Hello Everyone,

I am a 3dsmax user, trying to switch to Houdini (probably in a few years.. ) and a few weeks ago I started with the SideFX basic lessons.

While working through the tutorials, I ran into a few issues/questions and I was hoping to find some answers here

#1
I noticed that the backtick "`“ does not work with a German keyboard in most cases. For example it does not work in the expression editor or the parameter pane text boxes but it does work in the ”most used parameters“ text boxes above the viewport.

#2
Sometimes the Houdini GUI stops responding but only half way. Its still possible to tumble in the viewport but everything else is unclickable. When I try to quit Houdini, the ”save changes dialog" appears, but it's also impossible to click it (also not by keyboard..) I managed to restore it a few times by mini-/maximizing Houdini or switching viewports, but most of the time I had to kill it by windows taskmanager.

#3
How can i enable autobackup by default? The manual tells me that the autosave function always resets after restart..

#4
Sometimes the expression editor stops helping/suggesting the syntax.. Is there a switch I accidentally hit every time?

#5
3dsMax - thinkingParticles brought me to Houdini and there was a nice way to debug/visualize the result of parameters or expressions. is there similar way in Houdini to do this?
http://keichan102.sakura.ne.jp/sblo_files/sky-high-nest/image/DebugBasicIntro.jpg [keichan102.sakura.ne.jp]

Thanks and best regards
Felix

#3
You can set auto save in Edit menu -> preference -> save options.

#4
Wait for a moment after press $ or some key words.

#5
In Detail View you can see all attribute for selected node.

#1:

a workaround for german keyboards is to change the layout to the english keyboard modus with pressing alt+shift one time, then pressing the “°”-button (obove the tab-key), then going back to german with pressing shift+alt.

Uli

#2 Similar dis-fucntionality has been posted before.

What are the system specs?

Operating system including servicer packs and security updates
Houdini version
Graphics card and driver
Anything else ‘special’; ie 3 monitors, graphics tablet, black cat sleeping under desk…

#2 sometimes there is a box outside the monitor view blocking the other houdini ui. try use windows key plus arrow left/right to move it around. or try windows tab and see if there is some dialog box. i think this happens when working with 2 monitors and the first monitor is in negative space.