Hi,
I’m assessing Houdini via the Apprentice application to consider purchasing it and I am experiencing a very reliable and reproducible crash in Solaris in a very simple scene.

1. Starting with a fresh new Houdini file.
2. Switch to Solaris desktop.
3. Navigate in all viewports OK.
4. Create a camera.
5. Navigating in any viewport causes the application to lock up for several seconds.
6. Once the application recovers, attempting to navigate in the viewport again locks up the application indefinitely.

I’m not experiencing any issues in any other applications (Cinema 4D, After Effects, Photoshop etc) so I don’t think it’s my system or graphics cards. Have tried a couple of different Nvidia driver versions. Any suggestions as to what might be going on here?

Windows 10
Houdini Apprentice 19.5.569
Nvidia Geforce 2070 Super
Nvidia Studio Driver 5.17.40 and 531.41

Hm yeah I can reproduce this as well on .593. Log a bug: https://www.sidefx.com/bugs/submit/ [www.sidefx.com]

Seems to not like having a split viewport with the camera tool active. If you enter view mode (esc in viewport) and then split your view you can move the cam around that way without issue.

Bugs are annoying but this shouldn't block you from your evaluation!

Thanks for that video, I've logged a bug (#128579) for us to investigate & resolve.

Based on some local testing, the issue does look to be fairly isolated/specific (i.e., the LOPs camera state and a split viewport).

Thanks for reproducing that for me freshbaked and thanks for investigating the bug, robp.

I've also summited this bug as soon as it came out in Production release .534. Up until 493 we didn't had this issue.

But, this bug is more sinister than just shutting down Houdini.

What actually happens is the Camera LOP State slow down Houdini by a certain percentage per view-port window, when you have only one view in the scene is not that noticeable but if you pay attention to the responsiveness you will feel a difference but by the time you have (and this is how I normally work in Solaris) two views side to side it starts lagging and of course when you go to four-views Houdini crawls to a stop.

I've tried every daily built since but the problem persists at least till daily .623.

Hi!

I also have the same problem with the handle and multi-view, my report was added to Bug#(127733) in March, but I also have problems with the Focus Handle, Houdini is almost frozen when I enable the Camera handle (cingle viewport), and the focus handle, making very difficult to use it to define the focal distance from cameras, and is added because it doesn't happen all the time, probably ~95% and with simple scenes.

I'll try to send some videos about this later this week trough RFE and maybe here too.

Thanks!

cdordelly
Houdini is almost frozen when I enable the Camera handle (cingle viewport), and the focus handle, making very difficult to use it to define the focal distance from cameras, and is added because it doesn't happen all the time, probably ~95% and with simple scenes.
Thanks!

Yes, I have issues with the camera handle too. I press the keyboard shortcut to make the focus handle appear.... and nothing happens. Thought I was going insane. I've only just started testing out Houdini Apprentice to consider purchasing Indie but the amount of bugs I have experienced just performing very basic functions has put me off for now. Maybe v20 will be better?

DarrynRogers

cdordelly
Houdini is almost frozen when I enable the Camera handle (cingle viewport), and the focus handle, making very difficult to use it to define the focal distance from cameras, and is added because it doesn't happen all the time, probably ~95% and with simple scenes.
Thanks!

Yes, I have issues with the camera handle too. I press the keyboard shortcut to make the focus handle appear.... and nothing happens. Thought I was going insane. I've only just started testing out Houdini Apprentice to consider purchasing Indie but the amount of bugs I have experienced just performing very basic functions has put me off for now. Maybe v20 will be better?

You don't need to use Solaris to learn Houdini at all .. Actually, maybe when you are learning Houdini I'm not sure if it is a good idea to learn Solaris too instead of the common OBJ context/workflow, you can still evaluate Houdini and if it fits your needs the Indie license will be worth it

Baseline Houdini and Solaris and two very different programs specially from the perspective of someone just getting into it, not saying it's your case but one could very well get stuck somewhere and think it's a bug.

To be fair this issue with the camera is very recent although it completely defies all logic as to how this bug have been left unsolved for so long is not characteristic of Sidefx.

I would invite you to share what bugs have you run into so that maybe we can share some possible solutions, Solaris is not perfect but I would never define it as a buggy experience.

The split-view hanging when in the camera state should be resolved with 19.5.625

cdordelly
You don't need to use Solaris to learn Houdini at all .. Actually, maybe when you are learning Houdini I'm not sure if it is a good idea to learn Solaris too instead of the common OBJ context/workflow

Ultimately I think it really depends what you want to use Houdini for. For an individual (vs in a studio with an established pipeline), I tend to agree that the OBJ&SOPs levels are a good place to get a bit of a grounding into "what is Houdini?". From there, I think the Scene Import LOP offers a nice bridge into Solaris, where you don't need to start everything from scratch but, instead, can take the "okay, I know how to structure things in OBJ now ... what could the equivalent in USD look like?" approach.

I think that you are right, it really depends on how you are starting to use Houdini.

Thanks a lot for the fix!

Thanks for your input everyone, it has been very helpful.

robp_sidefx
The split-view hanging when in the camera state should be resolved with 19.5.625

So glad to have it fixed! thanks!!