A setting to hide all the legacy and deprecated kruft; shops, mat , image, out context, object level character rigging etc. When you open Houdini for the first time you are presented with the "Lights & Camera" tab taking up a good chunk of the interface, almost all of which is deprecated. It makes the interface unnecessarily confusing for new users.

I think that Houdini 20 should be a big big milestone version.

-First of all, the dated UI look and UX is basically unchanged since version 12 from 2012!
When looking at Embergen UI, or C4D or even Blender UIs, they are so clean, so fast, so responsive in comparison. Even when totally empty, Houdini's UI painfully moves at 15fps that doesn't feel right.
Also, lots of elements of the user interface are not consistent or hard to read. A big work regarding the UX is needed for years.

-Cleanup the obsolete parts!
In prod, we are not opening scenes from old Houdini versions very often. Retro-compatibility at all cost is creating many more issue than solutions. Houdini 20 should be a good case to finally get rid of the crumbs and updates HDA's still relying on shop nodes by example.

-Make Houdini codebase faster and way lighter.
Code legacy really impacts performances and the workflow too much. The hype is note going to last forever SESI, and you should be careful, because I think you rely too much on your past achievements.

I would prefer that you take your time to cook a Houdini v20 that is a TRUE milestone, rather than presenting something that is 98% Houdini v19.5 with the usual set of improvement.

I really like the UI. I think the UX is great once once you get used to it... its a 3D framework not a typical 3D app. Yes of course there's bound to be room for incremental improvement, however as an ex 3DS Maxer one thing that infurated me about their development cycle was the constant messing with UI in a way that seem to be used to distract from a slow feature upgrade path. Houdini jumps leaps and bounds with each release.

Hatchery
I really like the UI. I think the UX is great once once you get used to it... its a 3D framework not a typical 3D app. Yes of course there's bound to be room for incremental improvement, however as an ex 3DS Maxer one thing that infurated me about their development cycle was the constant messing with UI in a way that seem to be used to distract from a slow feature upgrade path. Houdini jumps leaps and bounds with each release.

The Houdini's node view itself is good. Actually the best node-based editor I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot, Unity Playmaker, Unity Shadergraph, Unreal Blueprint, Blender Geometry Nodes, Substance Designer, Nuke...).

The problem of Houdini is all the other things suck. Customizing parameter panel, the tiny "Callback Script" field, the animation window...

have an easier way to customize the user interface without having to edit the JSON files

Hatchery
I really like the UI. I think the UX is great once once you get used to it...

I think many complaints about the UI and UX are from people using Houdini for many years, who are already accustomed to Houdini.

i use a lot of fusion (compositing software), and was discussing how the fusion UI could be improved. i constantly referred to houdini on how functional it was. shortcuts for everything, clear and comfortable buttons/colors, no "trendy" design choices, just functionality. i love that. I really think the houdini UI is one of the best i've experienced.

I suppose when you’re used to driving a Flintstones car, a Trabant is just brilliant ;-)

that might be an incredibly suitable comparison

well i guess my point is that Blackmagic really ruined the fusion UI (IMO, and with me a lot of other experienced users), by forcing a "sleek/modern" UI into the software. with that, they also removed some good features for whatever reason, and really pissed off a significant amount of users.

I think we were used to a trabant, and got replaced by a renault twizy.

I think the overall UI is good in terms of looks and functionality, not that there isn't room for improvement as some have suggested here, but the most thing that I feel it's missing is the ability to freely move and dock panels around, split them, stack them etc. There are many programs, 3d and not, that have this feature, so it's not like this would be a very experimental and therefore risky thing to implement when it comes to user acceptance.

Houdini CoPilot AI, especially useful for Vex, Python, and automatic Node setups.

rickapex
i use a lot of fusion (compositing software), and was discussing how the fusion UI could be improved. i constantly referred to houdini on how functional it was. shortcuts for everything, clear and comfortable buttons/colors, no "trendy" design choices, just functionality. i love that. I really think the houdini UI is one of the best i've experienced.

Houdini interface has strange issues from time to time and I do think working at node level could be improved... WHY press TAB at all if you type a string like 'sphe' in an empty geo node or if I drag a wire I should type immediately things my imagination desires without the disruption of TAB. I do this all the time forgetting to press TAB as a baby Houdini (but not a baby pro in other worlds)...

Having stated the previous, I agree with you, Houdini UI is largely remarkable in spite of the beasts lurking underneath its oceans, explosions, and perfunctory twisted and frayed wire animations.

威欣顿1
Rumors and thoughts on Houdini 20?

Hopefully the karma xpu will support amd Gpu

1595835584

威欣顿1
Rumors and thoughts on Houdini 20?

Hopefully the karma xpu will support amd Gpu

...and the remaining unimplemented MtlX Transmission features! I have some plexiglass to render in the nearby future.

Is there a way to use NVLink on 2x RTX 3090ti video cards and render with XPU? I need more gpu memory.
I believe Arnold can utilise this to pool the memory.
T.

Tser
Is there a way to use NVLink on 2x RTX 3090ti video cards and render with XPU? I need more gpu memory

Sadly not for XPU ATM.
More details here (and in the thread)
https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/89388/#post-387366 [www.sidefx.com]

brians

Tser
Is there a way to use NVLink on 2x RTX 3090ti video cards and render with XPU? I need more gpu memory

Sadly not for XPU ATM.
More details here (and in the thread)
https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/89388/#post-387366 [www.sidefx.com]

I really hope they will support "out of core" in XPU mode because for big VFX projects XPU its not useful at all.
and most of the studios using Houdini for big VFX projects . Soo I will be surprised if they won't support it in Houdini 20.

cushwa

biborax
my H20 expectation list:
tutorials, tutorials,and tutorials and courses, and especially recent ones, to learn Houdini correctly.
Notably to learn how to use karma...
and maybe an evolution of modeling tools, so that people use houdini for modeling and not just VFX.

I have heard rumors that Sidefx is working on a new "QuadRemesher" of their own. Good!. Many Many things are happening in the modeling area in world of computer graphics. Adobe is coming out with a modeling package and there have been other new apps the are also based on Signed Distance Field tech such as womp3D. Houdini has such great voxel manipulating technology but it has not coalesced into a decent workflow. The KineFX workflow has so much possibility for areas other than just rigging and animation. It could be the basis for an amazing SDF sculpting workflow if there was the will to do it. Houdini feels as though it is being left behind in this area. Sculpting is becoming MORE important to contemporary workflows.. not less important. I hope that Houdini 20 sees progress in this area.

I agree. I would love to see more modeling tools and more streamlined workflow in that field. People are complaining but I think that modeling in HOudini is interesting. You just need to adjust a little. Really hoping to see more on that front in Houdini 20.

https://www.sidefx.com/houdini-hive/fmx-2023/#feather [www.sidefx.com]

(Funny this thread is going from rumors, to wishes to feature requests)

Can SideFX please make everything hotkeyable or pie menuable? Even stuff in the File, Edit, Render, Assets, Windows......blah, blah, blah......everything should be easily made into a hotkey and or radial menu. All those accoutrements in the Scene view window....I would love to be able to pick out some of those an put them into a radial menu.

Also please consider upgrading the radial menu to 'grow a beard'...meaning we get a stack of commands below the radial menu. Like this