Houdini 20 Wishlist

[Atom]

What I always wish for.

We need talking characters. I want to be able to supply a voice-over file, along with a script, and have a face rig speak the lines. Expressions and blinking would be great too.

[tricecold]

On 2021-10-09 at 1:44 AM, animatrix said:

Overlay network editor would be nice to have built-in in H19 or 20

I have been using it for more than 2 years in production, so the video I initially uploaded is severely outdated. Will update once H19 is released.

 

Why hasn`t this been implemented yet ?
Imagine Houdini 20
Dual Monitor Full Screen
with an internal Floating web and file browser.

Infact imagine Houdini OS, pedal to the metal. boot into houdini. This is the future.
 

[animatrix]

On 2022-01-29 at 2:08 AM, tricecold said:

Why hasn`t this been implemented yet ?
Imagine Houdini 20
Dual Monitor Full Screen
with an internal Floating web and file browser.

Infact imagine Houdini OS, pedal to the metal. boot into houdini. This is the future.
 

Thanks Tim! That's the dream

[vinyvince]

A quick one to add to the list

 

- When a node cook using OpenCL to compute the data, if GPU does not enough RAM to output the result, Houdini should automatically switch to CPU and not block the all process

- If Houdini is getting close to a certain selected RAM threshold, i could have an option to stop, continue or disk swap but not constant crash

- Revamped and faster COP

- If a loop could be multithreaded, houdini should recognize and handles the compile under the hood

 

________________________________________________________________

Vincent Thomas   (VFX and Art since 1998)
Senior Env and Lighting  artist & Houdini generalist & Creative Concepts
 http://fr.linkedin.com/in/vincentthomas

 

 

Edited January 30, 2022 by vinyvince

[Atom]

We have a default biped, actually a few. What about the same for vehicles? A default, car character/rig, and semi-truck with a trailer.

Use those new vehicle assets in a self tool for the Crowd simulator that demonstrates traffic, lanes, and stop-lights.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Atom

[Brizengan]

For groom/hair :
- Replace the "recache stroke" on the guide groom who is been deleted by H19
-  Have more option in sort SOP to re order points who come from a group like "root". With that, we can import curve with bad num point and convert them in a guide. It's user friendly

For VEX :
- Have a window that opens while we write and that will offer us vocabulary based on what has already been written. A bit like "Atom" for python

For ROP/LOP : 
- As mentioned above, having an XPU that is no longer in beta
- Often depending on the rendering engine you have to promote attributes or groups so that third-party software can read them.
Maybe it would be interesting to have export presets depending on the software/engine
- For karma, having an AOV that tells us which rendering areas have the most noise/flickering and in which AOV the problems lie.
Clarisse has this kind of thing that allows us to precisely target her object and that her AOV generates noise and flickering

For DOP :
- With Embergen I tell myself that we can push the calculation times of smoke/fire simulations even further.
Houdini allows us to have a lot of control over our simulations, but it remains relatively long. While Embergen is a toy over which we have little control but which is in real time.
So improving the calculation times in Houdini to get closer to real time does not seem impossible to me?
- In the same way as the SOP pyrosolver, have a sop RBDsolver which contains the simulation of RBD, debris and smoke
- Make cloth simulations a bit more user-friendly. For the moment a lot of production remains on Maya or Marvelous because it is easier to use and above all the sups know the Ncloth. Making the cloth more "simple" to use will allow a transition between the two software

Modeling :
- integrate a "sculpt" module a bit like blender

Extra : 
- The ability to make 2D and make it almost real time.
Currently I also do FX2D, and I use Houdini simulations. I would like to avoid leaving the software to go to Toonboom or Adobe Animate.
So if we can have the grease-pencil of Blender in Houdini version it would be crazy

[Retopo001]

Some common sense ideas that occurred to me after having tried every 3D software. I don't have many gripes with Houdini's UX. But these just seem way too obvious.

-an infinite scroll drag like in Blender for all panes (viewport, spreadsheet, network editor). We already have it on parameter sliders. Why isn't it everywhere? Especially the network editor.

-Anytime you type code anywhere in Houdini, there should be some kind of auto-fill suggestions option that gives you potential keywords/reserved words.

-The ability to destructively edit geometry. Is it really that hard to add a non-procedural component to the toolset? Or at least make an optional toolset or something that has zero risk of interfering with the established core functions?

