McNistor I prefer text base interfaces (like Softimage's) but that's non-existent among the new apps and rare even among the old ones.
All the shelf tools can be made just to text, no icon.
Awesome, how does one go about saving that UI preference, if I restart Houdini, it reverts back to icons. Houdini icon's are pretty sensibly designed but I am on a small monitor and prefer the extra space and just text.
MartybNz those are great tricks, thanks for sharing, did not know about the multiple nodes into one trick. But there should be multiple ways to do things. For example, if I have one node, with 5 things connected to it, and I just want to detach one of it's connections, the shake trick wouldn't be as good as just being able to quickly drag disconnect the line.
Might as well rattle off a few others. Disconnecting nodes in Softimage is quite simple, just left click and drag away and release to break connection (or instead even redirect to another input altogether to replace the connection while breaking the other in one step).
Also, lesser known trick in soft (although it doesn't provide any visual feedback which might make it better…) If you have to connect 1 output of a node to multiple node inputs, you can hold shift, and after you release the mouse onto the first connection, you simply left click on any subsequent inputs with Shift key still hold down.
I'm about 4 days in learning Houdini and one thing became perfectly clear to me last night.
Don't plan to go about using Houdini like Softimage. It misses the point entirely. I suspect there are some really good reasons existing Houdini experts don't miss the tools us exiled Softimage users have grown so accustomed to.
I'm still all for the devs putting some of that stuff into Houdini. But if they never did, I highly suspect I am not going to miss it before long.
Two examples that lead me to the above notions. 1. I just took a cube (without knowing much of anything about Houdini) and split it with the loop tool a few times, threw on some extra operations, then went into the network and deleted some of the earlier loop splits and surely enough, the end result was immediately broken and un-usable. I am sure their are nodes I could put into the pipe to fix such issues, but the point of it is, that just going about things in a traditional, Softimage way, where you are directly editing the model by hand, and at the same time ignoring the network making a straight vertical stack of nodes, isn't going to lead to an immediately procedural result and misses the point. 2. I have been diving into Houdini tutorials, and I'm seeing all new ways to make things and I think I am going to be a whole lot happier throwing out my old methods (and just loading up an old copy of Softimage when I really need them).
One thing I'm constantly noticing as I train myself in Houdini….
Using the translate tool, without restricting it, so free transform in all 3 Dimensions. That doesn't seem to work in screen space, and the results aren't use-able, ever.
Basically, translation on all 3 axis in softimage worked quite reliably, and then of coarse we had the options to selectively constrain it to only 2 or 1 axis if needed without leaving the transform manipulator but that's already been covered in this thread.
Related to proportional modeling (aka Soft-Radius) the option for Consider Neighborhood as it is known in Softimage.
“Proportional modeling had a great option if you dig into it known as ”consider neighborhood“. So if you were sculpting a pair of lips, the radius would understand that you didn't want to have any effect on the upper or lower lip depending on where you primarily grab from. This works great for lips, eyelids, also for adjusting the arms of a character, you never accidentally move points on the upper torso even when working with a large soft radius.”
That works pretty well, I don't even need to hide the handle really, and thanks for the MMB drag tip, however…
This major difference here is that there is a constant step of ‘selecting’. The big thing about the Softimage tweak tool, is that you select and move in one stroke, it's not a two part process. This makes it fast, combined with the fact that you are also never switching between points and polys, you just drag what you need as you need it and sculpt a form quickly, sometimes with a soft radias (proportional modeling) and sometimes without.
Also, Proportional modeling had a great option if you dig into it known as “consider neighborhood”. So if you were sculpting a pair of lips, the radius would understand that you didn't want to have any effect on the upper or lower lip depending on where you primarily grab from. This works great for lips, eyelids, also for adjusting the arms of a character, you never accidentally move points on the upper torso even when working with a large soft radius.
It's these little, subtle things, that I think would be great additions to Houdini and don't at all effect it's procedural framework. I for one am very, very excited for the possibilities to come.
For now this will work fine, I'm just going to be a lot slower for the time being.
What I plan to do Marty, is to learn Houdini as is, ask questions, study guides, read the manual, etc..
Then when I am confident a feature is actually missing in whole or in part, I will make a very easy to communicate and understand video. So for the time being, I will leave my gut/initial reactions as they are listed above, many of them are already in the post you link to and I'm sure that guy will see this to pick up the rest.
I like the Houdini interface so far. Here are my thoughts in general…
1. I like to learn the defaults and the standards of the existing software and community and I'm no where near that point yet. I can see already that the way things are, and the community and active developers, are quite good enough to get behind as is, without requesting anything or looking to other packages, that part is the biggest and it's why I am here to stay.
2. I like to customize or request features best only when I'm experienced enough for that to make the most sense, I'm no where near that point yet with Houdini.
My gut feeling is that Houdini is a powerhouse for Hard Surface Procedural modeling, and Organic Procedural modeling so far as mountains/trees etc. But that there is room for speed of use improvements that will help both of the above and actually at the same time make it a great organic modeler for standard or procedural character modeling. aka. every modeling function I need, ready at the keys, remembering my last used settings as a default for speed of use.
All of the core modeling tools and various interactions (snapping etc.) amazingly and intuitively at the ready using mostly only the keyboard and sophisticated mouse combinations and interactions. When combined with the procedural back end, you have an even bigger monster on your hands and there is no reason to do anything at all that would upset the existing Houdini base, only seamlessly add tools like Tweak Component/Proportional modeling, with very interactive manipulators, great snapping tools, and easily customiz-able or default hot-keys/mouse interactions for loop splitting, extruding (while remembering last used extrude settings) and so on and so forth.
