manually created … what does that stand for???

real banal question but it´s driving me real crazy. (note: i´m new to houdini)

i think it happens when i hit any key or something like that.
the result is that in the network view all nodes are called “manually created” insted of “grid” or “spehre” etc.

what does this mean and how do i get rid of that???

greetings gerd

N - hotkey, switches between name, no-name and this (Shelf Tool name)

The N hotkey toggles between node names, nothing, and how they were created.

This new feature in Houdini 11 is to help people better see where nodes are being generated from. If you used a shelf tool to put down one or more nodes, then using the N key to toggle to this info, it will show the name of the tool that created them. Manually Created means that you created a node from the Tab menu in the network editor.

ooh thanks!

this was really fast answering. now i know what to do with this!

gerd

There HAS to be a better place for this (admittedly) very handy piece of info. Three state toggles are a pain.

G

keyframe
There HAS to be a better place for this (admittedly) very handy piece of info. Three state toggles are a pain.

Yep … if anything, it should be displayed with the node info when you do MMB

Aye. I like this suggestion.

G

perhaps it's also possible to check for isBuiltExplicitly flag and then do something to the node (color it, comment it, pop up a dialog box, etc)? Albeit it's a handy info, but I wondered how will one use this info in order to warrant additional line of text added to the already long list of text…

Three state toggles are a pain.

Like this 5(?) state toggle, that's supposed to quickly toggle between object/world/grid coordinate systems in the viewport?

I agree in that it would be nice to have somewhere else. Or the ability to not toggle to it or disable it or whatever. I think it is definitely handy also in that it makes it easier for tool cleanup and whatnot when you need to remove nodes some tool has generated.

It is definitely possible to use it, or the isBuiltExplicitly flag inside a handler like OnCreated. If a node isn't manually created, it contains 2 entries in the nodes user data dictionary that provide the tool name and the number corresponding to the evocation of that tool which you can use for things. Manually created nodes have an empty dictionary by default.

>>> hou.node('/obj/box_object1').userDataDict()
{'___toolcount___': ‘1’, ‘___toolid___’: ‘sop_box’}

>>> hou.node('/obj/geo1').userDataDict()
{}

Yeah, we came across this a while back and it baffled us for days. As a toggle to the “n” hotkey, it's far from obvious.

Thanks