What’s new in Houdini 9: Workflow
Houdini 9 alpha features the initial steps toward a much improved, streamlined user interface, and powerful new workflows.
Overview
Houdini 9 features a complete overhaul of Houdini’s interface.
The shelf across the top of the main interface gives you quick access to commonly used tools and nodes. More information...
Flattened workflow - You can now do much more work at the Scene level. Jumping between objects at the scene level and surface nodes inside geometry objects is now much clearer and easier. More information...
Tabbed panes - You can now combine multiple pane types in one pane using tabs, similar to tabbed browsing with a web browser. Press Ctrl + T to add a tab, right-click a tab to set its pane type. More information...
Easier network interaction - in the network editor. The clickable area for connectors is larger, and you can now finish a connection by clicking anywhere on the destination node instead of only on the connector. You can now double-click a container node to go inside. More information...
Customizable menus - You can customize the tab menu with items from the shelf. You can also customize the main menus to launch your scripts.
The Edit parameter interface window lets you add new (“spare”) parameters, render properties, and/or imported parameters to a node.
In the parameter editor, open the
gear menu and choose Edit parameter interface. More information...
Mouse buttons remapped
Houdini now maps the mouse buttons differently.
Space + |
| Tumble |
Space + |
| Dolly |
Space + |
| Track |
Space + Ctrl + |
| Tilt the camera |
Space + Alt + |
| Zoom the camera lens |
Space + Ctrl + | Box zoom Drag the box from left to right to zoom in on the area inside the rectangle. Drag the box from right to left to zoom out (so the current view fits inside the rectangle). | |
Space + Z | Center view tumbling on the point under the cursor. | |
Except in the View tool (or when holding Space), the 
now always shows a context menu. In places where you used to be able to drag to pan, you can now pan with 
. In the network editor, you can pane with and zoom with 
.
Hotkey changes
| New key | Description | Old key |
|---|---|---|
Space + B | Switch between a maximized viewport and the normal layout. | Space + T |
Object/component selection mode
Houdini now lets you either select objects or components first and then choose the operation to perform on them (selection-action style), or choose the operation first and then select the objects or components to apply the operation to (traditional Houdini style).
Houdini has two selection modes: 
object and 
component. The buttons at the top of the toolbox to the left of the viewer indicate the current selection mode. In addition, the selection arrow is 
black in object mode and 
white in component mode.
You can click the buttons or press F8 to switch selection mode.
When you're in component selection mode, you must choose the type of component to select. Right click the component selection mode button to choose the selection mask.
3D Viewer improvements
New viewport layouts - Houdini includes new viewport layouts including
3-port and 
4-port “widescreen” layouts. Open the viewport layout menu in the viewer toolbar to set the viewport layout. Move the mouse over a viewport and press Space + B to maximize the viewport. Press Space + B again to return to a multi-port layout.Show scene ghosted - Now when you're working at a geometry, particle, or dynamics level inside an object, you can now show other objects “ghosted”. This lets you see the geometry you're working on in context while helping you focus on the current object. Open the
Show all/current/ghosted menu to choose how Houdini shows other objects when you're inside an object.Show custom attribute values in the viewer - Use the Custom column in the viewer’s display options to show the value of attributes in the viewer. More information...