katana13
Hi,
McNistor or MartybNz, to avoid duplication, could you introduce curves' management and its manipulators in Softimage? For example, for the moment, it is impossible to “break” the curve in houdini.

katana13, this thread is created for modeling and viewport interaction only. Animation is a different subject and I wish to keep it out of this thread.

pezetko
There si ghosting. With that you can isolate current object from the ones that are outside. Default shortcut is Space+Y (or just Y if you are in View Tool)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSfd-1JmCqM [youtube.com]

For something more like XSI isolate selection tool:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=29072 [sidefx.com]

This is what you probably want:
http://pastebin.com/YiCC0kSB [pastebin.com]

Thanks for the links. In the youtube video the approach of using takes is similar to other apps' layers, groups and in case of XSI passes and while being powerful for scene management are very slow for purely modeling purposes where you want to simply isolate an object in viewport only to quickly edit it without the clutter from the other objects.

The scripts you gave link to might do the trick (can't test them right now).

pezetko

katana13
it is impossible to “break” the curve in houdini.

Could you be more clear? You can untie tangents both for animation curves as well as 3d curve object.

I think he's referring to a discontinuity point.

Currently, in Houdini upon select outputs command on the parent of the tree (network) - box_object1, the result is a (specific?) child being selected - torus_object1.

Why is that and in what way is this beneficial?

If you have been using XSI it is reminiscent of the schematic select children. Also the hide outputs is reminiscent of the collapse node. Plus you can do it with the parents too which I guess must be a way to keep things tidy on a big scene.

hope it helps

McNistor
Currently, in Houdini upon select outputs command on the parent of the tree (network) - box_object1, the result is a (specific?) child being selected - torus_object1.

Why is that and in what way is this beneficial?

jordibares
If you have been using XSI it is reminiscent of the schematic select children. Also the hide outputs is reminiscent of the collapse node. Plus you can do it with the parents too which I guess must be a way to keep things tidy on a big scene.

hope it helps

I know it is similar to XSI's tree/branch select. What I don't understand is why it behaves like this (like I've explained above) and what are the benefits.

Upon select outputs command on a node (parent) shouldn't that node be selected as the main one(as orange) and its children as secondary (yellow)?
Perhaps there are reasons for this so I'm just wondering what are those reasons.
In XSI having this behavior enables an animator to branch select a control and branch set key so that all of its children “get” a key.

Anyway, looking forward to finding out more about this behavior in Houdini and what are its benefits.

McNistor

katana13
Hi,
McNistor or MartybNz, to avoid duplication, could you introduce curves' management and its manipulators in Softimage? For example, for the moment, it is impossible to “break” the curve in houdini.

katana13, this thread is created for modeling and viewport interaction only. Animation is a different subject and I wish to keep it out of this thread.

pezetko
There si ghosting. With that you can isolate current object from the ones that are outside. Default shortcut is Space+Y (or just Y if you are in View Tool)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSfd-1JmCqM [youtube.com]

For something more like XSI isolate selection tool:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=29072 [sidefx.com]

This is what you probably want:
http://pastebin.com/YiCC0kSB [pastebin.com]

I'm not talking about animation curves. I speak curves for modeling in Softimage. from 1 min 15s , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPFLeuQIhpU. [youtube.com] Break handles = about 3 min 50

katana13
I'm not talking about animation curves. I speak curves for modeling in Softimage. from 1 min 15s , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPFLeuQIhpU. [youtube.com]

Aaah, I see. Well in that case I'll stay out of this because I'm not really that knowledgeable regarding curves and NURBS so I'm not in the position to give recommendations to anyone regarding this subject.

katana13
I'm not talking about animation curves. I speak curves for modeling in Softimage. from 1 min 15s , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPFLeuQIhpU. [youtube.com] Break handles = about 3 min 50

The Curve tool need attention but the Bezier ‘handles’ are always broken to begin with.

The tool needs the ability to link handles properly, currently you can show hulls, select those ‘handles’ with the line selection tool and rotate them.

The current concept is that you're meant to use the Curves tool in Nurbs mode, which is better for surface modelling. You then weight each point to control sharpness using the pointSop - this certainly could be made more efficient by have the weight controlled by a shortcut

Select output command on box_object1 selects all children and parent. You can check that in Parameter view there is writen number of objects that are selected.
The orange one is the last one that was selected (it's similar highlight way of last selected node as in Maya) All the yellows are selected too.

Branch selection in XSI is a little bit different, with branch selection in XSI you didn't get direct access to children. So to perform some operation on children in branch you have to convert branch selection to explicit children selection.


In Houdini 3d curve object is difficult not to untie bezier handels.
Try this:
1. Lunch curve tool from shelf.
2. Pick 4 points in the viewport.
3. Go inside curve_object1 node and change primitive type on curve SOP to bezier.
4. Change method to breakpoints.
Now with the Y tool (Show handle) you can move the knot points.
If you change to selection tool and choose select points ('S', then ‘2’ key) you can see that each knot point have its bezier handles. To modify them and keep them in same tangent aligment select both handles and knot point and rotate them.
To untie (break) them select just one handle and move (translate) it.

