Another ting about the GUI that has been bugging me ever since I started with Houdini, besides still having to select a viewport with "n" before being able to select the shading type, is the complete neglect of the RMB in Houdini.

It would speed up the workflow sooo much if we don't have to search where a function is hidden in a dropdown menu somewhere in a TAB when it could be right under the RMB in the viewport.

That goes for almost all functions in Houdini, just a single example; "Select Output" or "Input" to select a node tree, I have to go into the Network View, focus on the selected Node, make sure the mouse pointer is over the Node before I can finally select the node tree...really ??

Or while modeling Houdini knows I have some edges or polygons selected, why do I have to search for tools like polysplit or polyextrude in the TAB menu when the Sops related to edges, points or polygons could be automatically filtered and put right under the RBM ?

Considering the fancy features SideFX came up with in the 20.5 update stuff like this should be a piece of cake.

I dropped an RFE about this years ago....

SideFX UI design (or lack of that) is just... ad hoc.




Why do we need a special kind of wireframe for APEX? I asked SideFX support:

It is important for animators to know how their geometry is deforming to avoid issues.

(real quote from SideFX)

Yeah, so if you deform the geometry with all the other thousands of tools in Houdini, you don't need to know how your geometry is deforming to avoid issues. Totally makes sense.

It's just random. Everything seems to be created at the whim of whichever programmer who happens to be in charge of the current task. Zero coherence.

kodra
It's just random. Everything seems to be created at the whim of whichever programmer who happens to be in charge of the current task. Zero coherence.

That rings true, however I'm feeling ambivalent about this fact. Having a somewhat decentralized feature development, certainly comes with some benefits, because design by committee often found in corporations hinders innovation, but it clearly can devolve into chaos.

As a side note, I've been recently told by support after changing a hotkey, that they recommend not changing it, because after being changed, it no longer works as it's supposed to in every context. I haven't been given a bug number, I've been left with "we recommend to not change it".
That is just unacceptable as far I'm concerned.

citizen
That rings true, however I'm feeling ambivalent about this fact. Having a somewhat decentralized feature development, certainly comes with some benefits, because design by committee often found in corporations hinders innovation, but it clearly can devolve into chaos.

As a side note, I've been recently told by support after changing a hotkey, that they recommend not changing it, because after being changed, it no longer works as it's supposed to in every context. I haven't been given a bug number, I've been left with "we recommend to not change it".
That is just unacceptable as far I'm concerned.

The irony is Blender (an open source project) has much more centralized design today than Houdini...

(And a far better hotkey management system, but it's a given as it would be quiet hard to design a hotkey management worse than Houdini's)

Houdini 20.5 key improvements:
1. Vulkan viewport (Beta)
2. APEX (Beta)
3. Quad Remesher (Beta)
4. Sculpting (Beta)
5. Copernicus (Beta)
6. New Hotkeys System (Beta)
...

I can somewhat understand that some technologies can be tested for improvements in future versions, but a non-functional hotkeys system – how could this even be allowed? it's not just unfinished. it's non-functional.

alexeyvanzhula1984
Houdini 20.5 key improvements:
1. Vulkan viewport (Beta)
2. APEX (Beta)
3. Quad Remesher (Beta)
4. Sculpting (Beta)
5. Copernicus (Beta)
6. New Hotkeys System (Beta)
...

I can somewhat understand that some technologies can be tested for improvements in future versions, but a non-functional hotkeys system – how could this even be allowed? it's not just unfinished. it's non-functional.

Yup. And better than not having those imho. Except maybe hot key. Man you’re not scoring points with SideFX and developers

LukeP
Yup. And better than not having those imho. Except maybe hot key. Man you’re not scoring points with SideFX and developers

With the broken hotkeys system, it's difficult for me to finish my add-on that people need. In version 20, there were no issues at all with this.

alexeyvanzhula1984

LukeP
Yup. And better than not having those imho. Except maybe hot key. Man you’re not scoring points with SideFX and developers

With the broken hotkeys system, it's difficult for me to finish my add-on that people need. In version 20, there were no issues at all with this.

I hear you. Hope SideFX is listening and will fix it soon.

One of the most incomprehensible things to me is the very, very bad shading in the normal modeling mode with the default material. This is the worst shading of all the programs on the market, IMHO. Blender, Cinema, Maya, Rhino, Plasticity, Moi3D and others - the model is clearly visible everywhere and the sides are perfectly shaded. In Houdini, everything merges into a barely distinguishable spot. And this is very strange! After all, on the one hand, normal viewports in other programs, including free ones, say that this is an easy task, and on the other hand, SideFX has vast experience in developing two very high-quality renders, Mantra and Karma. But at the intersection, we have the worst viewport in the industry. How is this possible? It doesn't add up in my head. I had high hopes for Vulcan - but there is no difference.

