josh3light
Instead of changing the “consolidate corner points” default of the box sop, maybe its better to add a parameter to the box sop, defaulted on, mimicking the “vertex sop” with “cusp normal” activated.

“consolidate corner points” actually breaks the points apart, while vertex “cusp normal” doesn't effect the geometry structure, while still allowing the expected normal display for the viewport.

A third choice is to also have a cusp normal viewport display option. The problem I worry about adding vertex normals is that box modelling after the fact can lead to unnatural looking normals. The problem with putting this as a viewport display option though is that it's probably slow unless there is much better support at only recomputing normals on only the affected/modified geometry.

One more I would like to add… Uv viewport, I feel, should behave just like the regular viewports when active. Currently it only seems to work inside of a sop network when selecting a sop, which is very limiting. I feel it should follow the same.conventions of the other viewports.

For example , if you are in object mode, all objects visible which have a.uv attribute should just show up…. Currently this requires a user to enter into a sop network, which is not ideal for many obj level digital assets

edward
A third choice is to also have a cusp normal viewport display option.

Something like this sounds good, then new users will be able to say "now this is a serious bit of software" it displays boxes the way I think they should be.

Hey guys, I'm not sure but I think I didn't hear anything from you regarding snapping in my page (at the bottom).
Please take a look and share your thoughts.

McNistor
Hey guys, I'm not sure but I think I didn't hear anything from you regarding snapping in my page (at the bottom).
Please take a look and share your thoughts.

Have to try it to know unfortunately - if the current implementation has been all fixed it might be enough.

I addressed snapping in Houdini from the perspective of workflow leaving out the obvious fact that it needs to have its bugs squashed.

From a theoretical point of view it's great, so is the current *bug* free version - but I personally need to use the implementation to assess how it fits into a workflow. Too many variable and unknowns to test against.

MartybNz
Agree but the VertexSop twists the normals so they are flush to geo in very strange ways.

Edit: which appears to be how Maya puts a box down, with perturbed normals

I don't think that Maya nor Houdini pertrube normals. To verify it look please at attached file. There is comparsion of default polygon box in Maya, XSI and scene in Houdini.

XSI and Maya creates automatically normals for each vertex. Houdini creates normals automatically for points.

If you look into spreadshead for the Vertex SOP you can see that there is normal for each vertex. This means that there are 3 normals for each corner point of the box.
If you promote Vertex Normals to same number of points (To verify how the actual vertex normals look like.) you will see in viewport same result: Three orthogonal normals in each corner of the box.

If you switch placement of Transform sop behind the Vertex SOP you can see how it screws the normals. The normals should be computed just before displaying.

This hipfile file is imho good start to understand some basics about normals. How they behave, where they could exist and how they affect shading.

Snapping is far from perfect.

I would like to see more CAD like snapping features. For inspiration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc-MYQyNgO8&t=13s [youtube.com]

Snap to center of (polygon) volumes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fee_0dFYOyA&t=42 [youtube.com]

And there are probably more of this nice examples.


Also to aid snapping there is need for transient (sticky) key for Multi-Snapping (e.g. Ctrl), transient (sticky) key for temporal pivot tool ‘ (in XSI it’s Alt key) and Tweak Component Tool like in XSI (which provides fast multi-component selection, transformation and easy and fast gizmo aligning). These combined are huge speed benefit (imho these three things together (and maybe with Proportional tool) are reason why is XSI so popular for fast modeling even without sculpting features)

Cad snapping FTW!

How about the box being ‘upgraded’ to one with vertex normals instead of point?

pezetko
If you switch placement of Transform sop behind the Vertex SOP you can see how it screws the normals.

I very much want to fix this. When I first saw an RFE to fix this, I thought “Wow, that must be annoying”, and then a month or so later, I spent an hour trying to figure out why a render was coming out all wonky, only to find that it was for exactly that reason.

You can turn it off by clicking off Recompute Point Normals. Apparently, it was introduced so that when only part of the geometry is transformed, the normals at the interface between transformed and untransformed aren't wonky, which makes sense, but it probably shouldn't be destroying them away from the interface. It should probably just update normals of all points on polygons that have at least one point transformed and at least one point not transformed, but I haven't had time to implement that yet.

Also, I've introduced a Normal SOP for the next major version, to make it much easier to find, to have point and vertex normals available in the same SOP, to be able to cusp a polygon soup (so long as it's souped with Merge Identical Vertices off), and to be able to have models with quads or higher produce the same normals as their equivalent triangulated versions.

ndickson
I've introduced a Normal SOP for the next major version,

Yee-hah! Great hearing about cool new toys

SideFX, make the right choice, consulting or hire Vitaly Bulgarov for improving Modelling inside Houndini.

Jholen
SideFX, make the right choice, consulting or hire Vitaly Bulgarov for improving Modelling inside Houndini.

Everyone is welcome to contribute.

Jholen
SideFX, make the right choice, consulting or hire Vitaly Bulgarov for improving Modelling inside Houndini.

What's wrong with me? Now I'm hurt.

pezetko
This hipfile file is imho good start to understand some basics about normals. How they behave, where they could exist and how they affect shading.

Succinctly stated; vertex attributes simply override point attributes.
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini13.0/model/attributes [sidefx.com]

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.”

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.

Derek Mondelli
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.
.

It should be moving along the construction plane. e.g. drag up and it will go back into the screen, down toward you along the construction plane.

You can rotate the construction plane under the ‘persp1’ menu, top right of the viewport.

You can also set the handle to screen space, right click on handle/Align handle.

Edit: Use shift+drag to move towards/away from the construction plane.

“You can also set the handle to screen space, right click on handle/Align handle.” (view)

That works perfectly, thank you so much Marty, that was sort of driving me nuts, awesome!