Hi all.
I love to model with sub-divs. Houdini seems to have a decent set of poly tools for creating sub-div cages. The thing is that during modeling of a decent cage, I might do thousands of Ops. Even after five minutes I had way to many. Is there a mode or an option that would let me model without history. So that I can do polysplits, polyextrudes, edits, and so on without having each one remmembered. In leiu of that, is there an option that wipes history away and leaves just a mesh or a plain NURBS surface.
I think that the procedural approach is great in some modeling cases, but not all. General 3d modeling does not require that app remember each and every one, and it gets in the way.

ALso
In COP, the Chromakey COP refuses to show me the matte. I have some bluescreen examples and the blue is not going away.

David Rindner

As far as I know, it is impossible to model without history(network).
But, you can delete history in viwport.
Drug RMB on the geometry in the viewport ,and select “Delete History”.
So You can see the locked SOP.

Thanks for your reading my poor English.

Just the button I have been looking for. Where is it? What does it look like? I am unable to find it. This is the problem I am having with Houdini. I am seeing in the tuts, and user tip, references to commands that I simply cannot find.

Dave Rindner

Hi David,

It's an option in the geometry pop-up menu. abekiyo meant to Right Click and Hold on the geometry to get the pop-up. In the Pop-up, you'll find 'Delete History…' in the second group of options.

After selecting the option, notice the SOPs above the current will disappear & the current SOP will have it's Lock flag activated. Be careful not to un-Lock the SOP else you'll lose everything.

Alternatively, you can Right Click on the last SOP node and select 'Save Geometry…'. You can save the geometry as ‘filename.bgeo’ (Houdini's Geometry format) & then use a File SOP to read the geometry in.

Yep, no unlocking allowed, as I have discoved. Delete History is in that RMB menu that refuses to pop-up using WACOM stylus. But here I am confused. I expected that once history is deleted (like collapsing a modifier stack in MAX or MAYA) the model becomes a plain mesh, or a plain NURBS surfaces. I am confused as to what Houdini is doing when it deletes history. All in all, while the modeling tools seem complete and rich, the procedural paradigm is not conducive to 3d modeling. Its great for animation, especcially particles, but I find it a PIA and in the way for modeling. Houdini needs to have a modeling mode like MAYA (with History OFF) and Rhino. Where you just use the tools as they are needed with no history attached. Better yet being able to toggle history on/off. I can't imagine how many hundreds if not thousands of SOPs I would have if I were to model a realistiv character with sub-divs. Wouldn't the system be completely bogged down with a complex model.

I am also noticing that Houdini is not handling complex imported NURBS models. I model a lot in Rhino, and my models are comples, composed of hundreds of shells and surfaces. Houdini is really slow with those models. It cannot, for example, go into any kind of shaded mode. It either takes too long, or app freezes. I assume its tesselating the NURBS. Maya does it, really quick. That aspect worries me as my models tend to be very detailed and heavy.

Some tools in Houdini are implemented AWOSOME. My fave is Paste.
Some don't seem to work. i.e. nothing happens.
The CurveClay tool for instance. The pop-up menu states that surface to be deformed is to be piped into 1st slot of this SOP. THe deformation curve into 2nd. Well nothing happens. I did try to rewire the other way, still nothing.
Project SOP is COMPLETELY confusing. It does not work at all like Project Curve in MAYA and Rhino. Its results make no sence to me whatsoever. The help pop-up is of no use. I've been modeling proffessionally sence 1995, and it would be nice if Houdini adhered to the standard NURBS modeling conventions.

COP is a nice feature in Houdini. Its nice to have a full compositor available. However I am confused as to how COPs are handles in Objects. For example, I would like to pipe a COP network to be the backround for rendering, or be a foreground plane, or be textured onto a plane.I can't seem to tie COP with Objects. Actually I am confused about how the whole workflow is unified in Houdini. Unfourtunatly the introductory Real movies, describe functionality of these [parts, but not how to tie them together.

Has anyone else noticed problems with on-line tuttorials. THey refer to older IRIX versions of Houdini, and there seem to be gaps in information, and references to non-existent options. Particle tutorials are particulary confusing to me. For example I pipe a POP network into SOP with POP operator then tie into that POP SOP primitives to serve as particles, but still the particles render as points. Leaves me scratching my head. Houdini is the only app I have experienced where nothing is straightforward, and simple things require roundabout operations.

Dave Rindner

David,

Dispite of my lack of any professional credential, I will have to disagree with you concerning Houdini's modeling approach. If this is Houdini version 4, I would have agree with you that modeling in Houdini can be painful. However, version 5 introduces the procedural approach of modeling that is just unlike any other in my opinion. Because of Houdini's totally non-destructive workflow, I don't think I can ever get used to any other modeling packages including Softimage and Maya. Being able to see work from Day 1 at the first minute that you started your modeling process is something that currently only Houdini alone is capable.

