Constantin X Now how about those nasty little icons(see the image attached)?
They look marginally better in the Light scheme, but I think they're still the old-school vector icons Houdini used to have. The coloring is meant to divide up the operations into groups, and that'd be better handled by grouping the buttons and removing the BG colors, I think. I'll put in a request to get those updated, as it's likely they slipped through the cracks when the icons were redone in H9.
Thank you so much, it will speed things up while working with CHOP. I will take this post and say that i am sorry i compared you with dark side folks, now i find out that it's not the case. To be honest with you, i find the application to be amazing and although it needs some love in few areas(like speed when working with bones) it's way better then i expected. I already decided myself that Houdini is my next main application and will purchase it as soon as the budget allows for it. Thank you, Constantin
Constantin X I read your MOCAP answer(thank you once more) but i wanted to say that the traditional way(not procedural CHOPS) of editing keyframes needs some love. Thank you for your offer, i really appreciate it, but i am afraid it does not work like this. I need to find myself a workflow and to become accustomed with this new application. I already find out how to simplify the data, smooth curve etc within CHOPS so i am on track with learning. To sum things up, i am really happy with the application so far and i think that all i need to do is to start to dive more deep within. Support is great and the application is amazing so i decided to purchase one seat within 1 year time frame. Will also start to recommend the application to my clients. Thank you for your support
What is what you miss? HLE? Mixer? pure FCurve editing? Animation Layers? All of it?
goldleaf I have long wished for an easy way to change the color of channels in the channel editor. Frequently, very similar (or exactly the same) colors are chosen, and I need to see them apart.
Have you tried tweaking them in a color scheme? Look in $HFS/houdini/config/UILight.hcs for example and search for “Channel Colors”.
Gyroscope Bascially, the same functionality as Spline() but with Bezier handles.
Maybe if the conversion from spline() to bezier() would just reset the tangents to match what they were before? I don't think a perfect conversion is possible (like when converting from cubic() to bezier()) but perhaps just a default weight with the tangents matching? This would mean though that you lose whatever tangents/weights you had when you switch away from bezier().
jordibares Basically I miss a solid ‘Plateau’ mode that I an trust and not being forced to touch my curve every time I add a keyframe.
Also if I do edits I want to keep them, every time I have to smooth slopes these change and it could be a matter of marking the edited keys so the smooth does not happen in the first operation, only after a second smooth these keys are affected for example.
What does ‘plateau’ mode do exactly? The smoothing behaviour (at least as you've described it here) sounds similar to what the channel editor's Settings > Auto-Smooth Slopes > While Moving Keys does?
Constantin X What is what you miss? HLE? Mixer? pure FCurve editing? Animation Layers? All of it?
First of all shape manager where i can link deformations i sculpt on my model with an animation channel(let's say hand rotation on X axis). In other words the deformation is linked with the hand rotation, so only works when i animate. This eliminate the needs of ultra high complex rigs for proper deformations in key areas, such as arm wrist.Then of course animation layers(CHOPS seems to be more powerful though), mixer and fcurve editing capabilities. One thing i miss is the ability to change the null icons(i rig with nulls quite a lot) or to add weights over the already weighted skin. Let's say i do a facial rigging, i first rig the main bones then i can add nulls for subtle features. Look at this sample(model also done by me):
I see what you mean… my feeling is that the workflow is more convoluted but you may want to consider a different approach.
Run your deformation Range of Motion where you have all your bone deforming the rig and spit out an obj per frame with a ROP.
Then, take these to Zbrush/Mudbox and sculpt as you wish and bring back the meshes to houdini.
Now will be a matter of do the linking, this will be the point in which you have to add a few nodes to get same result but I would imagine this is simple enough to script inside an Asset so you could actually build your own tool to put it all together based on the data that has been export by your ROP.
Unfortunately you will have to deal with the Zbrush geometry idiosyncrasies but other than that you will be able to up the game a notch but including displacement maps later on.
Hope it makes sense.
