i usually using other ‘brand’ application and new to houdini. i use houdini apprentice for starting. here some of my problem:
1. i just try to do simple thing with houdini but seems i hit the wall. i ‘d like to know how to snap , in my case i want to move the pivot (handle) using ’ to bottom center of my tube(cylinder) so then i can scale from that point as ref, i tried all the snap option but seems that i only can snap to edge or point etc , but there's no way for me to move the handle to bottom center (which i can do with other 3d app).
the other problem is when i drag handle to snap let's say a curve, i'm hoping that the center of handle is the ref point that i like it to snap to curve, but i'm wrong. the fact that the point where i start clicking is the ref point that will snap to target.
2. how to move obj in 2 directions simultaneously (for example in xy direction)?
3. i ‘m playing with houdini UI Interface color. i found some variable in resource and 3dscenecolor in config directory. but i couldn’t find some other var that i need to change, they're the variable that control the hilglight color of the object like ‘tab’ or ‘button’ and the outline color which ussually we can see around the text box in parameter window (green).

does anyone can help me.

regards,
clay~

You can snap to primitives in Houdini by going into the Snap options and upping the tolerance for primitive snap. The problem is that Primitive snapping does not seem to snap to the center of the primitive. What I usually do in the case where I want to snap to the center of a primitive is, apply an extrude to the primitive I want to snap to, scale it in a tad, collapse the primitive so I have a point in the center, and snap to that point. You can dissolve the point when you're done or leave it there for future use. The other option is to use a contruction plane and snap to it.

Not sure exactly what problem you are haing with curves. I can snap to any point on a curve just fine. Do you have depth turned on in the snap options?

To move an object simultaneously in just two axis, you transform the translate handle form the center in your appropriate orthographic view.

I don't know if these colors can be changed, or not. I use the default colors. You could take a look at this page and see if you can figure out how they changed so many of the colors.

http://visualparadigms.com/houdini/downloads.php?type=scripts [visualparadigms.com]