 

[vinyvince]

- Something stupid, but i will relly like that when i add note and sticker , and add node in between nodes, when node are offsetting down to give place to the new nodes added, the nodes follow too!

On complex setup like i have with few thoushand of nodes, it get quickly irritating to repositions all the times the node. I guess i should just turnoff that auto move down stuff..

 

-- More seriously , basic Python viewer state feature should come natively in Houdini. No need to learn and implement your own every time. And fast and direct way to see the result in Solaris in real time with too much extra steps.

If Sidefx doesn't do this, it might lose a large part of the game market who will switch to Blender...

- More OpenCL accelerated nodes. When a node is getting opencl erreur, we should have way to switch to CPU , or at least message error i could filter in a switch but not have Houdini crash

- Going to repeat this one , but lot's of feature are passing by COP , even substance and the old thing needs a speed boost and major upgrade.

 

________________________________________________________________

Vincent Thomas   (VFX and Art since 1998)
Senior Env and Lighting  artist & Houdini generalist & Creative Concepts
 http://fr.linkedin.com/in/vincentthomas

[Ziyad]

For VEX it would be cool to have an additional (but optional) argument taken when creating channel parameters to specify the default value. 

For example, when creating a channel float parameter in VEX you can type something like chf("my_float", 1) and that would create the parameter with 1 as its default value, rather than 0. 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Ziyad

[evanrudefx]

would be nice to see a more streamlined way of controlling random time offsets with point attributes. point attributes don't really work with timeshift unless in a for loop, but it doesn't work very efficiently and is really slow. CGwiki has a page about time offsets in for loops. Of course chops works, but point attribute + timeshift seems like it could be way easier.

Edited April 4, 2022 by ejr32123

[Nicholas Ralabate]

I think they should add a Pre-Render Script and Post-Render Script parm to the flipbook UI. It would let a lot more people personalize their workflow without having to learn TOPs, Python, HScript, all the different ways to grab the current viewport (might as well be sheaf cohomology to me)... It would be great for simple things, like incrementing a parm that you then use in your filename or playing a sound effect from zelda when the flipbook finishes.

[jordibares]

I would love to see the new Pixar Profile Curves in Houdini... that would be great
https://graphics.pixar.com/library/ProfileMover/paper.pdf

 

 

[vinyvince]

Will that mean we could count your voice for the long started NURB threat ?

[Atom]

It's a small request.

When the Choose Image dialog pops up, you can press any alphabetic key to jump to the first entry in the list beginning with that letter. Most of the time on my system this a folder name. I'm often looking for an image name instead.

What would be nice, is if I press the same alphabetic key again, the image chooser would search past the first folder, and jump to the fist file beginning with the letter I typed.

[vinyvince]

- I will renew my request for the third year a tag based search in wrangle save presets 

- Less viewport bug please! I have quite often to close the viewport and open it again.

- If an OpenCL node reaches max GPU Ram, my all workstation station and everything running should be corrupted my all station and everything running. 

- Ok, here the purist will cry at me and try to shot me . Im totally addicted to Houdini but im a little frustrated that in Blender you could do this (Video attached ) in a smoother way without having to read 2 books and write python viewer state, then having to send all data to Solaris and so on... Even people from Sidefx admitted yes,  they have been a little late actually

it's great to be able to dive and hard code anything you need, but today speed and flow is also as important...

To be honest, i have been too much busy lately to make tools for my client between Houdini and Unreal, and didn't investigate much in working with Karma and how powerful and practical you could work in the shader level with all SOP data easily accessible, and be able to preview quickly most checkpoint of your shader,  but i expect great care in both directions and obviously new milestone to the promising Karma XPU..

- Cops, Chops need an update and performance boost...

- Quad meshing... But i think last time you have something great coming so hope.

- More solid link with Substance as for now it's a bit useless, and  Unreal engine v3.

 

________________________________________________________________

Vincent Thomas   (VFX and Art since 1998)
 http://fr.linkedin.com/in/vincentthomas

 

 

 

 

ms4.mp4.mp4

Edited June 10, 2022 by vinyvince

[Sepu]

 

[rodmac]

I know! How about updating and improving the help pages so they can be useful to someone who actually uses Houdini in production everyday.  Just a thought

how about a Render Scheduler that has useful info like the output from a render to include things like errors, mem usage, network usage, disk usage, creation time vs render time, 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by rodmac
adding info

[emix941]

It would be great to have a concept as Weights updated. Its UI so non-intuitive. It could be something like Multi range slider. For controllable and precise variables randomizations. 

