Fallen in Love with ‘pro’ colours and a floating viewer ala Nuke (thanks pezetko) - which i can hide or reveal with shortcut - clean and neat. Also what makes it work great is the abiltiy to push around windows with the super key - being linux - rather than grabbing the tilebar all the time.

one cool tip i use a lot.
alt+p on the work pane that you want your timeline to be in.very handy if you use two monitors.

MartybNz
All the shelf tools can be made just to text, no icon.

Thanks. I don't like it now that I've tried it.

I think the SI UI's most advance is Unicode Support. I can use non-english character in everywhere such as object name, file browser, comment and so on.

1: The magic numbers a hindrance to new users.

when you type in $ you get the drop down you get a list of commands.
i.e.:

ch
e
eye
….

this is pretty opaque
if you labelled them in the drop down menu it will make them far less intimidating for people who have never worked with them before.
Ch channel
…
it also saves the time to trying to look up E in the help.

2: I do not like the way drop down menus persist.
click 1 dropdown menu
click 2 close drop down menu
click 3 next icon menu opens
please try to make it so that if you click on an icon the menu appears without the need to click to close a previous menu it makes the interface feel sluggish and the interface is pretty nicely laid out and attractive this makes it feel less fluid that it should. Also I a user needs to have a menu persist it would be preferable to have it as either a tear off menu or to allow it to be pinned.

3 :Gray out selection modes that are not possible on the selection icons and drop down menus (i.e. if I cant select edges on a primitive cone don't tell me I can in the selection icon.)

4: The selection tool feel over-complicated and awkward please correct me if I am wrong but this is what it feels like (I apologise if the terminology if not correct):
-selection tool
-set object mode for select tool
-choose object
-select subcomponent selection - point, edge etc…
-Reset object mode for select tool in order to select another object

it feels like there are a lot of intermediate steps a where a more simple
-select tool selects objects
-subcomponent tools select subcomponents
model would be quicker and more immediate.
in other words.
“s” -> cube -> “2” -> select point -> “s” -> sphere -> “2” -> select Point
instead of.
set “s” to object -> “s” -> cube -> “2” -> select point -> set “s” to object -> “s” -> sphere -> “2” -> select Point


in short I really like the look and layout of the interface but there are a few places where I feel I have to click twice instead of once ore feel like I am going through too many steps for very simple operations especially the selection. Too put it bluntly after my experiments so far Houdini is awesome and is definitely the tool I am going to be replacing Softimage with over the next few years but if I was still a kid without knowledge or experience I would probably have gone with Maya because In Houdini selecting a cube felt more difficult and the expressions looked more complicated than they actually are.

Simon

p.s. I hope the last comments don't sound offensive as that is not my intetion

Simon__hayes
it feels like there are a lot of intermediate steps a where a more simple

Good call - this would allow a more viewport centric workflow. Less clicks is more!

Simon__hayes
p.s. I hope the last comments don't sound offensive as that is not my intetion

Plain speaking is encouraged in the SI Users forums! Thanks for the ideas.

I must confess there are a few things to improve like for example, in XSI you can shift click on a popup and does not close so you can carry on selecting… or for example in Photoshop you can have tons of nodes visibility and click drag and you turn them all off/on…

But there is one thing I really like and it is that Houdini is very tablet friendly unlike XSI or Maya… certainly you can use them but in Houdini is obviously better…

The problem is that typing node names counteracts the whole idea of a tablet approach as you constantly go back and forth so the ergonomics could be much better.

Furthermore, the stowed icons are tiny and this is the kind of thing XSI excels because there are no icons… simple text very well organised.

anyway, just me rambling but the idea I guess I want to communicate is that there are a few things that may be worth reviewing whilst keeping the whole tablet friendly approach.

Give us tablet users a pan option in the parameter window and we'll be 1000x more productive! Much better than the scroll bar

Great idea. Using tablet with Houdini is great, but improvements like this will be even better.

+1 for tablet user improvements. I didn't know there were that many

One bug/issue is if you use the value ladder beyond the tablet extents, the value increments astronomically. Not sure if this can be fixed.

There is also the issue of value ladder being shown using wrong offsets so you have to compensate for the right increment to use contrary to what's highlighted, regardless of tablet use though:

Is it possible to have Group type drop down menus be a toggle for the actual drop down? Example, in the Material SOP. Selecting multiple groups require so many clicks.

It's worse when you have to scroll. It would be nice if it stayed down until you rolled it back up. Appending your choices appropriately while staying down. Shift clicking it for example. Wildcards are great but sometimes you just have to manually add them. How do other people work when items have oh, 20+ unique names?

Simon__hayes
if you labelled them in the drop down menu it will make them far less intimidating for people who have never worked with them before.

I think that would be a good idea. I think the only potential fear I have with this is if the descriptions cannot fit on a single line.

2: I do not like the way drop down menus persist.
click 1 dropdown menu
click 2 close drop down menu
click 3 next icon menu opens

Which menu are you talking about in particular? I think if you single-click and release a menu, then it stays open. If you click and drag, then the menu disappears as soon as you release.

3 :Gray out selection modes that are not possible on the selection icons and drop down menus (i.e. if I cant select edges on a primitive cone don't tell me I can in the selection icon.)

Component selection (aka in “SOPs”) can have multiple geometry types so if you had a tube primitive with a polygon box merged together, then you can most definitely select edges. The selection modes are just ways that you want to make a selection.