Even if you compared Houdini to Maya by having 1000 SOPs from your model, I think you will find that Houdini will still be much faster at 1000 SOP where Maya will craw at 300 construction histories. What is more, if you simply go back to certain node and change something, its end result will ripple down to the last node. Now this is what I would considered truely a non-linear workflow.

As far as what is happening when you “Delete History” in Houdini - when you do so from your Viewer, Houdini will hard lock ( you will see a node that is color coded yellow on the left side of the node in the Network Editor) the current node that you are viewing and delete all the nodes before the current one. This is probably an operation that I don't really recommand unless you are just 110% certain that you will not need to go back to the node before. By hard locking, Houdini will not cook all the nodes right from the beginning. After all, why not simly go to your Network Editor and manually hard lock a specific node? By doing this, even if you have 1 billion nodes before the hard-locked node, Houdini will not cook them. Instead, Houdini will just cook from the one that's hard-locked. This is essentially similar to “delete construction history” or “collapse stacks”. If then, you noticed that all those previous node that you don't need, but don't want to delete and is taking up too much desk space, you can clean tidy them up by collapsing all thse nodes into a Subnet SOP (Inside Network Editor, shift-c on a group of SOPs to collapse, RMB on that Subnet SOP and select “Extract Content” to expand them).

Now, concerning the speed issue when you have, say 1 billion SOPs. Depending on what you want to do with your model after you are done modeling. If you do not lock the last node you have, and you are required to do a character deformation, you will experience a major slow down just like any other program will. However, when you lock them, it will be just like you deleted all your construction history. If you want to clean up your file size further, then you can simply right click on that last node on the Network Editor and “Save Geometry” to save out as .bgeo format and read that geometry back in via File SOP.

If you have turned off the “Secure Selection” lock icon on the left side of your Viewer, you will find that the Edit SOP will allow you to edit your model the way you would do so in any traditional modeling package. I always work both inside the Network Editor and the Viewer at the same time depending on what I am doing. I supposed that is why I never discovered the Pen's movement-RMB problem until you mentioned it.

The Project SOP will project NURBS curve onto a NURBS surface. I am presuming you are working in the Viewer instead of the Network Editor. Create a NURBS Sphere, RMB to complete. Then create a NURBS circle and resize it so that it's smaller than the Sphere. RMB to complete. Now, use the tab key to get to teh Project SOP. Select your NURBS curve first. RMB to complete. THEN, select the Sphere, and RMB to complete. Remember, always look at the top of Houdini for the blue text. THat gives you the instruction you need to complete your operation. Now, you will find a dash-line circle right on the sphere surface. If you want to trim a hole, just hit the tab key again to get the Trim SOP. Select the Sphere which contain your Projected Curves, and voila. I can probably explain a bit more about the trimming if you like concerning how to deal with this in the Network Editor.

The legacy online tutorial will still work in version 5. With that, you will need to modify your workflow a bit by working primarily in the Network Editor, which many TDs and Effects Animators still do today. Even though they are old, they still provide invaluable learning resources to understand what is happening behind the Viewer.

If you do not instance any geometry to your particles, Mantra will render them out as point by default just like RenderMan will.


If SideFX has chosen to go the popular way of all the traditional modeling package and completely dump the procedural approach that they have now, I am certain that many of their user will gladly dump this program due to the lack of justification. Because of what SideFX did with version 5.x, I give to them my loudest applaud.

I understand that learning any new package is definitely painful no matter what you learn - especially when there is no one to ask in immediately. Perhaps your experience is much more painful than mine has been when I first started Houdini v3 (self taught) because of your extensive background and experience in many other packages. With the great flexibilities and powers that Houdini offers, the first step will be difficult. But once you understand it, you will find it streamlined and very straight forward.

Please, just be patient in your learning and try experimenting with the interface first, then the tools, before embarking on making beauty work. Anyhow, with all that said, I hope that you can understand a bit better now, at least from my point of view.

(I'll just let some one take on COPs as I haven't used them that much just yet.)

Most Kindly,
Alex

Hi david,

A couple of things…
firstly with the project SOP. Make sure to watch the space ship modeling tutorial, I believe the project SOP is explained in there. I think once you see it work you'll understand.
secondly, the curve clay… download this baby right here : http://odforce.net/temp/curveclay.zip [odforce.net]. um…. I think its saved in a different version, so you might get some warnings, just ignore them and take a look in the model object. Thats how curveclay works

I understand your frustration, Houdini definitely does seem to do things strangely at first. I think that this is primarily because of the procedural workflow, and that really just makes it very different . All the other packages you mention are based around the same style of working. You have your viewport and everything is in there. Once you know one you can pretty much pick up the others without too much effort.

Where Houdini is different is it gives you the basic tools needed to build exactly what you want when you want it. I think you'll get excited by the level of control you have at the end of a project. Because you built it all yourself, you have as much control as you build in.

As I told people at SIGGRAPH, Houdini is the only package I know of where it has a clear moment where everything just clicks. Its a moment where everything just becomes clear and you understand the logic behind it… it's at that moment that the true beauty of Houdini comes clear.
The only downside to this is that most people who ‘click’ never want to use another package again .. hehe..
Give it time and it will all come clear.

