The book “The Magic of Houdini” is really good, starts you out from nothing and explains everything. It uses version 8 of Houdini, but you can still download that here under support.
I dont recommend either Garman's Gnomon DVD or the Digital Tutors Houini DVDs, both are for advanced users who already understand how to do expressions in an app like Maya.
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Houdini Indie and Apprentice » best online traning :)
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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Houdini Lounge » how to make the Houdini UI look decent
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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I think one of the major mistakes that SideFX has made in Houdini is choosing grey as the default color for both viewport background and UI color and also making it so difficult to change these colors. Im going to lay out the steps that need to be taken to make the UI more comfortable and useable:
1) Now lets get rid off that awful OpenGL highlight you have in viewport rendering. First create a sphere in your scene. Then put the cursor over the viewport and press D, go to the misc tab in the window that pops up and uncheck specular highlights (be sure to click save to defaults). The sphere looks a lot nicer now doesnt it.
2) The grey UI color is awful, most 3D apps have an option for dark UI as does Houdini. Go to edit>color settings and in the user interface tab of the window that pops up change from houdini light to houdini dark. Looks a lot better now right?
3) The grey background color in the viewport is awful, I dont understand how anyone can work with it. But you can change it. Go to:
C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini 10.0.595\houdini\config
and right click on the 3DSceneColors.bw file and select properties in the right click menu and uncheck read only. Open 3DSceneColors.bw in a text editor and the very first configuration setting is BackgroundColor, change it to whatever you want, I like 20 25 30 which is a dark blue with lots of depth.
(If the new viewport background color doesnt show up you may have to switch to black background by pressing D over the viewport and then clicking the background tab in the window and changing color scheme from light to dark)
Heres a pic of what this new UI looks like on my netbook. Notice that light grey gizmo halo that surrounds the sphere, you cant see that with the default background.
Its just crazy how the most powerful 3D package on earth would have grey 3D objects over a grey background in the viewports. Ive attached a pic of this insanity, grey over grey, how can anyone stand it??
1) Now lets get rid off that awful OpenGL highlight you have in viewport rendering. First create a sphere in your scene. Then put the cursor over the viewport and press D, go to the misc tab in the window that pops up and uncheck specular highlights (be sure to click save to defaults). The sphere looks a lot nicer now doesnt it.
2) The grey UI color is awful, most 3D apps have an option for dark UI as does Houdini. Go to edit>color settings and in the user interface tab of the window that pops up change from houdini light to houdini dark. Looks a lot better now right?
3) The grey background color in the viewport is awful, I dont understand how anyone can work with it. But you can change it. Go to:
C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini 10.0.595\houdini\config
and right click on the 3DSceneColors.bw file and select properties in the right click menu and uncheck read only. Open 3DSceneColors.bw in a text editor and the very first configuration setting is BackgroundColor, change it to whatever you want, I like 20 25 30 which is a dark blue with lots of depth.
(If the new viewport background color doesnt show up you may have to switch to black background by pressing D over the viewport and then clicking the background tab in the window and changing color scheme from light to dark)
Heres a pic of what this new UI looks like on my netbook. Notice that light grey gizmo halo that surrounds the sphere, you cant see that with the default background.
Its just crazy how the most powerful 3D package on earth would have grey 3D objects over a grey background in the viewports. Ive attached a pic of this insanity, grey over grey, how can anyone stand it??
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » tutorials with example files
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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I recall before I came across example files that go along with project based tutorials, Im pretty sure this is integrated in houdini itself and not online content. But now I cant find it, does anyone know what Im referring to? I recall for example one of the files was a cartoon character, like a rigged for animation character of a skateboard kid or something. I hope someone knows what Im talking about.
Technical Discussion » how to change viewport background color
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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a few months ago I learned how to change the background color with the
3DSceneColors.bw
3DSceneColors.wb
files which are in
../hfs10.0.xxx/houdini/config/
but now I cant remember which attribute to change. Does anyone know?
3DSceneColors.bw
3DSceneColors.wb
files which are in
../hfs10.0.xxx/houdini/config/
but now I cant remember which attribute to change. Does anyone know?
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » houdini 10 annoying messages
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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SoothsayerYES it is!! I wasnt aware of that, thx.
Isn't it available in the Support>download section?
shadoxyes I am
alright cheers guys…so your telling me that houdini 9 will run better for me?
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » houdini 10 annoying messages
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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it would be nice if SideFX could keep Houdini Apprentice v9 available for download because v10 requires the latest graphics drivers that only run on recent graphics cards. I was lucky in that I have an old Digital Tutors CD that includes Houdini Aprentice 9 on it, and it runs perfectly on my netbooks where as v10 will just gag my netbooks with error messages.
Technical Discussion » setting tooltip delay variable
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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Im starting out in houdini and I dont like how long I have to wait for a tooltip to pop up considering that the majority of buttons dont have labels. Im wondering if someone knows where the variable is for setting the delay time for tooltips?
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » any way to speed up tooltips?
