- APEX COPs Revamp + ML Image Processing nodes + Real-time Compositor Viewport
- Develop your own equivalent file format to .SBSAR to generate textures, layer them with mtlx and embed everything into an USD file.
- Karma Baker with auto setups values using intersection analysis between the LP and HP and automatic adaptive cages
- Start building a more extensive noise library for mtlx, cops and heightfields as we will need them to create materials. Afterwards, start building a smart materials and generators library.
- After the aforementioned, lay the foundations for a node-based texture painting workflow that rivals Substance Painter.
- APEX Scene Modeling&Sculpting. A good reason for sculpting is that now we are going to get texture synthesis in COPs we can create our own custom brushes and decals. Btw you should be able to use as a brush what you sculpted on a plane, that's a common and pretty straightforward workflow in blender.
- Sculpting directly on normal map (Cozy Blanket/Uniform). No high poly meshes, no retopo, no baking, big deal.
- Custom COPs brushes support for Path SOP, with some sidefx presets to paint stitches, zippers, fabric and welding seams (SP).
- More appealing subd modeling. Idk why but setting the render flag on the subd node while templating the unsubdivided geo isn't comfortable. Maybe an interactive mode in the subd node to edit the "cage" would do the trick.
- Specific nodes to wrap and encourage the use of SDF modeling and kitbashing like the Dominik Lange plugin
- Procedural NURBS Modeling. Once someone in the world develops such a thing, even AI will have a hard time surpassing it. Furthermore, parametric modeling is less destructive than polygonal, minimizes manual tweaking which is closer to Houdini's idea. A workflow example would be: convert to nurbs > bevel > convert back to poly, this way u would steal the most envied feature of Plasticity (which is the NURBS beveling). Another killer feature to start with would be nurbs lofting and bridge edges for surface modeling.
- Pretty standard surface mat shader like the blender one also helps with the modeling and feeling.
- Shortcut Concatenation (blender) would be a good idea to reduce friction between the user and the viewport. eg: typing g+x+value(move+axis_constraint+amount) or R+R to rotate with the trackball.
- Component sensitive nodes.
- More snapping presets for the pie menu would also help improve the modeling mode.
- Interactive flag (maybe replacing the not so used frozen flag?). Why? (1) To know a node has an interactive mode and which ones do not. (2) To indicate that you are currently in the interactive mode of that node. (3) To avoid the need to lift your left hand to press Enter or Escape. (4) To feel in control of your process.
- Holding alt+mmb while orbiting to snap to different orthographic views (plasticity). Or even better, 'snap to closest orthographic view', which allows you to map all planes to one key (MODO)
- Symmetry selections and select similar.
- Group aliases. eg: select ring, fill selection, select from relative bbox (from top/mid/bot), select line (which is a select loop but smarter enough to stop at corners)...
- Seamless interoperability between solaris and the other contexts (Kill OBJ level).
- Seamless interoperability with UE5 through USD and Mtlx (mtlx should translate to substrata definition on import).
- Vulkan viewport gold and default.
- Vulkan ROP
- Further expand the component builder workflow.
- Layout node performance improvement.
- Pure Mtlx (non-karma specific) skin, ocean, white water, pyro, cloud and toon/anime shaders.
- ML ROM to train flesh simulations (Maya).
- ML and GPU Multithreading Powered Solvers.
- Multisolver SOP.
- UI Refresh: more responsive, modernized skin and dynamic tab arrangement.
- More Gaea like nodes for the terrain suite. eg: shorelines, craters...(btw Jake Rice has the code for the Aperature node on his git)
- Scales tools like the ones from Wout Tengrootenhuysen but leveraging the new feather's guide system and painting on UVs
- Ivy tools like the ones from MCworldKit
- Clothing tools for mimicking the most common workflows of Marvelous Designer and help with garment creation.
- Add a Braid SOP to the grooming suite (blender)
- Update Hair Card Generate SOP to work with feathers. Additionally, explore UE Nanite Spline Meshes for nanite feathers.
- Continue to bring valuable things hidden in networks to SOP level. Blender users are using VOPs in SOPs without even realizing it. That's the key, make people use it without telling them they are using it. A lot of hidden gems are not used simply because they are buried. An example is to use a simple geometry CHOP you have to create a CHOPnet, a channel node, dive inside, use a Geometry node (specify the SOP path) and then use the actual node (...) 4 nodes and one lvl down to do a noise filter... Therefore, bring geometry CHOPs into SOPs for straightforward use.
- Refurbish hidden features to bring them back to life as if they were brand new. Help users rediscover these valuable tools that have been neglected or overlooked.
- Get rid of redundant nodes. eg: a shape node gathering all primitives (default prims, platonics, superformula, labs star, labs shapes...)
- USD Cache SOP like the hda from Ayman Abolila
- Watertight Collision, like the hda from attila sipos. In fact, that's the output you would expect from the collision source node.
- Better particle fluid surface node, the result of the actual one is very poor. I always see people coming up with some workaround because the output of this node is not what they expect.
- More aliases, including presets for point and group expressions and other wrangle snippets. Also, list them somewhere pls, either in the docs or by pressing tab and typing "aliases". Aliases were a great introduction to avoid the creation and maintenance of new nodes that do not deserve a node by themselves.
