus said:

I just imagine a long-time Houdini expert opening a hip file created by a bunch of "everything-must-be-simple" designers showing a "it's gotta work like my program" attitude..

He probably dies instantly 

Hahaha exactely! But if personnalyl after 20 years i found Houdini the most interesting software is exactly because i wanted to find  what make Houdini different from other software and not trying to port my knowledge of other software inside. Tools are chnaging , the logic and problem solving are not, thatùs why i always investigated more time in the fundamentals and not be software centric.  I never used it myself but i could see brillant work in C4d, so personnally why to change if you do only motion design? Just sharpen your knife is C4d

 

 

[flcc]

1 hour ago, vinyvince said:

I never used it myself but i could see brillant work in C4d, so personnally why to change if you do only motion design? Just sharpen your knife is C4d

 

 

I can give you one good reason why a lot of people have tried to switch from C4d to houdini.
Yes, C4D is, among other things, a motion design tool.
For motion design Mograph is cool but you also need a good particle system.
The C4D particle system is totally obsolete, so you have to use x-particles.
x-particles is expensive.
Compare the price of C4D+x-particles to Houdini's indie price.
for one third of the price you get the power of houdini AND you can keep C4D

voila

And I have to say that C4D + Houdini is a perfect duo.
Everything that's missing from C4d is in houdini and vice versa.

 

PS : I even don't talk of Smoke fire and fluid where you also need expensive plug-ins, or third application. (even if x-particle now incude these functionnality)

Edited May 25, 2020 by flcc

[pezetko]

Hi,

Quote

01.permanent autosave option.i know there is a script,but you should really give user the option to turn it on or off natively in houdini.

The script is an option "how" to enable it, not everything in Houdini has its own GUI (yet). Houdini is a younger application (not counting PRISM)  compared to Cinema 4D.

 

Quote

02.a little icon showing the project has changed,and you haven’t saved,in c4d it’s a * .

There is RFE for it. Meantime you can add these callbacks to your $HOME\houdini18.0\python2.7libs\pythonrc.py

import hou


def checkForUnsavedChangesEvent():
    if hou.hipFile.hasUnsavedChanges():
        win = hou.qt.mainWindow()
        title = win.windowTitle()
        win.setWindowTitle(title+" *")
        hou.ui.removeEventLoopCallback(checkForUnsavedChangesEvent) # remove multiple evaluations
        
def restoreCheckForUnsavedChangesEvent(event_type):
    eventType = hou.hipFileEventType
    if event_type in (eventType.AfterClear, eventType.AfterLoad, eventType.AfterSave):
        hou.ui.addEventLoopCallback(checkForUnsavedChangesEvent)    # restore callback


hou.hipFile.addEventCallback(restoreCheckForUnsavedChangesEvent)
hou.ui.addEventLoopCallback(checkForUnsavedChangesEvent)

 

Quote

03.Hip file preview thumbnail.this will be a lifesaver,please,please.

Most of the companies use some sort of tracking software like Shotgun or Ftrack that provides a screenshot saving feature.

 

Quote

04.drag and drop support.again,there is a python script,but you know.

The drag of what and drop to where? This is so broad topic as it's hard. Each user has different preferences. A customizable option is the best for everyone.

Maybe SideFX could include some common (requested by users) examples shipped with Houdini?

 

Quote

05.multi-window support.when I want to open more than one project at the same time,it’s so annoying to start another houdini.

Last time I checked Houdini starts up within 4 to 10 seconds. The multi-tab interface sounds interesting, not sure about the benefits: What kind of isolation should be between tabs/processes? Is it only UX thing or there is a shared core? How are environment variables shared? What about loaded packages (plugins), etc…? You can use subnets for each project.

 

Quote

06.the curve node.it really needs some big improvement,the functions now are so limited.you can’t even select multi points at a time,it’s miles away from c4d’s spline module.
07.the font sop.houdini’s fonts manager is very outdated,you can’t scroll up and down,the font does not have a preview.

Submit RFEs with examples! Not everybody knows Cinema 4D features and how it behaves, what is good about it and what could be done a better way.

 

Quote

08.the ui.maybe a more modern and flat version?i don’t know,I just feel it’s not so intuitive now.

There is flat skin in qLab tools.

 

 

Cheers,

Petr

[AlSk]

06. Totally agree on that one. I recently had to create a cam-on-path animation where I needed Bezier-style control for precision and fast turn-arounds. At some point I had to embarrassingly admit that it can't be done in Houdini. The Curve SOP doesn't have handles which can be tied and untied. Later I found out that you can build a manual Setup with Line SOPs in combination with a specific Convert SOP option. But at this point it was too late. We already switched to 3ds Max for that task.

Sure, Houdini could do it in the end. But you should't have to start deep digging to create some freakin' Bezier spline.

The rest of the points seem to be a matter of habit or personal preference rather than something that's holding you back in a major way.

(5 years full time Houdini user here)

Edited June 19, 2020 by AlSk