Long time Max user, who has used Maya and Softimage extensively here, who, with the recent and not so recent developments with Autodesk and their business practices in general, is seriously evaluating Houdini to be my end all be all of 3D tools.

So far it is exceeding my expectations.

However, I am wondering how open the SideFX team is to including some quality of life changes in future releases of the product. Things like having the translate handle allow for moving in a particular plane (XY, XZ, YZ) only, or scaling along the normal during a polyExtrude op.

I can say that if the team/community are open to these (most likely toggle-able) types of inclusions, for me personally, I would make the move in a heartbeat and I can only assume it would make it more attractive to others.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to using this amazing product!
-Steve

Hi,

It already is possible to extrude by normal. I guess the big catch is that houdini's normals are much more flexible than in other packages.

About the other improvements, Side FX is always making improvements, in fact they make improvements on a daily basis (check the daily builds and the dev journal areas of the site). As opposed to Maya that realeases bug fixes every few months if at all, for example. If you have feature requests, just submit them to Sesi and if there's enough demand or the feature makes sense and/or can be implemented, I will be.

Cheers

Hey rafaels,

That's good to hear! What I meant about the extruding was when you are in the polyExtrude Op manipulator, you can scale in the local x and y but not the z? I haven't checked your file yet but it sounds like what I posted was misunderstood. I will definitely be posting suggestions.


-S

Oops… I see your point now, indeed I understood extruding along the normal, instead of scaling. ops:

Well, you should still submit an RFE. Here's a link:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=768&Itemid=239 [sidefx.com]

Cheers

Just curious, what are you thinking scaling in Z would do? Since it's local to the polygon and Z is the normal you'd be scaling somehting with no thickness, producing no effect. This is why there are only parameters for Scale X and Scale Y on the local tab.

I'm also not really sure, it might make sense in Maya or Max, since he comes from that background… but I can't find a use in houdini either.

If the face you are extruding ends up non planar you'd see what I mean

Then you could use a facet SOP to make it planar…
I know what you mean though and the facet SOP might not always give all the control that a handle can, on a per polygon scenario, but… I haven't come across a situation where I needed Z scale, so if you did, better document and submit that RFE!

As I evaluate Houdini one of the main things that has appeared to be slightly lacking from a speed standpoint is the modelling, and if its possible to add a few little things to accelerate that workflow I think it would go a long way. I submitted those two RFE's though they aren't bugs but feature requests. Is this the correct procedure?

Yep! I agree that modeling in houdini is a bit of a pain. It also takes time getting used to it, but since I'm not modeling for a living though… Whenever you can describe a model in procedural terms you're golden, otherwise you end up with hundreds of nodes.
I remember suggesting a kind of polymodeling node that worked a little bit like the edit mesh modifier in Max… not in sight yet, maybe it doesn't make sense in a studio pipeline thus it was never implemented. Maybe it'd better be a tool request in the Orbolt shop.

Cheers

I think it has more to do with the box modelling workflow that we're all (outside of Houdini) used to. Being able to transform points in different coordinate systems without having to create the nodes to do it, even if they are in fact created. I love the node system and infinitely prefer it to Maya's history and Max's modifier stack. Softimage has a similar modelling construction history with “tweak component” nodes, and I think that paradigm would fit perfectly in Houdini. I just want to be able to grab a point and put it where I want without having to orbit all over the place.

I can't seem to find it if it exists, is it possible to transform a point using the move tool in a point/edge/polygons local coordinate system?

If you have a recent 12.1 build, I think the Soft Transform SOP now has a “Local Space” option which should allow you to scale along the normal. The next major release of Houdini will have that option in more places.

As for translating in a particular plane, right-click on the handle and choose Show Translate Plane > XY, XZ, or YZ. However, that looks like a bug because it doesn't seem to work for me?

edward
The next major release of Houdini will have that option in more places.

Including the edit sop?

cpb
Including the edit sop?

Yes.