IMO the days of a single package are long gone… from sculpting to UV layout, from crowds to texturing, vegetation, terrain modelling, tracking, etc… it is now an ecosystem of tools and thus I only look at it from the point of view of packages that play well together and do bring some serious advantages.

jb

Constantin X

jordibares
I just wanted to show you the wide range of work I am involved and yes, I'm am making pretty pixels like anyone in the team, on every project and go from A to Z in production (advertising is exactly that). :-)

But I was just curious why not embrace the best of every tool, some are free and really worth checking (for example Blender)

Anyway, hope things move in that directly and Houdini gets better and better in the modelling stages too.

Yeap,
i would say moving pixels. Well i do use Blender and it has some very, very nice features. But you know that is much easier to work in a single package(yea i know, not possible).
Thanks,
C

jordibares
IMO the days of a single package are long gone… from sculpting to UV layout, from crowds to texturing, vegetation, terrain modelling, tracking, etc… it is now an ecosystem of tools and thus I only look at it from the point of view of packages that play well together and do bring some serious advantages.

jb

As i already stated, i agree that is not possible to do all in one app. BUT, and it's a big but, we need an app to perform as much of the basic function possible to be on top AND to have a large host of specialized plugins. Because the trend is that you have your main app(let's take Maya for example) and when you need more then the included tools you go to specialized PLUGINS. This is the most common situation, but on large facilities they have in house programmers who write they own tools. This is basically why that piece of junk called Maya(witch is behind Houdini a million light years in all fields but not user friendliness) is regarded as the industry standard. Because in the late 90's when the software war was at large, Maya got installed on all major facilities. And now they have over 20 years of R&D and in house tools, so the big studios won't let Maya go the dodo way. So far if you go and search for specialized plugins for Houdini you will not find out too many of them. This situation is because Houdini was always regarded as a specialist tool, and not a plugin hub like Max and Maya. SESI is well behind Maya/Max in this regard and they try to address this stuff in two ways. First they try to capitalize on their name as specialist tool by becoming a plugin to Maya/Max/Cinema4D etc(Houdini Engine). Second is that they opened up the doors on XSI users and they listen, and listen very hard, on how to make Houdini more user friendly. This will help increase they popularity and install base. In return they hope more plugins will come to Houdini and they will become more widespread. I think SESI is in trouble with all the big houses going bankrupt one after the other and Hollywood in such a mess so Houdini NEEDS to get out of this mantra(no pun intended) as an app only good for special FX and big houses. They try to reach to the heart and soul of the industry: the humble artist, small studios, freelancers etc. This is how i see the picture and i am one of those who wish SESI to succeed in they endeavor, because otherwise we will all live in the horror world of autodesk. This is why i burn my time around here and try to bring inn my organizational and analysis skills to reveal the software weak points. To help this guys beating the crap out of those autodesk pigs. So please, back on track with at least one feature you think the soft misses from a production stand point. And don't tell me that all is perfect.
Thanks,
C

use space+y in the uv editor to toggle view current/all

buki
use space+y in the uv editor to toggle view current/all

Thank you very much for the info Daniel. You look like the proper person to ask: there is some form of ‘project from view’(front and side views to be clear)? Also if there is some form of ABF unwrapping method.
Thank you,
C

There is no lscm or abf methods, there is Pelt unwrapping/unfold. Also Unwrap SOP is bit misleading for ppl coming from another packages. Unwrap SOP is almost same as Automatic mapping in Maya for example, where is in Modo and Blender it refers to LSCM unwrapping.

Would love to see LSCM unwrap and scaling and packing of UVs.

You can control here if you see all objects or just current


There is no project from view, but you can use Texture SOP to project from specific axis (Ortographic), or if your project is rotated you can setup perspective view, add camera from that view and than use Project from Camera under Texture SOP.

There is no Box or Cube projection either but you can make it yourself pretty much easy using few Group and Texture nodes.

SreckoM
There is no lscm or abf methods, there is Pelt unwrapping/unfold. Also Unwrap SOP is bit misleading for ppl coming from another packages. Unwrap SOP is almost same as Automatic mapping in Maya for example, where is in Modo and Blender it refers to LSCM unwrapping.

Would love to see LSCM unwrap and scaling and packing of UVs.

You can control here if you see all objects or just current


There is no project from view, but you can use Texture SOP to project from specific axis (Ortographic), or if your project is rotated you can setup perspective view, add camera from that view and than use Project from Camera under Texture SOP.

There is no Box or Cube projection either but you can make it yourself pretty much easy using few Group and Texture nodes.

Hi,
And thank you for your input. There is a serious need for a revamp of UV tools. I was referring to view uv's not objects, but Daniel told me about spacebar+y shortcut. The reason i am keep pushing for this things is simple. If i start a project in Houdini, then i want to be able to quickly UV and shade my objects without exporting to other packages. If there is a need for sculpting and retopo, then ok, go to a specialized package. But for simple every day usage, we should have all the tools in place. There are any improvements would you like to see? I would like to hear this from you(and others) as a long time Houdini user.
Thanks,
C

SreckoM
Would love to see LSCM unwrap and scaling and packing of UVs.

There is this old thing http://www.fourthwall.ndo.co.uk/HT_HDK_UVunwrapLSCM.html [fourthwall.ndo.co.uk]
and corresponding thread http://forums.odforce.net/topic/6002-lscm-texture-unwrapping/ [forums.odforce.net]

And relating other stuff http://www.fourthwall.ndo.co.uk/HT_HDK.html [fourthwall.ndo.co.uk]

Not very plug-n-play though..

