Hi everyone;

I'm an ex-SI person who's been highly motivated to courageously dive into Houdini for the past couple of months. But as of late, I've run into a road block with the for-each VOP node group (and the conditionals as well)

Despite Sidefx's best efforts to maintain a really comprehensive help file, I'm truly amazed to see how under-documented and brushed-off certain topics could be. This is one of them. The documentation topic reserved for the For-each VOP node is anything but explanatory. There's simply nothing there to help out a newbie like me especially It's as though it was written for people who already know how to use it… And that's not how a documentation should be.

I've been struggling with especially the For-each loop VOP node for the last 3 days and still for the life of me, just could not understand how to effectively use it. The ports confuse the s**t out of me >:-(

Here's the blog entry of a Lawrence Jaeger who's run into the same kind of problem like I have and this kind of proves my point:

https://medium.com/@lawrencejaeger/the-battle-of-the-if-node-houdini-906774f748c

Here's a direct quote:

“After searching for basic usage of the IF node, to scrolling through images, to reading the Houdini help on IF nodes I was still stuck.”

SideFx should really look into this matter. Houdini is a truly complex piece of Software, and I get the feeling that Sidefx could sometimes undermine the importance of dissemination of knowledge geared toward especially the ones who are not already fully acquainted with Houdini.

I would truly appreciate it if someone could take the time time to share his/her knowledge on the For-next and While loop VOPS nodes and the if conditional VOP nodes. I would also love to fiddle through any example files that you could share to help me out.

Thanx so much in advance and hope Sidefx staff reads this post.

Cheers;

AJ

It is very hard to write docs that don't assume you already know the answer :< I'm sorry they failed you with this.

We did do a masterclass specifically on loops with H15

https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/h15-masterclass-loops/ [www.sidefx.com]

that tries to go into this and explain it…

From the blog you cited:

The tutorial goes on by diving down into the IF node and adding a Add Point To Group node and that was something I couldn’t do in 15. There wasn’t even an Add Point To Group node so I went back to Google.

This is a consequence of a software that is constantly evolving. If features would be the same from release to release that would mean stagnation. You're kinda right about the documentation, but it is (slowly) being updated. Oddly enough, Houdini's at a slow pace in other regards easier to deal with from developing PoV, but that's another story for another time.

p.s. You'd be the first “ex-SI person” I ever encountered

jlait
It is very hard to write docs that don't assume you already know the answer :< I'm sorry they failed you with this.

Hi. Thank you for the video link. But Jeff, that's the whole point of documentation imho. If I already knew my way around, what would be the point in seeking reference, am I right? Programmers feel more at home with Houdini, but it is my firm belief that Sidefx should do more to win over artists. One shouldn't have to have a background in computer sciences or C++ programming to surf through Houdini with ease. The way to do that is to give everyone a comprehensive glimpse to every aspect of the software. When it comes to explaining individual VOP nodes, I just couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Sidefx's approach was to just jot down a one liner explanation of what the node does and a brief overview of their params. Nothing about the ports, the proper/conventional usage methods etc. While I still believe that Houdini's docs are no less than comprehensive and concise, the approach in certain fields is almost as though certain topics were written to cater to already experienced users, which is a shame… At least, that's my opinion :-/

McNistor
p.s. You'd be the first “ex-SI person” I ever encountered

http://www.si-community.com/community/viewforum.php?f=53&sid=c0a71d29f33cfbe6dae092a4eb355e6d [www.si-community.com]

I know about si-community, I was a very active user. Seldom, but still post there. What I was trying to say was that I don't know of any user that completely abandoned Softimage, i.e. doesn't use XSI for anything any longer. Are you one of those? I presumed you were not.
Anyway, most users here are out to help, so don't feel frustrated (although I can understand the feeling) just present your issues in an attentive manner and you'll most likely receive help.
Cheers!
And welcome!

noc2
But Jeff, that's the whole point of documentation imho. If I already knew my way around, what would be the point in seeking reference, am I right?

To be clear, I was not disagreeing with you! I was saying it isn't easy to do.

I believe our attempt to try and address the new users problem is to try and have high level pages deal with the concepts, rather than rely on individual node documentation. Individual node documentation tends to be very focused as it is often used as reference to remind oneself what the parameters did. Looking through our docs, it looks like what should have happened is you should have found yourself on this page:

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/shade/looping [www.sidefx.com]

which actually contains a link to that video. So the important questions are:

1) Did you manage to find that page?
2) Is that page useful, and if not, any ideas how to improve it?

@jlait - the video is good but without a transcript or index it's hard to review the information. Vimeo also can't play at 2x speed like Youtube, which is a great way find the bits you need.

aRtye
@jlait - the video is good but without a transcript or index it's hard to review the information. Vimeo also can't play at 2x speed like Youtube, which is a great way find the bits you need.

I agree with this. The videos, while nice, are far from useful on a granular level. Hunting through the video to find specific points that were touched on is painful for many reasons. The best vids I've scene by far are the entagma ones. They are short, easy to follow and include annotation and content.

I've said this before but the best learning resource is a heavily annotated scene. By far one of the best examples of this is the VDB scene on the openvdb site. It's out of date but it's STILL one of the best learning resources for a specific methodology I've come across. I learned more from that one scene than any documentation or video. Potent when combined with proper docs. These should be far easier to produce than videos and would be much more useful, especially for places that don't allow people to be online while at work.

Of course there would be content that would need to be kept up to date but that should be included in the yearly support budget ;-)

Simon van de Lagemaat2
I've said this before but the best learning resource is a heavily annotated scene.

I like that the best myself, as well. We try to provide this through the example files on nodes. Loop VOPs seem to be lacking in those though :<

Simon van de Lagemaat2
By far one of the best examples of this is the VDB scene on the openvdb site. It's out of date but it's STILL one of the best learning resources for a specific methodology I've come across. I learned more from that one scene than any documentation or video.

Wow, thanks Simon for the kind words on my vdb example file!

re: out of date
FYI I have a h15.5 vdb3.1 that will be up shortly, and I hope to have a h16, vdb4 version by siggraph for the vdb course [s2017.siggraph.org]. Let me know if there's anything else you want in there.

jlait
It is very hard to write docs that don't assume you already know the answer :< I'm sorry they failed you with this.

We did do a masterclass specifically on loops with H15

https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/h15-masterclass-loops/ [www.sidefx.com]

that tries to go into this and explain it…

Thanks jeff for your masterclass.
I have a question about Increment of new for loop how can I control that?
I also ask in separate Thread:
https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/50114/ [www.sidefx.com]
Thanks again.