I now want to do this. :-)
quote=“Constantin X”]
jordibares
Constantin X What is what you miss? HLE? Mixer? pure FCurve editing? Animation Layers? All of it?
First of all shape manager where i can link deformations i sculpt on my model with an animation channel(let's say hand rotation on X axis). In other words the deformation is linked with the hand rotation, so only works when i animate. This eliminate the needs of ultra high complex rigs for proper deformations in key areas, such as arm wrist.Then of course animation layers(CHOPS seems to be more powerful though), mixer and fcurve editing capabilities. One thing i miss is the ability to change the null icons(i rig with nulls quite a lot) or to add weights over the already weighted skin. Let's say i do a facial rigging, i first rig the main bones then i can add nulls for subtle features. Look at this sample(model also done by me):
jordibares I see what you mean… my feeling is that the workflow is more convoluted but you may want to consider a different approach.
Run your deformation Range of Motion where you have all your bone deforming the rig and spit out an obj per frame with a ROP.
Then, take these to Zbrush/Mudbox and sculpt as you wish and bring back the meshes to houdini.
Now will be a matter of do the linking, this will be the point in which you have to add a few nodes to get same result but I would imagine this is simple enough to script inside an Asset so you could actually build your own tool to put it all together based on the data that has been export by your ROP.
Unfortunately you will have to deal with the Zbrush geometry idiosyncrasies but other than that you will be able to up the game a notch but including displacement maps later on.
Hope it makes sense.
I now want to do this. :-)
I think it's much, much simpler then this. It's only a matter of linking your deformation(or better saying the corrected state) morph with the rotation channel. I mean at X rotation=0 morph channel=0 value. And at 1 both 1 value. Simple as that. i think we can do it with the help of parameter window, but your idea is interesting too. Just too much hasle…. Any houdini animation guru take a look at the mp4 i provided and give some hint?
Constantin X Any houdini animation guru take a look at the mp4 i provided and give some hint?
I'm not an animation guru by any means, I hardly know what bone is, but I can show you what recently made my friend (who is XSI rigger) very very exited. I really can't tell how awesome it is, because I'm so used to it. Linking arbitrary parameters is such a natural thing in Houdini… you can link anything to anything with a dozen of ways. I think the attached example is the least used way though, an you shouldn't take my word that this the best way of doing what's you're after (assuming this is what you're after).
Constantin X Any houdini animation guru take a look at the mp4 i provided and give some hint?
I'm not an animation guru by any means, I hardly know what bone is, but I can show you what recently made my friend (who is XSI rigger) very very exited. I really can't tell how awesome it is, because I'm so used to it. Linking arbitrary parameters is such a natural thing in Houdini… you can link anything to anything with a dozen of ways. I think the attached example is the least used way though, an you shouldn't take my word that this the best way of doing what's you're after (assuming this is what you're after).
Yes, I've seen it today and wanted to post it here also. There are some neat thing there although don't let us fool about details. Some parts of presto are possible only because they are hard coded per production/character into the base code which is really no-way to go with commercial software.
What I really like in this demo is the elegance of bones/handles display (it somehow reminds me new modo bones). Technicalities of a rig should look exactly Like that, the least possible disturbance for an artist, easy to grab and easy to dismiss.
What I really like in this demo is the elegance of bones/handles display (it somehow reminds me new modo bones). Technicalities of a rig should look exactly Like that, the least possible disturbance for an artist, easy to grab and easy to dismiss.
Me to. I really like the way how artist can grab part of the body (controller) and animate that. (Instead of old curve controllers floating in space). Fast fur visualisation and light/shadow preview is also great plus.
Regarding animation, where is the pose library button situated? In docs says it's on character shelf, but on both Linux(Ubuntu and Mint) and Windows it's missing from shelf…. The mac screenshot i published earlier is not from my computer; i only have Apprentice so far. So i am only interested in Windows and Linux. Thank you in advance for replies, Constantin
To be honest with you, i find the application to be amazing and although it needs some love in few areas(like speed when working with bones) it's way better then i expected. I already decided myself that Houdini is my next main application and will purchase it as soon as the budget allows for it. 
