SOS: Save Our SOPs

I do not like the new Point and Copy SOPs.

I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox
I do not like them in a house
I do not like them with a mouse
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.

The old Point and Copy SOPs were powerful tools that were easy and intuitive to use.

They got us excited about using Houdini and were part of a basic toolkit, (along with the following SOPs), that allowed us to solve almost any problem.

Some other “basic toolkit” SOPs; Box, Sphere, Grid, Tube, Circle, Line, Torus, Curve, Trace, Add, Fuse, Primitive, Transform (& soft), Facet, Extrude, Group, Delete, AttribCreate, AttribTransfer, AttribPromote, Trail, Skin, Sweep, Poly Spline, Resample, Ray, Sort, Peak (& soft).

I would like to see SESI save these “classics” and keep them accessible in H16 and future releases. Perhaps a “Classic SOPs” tab? Heck, I’d even be happy with a “Luddite SOPs” tab.

And while I’m at it…

SOHEX: Save Our Houdini Expressions

ch(), chf(), point(), prim(), clamp(), fit(), noise(), rand(), length(), distance(), if(), bbox(), centroid(), pic()

SOLV: Save Our Local Variables

$PT, $PR, $CY, $TX, $TY, $TZ, $NX, $NY, $NZ, $CR, $CG, $CB, $CA, $VX, $VY, $VZ, $BBX, $BBY, $BBZ, $CEX, $CEY, $CEZ, $AGE, $LIFE, $XMIN, $XMAX, $SIZEX, $SIZEY, $SIZEZ, $TX2, $TY2, $TZ2

Cheers.

sorry to tell you this, but in the name of progress Local Variables and hence Point SOP and Copy Stamping have to go

so trying to understand newer concepts meant for replacement/enhancement like VEX, Intrinsics, For Loops, Compile networks may be the first step and then maybe provide feedback and suggestions to SESI about how to make them more user friendly for new users, without sacrificing their flexibility and performance

tamte
so trying to understand newer concepts meant for replacement/enhancement like VEX, Intrinsics, For Loops, Compile networks may be the first step and then maybe provide feedback and suggestions to SESI about how to make them more user friendly for new users, without sacrificing their flexibility and performance

That it intresting!!! How about my comment here Overriding material [sidefx.com] This is also new conception of Houdini? Why need so much changes in interface, what that it was earlier convenient and working well? Did you ask users? Have you conducted a survey?

Why was it necessary to separate the Copy node and make a lot of it separate?
Why was it necessary to remove IF-THEN BLOCK in shop? And instead did an “open principle”, where ALL nodes, absolutly ALL nodes users see and it uncomfortable when their huge amount!
And what shock me most of all is that new MAT NEtwork - this is new conception of Houdini and old SHOP network soon disappear! I can say with 100% confidence - it's uncomfortable! You do not need to destroy what was good!

DEPRECATION + OPTIMIZATION

vux
DEPRECATION + OPTIMIZATION

DEPRECATION + OPTIMIZATION = NIGHTMARE FOR OLD USERS! It seems that this is a new concept of SideFX, dismiss your man who is responsible for the development!

copy SOP got split up so it´s not bloating, point node uses VEX now. old users should be experienced enough to handle this.

it´s not getting more convincing, if you post your opinions in youtube-style, either.

change may be uncomfortable, but most of it has a good reason, if you are not happy with something you can always provide feedback and suggestions for improvements

Felix6699
Why was it necessary to separate the Copy node and make a lot of it separate?

AFAIK this was necessary to cleanup the code and remove dependency on local variables and stamping and the new nodes can be used in compiled blocks and when combined with foreach you can get multithreaded Copy SOP, which is a big advantage compared to old one, but so far you still have Copy Stamp node as well which is the old Copy SOP

Felix6699
Why was it necessary to remove IF-THEN BLOCK in shop? And instead did an “open principle”, where ALL nodes, absolutly ALL nodes users see and it uncomfortable when their huge amount!

not sure if that was necessary, but it probably allows for more optimized networks, personally I like them more as it's obvious what's going on inside without diving anywhere
nothing is stopping from cleaning up the inside of if/for blocks using subnetworks

Felix6699
And what shock me most of all is that new MAT NEtwork - this is new conception of Houdini and old SHOP network soon disappear! I can say with 100% confidence - it's uncomfortable! You do not need to destroy what was good

then new unified MAT network, while not perfect at this point is a really great leap forward
now you can blend the whole materials, not just layers, as well as control any input of any material with traditional VOPs or share parts among multiple materials as well as quickly preview results of any node by assigning it as a material
but it's true that it's not fully polished and parts of workflow may not work as previously or as expected, the object level overrides may be one of those things, not sure if hiding them was intentional or just temporary

it's probably very subjective, but I always try to see potential behind the changes and if the functional advantages outweigh the initial usability inconvenience, I'm willing to accept the change and try to provide feedback and suggestions on how to improve as for me having fast and flexible tools is much more important than staying with slow and limited convenient solution as the convenience can be brought back

