This is meant as a continuation of the discussion in the Softimage subforum. It was a nice 20-page thread, let's keep it going now that H14 is out. I haven't had a chance to really put it through its paces, but so far I'm very happy with what I'm seeing.

+ New edge loop selection. This will take a little bit of getting used to but I can dig it.
+ Finally, the viewport stops homing when you switch between different views with Space+1,2,3,4,5!
+ Pre-selection highlighting is fabulous. I like that the different selection modes like lasso and paint have their own shortcuts. Paint-select in particular now works much much better.
+ Really like the viewport SubDs with +/-. No more laying down Subdivide SOPs.
+ Indirect transforms with the middle-mouse button is very cool.
+ The new ghosted wireframe mode is simply the bees knees.
+ Finally we have local coordinates for component selections.
+ New group visualization seems pretty nifty.
+ Haven't checked out the new UV tools but I like that the T, R, E shortcuts now invoke a UVEdit instead of Edit, definitely something that's tripped me up in the past.
+ I do like the new background gradient.

I'm sure there's other stuff that I'm forgetting or haven't discovered yet. Huge kudos to SESI for putting work into this area. A couple of things I would love to see implemented in the future:

A revamped PolyBevel SOP
A PolyBridge SOP

Curious to hear what everyone else's experience has been so far.

Badly needed changes. Too few to make a difference so that specialized modelers to now want to come to model in Houdini.
Hopefully the changes and additions will pile up with each new version.

I think even if the improvement look small they indicate that SESI has understood what is needed. It is not surprising that there isn't “more” because most of the development focus has been on the pointdynamics for this release and weren't expecting that sudden demand from guys like us .
I think we can expect a lot more in the modelling field.
Also I think the selection tools and other additions are great, in some ways better than XSI's. they are very well thought through and intelligent. It also shows SESI are willing to pick up common ideas and improve them. It will take a while but the direction is set. I'm very optimistic.

i takes time and the man power at SESI is not that big like the guy's from the foundry or autodesk….. someone from sesi has writen in a forum post it takes 2 years for the required features that the xsi guy's wants. now nearly 1 year is over since the autodesk announcement and the update has significant updates in the requested area's (modeling, uv mapping, animation).

I too am glad that SESI has shown us they're willing to make Houdini a bit more “mainstream” by improving the modeling side and other aspects in the user-friendly category.
I'm just hoping that the pace will pick up a bit otherwise it will take at least three or four versions until I might consider investing (financially, time wise and emotionally) into Houdini.
If I were to own a big studio (when I say “big” it's not without reason) I'd do that right now, for the FX part if not something else. Currently I couldn't justify doing something like this since every time I try to work in the viewport Houdini antagonizes me in one way or another. Reminds me of Maya and why I chose to do without it (Softimage users will feel what I'm saying).

Closing with something more practical, I'd say (or rather repeat myself) that bevel and bridge tools are not what is currently missing the most in Houdini.
What is currently missing is a streamlined viewport interaction/workflow - the way transform tools work, how you display and isolate geometry/components and other things I don't recall right now.
And it then comes the need to improve the scene editors a bit. And orginizing the viewport ('D') and general preferences which are not that well organized IMO. I won't go into detail right now, but there are things that could benefit a lot from “shuffling” things around a bit.
Pretty sure these last words will send waves of bum cringes to Houdini veterans.

McNistor
I too am glad that SESI has shown us they're willing to make Houdini a bit more “mainstream” by improving the modeling side and other aspects in the user-friendly category.
I'm just hoping that the pace will pick up a bit otherwise it will take at least three or four versions until I might consider investing (financially, time wise and emotionally) into Houdini.
If I were to own a big studio (when I say “big” it's not without reason) I'd do that right now, for the FX part if not something else. Currently I couldn't justify doing something like this since every time I try to work in the viewport Houdini antagonizes me in one way or another. Reminds me of Maya and why I chose to do without it (Softimage users will feel what I'm saying).

Closing with something more practical, I'd say (or rather repeat myself) that bevel and bridge tools are not what is currently missing the most in Houdini.
What is currently missing is a streamlined viewport interaction/workflow - the way transform tools work, how you display and isolate geometry/components and other things I don't recall right now.
And it then comes the need to improve the scene editors a bit. And orginizing the viewport ('D') and general preferences which are not that well organized IMO. I won't go into detail right now, but there are things that could benefit a lot from “shuffling” things around a bit.
Pretty sure these last words will send waves of bum cringes to Houdini veterans.

