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Houdini Lounge » Long website log-ins
- OneBigTree
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Technical Discussion » Background Image sequence realtime
- OneBigTree
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goat
You should submit a bug via the Support menu above as it's always worked here on Linux.
SideFx support staff in general don't read these forums.
I will. I was hoping someone in the community might have an answer.
Technical Discussion » Background Image sequence realtime
- OneBigTree
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I have to bump this up.
I still have trouble playing a sequence of 140 frames as a camera background (loaded in the camera parameters)or as a viewport background set in the view options. Only a few frames play real time then Houdini starts reading from disk again. Houdini memory usage doesn't even increase during the playing of the timeline.
This is something I can easily do anywhere else. There must be a way to do it in Houdini, the most sophisticated DCC application today?
I still have trouble playing a sequence of 140 frames as a camera background (loaded in the camera parameters)or as a viewport background set in the view options. Only a few frames play real time then Houdini starts reading from disk again. Houdini memory usage doesn't even increase during the playing of the timeline.
This is something I can easily do anywhere else. There must be a way to do it in Houdini, the most sophisticated DCC application today?
Edited by OneBigTree - Oct. 3, 2020 08:34:23
Houdini Lounge » About the scene management,can we have a new solution?
- OneBigTree
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antcOneBigTreeI'm not disagreeing with you at all, but the devils in the details a bit … it'd be great if you could expand on what kinds of tasks you mean by “start working efficiently” since many of the previous posts sounded like asset prep/cleanup type workflows.
When I say cleaning up I do not even talk about cleaning up geometry. I talk about structuring the scene in a way that you can start working efficiently with the geo in the first place - quickly. I do not see any tools for that at all in Houdini.
What I mean is for example grouping similar objects, restructuring hierarchies, turning copies into instances to reduce memory footprint, renaming objects from “part_297584_cd_VX-07” to “screw_iron” 1-250 with automatic numbering and so on. So you can quickly find and isolate any piece of geometry you want to work on.
Part of this is being able to see the most important properties of an object at a glance. In max, XSI, C4D and even blender you expand the tree and you can immediately see pointgroups, subsets of components, assigned materials etc. It helps you read a scene quickly before you even start working on it. A large scene does not necessary mean large scale but often one object containing a large number of parts. Being able to manage that in one centralized interface can speed up preparing a large scene significantly.
Houdini Lounge » Stability issues and Autosave
- OneBigTree
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Jonathan de Blok
If you create a “456.cmd” file in you /scripts folder and putin it, it will enable autosave automatically for you. (or just use attached file)autosave on
Additionally if put the ‘afterscenesave.py’ in the same folder it will keep a max of N backups so you're not creating infinite backup files.
The ‘max_files=15’ line sets the max amount of backup files to keep for the current scene file, this will work for both backups created when saved as for the autobackup files. (so you'll have a max of 30 files combined when wet to 15)
Thank you so much.
However I still don't understand why a user script is necessary and this is not implemented as a native function. I wouldn't have been able to figure that out by myself and I am certain I'm not the only one. Thanks again.
(Also: can't think of a single reason why anyone would think having a proper autosave that stays on could be a bad thing… )
Edited by OneBigTree - Sept. 23, 2020 19:45:39
Houdini Lounge » About the scene management,can we have a new solution?
- OneBigTree
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tamteOneBigTreemaybe a wrong example, this is exactly the task for Houdini
Try cleaning up a scene with 1000 unnamed objects in 100 different nested hierarchies in Houdini, only to be able to assign a common material to all screws. Try to rename 100 objects in different hierarchies at the same time with automatic numbering.
I usually do this in sops for now, may have limitation that need workarounds, depending on expectations, but otherwise very straightforward and as procedural or as manual as you need, definitely not on object level
a lot of times we run heavy CAD through Houdini for some initial processing and even hierarchy editing or renaming after our modelers give up waiting hours to open it in Maya or Max, just cause those DCCs trying to open it as tens of thousands of heavy objects rather than one geo with attributes or groups that can be easily processed, Houdini would also never open it at object level
When I say cleaning up I do not even talk about cleaning up geometry. I talk about structuring the scene in a way that you can start working efficiently with the geo in the first place - quickly. I do not see any tools for that at all in Houdini. I also very often experience the fact that “quickly” has a different meaning in larger studios as compared to small ones or “single player” offices
(cleaning up geo is perfectly possible today in H. and I am very glad about what SideFX has done here in that past few years. So here's hoping that the same evolution happens for scene management as well )
Edited by OneBigTree - Sept. 17, 2020 06:12:57
Houdini Lounge » About the scene management,can we have a new solution?
- OneBigTree
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goat
About scene management tools. Should SideFx remove Tree view? List view set to Tree view works better, being able to multi-select items etc, set flags etc.
Perhaps not remove the tree view, but combine tree and list view and give it more functionality.
For example: seeing the object hierarchy, the groups inside the objects and the materials assigned assigned on SOP level without having to dive in (or a filtered set of properties) to get a quick overview and being able to assign materials to groups in that view - instead of navigating huge networks to find your mat or group nodes - would be a huge step forward. Things like that are scene management, not just placing many neatly prepared objects on a stage. Overview over, and feedback from the scene is just as important.