Yeah I am aware of that, but it is bit pain to setup up. Much easier to do UV in Blender.

UV tools needs improvement that is for sure. Even i mostly model in Blender and than move it to Houdini, sometimes I do entire model in Houdini and than have to export it to be able to unwrap it faster/easier/better in Blender.

eetu

SreckoM
Would love to see LSCM unwrap and scaling and packing of UVs.

There is this old thing http://www.fourthwall.ndo.co.uk/HT_HDK_UVunwrapLSCM.html [fourthwall.ndo.co.uk]
and corresponding thread http://forums.odforce.net/topic/6002-lscm-texture-unwrapping/ [forums.odforce.net]

And relating other stuff http://www.fourthwall.ndo.co.uk/HT_HDK.html [fourthwall.ndo.co.uk]

Not very plug-n-play though..

Only for old H versions, and only 32 bit. Not usable. So, Houdini needs a revamp of UV tools.
A new HUGE thing i can add on request list is performance. I checked Houdini with a file(sorry, i can't share it, it's under NDA, not even pictures) 2GB in size. Well, i was not able to open up the file(obj) in Houdini. I did however opened up the file in Cinema 4d and worked very easy with it. It might be the video card(only 2gb video RAM)? Or Houdini has performance issues?

Regarding the big files… this is totally the opposite of my experience… i am now loading monster files that Maya, XSI, Modo can't simply open, let alone apply any operations on them.

In my case a 18Million polygon terrain convering 8km by 8km with lots of detail and I am applying filters, lattices, fixes, sculpts, transferring attributes from a low mesh to the high res… all works rather fine with a small 32Gb machine.

And for the last 10 years this has been the case so it comes to a surprise you are experiencing the opposite!!

Even if you can't show/share the file, can you describe the amount of polygons, your system, memory, etc..?

jb

Constantin X

eetu

SreckoM
Would love to see LSCM unwrap and scaling and packing of UVs.

There is this old thing http://www.fourthwall.ndo.co.uk/HT_HDK_UVunwrapLSCM.html [fourthwall.ndo.co.uk]
and corresponding thread http://forums.odforce.net/topic/6002-lscm-texture-unwrapping/ [forums.odforce.net]

And relating other stuff http://www.fourthwall.ndo.co.uk/HT_HDK.html [fourthwall.ndo.co.uk]

Not very plug-n-play though..

Only for old H versions, and only 32 bit. Not usable. So, Houdini needs a revamp of UV tools.
A new HUGE thing i can add on request list is performance. I checked Houdini with a file(sorry, i can't share it, it's under NDA, not even pictures) 2GB in size. Well, i was not able to open up the file(obj) in Houdini. I did however opened up the file in Cinema 4d and worked very easy with it. It might be the video card(only 2gb video RAM)? Or Houdini has performance issues?

I have the strange feeling that every package has their own obj implementation.
I had problems to load obis from soft in the past. but not only into houdini.

and I second jordis experience. Houdini has no problem at all with big files..
I am too pretty amazed how much I can throw at it.

jordibares
Regarding the big files… this is totally the opposite of my experience… i am now loading monster files that Maya, XSI, Modo can't simply open, let alone apply any operations on them.

In my case a 18Million polygon terrain convering 8km by 8km with lots of detail and I am applying filters, lattices, fixes, sculpts, transferring attributes from a low mesh to the high res… all works rather fine with a small 32Gb machine.

And for the last 10 years this has been the case so it comes to a surprise you are experiencing the opposite!!

Even if you can't show/share the file, can you describe the amount of polygons, your system, memory, etc..?

jb

Hi Jordi and Sekow,
Yes, i was surprised too. The file it's a machine exported model from CAD to obj. In Cinema 4d the obj file came with every part with his own material, so i can texture the damm thing. In Houdini it's a total mess, it lost the textures association so basically i have a machine with few thousands parts and no materials assigned. I think the obj type might be the culprit here. Regarding my gear, i have an 8 core workstation with 16Gb of RAM(i mostly do animations, commercials and product shots/animations) but only 2gb of video ram(nvidia). I think i need to move onto new K2200 with 4gb of RAM. Any thoughts on that before i drop some dollars on this new card?
Thank you,
C
p.s. the same file opens just fine on Cinema 4D and Maya. the best of two is Cinema 4D, it plays very smooth with this very large file and keeps all the materials associations. it's a big thing for me, because it's a big chunk of my workflow, to bring in CAD files. since houdini can't bring inn any CAD type files, i tried with obj exported from CAD.

Sooo, 14 sneak peak is out. From what i see there are at least two of my requests included: ANIMATION LAYERS(my biggest request ) and icons changed in to motion mixer. I can't wait to see if they improved UV's, if not i think we should push it for 14.5. Anyway things looks very-very good. Extremely solid release.

For rectangle and spiral you can also use these:
http://www.orbolt.com/asset/animatrix::rectangle::1.00 [orbolt.com]
http://www.orbolt.com/asset/animatrix::spiral::1.00 [orbolt.com]

pusat
For rectangle and spiral you can also use these:
http://www.orbolt.com/asset/animatrix::rectangle::1.00 [orbolt.com]
http://www.orbolt.com/asset/animatrix::spiral::1.00 [orbolt.com]

Thank you very much. This are very god and cover a lot of my needs. Now i wait for the 14(on january 15) to play with it and see all the changes.
Thank you,
C