BabaJ
As it was mentioned somewhere, the majority of users concentrate on the nodes and networks, on pipeline tools, vex and al the other TD stuff. They often don't even see the problem.
It's not that the ‘problem’ is not seen; It's that there is no problem. It really depends on the person, not across the board for everyone.
And this is exactly
not seeing the problem. Thanks for making my case.
It is a common response to posts like mine: “It's all subjective”.
No, it's not.
Using a feature or not is a subjective decision. Liking a feature or function or not is a subjective matter.
Not being able to use a very common function because it doesn't exist is an objective flaw.
Having to do three times as many actions for the same very common task to achieve the same result like in any other software with this function, is objectively slower and a drawback.
That
is a problem. And the problem with Houdini is, that until recently, it was only used by a very small user base with a very narrow focus on some specific things where a lot of what is being complained about now, didn't matter. So for a long time many of the issues actually weren't a problem because no one really compared Houdini with other DCC apps. I have again to point to the view port normals. Houdini users were used to work with a geometry display that looked like some early 80's Gouraud realtime shading up to version 16 (?). No one cared about it. People even defended it when I came and pointed it out.
And since SideFX has been living and working with exactly those users for a long time, they failed to develop a sense for certain problems as well. This creates what you call an Echo chamber. Long time Houdini users often seem to be feeling that every complaint coming from new users with experience in other software is an attack on their very own work environment.
I am not saying this to offend anyone. I am saying this to analyze the source of the fact that Houdini is matter-of-factly and completely objectively far behind other software in terms of basic UX.
It has the most elaborated methods of working with a node tree but the most rudimentary means of organizing and managing hundreds of objects. It has sophisticated shelf tools that can set up a complex ocean sim for you in seconds, but if you want to simultaneously edit the geometry of two objects in two different hierarchies (possible even in blender now) your lost. It has a very clever UV unwrapping toolset, but if you want to see the UV screen and the Geo side by side you can not drag the viewport divider to make one or the other view smaller or larger. This is Lightwave 15 years ago.
There
are objective short comings in Houdini that have nothing to do with personal preferences.
I have no issues of adapting to certain workflows that may be different to what I am used to. I haven't even changed the hotkeys for Translation/Scaling/Rotation, which are not industry standard in Houdini. But I refuse to use a 3Key combination for something a common and most frequently used as a viewport interaction because it objectively slows me down and interrupts my workflow - no matter how good I memorize them. I can not even change the key assignment because that extra redundant navigation mode seems to be hard coded and when I try to change it it breaks a lot of other things.
If you talk about subjective preferences then you have to talk about choice. I am complaining about the things where we don't have one.