Edit: seems that MartyNz was faster

pezetko
Select output command on box_object1 selects all children and parent. You can check that in Parameter view there is writen number of objects that are selected.
The orange one is the last one that was selected (it's similar highlight way of last selected node as in Maya) All the yellows are selected too.

You've re-described what I previously described.
And my question was why does it select the last object selected (orange) instead of the parent on which the command was initiated and what are the benefits of this?

With the current behavior, after I perform select outputs command on the parent (box_object1), I go into viewport to manipulate the selection and it behaves as if the orange (torus_object1) selected one is the parent - all the objects follow it.

Again, what are the benefits of this behavior, because if there are none, I'd like to propose a change, but not before I'm sure I understand this matter perfectly.

edit: the suggestion would be to have the parent (box_object1 in this case) selected as “primary” (orange). This would apply for any other object within the tree.

For select inputs, again the orange one should be the parent of the tree.

But, if there are reasons as to why it is as it is, I'd like to hear them.

pezetko
Select output command on box_object1 selects all children and parent. You can check that in Parameter view there is writen number of objects that are selected.
The orange one is the last one that was selected (it's similar highlight way of last selected node as in Maya) All the yellows are selected too.

Branch selection in XSI is a little bit different, with branch selection in XSI you didn't get direct access to children. So to perform some operation on children in branch you have to convert branch selection to explicit children selection.


In Houdini 3d curve object is difficult not to untie bezier handels.
Try this:
1. Lunch curve tool from shelf.
2. Pick 4 points in the viewport.
3. Go inside curve_object1 node and change primitive type on curve SOP to bezier.
4. Change method to breakpoints.
Now with the Y tool (Show handle) you can move the knot points.
If you change to selection tool and choose select points ('S', then ‘2’ key) you can see that each knot point have its bezier handles. To modify them and keep them in same tangent aligment select both handles and knot point and rotate them.
To untie (break) them select just one handle and move (translate) it.

Edit: seems that MartyNz was faster

That's works. Very cool!!!!!! Thank you very much!!! Why didn't I see it?
It lacks the ability to view the manipulators with segments. When I select a point to move it with the gizmo (T), is it normal that all points of the curve disappear?
It would be nice to interactivly align handles without having to re-initialize the translation's parameters of the edit sop.

McNistor
edit: the suggestion would be to have the parent (box_object1 in this case) selected as “primary” (orange). This would apply for any other object within the tree.

For select inputs, again the orange one should be the parent of the tree.

+1 for this
(Don't know about benefits of current state. I misunderstood your question. Thanks for clarification)

katana13:
Don't know if disappearing is normal, but it behaves same there.
Workaround for handle aligment is select both hadle points and also knot point and scale them all at once uniformly to zero then scale them up in just one axis and finally rotate them to desired orientation.

pezetko
+1 for this
(Don't know about benefits of current state. I misunderstood your question. Thanks for clarification)

Sure, no problem. I'll update my page with this new gathered info, but I'll wait for a little while longer, maybe someone does know a benefit of the current hierarchical selection behavior.

pezetko

McNistor
edit: the suggestion would be to have the parent (box_object1 in this case) selected as “primary” (orange). This would apply for any other object within the tree.

For select inputs, again the orange one should be the parent of the tree.

+1 for this
(Don't know about benefits of current state. I misunderstood your question. Thanks for clarification)

katana13:
Don't know if disappearing is normal, but it behaves same there.
Workaround for handle aligment is select both hadle points and also knot point and scale them all at once uniformly to zero then scale them up in just one axis and finally rotate them to desired orientation.

Ok!!! thank you.

I've been fiddling with the tree view and I've noticed that I couldn't set it to show a hierarchical view of the objects. Is it possible that I somehow failed to see an option/setting?

If it's not possible, let me know if you'd find something like this useful and I'll add it to my webpage of improvements.

obviously Photoshoped image:

shift click on the obj to expand all networks

buki
shift click on the obj to expand all networks

Thanks for the shortcut, but you missed my point. Take a closer look at the first two objects.

What McNistor proposes is adding possibility to visualize parent/child relationship in the tree view.

Curently tree view represents folder structure of the scene. So all of the objects that are at the same level (folder) are in same sibling level in the tree view. So actualy tree view displays hiearchy of the scene and it's context. McNistor suggests adding possibility to switch tree view to visualise Parent/Child hiearchy of objects in same folder together with displaying nested folders of each object.

ah, ok

What McNistor proposes is adding possibility to visualize parent/child relationship in the tree view.

It's not very obvious, but it is there:

• press ‘T’ to toggle into List mode
  
• RMB click on the list background, select List Order > Input/Output
  It admittedly should have an easier UI to pop into that mode.