Great news about snapping.
BTW, I have added a while ago some stuff about snapping. It's at the bottom of the page, take a look and share your thoughts.

Regarding the Houdini feeling like a boxing match when modeling in it, is a feeling I have related to the overall experience, little things adding up.
Now, we have this thread and the page I created for addressing particulars with logic in order to leave out feelings.

McNistor
Regarding the Houdini feeling like a boxing match when modeling in it, is a feeling I have related to the overall experience, little things adding up.
Now, we have this thread and the page I created for addressing particulars with logic in order to leave out feelings.
:)

Sorry - I meant, when does Houdini make automatic selections apart from ‘create in context’. Just trying to address that point or has that been addressed too?

Thanks!

Well, apart from when you set the primitive type to polygon mesh
and have the polys (primitives) selected which we already discussed and concluded that if selection memory is implemented it wouldn't be such a big deal and I can live with that especially if there are situations in which might be useful for things unrelated to modeling, there's the “selecting” or rather activating of the ‘Y’ tool and view tool in some/many situations.

It's the reason I said on my page that Houdini shouldn't try to select or revert to any tool or selection set (points, edges, etc.)

I haven't addressed the quirks of the view tool yet, but it will definitely come soon.

McNistor
I haven't addressed the quirks of the view tool yet, but it will definitely come soon.

Cool - I'd be interested to hear this, it's been brought many times by new users and has always been deflected away. Not sure the disadvantages of having it; eagerly awaiting the review!

MartybNz
Not sure the disadvantages of having it;

I won't argue its existence, only the way it works and how it integrates into the mix of things.

Do you mean the 'Show Handle' tool instead of the' View' tool'?

Users of other 3d software have argued the View tool is redundant before. You'll need a very strong argument to affect the view tool

McNistor
I don't understand why both you and Marty don't read what I say exactly as I say it.
On the page I said: Create a box and set its primitive type to polygon mesh
I didn't say Houdini will select polys immediately after I create the box.
I said "and set its primitive", therefore after you create it, you enter in SOP and set the primitive type to polygon mesh.
Then it does select all the polys.

No it doesn't. Try to move the handle. It moves whole box because it sets its Center parameter. If you drag the scale part of the handle it changes Size parameter.

To select polygons you have to set your tool to Select (S key) and select something. Only exception is if you switch to Select tool and then you switch to Transform tool, that way it creates Edit SOP with all polygons in Group parameter of Edit SOP.

McNistor
What purpose does it serve to hide (by deactivating display points setting) points when in both object as well as point mode?

It's great to have the posibility to turn on/off point visibility inside different Contexts. Often we don't want to have the viewport cluttered with mess. (Try to work with milions of points). And in Houdini you do much more work inside Object context (deformation/DOP) then in XSI.

In XSI you usually work in Object level (context) and go into editing geometry context only sometimes. You can't turn off point display in XSI when you are in edit geometry mode (although it is possible to set the point size to smaller value). That jumping between edit geometry and object level context in Houdini would be insane and terribly slow from point of workflow. (You would need a lot of pinning the viewport, jumping between contexts just to see result and so on) And also if you work with mesh that has milions of points you don't want to have all of them visualized, you usually need to see just the shape (polygons).

From my point of view it's pretty smart behaviour. You want see points? Turn them on. You don't want? Turn them off. No need to fiddle with point size.

McNistor
If the brush tool would not be able to select by simply LMB clicking but only by making a stroke (like it is now), then we need a raycast like selection tool. Otherwise I agree with the improvements you proposed to which I'd add the option to save a default after making a customization.

I don't use mouse. So it works for me with tablet. So if LMB click doesn't select anything it would be better to send it as RFE for Brush Picking tool. (Much better then request of new tool that do same thing).
Possibility of saving default settings for any tool is always good.

Raycast part of the selection is already there and could be turn on with Shift+V (Area Select Visible Geometry only).

McNistor
In many areas Houdini tries to reinvent the wheel for things already sorted out which work simple and intuitively…

You cannot play the piano same way as you play flute.

Try to imagine frustration of Houdini users that comes to the Max or Maya for the first time and realise that they cannot access vital core components directly but has to do a lot of scripting, C programming or buying plugins.
E.g. look at 3dsmax navigation style, it's completely different than Maya and there are plenty of users that use it every day and don't complain.

Consolidate Corner Points:

McNistor
OK, thanks for the info.
The only suggestion to make here then is to have that setting off by default (for the viewport display, not at rendertime if that propagates to there) and the reason to this is to avoid future discussions started by new users.