I found some examples on the internet. Of course UI should be updated for higher amount of variables and in the Houdini logic realm. But the concept is the same - user friendly UI that allows user to randomize variables in a precise, visual way with as much as precision as possible. It is often so needed it the parametric setups.

 

(top slider is what I'm referring to)

(just one variable is changes in this ex. but the idea is the same)

 

[sebkaine]

I understand SESI is pushing at 100% USD and Solaris, but USD has been created to solve certain user case, and the many layers of complexity it adds, is not always needed for freelance and small shops.

In game where you want to work with FBX / GLTF for ex why bother with a tools that is basically interfacing .USD description ?

 

Thus i would love to see : 

- a SOP version of Solaris Layout Node     https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/nodes/lop/layout.html
- a SOP version of Solaris Edit Node      https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/nodes/lop/edit.html

 

The ability to just create my small lib of GLTF / FBX assets and scatter them with all the modern tools added in solaris.

Also An improved version of the "use physics" option in SOP would be useful ( kinda like of Paul custom labs tools ). Then the only thing i get is just a bunch of object with an id and a point cloud with xform, that i can export wherever i want with Hengine for ex.

 

Don't forget that .USD was created by pixar to solve problems meet by a company that has maybe 2000 employees and work on full feature film with a full time R&D team. .USD simplify the layering of various dpt working together, and the exchange  problems between DCC's, but we don't all have these problems. Not everybody will want to pay the complexity price of USD to get the advantage it offer.

 

When doing 30s Ads with agencies that change their mind about 1000 times per day i am not sure you need to add USD in the mix. As i work with small team, under agressive deadline, i like to keep things as simple as i can.

But maybe it's me that is wrong and missing the point ?

Cheers

E

Edited August 22, 2022 by sebkaine

[vinyvince]

Salut Manu ca va bonhomme??

 

I m by no way at all an UDS expert, It's quite complex like ACES and color management.. I would like just to try to give my opinion on this one ;

"In game where you want to work with FBX / GLTF for ex why bother with a tools that is basically interfacing .USD description ? "

USD is not perfect , but considering all the other alternative, it's  at the moment the best option and it's starting to be adopted everywhere now. The industry is pushing for building the metaverse, "creatoverse" where you could think a 3d asset , the same as a 2d asset, and allow to be "cut and paste" into almost everything and could be seen on different platform like Playstation, unreal, your phone, a virtual headset, unity engine of a desktop, and that has to still be true on 5 years. Building game at today standard is a high demanding and long effort, you have to prepare it for multiple outpust and other specificatiosn . USD allow you to combine this in the same stream with the material surface property description included more smartly.

Then there is the layer paradigm which will make the easier to have multiples users collaborate on the same stream without breaking the work on your colleague. Which is clearly a step forward compared to FBX.

People really push to find in the metaverse, the same possibility to share any piece of the world's representation, like people do today on instagram , facebook or so in.. But to  make this possible in 3d as well in a transparent fun way for everyday user... (i personnaly think there is too much buzz around it, and we don't specially need to move the web to a metaverse experience at all, but there are much more important thing which we should pay more attention , but that's another question)

Now USD is pretty much half ready now to my understanding there are still many thing we need to move on. I guess it's also Pixar decided to Open-source it. Like we should agree on some animation rigging convention, on some interaction description for example, not only surface shading. I think there are also struggles with LOD and runtime.

- Finally one last important thing and question, could Karma *render and load* as fast on a full complex scene when using FBX with animation import, shader and all?  For performance, USD seem to be what was needed to improve the viewport performance , and "live" interactively ...

- Now that's has been For me, the need to make this as simple, transparent and efficient as possible is pretty much obvious. Same for python state.  Blender's user don't even need to take care , in houdini there is pretty much an effort from Sidefx to do here i think or Blender could eat even more of the market if it keeps going at this speed...

Now all is just my personnal opinion and at this date i will also add. Forgave me and please correct if i also missed some points. I have developpeing some complex world building tool recentlyy for a studio in Houdini and Unreal and i haven't spet much time on Karma or USD... Yeah i heard your pain Many, to be fair with you, i'm not impatient at all to try USD, really not!

 

________________________________________________________________

Vincent Thomas   (VFX and Art since 1998)
Senior Env and Lighting  artist & Houdini generalist & Creative Concepts
 http://fr.linkedin.com/in/vincentthomas