Houdini 19 Wishlist

[LaidlawFX]

The End is Nigh!  Houdini 18 is COMING!!! 

Kicking this wish list off as by all trending and statistical estimated Houdini 18 should be arriving in the Halloween time period of old.

My first wish is a call to ARMs! 

Seriously speaking maybe one day Python 3 inline with the Visual Effects Society guidelines for 2020, but long term a lot of hardware profiles are switching to ye-old ARM based architecture something as old as SideFX itself and installed on over a 100 Billion devices. The catch is these are the IOT, Mobile, and XR hardware of the world which to be fair is still behind server racks. However the phone has drastic computing potential that if Intel would stop fighting it due to licensing issues ARM and RISC would have taken over the market.  

I really hope COPs has a second a life. It's easier to use SOPs and VEX for processing images and HEIGHTFIELDS than with COPs with far less bottle necks and crashing. The amount of nodes and stability in COPs is falling far behind all other contexts including every ones darling wrangle node. I would almost wish for COPs to be fully integrated into SOPs or MATs. Streamline the support into two heavily invested areas already. Gaining several debugging abilities that are just not implemented in COPs like the Geometry Spreadsheet. There are 151 nodes in COPs in which a lot of them could become quickly redundant if ported to either SOPs or MATs. If converted to MATs we would then have a Substance equivalent, especially if they gave the node UI a little love to show per node images. The biggest risk is overloading another context, but to be fair COPs is so severely under loaded it falls into the second tier of networks, so porting those tools would be a mere blip on the radar of total node count. 

My most realistic wish currently if for subnets and managers to have the flatten ability like foreach loops with the ability to collapse and dive into them. This would maintain networks for those of you who fear the combined context, but also allow to flatten simple networks so you can easily trace and debug all dependencies. 

As always this is a non-official wish list. So please submit BUGs, RFEs, and Questions to support. Also for anecdotal questions and rants branch them to another thread people will more likely help you for dedicated issues.

-Ben

[Midphase]

Ok, I'll play. 

I'd love to see a 3D Camera Tracker/Solver as well as proper support for playback of Quicktime and DNxHD files right into the viewport. Blender has it, C4D has it, shouldn't Houdini have it too?

I know that this is the type of specialized tool that is typically done by a 3rd party app like SynthEyes or PFTrack, but having a way to track basic video right into Houdini would be a time saver, particularly for not overly challenging situations. 

Anyway, I want it...so there!

[hved]

IFC file support, please.

[Eliiik]

I just wish we can select/edit multiple points at a time in Curve Node.

It's been so many years, the Curve Tool in Houdini still sucks.

[Thomas Helzle]

Haven't seen 18 yet so don't know if the code editor was improved, but if not, this still is my ABSOLUTE NR. 1 wish.

if(code_editor_improved != true) {

• Code editing in Houdini Wrangles is - well - crap. It's a total shame we don't even see command parameter lists when typing since even in value fields typing expressions does it and has autocomplete for paths etc. Even only bringing that ability to the VEX editor would be very helpful.
• Of course it would also make a lot of sense to have other settings and helpers in there, like auto-closing brackets, more clever cursor positioning, offering existing variables and attributes when typing etc. - the Houdini devs should know ALL about that, they probably spend their life in real code editors...
• The use of external editors could be improved a lot if a.) we wouldn't have to press ALT+E twice for the external editor and wouldn't have to get to the floating editor first each time and b.) if that connection would be "live" like for instance the Pinegrow Web Editor does it with a little plugin for Code and Atom, where you can type in either the internal or external editor and they update each other in realtime. The current system is too clumsy and the 3rd party implementations also aren't really there (no negativity towards the authors intended at all!).
  Make it native! Make it goooooooood!

} else {

• All is well. Nothing to see here. :-)

}

Cheers,

Tom

Edited October 11, 2019 by Thomas Helzle

[flcc]

11 hours ago, Eliiik said:

I just wish we can select/edit multiple points at a time in Curve Node.

You can, (use select maj+Select tool, then go back to manipulator), but I agree it's so unintuitive.
Curve node need some love.

[pabcou]

I was going to suggest Vim-style navigation shortcuts for the text editor, but then I thought, why stop there? Let's have the option of running Vim embedded in text fields; with syntax highlighting, autocompletion, etc.

[Alexey Vanzhula]

Guys, why are you adding wishes without an actual release? This is not ethical

[LaidlawFX]

23 minutes ago, Alexey Vanzhula said:

Guys, why are you adding wishes without an actual release? This is not ethical

Short answer... H18 will be coming out soonish. Around their typical Halloween time period.

Long answer... SideFX typically releases at three different points in the year around Fall, Winter and Summer, closely tied to Halloween, a month before GDC, and at Siggraph. On average with a minor release a major.minor version release cycle last about 200+ days. A little more than 7 Months+, with a few exceptions that are notable due to the technology they release in those non-average years. So theoretically we could see a 18.# at Siggraph based on those trends, or if they have some cool stuff that was not ready to release around GDC. This is what happened to TOPs the last release cycle, almost but not quite ready for 17.0 but big enough to garner it's own minor version. The farther out it gets harder to predict because there is a +/- of a few months. Plus even though we are in a period of major and minor .5 releases they don't need to follow that in the long run. We due know from Siggraph that the next one would be H18. Also there has never been another minor release number besides .1 and .5. For a side project I had Houdini analyze Houdini for these trends. 