I have to say, even as an hardline XSI user, I don't find it difficult to adapt to certain concepts in houdini. On the other hand, yes, streamlined workflows are whats missing most, but only in the modeling area. The way that most shelf tools work for dynamics is very efficient. Setting up a simtank is easier than anywhere else.

The funny thing, and I think that is typical for houdini, the more “high end” the task, the better the workflows and tools, while at the same time “low end” tasks like scene viewing, geometry manipulation (vertexpushing) and project management are significantly under evolved. This comes of course from it's history and it is not likely that we will see a complete change towards mainstream applications there. But I think it is likely, that we will see something that is worth to adapt and eventually make houdini even for XSI users a new home.

Although there are a few quirks the truth is that the release is huge in scope and features, not only UX but point dynamics and crowds are huge tasks that I am sure will keep evolving until they are finished, the same than the UX.

Good times ahead, now I am going to pray they incorporate overrides like XSI and we can all go for a beer.

;-)

jordibares
Although there are a few quirks the truth is that the release is huge in scope and features, not only UX but point dynamics and crowds are huge tasks that I am sure will keep evolving until they are finished, the same than the UX.

Good times ahead, now I am going to pray they incorporate overrides like XSI and we can all go for a beer.

;-)

I'm so glad you didn't use the term “the future is bright” :wink: …

Yeah, what's up everybody. It's been a while but I'm lucky to see that the discussion goes on.
I just recently checked out H14 and first wanna go over my personal thoughts on the new version and then want to add some things to it.

First of all I have to say that I was positivly surprised by some things and I can already feel improvement in workflow and UX. I still think there's a lot missing but I agree that

OneBigTree
SESI are willing to pick up common ideas and improve them. It will take a while but the direction is set. I'm very optimistic.

McNistor
I'm just hoping that the pace will pick up a bit otherwise it will take at least three or four versions until I might consider investing (financially, time wise and emotionally) into Houdini.

McNistor
…every time I try to work in the viewport Houdini antagonizes me in one way or another.

I described that in a different thread as “not working with the software, but against it”. I'm so feeling what you say.

McNistor
…I'd say (or rather repeat myself) that bevel and bridge tools are not what is currently missing the most in Houdini.
What is currently missing is a streamlined viewport interaction/workflow…

I would argue that to some extent. I do think that a proper repertory of tools/modeling tools and especially properly working tools is very important. Though the interaction with the software should also be improved, the best vieport interaction is worthless when you for example want to bridge something but that tool is not available. Speaking for myself I can say that I also painfully missed a BridgeSOP a good amount of times.

OneBigTree
The funny thing, and I think that is typical for houdini, the more “high end” the task, the better the workflows and tools, while at the same time “low end” tasks like scene viewing, geometry manipulation (vertexpushing) and project management are significantly under evolved.

+1

DaJuice
+ New edge loop selection. This will take a little bit of getting used to but I can dig it.
…
+ Pre-selection highlighting is fabulous. I like that the different selection modes like lasso and paint have their own shortcuts. Paint-select in particular now works much much better.
+ Really like the viewport SubDs with +/-. No more laying down Subdivide SOPs.
…
+ New group visualization seems pretty nifty.
…
+ I do like the new background gradient.

+ 1 to these.
I didn't know about the SubDs in the viewport, thanks.

I still would like add some things on the “wishlist”, since these are things that still make me keep my hands off Houdini.

- Although the new selection tools are an improvment they still feel a bit unpredictable. Most of the time I rectagle select over some faces but not all of them get selected. In addition to that, when I have “Area Pick Visible Geometry Only” checked, it still selects components adjacent to my selection but not visible.
- Adjusting groups via drag drop would be a small change with a big impact.
- I havn't looked at the uv tools yet but these are a big factor.
- transient key shortcuts are still missed here
- I personally still see the viewtool as unnecessary. It occupies shortcuts for little to no benefit, where more useful tools could be placed.
- The new background gradient would be even better if one could adjust the colors to his likings in the preferences.
- There is this cool button “open output drivers parameters” in the Render View. It would be cool to have that somewhere globally in the UI, so that one can open the rendersettings regardless in what panel is currently working.
- Print the rendertime to the MPlay window and the Render View by default. Why do I have to set this up manually and still look for these informations in numerous different places?
….
more is following.


I also wanna point out one thing:
In McNistors thread there was a long debate about naming and how much changing names would annoy old Houdini users. Well the “Details View” is successfully renamed to “Geometry Spreadsheet” and so far no one seems to sue SESI