4: The selection tool feel over-complicated and awkward please correct me if I am wrong but this is what it feels like (I apologise if the terminology if not correct):

I'm not sure I quite get this. Once I hit ‘s’, I'm in the selection tool. Then the 1/2/3/4 keys switch between selecting objects, points, etc. OR do you mean to select components on a different object without leaving the SOP level?

edward

Simon__hayes
if you labelled them in the drop down menu it will make them far less intimidating for people who have never worked with them before.

I think that would be a good idea. I think the only potential fear I have with this is if the descriptions cannot fit on a single line.

2: I do not like the way drop down menus persist.
click 1 dropdown menu
click 2 close drop down menu
click 3 next icon menu opens

Which menu are you talking about in particular? I think if you single-click and release a menu, then it stays open. If you click and drag, then the menu disappears as soon as you release.

3 :Gray out selection modes that are not possible on the selection icons and drop down menus (i.e. if I cant select edges on a primitive cone don't tell me I can in the selection icon.)

Component selection (aka in “SOPs”) can have multiple geometry types so if you had a tube primitive with a polygon box merged together, then you can most definitely select edges. The selection modes are just ways that you want to make a selection.

4: The selection tool feel over-complicated and awkward please correct me if I am wrong but this is what it feels like (I apologise if the terminology if not correct):

I'm not sure I quite get this. Once I hit ‘s’, I'm in the selection tool. Then the 1/2/3/4 keys switch between selecting objects, points, etc. OR do you mean to select components on a different object without leaving the SOP level?

true about the labels but they were just a suggestion there are other options like tooltips for you can get long and detailed explanations of classes in visual studio when you use the intellisense. and advantage of tooltips over labels would be the ability to turn them off if when you have become comfortable with what they mean.

with the drop down menus pretty much all of them are persisting on my system (dell xps, windows 7, wacom tablet).

probably a better way of phrasing the selection question is why do you have the s key it is redundant? why not just have 1 objects 2 edges 3 …..

I really hope that operation do not propagate backwards through the tree if I merge a primitive sphere and a poly box I want them to only have properties affected by the merge node. On the sphere level if the icons where greyed out it would be a visual feedback as to the nature of the sphere at that level and it should hopefully till be a primitive at that level and not a polymesh.

with the drop down menus pretty much all of them are persisting on my system (dell xps, windows 7, wacom tablet).

Anybody notice mouse context “errors”, maybe it's the same profound concept problem here.

An Example: you are over a 3d view, press alt + clic to pan, releasing the mouse (but keep alt pressed) then move to another 3d view, clic … duhhh, the previous viewport is panning, not the one under my mouse.
Maybe this is a first step to the sticky keys ;-)

Simon__hayes
with the drop down menus pretty much all of them are persisting on my system (dell xps, windows 7, wacom tablet).

I might've phrased my problem wrong. The menu's do indeed stay down, but when you select an item, it automatically rolls back up. Which is ok most of the time but…

If you want to add multiple items, you have to roll it back down, select and repeat for every single item you wish to add. If it stayed down for you to select multiple items that'd be great.

I don't know if its a UI redraw issue because it adds the (*) to the drop down list. And I by no means want to replace how it currently works, only add to it. Say Shift-Click.

And I agree NNois. I made a lengthy post on Page 5 of the modelling thread regarding viewport interaction.

An Example: you are over a 3d view, press alt + clic to pan, releasing the mouse (but keep alt pressed) then move to another 3d view, clic … duhhh, the previous viewport is panning, not the one under my mouse.

Pressing Alt/Space in a viewport locks you do that viewport until you release the key. This is because often people will use many mouse drags to accomplish a single pan or tumble (back & forth). Releasing the focus lock when you released the mouse would cripple this fairly common case, as you'd accidentally pan other viewports (and perhaps even the network editor).

twod

An Example: you are over a 3d view, press alt + clic to pan, releasing the mouse (but keep alt pressed) then move to another 3d view, clic … duhhh, the previous viewport is panning, not the one under my mouse.

Pressing Alt/Space in a viewport locks you do that viewport until you release the key. This is because often people will use many mouse drags to accomplish a single pan or tumble (back & forth). Releasing the focus lock when you released the mouse would cripple this fairly common case, as you'd accidentally pan other viewports (and perhaps even the network editor).

Well I'm sorry but releasing a button should end any action.
This is not a common case at all as we haven't this behavior in Softimage/Modo/Nuke/Maya/AE etc because this just prevent iterating actions faster

Edit:And I think it's the founding of Softimage Snapping and Selections. Surelly there is many other case where using common “Modifiers Keys, CTRL/Alt/Shift” can help to perform multiples actions in sequence. Make sense ?

Please sorry for my very crappy french english.

NNois
Well I'm sorry but releasing a button should end any action.
This is not a common case at all as we haven't this behavior in Softimage/Modo/Nuke/Maya/AE etc because this just prevent iterating actions faster
.

Can you give an example steps how it prevents iterations?

Thanks!

Just tried it in XSI.

Softimage:
4 split Scene View:
1-hit and hold spacebar, drag and hold mouse button so you navigate in one view, release mouse button.
2-Click and drag in another view while still holding spacebar - navigate in another view (the one that was clicked).
Release spacebar (end navigate tool and switch to previous tool automatically).

Houdini:
4 split Scene View:
1-hit and hold spacebar, drag and hold mouse button so you navigate in one view, release mouse button.
2-Click and drag in another view while still holding spacebar - navigate in same view as during (1) view (the one where spacebar was first pressed)

In Softimage there are two states how to access viewport (that are accessible with scripting) 1. Active viewport and 2. Viewport under mouse cursor.

hmm - osX version doesn't lock to a viewport like that.