Honestly, my primary modeling set is Tweak Component with and without Proportional Modeling combined with Loop-splitting and loop selecting, face extrude, splitting new edges manually without loops, welding, deleting/creating faces and snapping tools. It's a simple set, but when it's all available instantly at the keyboard, it's fast and powerful. Sticky key functionality makes it even more insane. AKA. I can be in proportional modeling with the tweak component tool, basically sculpting a form, and I can just hold down the “]” key and middle click any edge to split a loop and when I let go of “]” I'm by default right back in to tweak component/proportional modeling without having to exit or enter any tools again. It's fast, it's like this for all of the functions and it's all a great modeler needs.
Most of this already exists in Houdini, it's the keyboard/mouse speed of use that isn't fully there. That said, I'm already seeing things Houdini does a lot better than Softimage, for example, converting a selection of edges to points, is automatic in Houdini and doesn't require diving into a right click menu, it's brilliant and I love it.
My approach for Houdini is going to be to learn modeling and procedural modeling and creating custom re-purpose-able assets, followed by shading, render and lighting, followed by rigging, skinning and animation, followed by Houdini's most known functionality of procedural special FX (dynamics, particles, fur/muscles, etc.) If that takes 2 years, I'm perfectly fine with that, things are going smooth so far.
#2. The exact toggle in Softimage is “Collapse points for snapping” in the transform panel
basically if you have like a row of vertices, that were not lined up, running down the neck, lips, nose, forhead and back of the head/neck, you could just select them all, then with this toggle on, snap them to 0 on the X-Axis only using grid snapping, and all of the points align, just in the X axis.
I could be missing something but the above answer to #2 has me baffled, I'm playing with fuse sop but it doesn't seem remotely simillar to how and why the collapse points for snapping toggle is used in softimage. A soft user will understand what I mean, and maybe can figure something out.
Probably not a big deal, I just always use that, sure there are other ways.
6. It doesn't look like “pivot” is quite the same as ‘center’….
For example, i made a box, pressed insert, moved the pivot to the bottom of the box. However, this had no effect on the xyz the translation, which was left at 0,0,0 even with a new pivot position. Due to this, zero'ing out the translation field won't pop the box model to the top of the grid plane.
Not a deal breaker or anything, I guess it's mostly just for rotation, softimage center's are for more than just rotation as explained above.
For example, while the Tweak Component Tool (M) is activated in Softimage, and I'm moving around Points and Faces, at any moment, I can hold down and keep held down the “]” key, and then middle clicking an edge will create an edge loop split, and then, when I release the “]” key I am automatically exited from the loop split tool and right back into the Tweak Component Tool without having to manually exit or re-activate.
Like being on the paint brush tool in Photoshop, and holding alt+click to sample a new color and when you let go of alt, your back to painting without having to press “b” again.
1. Is there a way to do something similar to Softimage's Freeze Modeling?
Eventually I want to get really good at procedural modeling and even organic procedural modeling. But for now, and for just prototyping things quickly, I think clearing the modeling history and just dealing with a polygon object that has no history is quite useful.
Just like if I were to import an .OBJ to houdini, I wouldn't get the history that got it to that stage of development, so besides exporting to .OBJ and re-importing, how is this done?
2. Collapse points for snapping?
3. Best way to set up a mirror group so you can model 1 half and see the other side update as you go
4. Tweak Component Tool & Proportional modeling?
5. more snapping stuff. In Soft, you could snap to points from the same object, but you could do this on a per axis basis. So if you want to line up one (or more) points in relation to another point, or grid, etc. (often in conjunction with collapse points for snapping asked above)
6. Where are centers? Is pivot the same thing? For example, I often work with cube geometry to start modeling, but I often like to put the center at the bottom of the cube and have it sit on the grid plane instead of being intersected by the grid plane.
^And this way when used in conjunction with various snapping, I can arrange my objects easily by snapping them to the floor, or onto other surfaces like a table with ease
The idea is simple and I think it might produce the most effective results faster than anything else and with only a relatively minor commitment.
Have at least one of the actual Houdini developers at Side Effects Software, spend some dedicated time (I think one month will suffice nicely) just learning and understanding our beloved interface and the user interaction model of Softimage, with the power of it's menus, hotkeys and combined mouse interactions and how they all work together so brilliantly, etc. etc.
(probably a good dedicated single month with help from the exiled Softimage community would more than do the trick for this) and then just walk away from this experience with a bunch of new ideas and perspectives that can be put towards Houdini development by the very people who know what is best for Houdini.
This way one of their own internal developers can become an invaluable interpreter to the rest of the the Side Effects team, on our behalf, demonstrating - live and in real-time cool ideas they may be able to use and even improve upon.
I would focus near exclusively on Modeling, the Render Tree and Rigging/Animation tools and the interface in general (as a whole) and I think that, for one dedicated month, would be more than enough and quite a valuable Research and Development effort on Side Effects part.
Either way, I'm learning Houdini as is from the ground up, the Houdini way and any additions they officially bring in future versions is just going to be icing on the cake. Thank you so much for your interest and support to the exiled Softimage community, it means a great deal to all of us, and I suspect more will join over the next few years. Thank you so much.
Thank you for this warm welcome. I have decided that going back, exclusively, to Maya as my primary package is not something that my brain is willing to tolerate (I left it as a primary tool for good reason). I started learning Houdini yesterday (via the learning edition and a few good first tutorials) -I am impressed and I feel a well deserved spirit of rejuvenation and curiosity growing again, like being back in a good school once more.
Even though it is officially dead, Softimage is still going to be a staple in my bag of tricks for some time to come and I'm sure I will continue to use Maya from time to time as I never fully stopped using it, but as far as new dedicated effort on my part goes, I'm going to be putting that entirely into mastering Houdini. Thank you for, well, being here, it is greatly appreciated and it means a lot to me. Best of wishes to all.