“How can we make Houdini a better modeler?” -a great topic that went horribly wrong due to the person who started it…that's what this has turned into
Anyway, here is my 2 cents on it…
First off, I think that the problem here is more of “How to make Houdini feel like a better modeler for organic, poly work that results in a fixed topology model”. This problem is really about interaction more than anything IMHO. The toolset should be very fluid and efficient (in terms of actions taken to perform an operation, i.e. number of mouse clicks) and all efforts should be made to focus the user attention exclusively in the viewport (absolutely minimal cranking of values in params and network panes).
Regarding the “Procedural” vs “Black Box” methods: By Modeling we shouldn't mean only the creation of a fixed mesh (like some children here are trying to imply), but rather a general means of creating something to render. Not every Modeling session end up with a fixed geometry result.
The concept of modeling in Houdini is this - Procedural modeling hints for dynamic, animated geometry (unlike your typical XSI/MAYA/etc idea of animated extrudes or similar). Procedural modeling, or in fact, node based content creation is the way to go in every case. Now, the problem of how is this graph created and manipulated (how the user “feels it”) is a whole different story altogether…
The first issue to be dealt with is the viewport performance - currently H is noticably slower when heavy models are dispalyed in the viewport.
The tools in Houdini are actually quite good, but need refinement, some in functionality, some in interaction (e.g. Split sometimes splits to wrong edges if they are close)…Like better bevel tool, better viewport poly drawing tool…
So, how can possibly be improved the usual sequence of Select - Apply Command - Modify Params - Exit Command…
1. Selection
Selecting in Houdini feels and behaves archaic…I've made some suggestions before in the beta forum:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=5802&highlight= [
sidefx.com]
2. Apply Command
This is the main performance enemy IMHO. The current method of choosing a command (TAB->SubMenu or TAB->Keys) is definitely slowing things down for this kind of work. Essentially it's all about finding an efficient method to popup all commands related to polymodeling. Currently you have 2 or 3 choices. Due to the grouping of ops, the user has to expand the subsection PolyTools, and then pick. The second method - Typing for the command is definitely very slow and nonproductive. Typing POL* or whatever hundreds of times a day just to get the commands is slow. Recently used commands are also slow, because you still have to look for the command (which in turn may have been bumped out of the Recently Used list).
Binding to hotkeys IMHO is excellent but only for some very often used tools like Cut, Delete. Trying to remember many keys for many tools in my experience hasn't been very productive either - my hand has to be in one place of the keyboard, in the area I've binded all my commands - if I move it, I need to feel the marker (tab, spacebar, wahtever) to reorient it and feel where each key is…
The best solution is to include functionality that allows CUSTOM MENUS that are either an extensions of the TAB menu or completely separate altogether (accesible through another hotkey). These menus should allow arbitrary listing of commands and sub-menus - so that the user can arrange his-hers most oftenly used commands first (i.e. popup menu - click to apply) and optional commands in sub-menus.
3. Modify - here the goal shoul be to bind all common params in every sop to viewport handles…It is implemented here and there, but should be extended…
4. Exit Command…
or actually Exit Command and Select->…(repeat the whole cycle here)
This is another reason for slow modeling. Currently there is no quick method to tell Houdini that you've already finished changing params on the current op and the Selection you make is for another modeling Operation of different kind (i.e curently Transform, next Subdivide). My natural approach is to see what I want to change, select it and then apply the command. Currently, to do this I need to Exit the Current Op by pressing S to select something and then choose the command. Or, if I try to apply the different command I have to actually “Re-Confirm” by pressing the Right Mouse Button…Not painful, but it forces you to a least look in the status bar to see the help hint…Maybe a preference should override this default behaviour…
All right, I'll stop here…
For now
