I don't see any problems for general use, as you can create those locations as simply as a result of where your mouse cursor is when clicking.

It seems you may be trying to preempt a lot of issues. It would most likely be better to test the tool out, and when there are issues, dig deeply into it.

In fact I'm not trying to preempt a lot of issues and I do use a lot this tool. I'm just trying to understand how things work in order to send suggestions to SideFX (just like McNistor).
For example, if the starting vertex for an edge creation doesn't matter, what's the point of this blue highlight on the edge? Only the Point or vertex should be highlighted while hovering a point. The edge highlighting just adds to the confusion.
On top of that, the edge highlighting does not show 1 single starting vertex, but 2 possible ones… more confusion.
Thanks for your answers anyway. 8)

Not sure I follow. There is no confusion. The blue line indicates the line associated with the vertex/point, but, there is always a case that it could be removed. This happened in the animation editor, clicking on a key caused the following line to highlight, it did add detail but was also extraneous for most use cases. There in H13, gone in H14

McNistor is in essence trying to duplicate the functionality of the XSI tools into Houdini, there is nothing complex about it.

Edit: The word you are looking for is not confusing but distracting / redundant I believe.

Hmmm the word could be distracting but not redundant I believe. I haven't tried the animation editor yet, but for Polysplit hovering a point, seing different edges highlighted in blue following some tiny mouse motions, I still find this confusing. I'd love to have another opinion about that…

Told you that you're gonna torture yourself with the modeling tools in H.

Now, this tool works well most of the time. I too remember extra edges when I first tested it. Maybe I was doing something wrong or maybe it had a bug that got squashed in the meantime, I dunno.
The only thing I find unnecessary is highlighting an adjacent edge when trying to close in on a point (shows highlight on both the point and an edge) - let's just say that it's… pointless.

Oh and the fact that it doesn't have the MMB feature that keeps the origin (I already showcased the XSI one) and is not as snappy (needs a stronger attraction for points because you often end up creating a point very near the targeted one) as the XSI one.

The extra edge that shows you that Houdini will create an extra one if you click in the middle of a poly should look different than the one indicating the intended edge. Perhaps a dotted line? And the option to not show it at all would be most welcome as well.

MartybNz
McNistor is in essence trying to duplicate the functionality of the XSI tools into Houdini, there is nothing complex about it.

Actually I'd like devs. to create/update the modeling tools to be similar to those of XSI, i.e have most of the features that are useful and produce results of the same quality. Nothing wrong with that, is it?
I couldn't duplicate XSI tools into Houdini to save my life.

I think what McNistor wants is not an exact copy of XSI tools (tell me if I'm wrong). If Houdini developers have the freedom to create new tools from scratch, it is better to check what already exists and to improve that.

I think XSI modeling tools are a great example because at the time XSI 1.5 was released (with its new polygon modeling tools), Softimage's team observed what already existed, especially Mirai, and improved what they saw. So as soon as in 2002, the XSI 1.5 box modeling tools were much better than Max or Maya's.

Today, it is still necessary to check other app's tools. For example, this is Modo's own “add edge / Polysplit” tool : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrC_blYEE9g [youtube.com] . After 1:50, the demo artist connects a new edge to an existing point. There is no highlighted edge, only the point that will be created or connected is highlighted, so there's definitely no confusion about what's going to happen.
G

Cool dude - just whack an RFE in from the Support menu above - this is a really easy one - ‘please remove blue line from polysplit when hovering over a point.’ Send a screen recording so it's obvious what you mean too.

There are a few XSI devs in the Houdini team so it's very easy for them to understand all this.

Yes Marty thanks, I'll surely do that.

So now there are 2 “solved” things in this thread. Let's go forward with the next question I had about polysplit.
First, I have to say again, the Houdini documentation seems incomplete. There's no step by step, illustrated description on how to use Polysplit. That's why I'm asking here.
In the beginning of this thread I was asking this question : “If I add an edge by mistake, how can I remove it, but still stay in the polysplit mode in order to add more edges?”
I added a video for people to see what I'm talking about.
When I try to CTRL+Z in Houdini, it just deletes the full set of new edges, not the last one as in XSI…
Thanks,
G

Still around grendizer?

The split tool and hopefully all other tools will suffer a re-write probably.
The problem you brought forth is a good one, but it's unlikely that it will see the light before the new ones come.

A while ago I too tackled this tool among others, pointing out how you can MMB on an edge/point to keep the starting position active which is a nice feature. Hopefully the devs haven't forgot about it, or at least, I hope that they still have access to those threads I've created to take a look on them when the time comes.

mcnistor, thanks for poking this thread again as I missed it the first time around.

grendizer
In the beginning of this thread I was asking this question : “If I add an edge by mistake, how can I remove it, but still stay in the polysplit mode in order to add more edges?”
G

Delete key is the answer to this question.

and mcnistor, I don't follow what you're saying regarding the MMB action.

Hey johm, are you a Softimage user? The MMB feature I was talking about is referring to the edge split in Softimage. Sorry for omitting that.

Hello Johm, thanks for this answer. Yes the delete key does answer my question.
McNistor, yeah I'm still around! But mostly using XSI as it's quicker for me. I still want to switch to Houdini.
For the MMB problem, have you done a video showing what it does exactly? So the developers could understand what they should do.
See you,
David