Houdini Lounge » About the scene management,can we have a new solution?
- OneBigTree
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tamteOneBigTreeI've been a long time XSI user so I know what you are talking about and yes, that was very convenient, it had some limitations though, like not being able to define membership of groups/partitions procedurally and some other
Assign a material to a group of objects overriding their local material. And then create quickly two or three render passes/ layers with different groups of objects in them - and override the material for half the objects in one pass. And all that quicker that you can do it in any other software.
I believe that with solaris all that should be possible, but it again comes down to UX and artist friendly tools, which as it seems will take some time
also threads like this may be good for a discussion, but to have a chance for any of the suggestions being considered by SESI make sure you submit RFEs for them
It seems to me that actual scene management, which starts way before actual scene layout or lighting, still has to go the same length of time as modeling in Houdini did and still does. I was hoping for solaris being the thing for that but the overhead of actually authoring the usd structure, the fact that material assignment is even more tedious that it was already in Houdini compared to many other DCC apps and the addition of even more nodes made me turn away quickly.
It needs fully automated transfer from SOPs to LOPs with for existing scenes especially with material assignment to subsets of components to the very least before it even gets interesting for me.
Houdini Lounge » Stability issues and Autosave
- OneBigTree
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Can we please have Houdini remember the Autosave setting, given that recent builds are so unstable?
Pressing Ctrl S every five seconds interrupts any workflow more than the node management overhead already does.
Thank you.
Pressing Ctrl S every five seconds interrupts any workflow more than the node management overhead already does.
Thank you.
Houdini Lounge » About the scene management,can we have a new solution?
- OneBigTree
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tamtewanglifuSolaris/LOPs is targeted to be the new layout and lighting solution, it may need some time to mature and become more user friendly and functional alongside with usd itself, so time will tell, but it's good to start getting familiar with it
Can we have a new solution for this?
Solaris is not a solution. It creates an additional huge management overhead not suitable for very small teams that do not have complex pipelines.
I suggest you make yourself familiar with software that actually has solutions for this, like Softimage for example. It is important to understand what good scene management actually is to develop or recommend a solution.
It starts with things like being able to quickly isolate a selection of objects in the viewport. When you get a huge set of CAD data from your client it is probably organized in many nested levels of layers, parts and entities, not sorted by material or any other useful property. Try cleaning up a scene with 1000 unnamed objects in 100 different nested hierarchies in Houdini, only to be able to assign a common material to all screws. Try to rename 100 objects in different hierarchies at the same time with automatic numbering.
Assign a material to a group of objects overriding their local material. And then create quickly two or three render passes/ layers with different groups of objects in them - and override the material for half the objects in one pass. And all that quicker that you can do it in any other software.
If you have that, then you can call it a proper scene management and start using solaris
Edited by OneBigTree - Sept. 13, 2020 07:25:54
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Curve sop: how to select/move multiple points at a time?
- OneBigTree
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jsmack
The curve tool can't, but the edit tool can still be used to select multiple points and translate however.
The problem however is when you need to add a point to the curve in the Curve SOP you'll have to do the edit again, so you would want to avoid using the edit until you are sure you don't want to change you curve anymore.
Maybe we need an edit_curve SOP where we can add points?
Edited by OneBigTree - Sept. 11, 2020 03:35:17
Technical Discussion » Direct Modelling
- OneBigTree
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EricSheng
Sidefx just can't make artist-friendly tools, that's why. When it comes to technical tools, Houdini is like a beast, but poor when it comes to user interaction tools.
Oh, I think they can. They just don't have a history with that.
Again, if you look at the Labs tools there are a few things that turn the technical tools into artist friendly stuff, like the “spiral” node.
You could do helixes before but you had to use a set of nodes and vex to build a setup for it. With the spiral node SideFX did that for you. Now we basically have a new primitive. I surely hope there is more to come, but I am also sure they have understood the problem. They have just started to “fix” it and it is not the main focus so it will have to evolve. The newer tools like polydraw and bevel with their direct viewport interaction features are pretty clever and user friendly. That doesn't mean Houdini beats other DCC apps in the modelling area but it is catching up and starts becoming a viable all-round tool instead of a VFX toolbox.
I am very critical in that respect and I waited a long time (I started using apprentice in 2010) until I decided to make the full transition and I am only now confident I can do everything I need for my all round work in Houdini - in a reasonable time. Switching between apps is not a viable workflow for me. It just generates more work and introduces errors and obstacles.
Edited by OneBigTree - Sept. 11, 2020 03:24:00
Technical Discussion » Bevel 3.0 SOP parameter missing?
- OneBigTree
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Technical Discussion » Isn't it time for Houdini to deal with Importing better?
- OneBigTree
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snapagYeah: If. Have you ever imported a complex CAD dataset, exported by an incompetent person?
If Attached Multy Object to single object With Difference material ID ,Can troubles,I Export FBX separated,And Can get Easy selected using material ID.
Edited by OneBigTree - Sept. 8, 2020 07:12:33
Technical Discussion » Isn't it time for Houdini to deal with Importing better?
