Alexey Vanzhula
it seems there is no such api in Geometry class in hou.

HGaal
However, on 20.0.548 everything is fine

HGaal

GCharb
Houdini is very adept at modelling,

Don't you think that Houdini is purposefully mocking users? It is difficult to rationally explain, for example, such a polyfill in comparison with a free blender. It is possible to do it correctly, evenly, beautifully, but Houdini seems to be doing it crooked on purpose.

HGaal

Alexey Vanzhula

HGaal
The question is essentially - how can I make it so that polyextrud is called up by hotkey indicating "extrudefront" in the groups?

Not quite what I wanted. This will help in the node tree. But I would like the extrudes called using the Q hotkey or another in the viewport to work with the same group, if it is specified - extrudefront or frontSeam. But since the frontseam group is broken in current versions, let at least extrudefront be used. If I need to, I will interrupt or change this chain, but in 90% of cases I am happy with using the extrudefront group by default. You can save the checkbox for activating the extrudeFront group as default, but the selection of the group in the first line is not saved (for the viewport). And selecting a node from the shelf or calling via Q or calling via a custom hotkey fills the group with the polygon number, and not the extrudefront name.
The fastest thing I found was to click on the gear each time and load a saved preset called extrudeFront. Or drag it from the shelf to the network, then the default settings will work. Here are our “punch cards” peeking out. Perhaps can write some kind of script so that all this is filled out correctly, but I don’t know how to do it.

group = "extrudeFront"

viewer = hou.ui.paneTabOfType(hou.paneTabType.SceneViewer)
cur_node = viewer.currentNode()
if cur_node.type().category() == hou.sopNodeTypeCategory():
    extrude = cur_node.createOutputNode("polyextrude")
    extrude.setParms({ "group": group, "outputfrontgrp": True, "frontgrp": group })
    extrude.setDisplayFlag(True)
    extrude.setRenderFlag(True)
    extrude.setHighlightFlag(True)
    extrude.setCurrent(True, True)
    viewer.enterCurrentNodeState()

HGaal
The question is essentially - how can I make it so that polyextrud is called up by hotkey indicating "extrudefront" in the groups?

PaQ WaK

HGaal
Blender and Cinema have an ultra feature with the creation and shift of an edge parallel to the original one and the shift of intersections. Both from the outer and inner ribs. I haven't found a simple way to implement this in Houdini. Who knows?
This, by the way, is a great idea for a “modeller”.

Yes I hope edge manipulation like that will find his way in Modeler, I'm used to slide-duplicate existing edges (with metric distance, not %) all the time in Modo too, especially for sub-d edge supports.

HGaal
Yes, the modeler add-on partially solves something, as I managed to form an opinion, but it is not unable to eliminate the main ulcers of the polysplit.

GCharb
IMO Houdini is the best DCC out there for VFX and CFX, there is no doubt in my mind about that, it is also very adept at direct modelling, with or without the Modeller plugin (I never used the Modeller plugin TBH), again, just watch the PolyMarvels YouTube channel, but there are things that Houdini just can't do, like sculpting or texture painting, you need a separate application for that...

ZBrush is still the king of sculpting, no question about that, the UI is still a bit clunky to me, but once you are used to it, there is no real limits to what you can sculpt in ZBrush, as it can handle hundreds of millions of polygons (I suggest at least 64GB of RAM to be able to use ZBrush to its full potential), just look at all the great artwork on ZBrush Central, ZBrush is amazing.

But ZBrush also has limitations, it is pretty good at auto retopology, but it is somewhat lacking for manual retopology, it is not the best at UV mapping either, ZModeler is a nightmare IMHO, and you can't paint PBR textures with it.

The second best at sculpting is 3D Coat, Voxel Sculpting is awesome, and the new live boolean is better than the one in ZBrush IMHO, it is the best tool I have ever used for retopology, better than Topogun or Retopoflow (Blender plugin), it is also really good at UV mapping, and it has the reputation of being better at PBR texture painting than Substance Painter, it also has top notch modelling and kitbash tools.

Another viable option for sculpting/painting is Mudbox, it is dead simple, it can handle high poly counts, but you can't create a base mesh with it, you need to either use one of the provided base mesh, or you need to create one in another application.

Pablo Dobarro, a former Blender developer, improved the Blender sculpting tools, he developed some very cool sculpting brushes for Blender, he also developed the Voxel Remesher (very cool), and a few other goodies.

But you can't sculpt high frequency details in Blender, mainly because Blender just can't handle large polycount like the other sculpting software can, your only option for high frequency details is to texture them, which gives mixed results, takes a lot of time, and it is not the way professional character artists work in the industry.

In 2021 Pablo Dobarro published a proposal on the Blender Developer's blog (see link bellow), in his proposal he acknowledges the limitations of Blender and the importance of high polycount for sculpting, so he proposed that Blender sculpting be handled in a separate application, one that does not have such heavy polycount limitations, the Blender Institute rejected his proposal, last I checked Pablo has left the Blender community and is now developing a VR sculpting application.

Asset Creation Pipeline Design [code.blender.org]

As for retopology, you need Retopoflow to have decent retopology tools in Blender, you need a plugin for decent UV mapping tools as well, and Blender sucks hard at texture painting, even with a plugin like BPainter, and the modelling tools are more than 15 years old.

I am 59 years old, I have been animating (2D) since I was 12, I have been at 3D since the late 80s, I used many pieces of software over the years, and I learned that the KISS principle is the best way to go, the less software I use while still being able to do the job at hand in the shortest amount of time, the better.

So I use two different pieces of software these days, Houdini and 3D Coat, these two can do anything I could ever need for my work/production, and they cost me a mere 248 USD a year (3D Coat cost 48 USD a year for updates after the initial purchase which include 12 months of updates), I truly believe that these two are the best combo for 3D artists/freelancers these days!

GCharb
There is a YouTube channel dedicated to direct modelling in Houdini, it's called PolyMarvels, very good, and no need for plugins, you might want to have a look...

HGaal

Алексей Ванжула

oldteapot7
Good luck with Modeler 2024!

Thank you! You can ask any question in the Modeler Discord channel. We will answer any questions related to Modeller and modeling in Houdini in general: https://discord.gg/Ud7xUcQfMu [discord.gg]

link does not work

HGaal
When will 2024 be released? Will this be a paid or free update?

oldteapot7
Good luck with Modeler 2024!