This option changes also the number of points. If it is off the faces are unwelded, so you have 3 points with 3 diferent normals so you can have sharp difference between faces.

Usually you care about render look just before you are finished with modeling, so there is good reason to have it off by default and add cusp polygons after that (with Facet node and Angle control).

In XSI and Maya you have more than one normal (actually three) for box corner by default (you can verify it by displaing Normals) (in Maya you can set selection to Vertex Face to visualize the individual points with corresponding normals)

In XSI there is Angle parameter in Discontiunity on Geometry Approximation property (Polygon Mesh Tab) that does similar polygon cusping based on the angles between two polygons (edges) automatically. Turn it off (or set angle value over 90 degrees) and you can see that you get only one normal in box corner and similar shading like in Houdini.

So it's like having Box SOP (polymesh) and appended Facet SOP (Geometry Approximation property).

Again, Houdini offers more granular workflow. You add only what you want and need. It's better to cook from basic ingredients than from oven-ready meal.

MartybNz
Do you mean the 'Show Handle' tool instead of the' View' tool'?

No, the view tool. The pink one in your drawing.

MartybNz
Users of other 3d software have argued the View tool is redundant before. You'll need a very strong argument to affect the view tool

I'm a Softimage user therefore I'm used to having a view tool equivalent ('S' key), thus I'm going to merely suggest some improvements as far as how it functions within the current scheme of things.

Ugh pezetko, you're giving me a such a hard time.
I'll address your points tomorrow or… sometime.

Just adding to the default tool.

We usually (almost always) want to have default tool activated (for faster and more intuitive workflow).

When I create Box (primitive) I want to have default tool selected so I can setup size and center. Than I can do anything else like selecting polygons, points or adding other SOPs.

When you append Paint SOP why would you want to stay in Transform tool anymore?
Because if you stay than if you move something in the viewport you would be adding Edit SOP and be out of the Paint SOP. That way you would have to go back to the Paint SOP, change tool to default one (Y) and paint. That seems prety slow to me.

When I add Paint SOP I'm basically saying now I want tool for painting, so I would expect that it sets the tool into Painting mode (what it does currently).

When I select some polygon and append Polyextrude SOP I want that default handle so I can extrude that polygon (while keeping history) and then I can select any other component and tweak that with Edit SOP. (That way I can always return to the Polyextrude SOP and change the amount of extruding).

If it wouldn't change to default SOP's handle then I would have to change the tool, or if I forgot to change it I would got Polyextrude SOP with zero amount of extrusion and I lost that amount of extrusion in Edit SOP (without being able to change it later by changing just one parameter).

When you create your camera while Transform tool is active why the camera controllers (Y tool) should be hidden by default?

That seems ineffective workflow to me.

McNistor
Ugh pezetko, you're giving me a such a hard time. Laughing
I'll address your points tomorrow or… sometime.

Thanks, I'm long time XSI user so I don't want to see bad habbits from XSI bringed into Houdini but bring just the best and improve it. :wink:

All good points too, Pezetko.

pezetko
When I create Box (primitive) I want to have default tool selected so I can setup size and center. Than I can do anything else like selecting polygons, points or adding other SOPs.

Maybe the confusion that McNistor is having is that what appears to be Primitive/polygon selection is actually the object just highlighting… maybe a simpler highlight, an outline around the geo, or other style of highlight, would be better?

I'm not confused by it, but it might make things clearer for modelling… who knows

Is it possible to display Bezier handles?

katana13
Is it possible to display Bezier handles?

No, not currently. The closet thing is turning on Hulls. Display Options/Markers/Hulls

Sticky Keys!!!!!!!!!! / Great hotkeys

For example, while the Tweak Component Tool (M) is activated in Softimage, and I'm moving around Points and Faces, at any moment, I can hold down and keep held down the “]” key, and then middle clicking an edge will create an edge loop split, and then, when I release the “]” key I am automatically exited from the loop split tool and right back into the Tweak Component Tool without having to manually exit or re-activate.

Like being on the paint brush tool in Photoshop, and holding alt+click to sample a new color and when you let go of alt, your back to painting without having to press “b” again.

Instead of changing the “consolidate corner points” default of the box sop, maybe its better to add a parameter to the box sop, defaulted on, mimicking the “vertex sop” with “cusp normal” activated.

“consolidate corner points” actually breaks the points apart, while vertex “cusp normal” doesn't effect the geometry structure, while still allowing the expected normal display for the viewport.