Cheers
marc

P.S. If you think the paste is cool, have you played with carve yet? Or better yet, creep? …..sigh…. beatiful, truly beautiful.

Hi David,
The .pdf files in the “Legacy” area are just that, legacy materials that have yet to be converted to Houdini 5.5. They are there as exploratory materials after you've exhausted the materials on the CD. I _highly_ recommend going through all the materials on the CD first (the 12 part Spaceship modelling video addresses a lot of your NURBs questions for example) then dive into the .pdf files on this website…
As an aside, as others have pointed out, the “history” in Houdini is radically different to other packages. Houdini was designed, from the ground up, to work with the nodes. I modelled a Daschund dog that had over 600 SOPs in it, and not once did I suffer any performance problems. The size of the .hip file was under 2 megs as well, and that was with full IK bone rig and shaders etc. There are many ways to deal with the many SOPs that are created

1) Ignore them, they really don't cause any problems and you have a complete, procedural record of your model. If you find the nodes confusing, you can select them and the Ctrl RMB and select Collapse to Subnet to organize them better.

2) Lock a SOP every now and again. This will keep the history without allowing recooking (if you're worried about that). The downside is that it does increase the file size somewhat (the “real” geometry is kept in a locked SOP so more memory is consumed, like other packages).

3) Delete the history.

Basically, whatever you're comfortable with )

By the way, if you find any areas of confusion in the video or .pdf files found on the Apprentice CD (not from the Web, we know some of those are confusing ) please let us know here on the forum.

Cheers,

Peter Bowmar

Well, maybe I'll poke a stick in this sore point one more time.
I've been using Houdini since it was Prisms on a personal Iris and I have no idea why there is now a seperate sop for every darn polygon you add, edit, or delete. A really good undo function that doesn't dump to usr/tmp would have done the trick there. I agree that it really clogs the workflow when creating and adjusting character meshes out of polygons. What used to take a few clicks now requires several typed and clicked procedures starting with TAB. Procedural isn't supposed to be about adding 5 procedures and multiple sops just to add, edit, and delete a few polys! If I'm missing something please tell me, because I wish I was wrong.

Some people have taken the approach to assigning hotkeys to their most frequently used operators. Some other ways of speeding up the workflow is to use the ‘q’ key to repeat the last operator. There's also the ‘s’ key which lets you call up the “favourite” operator. You can change this if you right-click in the button next to the snap button above the viewport.

Finally, you can also choose “Edit Toolbar…” from under the Viewer Controls menu (down arrow button in the operator toolbar above the viewport next to the snap button). In here, you can create your own toolbars and assign your most frequently used operators. Just make sure that the upper-right hand corner of the dialog says SOP first. Then you can simply use the toolbar to put down operators without using the tab key.

Hope that helps.

I have to take back some o my comments (thank god!).
What has been rREALLY helpful is going through the geometry docs and reading carefully the entries for any new tools i'm unfamiliar with. Most of my problems/issues stem from the fact that these new poly tools simplify the tedious methodologies i've had to use in the past, especially building up a mesh poly by poly.
Happier now.
g.

Hi David,

It's enjoyable as always to read your rants and raves. I've seen your posts over the years on different forums. I've also noticed how you wrestle with conceptual procedures within an interface untill you “master” it and mentally catalogue your strategies of working. I'll bet in a years time we'll be hearing about you and SideFX publishing a book on Houdini. So hang in there. No program is infinite. They are all logically (more or less) instruction sets with tool metaphors and history/memory capabilities. They aren't impossible to learn, after all they were all designed by pretty bright people. I'm confident you'll live up to the challenge.

TL

PS- I still review your book on FormZ. It's still the best Z book out there.

OmiGod. The ressurection of such an ancient post. Number of things happened sence I started this thread.
1. I learned Houdini, and it has become my favorite 3d app.
2. I have integrated it with my Maya workflow
3. Did a number of modeling projects, both commercial and non. Here are model shot URLs;
http://sv2.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/imgView.php?imgID=6685 [sv2.3dbuzz.com]
http://sv2.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/imgView.php?imgID=6684 [sv2.3dbuzz.com]
http://sv2.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/imgView.php?imgID=6702 [sv2.3dbuzz.com]
Also worked on spots for Frontier Air, and ExLax, but no images are available yet from those jobs.
4. Was fortunate to be noticed by Robert Magee at SESI, and be a featured Apprentice artist. http://www.sidefx.com/products/apprentice/profile/david_rindner/index.html [sidefx.com]
I have sence completed that creature model, and as promised, made it avaialble for free, to Houdini users, through SESI.

Houdini is an amazing app. The way it works, and the way I think, its like me and Hoiudini were made for each other. Unfourtunatly, for me, Houdini is so superior, that my previous experience was working against me, and I did not realize it. I apologize if my 1st post made a negative impression.

David Rindner