Felix6699
DEPRECATION + OPTIMIZATION = NIGHTMARE FOR OLD USERS! It seems that this is a new concept of SideFX, dismiss your man who is responsible for the development!

nothing is stopping you from using H15.5 forever if you are afraid of change,
not sure for how long you've been using houdini or how “old” user you are, but I can tell you that for the past 10 years I've been using it, Houdini was just improving and there were a lot of deprecated workflows and nodes even the full contexts. I'm not saying that I agreed with every change ever, but being able to adapt and trying to understand the reasons behind maybe suggesting improvements is far better than resisting the change

Konstantin Magnus
copy SOP got split up so it´s not bloating, point node uses VEX now. old users should be experienced enough to handle this.

it´s not getting more convincing, if you post your opinions in youtube-style, either.

I can only agree that it is necessary to go ahead and use VEX. I can not accept a huge number of micro-elements in my Network View when you have a huge scene. Copy node worked well before, actually, I just accustomed to the local variables and stamping - this is the first thing I met when I first opened Houdini. And now a new direction to use VEX, I can't to say that I like it, but it works better and more harder, than local variables! This is something that slows down the understanding of work, need to spend time learning coding on VEX.

How wrote tamte:

tamte
AFAIK this was necessary to cleanup the code and remove dependency on local variables and stamping and the new nodes can be used in compiled blocks and when combined with foreach you can get multithreaded Copy SOP, which is a big advantage compared to old one, but so far you still have Copy Stamp node as well which is the old Copy SOP

Ok, can you demonstrate advantages in scene: “you can get multithreaded Copy SOP”, how it's looks?

tamte
not sure if that was necessary, but it probably allows for more optimized networks, personally I like them more as it's obvious what's going on inside without diving anywhere
nothing is stopping from cleaning up the inside of if/for blocks using subnetworks

The subnetworks this is sh*t, sorry for that. This is what I would optimize in Houdini. What I liked in the blocks “IF-THEN BLOCK” - U can create in shop shader hidden in this block, apply condition (TRU, FALSE, NOT EQUAL), make output parameters and combine it, combine, countless times and All giblets are hidden in one block.But now if I do something new, I'm forced to use an uncomfortable sub-network, or watch 100-500 nodes in a shop.

tamte
then new unified MAT network, while not perfect at this point is a really great leap forward
now you can blend the whole materials, not just layers, as well as control any input of any material with traditional VOPs or share parts among multiple materials as well as quickly preview results of any node by assigning it as a material
but it's true that it's not fully polished and parts of workflow may not work as previously or as expected, the object level overrides may be one of those things, not sure if hiding them was intentional or just temporary

Okay. Let's say. You have a large scene with lots of geometry and materials for each object. All these materials you can see in the Material Palette, but there it is extremely inconvenient to work with them! And situation, u have ~200 materials and all this materials in “opened condition” in MAT Network. How u think, I'am wrong about something?

tamte
nothing is stopping you from using H15.5 forever if you are afraid of change,
not sure for how long you've been using houdini or how “old” user you are, but I can tell you that for the past 10 years I've been using it, Houdini was just improving and there were a lot of deprecated workflows and nodes even the full contexts. I'm not saying that I agreed with every change ever, but being able to adapt and trying to understand the reasons behind maybe suggesting improvements is far better than resisting the change

No, this is not an option. Better if Sidefx will read and negative feedback, it might stop creating problems.

AND

FOR ALL CHANGES FROM OLD VERSION TO NEW MAKE VIDEO WITH EXPLANATIONS! Where was and what was removed or changed, because in help read it worse than watching vimeo or youtube

Hi Felix6699,
the videos of the new stuff are comming. Maybe be a bit more patient.
The masterclass/webinar from last monday will be released soon and will explain some of it.

kind regards

Olaf

Hi, Olaf Finkbeiner!
Good news! I'll happy in this case

Felix6699
It seems that this is a new concept of SideFX, dismiss your man who is responsible for the development!

Probably the most realistic way to deal with this, as a customer, is to understand that you are purchasing today's version, not a future one.

@Felix

“Ok, can you demonstrate advantages in scene: “you can get multithreaded Copy SOP”, how it's looks?”

Yes, Wagner in the webinar on Monday April 3, did show just that.

I got an Email notice about that webinar last week, I don't know why it wasn't posted in the forums announcement section, like the ones they did last fall.

I just got another one for next week:

New Webinar Announced:
Houdini 16 Game Shelf Tools Explored

for April 11.

Wonder if they are going to be posting that in announcements too.

At some point every good software has to obsolete some features to make room for a new one. Having a courage to that and go forward is the signature of great developers. Shell I mention by name an opposite examples in our industry?

It is funny that it's usually easier to expect our tools change to accommodate our needs, than us to accommodate to those changes…

Frankly speaking it took me a year to get used to wranglers, leaving behind a temptation to put $variables everywhere, 15 years of muscle memory, but those changes are totally worth an effort.

Resistance is futile.

All hail VEX!