MartybNz
If this is a workaround then Mantra also exhibits the same issue The SmoothShaded viewport is most likely using Phong shading, when a primitive with smooth normals is viewed with a headlight this is the correct shading. I read somewhere that Maya, probably SI, puts down a cube with cusped normals automatically, which then explains why people are not be familiar with this.

You can toggle the ‘Consolidate Corner Points’ checkbox on Box obj, and, if you turn on normals display in the viewport you will see so-called ‘correct’ shading

This is a common complaint on the forums, that for someone testing Houdini says it looks terrible, so maybe it could be changed to default to ‘Consolidate Corner Points’, though the advantage is it does force you to learn more about normals, which is good in the long run.

MartybNz
Maybe the confusion that McNistor is having is that what appears to be Primitive/polygon selection is actually the object just highlighting… maybe a simpler highlight, an outline around the geo, or other style of highlight, would be better?

I'm not confused by it, but it might make things clearer for modelling… who knows

Yeah, maybe. But that goes to show how things could be improved regarding the visual feedback Houdini gives to the user.

pezetko
It's great to have the posibility to turn on/off point visibility inside different Contexts. Often we don't want to have the viewport cluttered with mess. (Try to work with milions of points). And in Houdini you do much more work inside Object context (deformation/DOP) then in XSI.

In XSI you usually work in Object level (context) and go into editing geometry context only sometimes. You can't turn off point display in XSI when you are in edit geometry mode (although it is possible to set the point size to smaller value). That jumping between edit geometry and object level context in Houdini would be insane and terribly slow from point of workflow. (You would need a lot of pinning the viewport, jumping between contexts just to see result and so on) And also if you work with mesh that has milions of points you don't want to have all of them visualized, you usually need to see just the shape (polygons).

From my point of view it's pretty smart behaviour. You want see points? Turn them on. You don't want? Turn them off. No need to fiddle with point size.

Fair enough. If you say that there are non-modeling related reasons for someone to want the points not be displayed while in point mode I'll take your word for it.

But from a pure modeling standpoint I don't think there are any. I don't think there's a modeler that wants to see the points only when in select mode and have them hidden when transforming them.

Now the current solution to this kinda works, but “kinda” because it doesn't cover everything. For example if I set point visibility on, everything's great and I can even go ahead and say that I like the fact that when I go into object mode it automatically disables that option and when I go back into points it remembers that I had it activated and it's on again.

Where things break apart is when I go from points to edges/poly and the behavior I mentioned above is no longer replicated. I don't want to see points when I'm in edge, the info is unneeded and unwanted in most situations (one exception would be when snapping when points should toggle their visibility temporarily or have at least have the option for that behavior).

The solution to this I think is rather simple: to that display points icon, add an option (indicated by the small black arrowhead) as a checkbox "point mode only" or something like that. Or have the memory thing going on and remember the setting for each mode. That would allow to keep the current behavior for those that make use of it and also add the possibility for modelers to have points visible when in point mode only.
What do you think?

McNistor
The solution to this I think is rather simple: to that display points icon, add an option (indicated by the small black arrowhead) as a checkbox "point mode only" or something like that. Or have the memory thing going on and remember the setting for each mode. That would allow to keep the current behavior for those that make use of it and also add the possibility for modelers to have points visible when in point mode only.
What do you think?

+1 for that. I really like how it work's now. But having the option to have points visible independently of current active tool only as long as selection type si set to Points (2 key) makes sense from modeler point of view and mimic more behaviour of interaction during modeling in XSI.

To transform a component (points, edge, primitive, ..) according to local space of an another component (points, edge, primitive) seems important. This other component may or may not belong to the same object. It seemed to me that it missed some features in Houdini but I'm not 100% sure. What do you think?

NB: This behavior is valid for other types of components's selection.

josh3light
Instead of changing the “consolidate corner points” default of the box sop, maybe its better to add a parameter to the box sop, defaulted on, mimicking the “vertex sop” with “cusp normal” activated.

“consolidate corner points” actually breaks the points apart, while vertex “cusp normal” doesn't effect the geometry structure, while still allowing the expected normal display for the viewport.

Agree but the VertexSop twists the normals so they are flush to geo in very strange ways.

Edit: which appears to be how Maya puts a box down, with perturbed normals Blender creates good normals and has the display set to Flat by default. Once it's set to Smooth then the same ‘issues’ as Houdini.

Derek Mondelli
Sticky Keys!!!!!!!!!! / Great hotkeys

.

Transient keys i.e. sticky keys are definitely on the radar- Hopefully with the upgraded snapping tools to being with.