Hello SideFX hive mind,

I am a character animator who recently switched from Maya to Houdini.

Overall, I am finding the Houdini UI to be slick and user-friendly.

I am however hitting a bit of a problem when it comes to controller handles. I am working on a Kinefx rig. It's surprisingly hard to select a controller and once controllers are selected, it's surprisingly hard to select the handles.

In Maya, it's possible to drag and select controllers, so usually one click and drag is enough to select any controller. With Kinefx, you have to click the controller very precisely with the tip of the mouse pointer. I am finding that more often than not, it will take two or three clicks before I manage to select my controller. It might not seem like a big problem, but over the course of a day, it's a lot of frustration and a lot of wasted time.

Then once the controller is selected, I am having a similar issue with selecting handles. In Maya, when in translation or rotation mode, the cursor of the mouse turns into a small box, which facilitates the selection of the handle. In Kinefx, you need to click precisely on the very fine lines of the handles, and every other attempt, I fail to click precisely enough and I loose my selection.

This is definitely hampering the flow of animation process. I was wondering if anybody has experienced similar frustration and would have a workaround?

Thanks!!
PS: I am attaching a screen shot of what selecting in Maya looks like. One click and drag, and then using the box cursor to select the handle

I agree with you about kinefx/handle ease of use. I also had a hard time visualizing dense joints and bones and they can overlap with handle too.

For handle picking, you can change the Pick Distance in Edit > Preferences > Handles

Thanks PatW !! Changing Pick Distance is a huge step forward. I noticed there is also a pick distance for objects and geometry. I have set both pick distances to 40 and it's making my life much easier.