How do you deselect geometries in view mode?

For example, I have this simple setup:



When the display flag on the UV Texture node, the primitive being UV'ed is always selected. How to deselect it? Even I press S, select nothing, and then press ESC, it gets selected again immediately.

Ok, maybe UV Texture node always holds its selection? But even on the Null node after it, the same thing still happens!



Is it by design? Why does Null "remember" the previous node's selection?

The only workaround I've found is to create a completely unrelated node, like Add or Name. But it doesn't make any sense. Why do I have to create something unrelated to deselect?


I know it sounds like a noob question. But it has already bothered me for weeks and I've spent hours googling it. Plus I'm a noob anyway.

It's not a selection, so there's nothing to deselect. A node can highlight primitives though, such as a group sop or other node that creates a selection. Creating nodes interactively can also pass through a highlight. The uvtexture node doesn't normally create one, but it looks like it does if created interactively. What I usually do is copy the group text from the node and paste it onto a new node created in the network graph instead of the viewport to get rid of the highlight. It's one reason I avoid using tools interactively since the highlight is annoying and distracting.

There's not really any way to clear the highlight, but you can create a node that outputs a highlight of nothing, like a transform sop or group sop with nothing selected.

jsmack
It's not a selection, so there's nothing to deselect.

But Houdini itself explicitly says otherwise. Such misleading UI :/

Thank you for the help. I'll probably create a HDA called "NullX" wrapping a Group SOP.

I'd chalk that one down to viewport shenanigans. I've had issues with these ghost selections even persisting when I move to Object level. And the geometry HUD readout has been a bit unreliable in H19, especially in Solaris, showing me outdated point and prim counts and selections. Although, it has improved with the most recent production build.

Try Help > Reset Viewport to see if that helps. I've bound that to a hotkey now because of how unreliable the viewport has been.

Very late to the party but I've asked SideFX support and they gave me the answer.



It's the "highlight" flag. Toggling this off makes the "selection" goes away.