- Straightforward Lattice node, the current one requires many nodes to make it work and is not that good after all.
- A basic Radial Array SOP with both the bend360 with auto capture length and 360/ncopies methods, including an interactive mode for easily placing the pivot center of the radial array leveraging the snapping options (plasticity).
- Slide SOP (to slide edges and points).
- Edge Flow SOP like the one from Tom Jerry
- Limit Bevel (plasticity)
- Extend Sheet Trim (Plasticity)
- Project Curve Curve (plasticity)
- Wrap Face and Unwrap Face SOPs (plasticity)
- Sketchup Extrude
- Geometry Layout SOP like the stone wall idea from iansmithartist
- Art-directable point velocity SOP like the BoomBox and Easy Debris hda from Jason Harmon
- Add an option in the boolean node to enable infinite slicing with the ability to choose whether or not to affect backfaces, eliminating the need to thicken the cutting shape beforehand. That way, we can replicate the imprint curve tool from plasticity by setting the operation to 'shatter'.
- Expand Match Size capabilities to unrotate and align to components like the 'align to component' shelf tool, right now feels like match size only does half of the job.
- Start passing the shelf tools to nodes, there are many attractive functionalities going unnoticed by being there. For example: I don't think most people know that after your grain simulations you have to use "upres sand" to invoke a combo of 4 nodes that does the rest of the work for you.
- Multiple outputs split node, so that we can split as many items as we need, instead of being limited to two.
- Bring Crowd Solver to SOP lvl.
- The trigger node for crowds is fantastic, just like the ones in game engines, thanks to its overridable functions. It's a shame that it is for crowds only. I would like you to bring it to the surface for triggering events in other workflows as well.
- Help Feike to push out the APEX Flora tools to match or exceed the quality of Nils Westfelt's Simple Tree Tools and speed tree.
- Make a fine selection of the best nodes from third party libraries like Ql, AE, EZ, MOPs, Modeler and make your own take. People hate relying on addons, and that's one of Houdini's strengths, as it sets it apart from the competition, which handles this matter poorly.
- APEX Auto Rig Component for reverse foot ik
- AI assisted keyframing + help for physics and secondary motion (cascadeur)
- UE5 queen and manny APEX rig ready to animate (cascadeur).
- Adding a tangentu attr with a polyframe set to Style=MikkT speeds up the bonedeform like 500%. There is also an HDA called "Wrap Deformer" from Momme which leads to better results than the official point deform node.
🧰Misc
- The groups widget is kind of annoying. It should be great to visualize groups through the info panel by clicking on the group names (like you do with attrs).
- In the info panel, add support to quickly change the attr visualization type (float grayscale, vector, str...) just by pressing rmb over the attr names.
- Provide some kind of visual feedback for parameters that differ from their default values. Also add the option to the cogwheel to show only params that have been tweaked. This would help navigate through others files or showcasing breakdowns and tuts.
- rmb/assign shortcut... for nodes, options, ui buttons and window tabs (plasticity)
- Drag and drop nodes to pie menus to simple replace or assign nodes to empty or occupied slots. Same thing on new empty windows to drag and drop nodes and make your own tool palettes to be used as pop-ups, binding them to a shortcut (rmb/assign shortcut... on its header)
- Fix redirections/dependencies script
- An option to stop nodes that are taking too long to cook in order to prevent hangs.
- Make attrs work directly in params without having to use the point/prim() functions, as they do in the primitive properties node for example, or like the context option editor in Solaris, where global variables can be declared and used in any parameter.
- Focus on elements when double-clicking them in the spreadsheet (unreal PCG).
- Support drag and drop in the spreadsheet to drag the attr names or values and drop them into any param field
- Better xform gizmos.
- A way to input 3 values at once in the params (in MODO was ctrl+enter)
- Add a compute range button to all fit parameters (not all of them has it).
- Be able to set the render flag in mtlx and VOP nodes.
- Do you know when you have to set the resolution in a pyro/flip parameter and link it to every other resolution parameter? pls, save us from that redundancy somehow, so we can just set it once and pass it through.
- More user-friendly vellum params like the Cloth Builder from Daniel Bystedt to help us to work faster reducing the need to obsessively fine-tune parameters within vast decimal ranges.
- Add inputs and outputs info to nodes documentation, and make sure to specify which of them are optional.
- GPT, Mixtral, Bing or Bard powered documentation, including Houdini Engine Doc in the same site.
- Houdini 20.5 Crash Course. A fast adoption guide to all the new features and workflow changes.
- Houdini 20.5 Foundations book.
🧪R&D
- ML assisted sculpting and painting
- Develop USD-HDAs with the ability to contain a procedural mtlx which adapts to geometry changes in real time when used in game engines (may only be achievable in Substrata real-time BSDF).
- AI-powered nodes (starting for Auto UV and Capture Biharmonic)... Also similar nodes to Runway or InstaMAT like "color grade from prompt", "color grade from reference", "tracking from target", "automatic subject masking", "image2material", "magnific", "color ramp from prompt", "image to svg", "style transfer", "super-resolution", "inpainting"...
- Explore Neural VDBs, Neural Physics and Material Super-resolution.
- COPs SDF editor.
- Copilot wrangles for vex, python and USD with option for user feedback to refine the model.
...
"I never saved anything for the swim back" Gattaca (1997)