At a certain point prior to a release it makes no sense to continue adding wishes that we will not be able to be full filled. As I recall someone else started the last wishlist kind of early too?

[Alexey Vanzhula]

@LaidlawFX You have add more global wishes and this is normal. But then people started fantasizing about smaller things, not suspecting that maybe they were already added

[LaidlawFX]

1 hour ago, Alexey Vanzhula said:

@LaidlawFX You have add more global wishes and this is normal. But then people started fantasizing about smaller things, not suspecting that maybe they were already added

None of the above are smaller wishes. I wouldn't worry. These wishlist have been around for well over a decade for each major version. Plus as noted this is non-official, for actual BUGs, RFEs, and Question they need to be submitted to support in order to be considered. SideFX staff may be lurking on Odforce, but they do not actually monitor outside SideFX.com forums. Mostly these threads are for ranting, venting, and once in a while a collaborate group hive mind for features that should exist. Also a lot of re-directions for features that do exist, but are obscure in the Houdini lexicon of terminology like the past and thankfully dead Cookie Sop...

 

[Jedipottsy]

On 11/10/2019 at 4:10 PM, pabcou said:

I was going to suggest Vim-style navigation shortcuts for the text editor, but then I thought, why stop there? Let's have the option of running Vim embedded in text fields; with syntax highlighting, autocompletion, etc.

Emacs all the things, What i want is Houdini embedded into Emacs with evil mode for all text fields.

/s

In all fairness, i would like alt-e to popup a new buffer inside of emacs, instead of the floating panel

[malexander]

6 hours ago, Jedipottsy said:

In all fairness, i would like alt-e to popup a new buffer inside of emacs, instead of the floating panel

Set your editor to emacsclient, making sure that you've run M-x server-start in your existing emacs session.

[Nicholas Ralabate]

I wish there was a checkbox to open a new HIP file with update set to manual, same as using -n at the command line.

I also wish I could micro-tweak numerical parms with the up and down arrows like in Nuke.  Ladder is cool, inertial scroll is cool (but only exists on trackpads) up and down arrows would be mega-cool.

Also, let OpenGL ROP run in background so it doesn't feel left out from all the other ROPs.

Also, match the shade of green used for a keyframe in the timeline with the shade of green on the "next keyframe" button.  Don't know why that bugs me but it does!

Let us define structs in vex wrangles instead of having to pull in an external .h file.

And for the love of god, remap default behavior of "Q" key to be bypass in both the node editor AND the viewport.  I am constantly A/B-ing nodes and then I accidentally drift my mouse over into the viewport and I start repeating the last operation.  It is infuriating!  I know I can remap but when helping other people out on a vanilla install it is the key mapping that bugs me the most.

Box zoom in ortho viewports, not just perspective viewports.

Edited October 20, 2019 by xxyxxy

[AslakKS]

2 hours ago, xxyxxy said:

I wish there was a checkbox to open a new HIP file with update set to manual, same as using -n at the command line.

I just switch to manual mode before opening a file that I need to be in manual mode. Is this kind of what you want?

[Nicholas Ralabate]

Yeah I know, but by the time I am looking at the file name and realize it it going to take forever to open I have to cancel out of the open dialog, hit my hotkey for manual mode then bring up the open dialog again and open the hip file...  definitely a lazy person request!

[pabcou]

On 10/18/2019 at 10:12 PM, xxyxxy said:

I wish there was a checkbox to open a new HIP file with update set to manual, same as using -n at the command line.

I have this in my scripts/456.py file, maybe it works for you?:

hou.setSimulationEnabled(False)

 

[matEvil]

1- inside "geometry wrangle"  and "pop wrangle" active by default the inputs "first, second, third and fourth"

2- a radial wind like in 3DS Max

Mat

p.s.: ok, I can setting it and then save like permanent and default, but you can do that every time changes workstation/desk or studios...

Edited October 22, 2019 by matEvil

[Maurits]

1. Binding of mouse buttons for hot keys and what not
   1. Some mouses have multiple buttons that currently are unused. For example the back and forward buttons. These could be used to dive in and out of a node.
2. Ability to intersect console messages using python that are send by vex (printf). For example this would allow for the creation of a python panel that intersects the console messages sort and colour codes them.Making it more useful as a debug tool for vex codes
3. A better option for the Houdini console window. Currently it's just popping up and always in the way. If this would be a proper panel it could be doct like any other panel.

[ikoon]

Hi @Maurits,
as regards 1. I would suggest to try the https://www.autohotkey.com and/or to buy a mouse, which has a driver, which allows you to bind custom hotkeys. (I have a Roccat mouse and the driver is quite good for that.)
as regards 3. if you have the Python Shell Pane open, it supersedes the Console pop up.