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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alpotnisThe simple reason for that would be that the pointer has to remain motionless to activate the waiting time for the popup, and if you accidently move your stylus as much as a pixel then you have to wait all over again for another waiting time.
something else i have noticed is ….when i am using the mouse and place the cursor over a tab, the tooltip pops much quicker as compared when i am using Wacom.. and at times really long !!
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » any way to speed up tooltips?
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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Im starting out in houdini and I find I have to wait a long time for a tooltip to pop up, at least a second, which is very frustrating when you have about 10 buttons whos function I have to check really quickly. Id like to zero out the waiting time for tooltips so I know what everything does right away. Anyone know how I can do this?
Technical Discussion » how to change viewport background color
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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jason_iversenYou have to be careful because houdini uses both a saturated blue and a light blue for things in the viewport so you have to pick a sort of desaturated blue to keep from occluding the color of these viewport features. I found that 20 25 30 works well for me in that it provides a haze like depth to the background yet still provides good contrast to the colored viewport features.
Personally I love a mellow blue viewport background. It allows the shades of grey of lit Volumes to stand off nicely.
notice the halo effect around the rotate gizmo, something you really cant see with a grey background
Technical Discussion » how to change viewport background color
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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Technical Discussion » how to change viewport background color
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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Dennis- The dark theme should be called the black theme, I cant deal with completely black backgrounds, not even on a linux console, it just sucks the life out of me. If there is an easy way to put in a background image, please do let me know what that is.
btw, I remember you from cgtalk, how is graphic design business going for you? I recall you mentioned a very frustrating work ethic in russia.
btw, I remember you from cgtalk, how is graphic design business going for you? I recall you mentioned a very frustrating work ethic in russia.
Technical Discussion » full screen mode
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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Im running houdini on a netbook and Im wondering if houdini has a full screen mode I can access because I need every possible amount of screen area to see the UI.
Technical Discussion » how to change viewport background color
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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Im wondering if someone could tell me how I can change the RGB values for viewport background color as I dont like the default shade of grey and would like to adjust it.
Technical Discussion » running Houdini laptop
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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Im running houdini on a 10" samsung nc10 netbook with 1024 x 600 res, here is a screenshot in actual size of the the UI:
you can reduce the size of the UI in edit>preferences>general user interface and then on the bottom you have a global UI size dropdown list where you pick small.
The only problem is that laptops with integrated graphics can only use OEM drivers, so it cant handle openGL shaders, I have to set an environment variable to turn off shader support.
you can reduce the size of the UI in edit>preferences>general user interface and then on the bottom you have a global UI size dropdown list where you pick small.
The only problem is that laptops with integrated graphics can only use OEM drivers, so it cant handle openGL shaders, I have to set an environment variable to turn off shader support.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » problem running apprentice on ubuntu
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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Thanks Alan, Im a lot closer to getting it working now, but I get a problem with the sesinetd file as well as the same error as I got before. This is how it goes in the console:
shintaro@drak:~$ ./runhoudini
The Houdini 10.0.374 environment has been initialized.
/opt/hfs10.0.374/houdini/sbin/sesinetd: 1: ELF: not found
/opt/hfs10.0.374/houdini/sbin/sesinetd: 3: Syntax error: “)” unexpected
/opt/hfs10.0.374/bin/houdini: line 8: /opt/hfs10.0.374/bin/houdini-bin: cannot execute binary file
/opt/hfs10.0.374/bin/houdini: line 8: /opt/hfs10.0.374/bin/houdini-bin: Success
shintaro@drak:~$
This may be a problem with using different versions of gcc or something like that, but maybe its something simpler you could catch.
shintaro@drak:~$ ./runhoudini
The Houdini 10.0.374 environment has been initialized.
/opt/hfs10.0.374/houdini/sbin/sesinetd: 1: ELF: not found
/opt/hfs10.0.374/houdini/sbin/sesinetd: 3: Syntax error: “)” unexpected
/opt/hfs10.0.374/bin/houdini: line 8: /opt/hfs10.0.374/bin/houdini-bin: cannot execute binary file
/opt/hfs10.0.374/bin/houdini: line 8: /opt/hfs10.0.374/bin/houdini-bin: Success
shintaro@drak:~$
This may be a problem with using different versions of gcc or something like that, but maybe its something simpler you could catch.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » problem running apprentice on ubuntu
- arquebus
- 17 posts
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The installation of ubuntu seemed to go ok and I cd into the HFS folder and run source houdini_setup and that goes ok. But then when I enter houdini in the console I get a message that says:
line 8: /opt/hfs10.0.374/bin/houdini-bin: cannot execute binary file
but I ran chmod 777 -R on the HFS folder, so what could be wrong? Can someone tell me what I should put in my .profile or .bashrc file to keep the hfs binary folder in my path?
line 8: /opt/hfs10.0.374/bin/houdini-bin: cannot execute binary file
but I ran chmod 777 -R on the HFS folder, so what could be wrong? Can someone tell me what I should put in my .profile or .bashrc file to keep the hfs binary folder in my path?
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