- OneBigTree
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jsmack
The most sane solution at the moment is to prepare the model in another DCC,
..at which point you have to wonder why you would not do the rest of the work in the other DCC…
Technical Discussion » Isn't it time for Houdini to deal with Importing better?
- OneBigTree
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toadstorm
There's a workaround for this… use the Agent SOP in “FBX File” mode to load your FBX, then unpack it.
It's not just the importing and displaying - it is also the management and handling once imported. We need a solution, not a work around.
Technical Discussion » Isn't it time for Houdini to deal with Importing better?
- OneBigTree
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Midphase
You don't think I've evaluated all of the different ways of dealing with this before posting in frustration?
The current implementation is not good and you know it. We're all Houdini fan boys here, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't demand improvements when something is clunky compared to other DCC's.
Importing directly into a File node solves some issues and creates others that have to be dealt with in other ways, and when doing a great deal of re-shading the resulting network can get just as complicated real quick.
Importing Nulls as Subnets isn't a fix either, it breaks things down in a slightly more manageable way (depending on how organized the person who created the geo was), but it's also still an incredibly clunky way of dealing with more complex models.
Recently Kitbash 3D started offering Houdini native files, where they basically take it upon themselves to organize and arrange their kits in a way that makes more sense to the end user, but unfortunately they're just one developer out of hundreds.
I think SideFX needs to rethink the way importing geometry into Houdini is handled, it's been long overdue.
I have to agree. There is no toolset to handle large scene management specifically. The Tree view is just that: A viwew. The list view is limited and doesn't even save the sorting method.
We need better centralized scene management with grouping/partitioning (expanding the bundle functionality), Material overrides per group/partition and render/view layer assignment/management, quick multi renaming and multi operations in the tree view on object level.
At the moment you can somehow do parts of it but you need 3 different windows at least and it is still not half as efficient as any other scene management.
Technical Discussion » Isn't it time for Houdini to deal with Importing better?
- OneBigTree
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jsmackManaging subnets and hierarchies in Houdini is a PITA and much more limited than in other software.Midphase
Importing Nulls as Subnets isn't a fix either, it breaks things down in a slightly more manageable way (depending on how organized the person who created the geo was), but it's also still an incredibly clunky way of dealing with more complex models.
In what way is that different than importing to other software?
Technical Discussion » Direct Modelling
- OneBigTree
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plabill23
Hi, who else does direct modelling in Houdini? Does the number of nodes you create matter? Not many tutorials out there. Why? Is modeling worth learning in Houdini or is it mostly better to just focus on VFX?
from a confused artist.
Thank you for your guidance.
Pascal
From my point of view: this is the right time to start learning modelling in Houdini. I probably wouldn't have said this half a year ago, but Houdini has made huge leaps recently, mostly through the “SideFX LAbs” project which focuses mainly on making all the complexity of Houdini accessible to pure (non coding) artists and turn them into quick and useful tools.
The modelling toolset has evolved a lot over the past few years. There is still a few things you will have to give up on when switching to H, like multi object editing, entering absolute numeric values for components, resizable viewports in Quad view and other stuff. But starting to get along with what you got and evolve with Houdini over the coming years is probably a good idea.
There are a bunch of good tutorials out there showing some of the newer tools which in part actually trump over the same tools in other applications (however quirky they might behave some times.) THere are also a lot more tutorials on modelling specifically recently which documents the progress of the software in this are.
I am making the transition myself (coming from Softimage, Max, Maya, C4d, Lightwave) after sporadically using H for several years now and I find it much more of a competition to the other apps today than it was not too long ago.
There are a lot of little things that can make you life easier that are unfortunately not well documented.
So get your apprentice or indie License today and start watching tutorials and make yourself familiar with the interaction concepts. It will take some time but the time to start is now.
Edit: It is probably a good idea to look at the MOPS tools as well beside the Labs tools.
Edited by OneBigTree - Sept. 8, 2020 05:57:27
Technical Discussion » World space hack, what am I missing.
- OneBigTree
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Why in Houdini it is not possible to actually work with world space values not just for objects but also for components is a complete mystery to me.
This is absolutely fundamental and important for all kinds of things, two of them are architectural modelling or film set reconstruction where you rely on measured data. Not being able to transform a point to a specific absolute position in world space in the edit node is the biggest drawback of using Houdini compared to other tools. (apart from actual multi object editing)
Why should it not be possible to display and enter absolute values instead of relative ones? Houdini can work internally with object relative coordinates anyway if this is required for proceduralism. All we need is to see the world position and input world coordinates. Converting it into local position in the background is very simple math.
This is absolutely fundamental and important for all kinds of things, two of them are architectural modelling or film set reconstruction where you rely on measured data. Not being able to transform a point to a specific absolute position in world space in the edit node is the biggest drawback of using Houdini compared to other tools. (apart from actual multi object editing)
Why should it not be possible to display and enter absolute values instead of relative ones? Houdini can work internally with object relative coordinates anyway if this is required for proceduralism. All we need is to see the world position and input world coordinates. Converting it into local position in the background is very simple math.
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