RGaal
One of the most incomprehensible things to me is the very, very bad shading in the normal modeling mode with the default material. This is the worst shading of all the programs on the market, IMHO. Blender, Cinema, Maya, Rhino, Plasticity, Moi3D and others - the model is clearly visible everywhere and the sides are perfectly shaded. In Houdini, everything merges into a barely distinguishable spot. And this is very strange! After all, on the one hand, normal viewports in other programs, including free ones, say that this is an easy task, and on the other hand, SideFX has vast experience in developing two very high-quality renders, Mantra and Karma. But at the intersection, we have the worst viewport in the industry. How is this possible? It doesn't add up in my head. I had high hopes for Vulcan - but there is no difference.

I mean Houdini is the only program where I need to "Reset Viewport" and "Clear Texture Cache". Constantly. I honestly doesn't remember the last time I need to do that with Blender, 3DCoat or Substance. With Houdini, Rest Viewport is the first button everyone needs to learn.

The viewport is just that bad. It hasn't not even reached the point where we should care about the aesthetics aspect of default shading. As the old saying: make it work, then make it pretty. Houdini viewport is at "make it work" stage (and has stayed in this stage for how many years).

There are a few comments on this forum from SideFX staff talking about their vision about Vulkan viewport and new hotkey management. First of all, I'm deeply appreciate that they're at least willing to communicate. However, those posts truly show how far the staff are from the ground. Having a vision doesn't help the users when they can't even see hotkeys they set for shelf tools. It's not bitcoin. People use Houdini to solve their problems in hand, not for vision.

No matter how advanced {THE_NEW_THING} is in terms of software architecture, as long as it doesn't offer the feature parity with {THE_OLD_THING}, it shouldn't be the default and {THE_OLD_THING} shouldn't be obsoleted.

Ill just add one thing among many other that leaves me scratching my head and that is new Clip SOP, which is great when looking the feature set, but then once you start using it, you notice its using different type of handle that actually is missing many features that can be bound to shortcuts that are actually useful for faster modeling etc...
Honestly as QA, I have no idea how this could be released in this state, its just not good at all (Houdini overall). Why SideFX is doing this its beyond me. Damaging the good established reputation is no way to go. And Alex, if you wanna be in Alpha/Beta, you must own FX license, which is another wth for me.

Also, many bugs coming from Vulkan as its very tricky to replace and develop due to many complexities.

The longer I use Houdini, the more I realize how brilliant Softimage was.

I still use it for modeling, and it’s a relief to simply focus on the task at hand, instead of being in a wrestling match while trying to get a job done.

What happened to those SI developers, did any them end up at Sidefx ?

toonafish
The longer I use Houdini, the more I realize how brilliant Softimage was.

I still use it for modeling, and it’s a relief to simply focus on the task at hand, instead of being in a wrestling match while trying to get a job done.

What happened to those SI developers, did any them end up at Sidefx ?

I knew one while I was at Maxon, but then Maxon started doing what they are doing and lost him among many others. Not sure where rest of the people went, but I assume some went to Autodesk, some SideFX maybe, Unity, Epic etc.. Unfortunately, developers don't have much in saying how something should be developed (except code), they mostly do what they are told. So people should start blaming upper management, not devs or QA.

Whats the main problem with hotkeys? Iam not at learning stage that require using them (to be honest iam waiting for parameter pane UI overhaul and animation editor UI in general and only then i will train my muscle memory for more automated work by excersising with live Houdini. I mean remapping and rewireing my brain from other DCC to newest Houdini's UI . Till then iam more like researching H. possibilities and powers and iam more than happy about it. UI and UX is relative easy to fix.

By "whats wrong with H. hotkey" i mean what has changeg compared with prewious releases? Did they made new default hotkeys assing or what?

oldteapot7
Whats the main problem with hotkeys? Iam not at learning stage that require using them (to be honest iam waiting for parameter pane UI overhaul and animation editor UI in general and only then i will train my muscle memory for more automated work by excersising with live Houdini. I mean remapping and rewireing my brain from other DCC to newest Houdini's UI . Till then iam more like researching H. possibilities and powers and iam more than happy about it. UI and UX is relative easy to fix.

By "whats wrong with H. hotkey" i mean what has changeg compared with prewious releases? Did they made new default hotkeys assing or what?

here is a good answer: https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/97127/#post-427024 [www.sidefx.com]

oldteapot7
UI and UX is relative easy to fix.

In theory yes. In the real world, well, if it were easy Houdini wouldn't be like as it is.

Fun fact, it took Blender about 20 years to switch from right click select to left click select.

kodra
SideFX definitely has a quality control problem.

SideFX doesn't have a quality control problem whatsoever - SideFX is actually very high quality.

What Houdini does have a 'problem' with is some users that have a difficulty seeing(due too their own defect) that there is an extreme balance of things that actually do work and provide utility vs. issues and bugs which comparatively are on the extreme very low side.

UI/UX is probably second worst thing to develop after viewport as its interconnected with everything, everywhere. If it was easy, it would already be done.
Changing UX demands changes in workflows which by now is probably lost battle. And its also not really clear what is wrong with UI and UX to actually be drastically changed to better. Its and we can only hope some things will be changed to some extent for better overall experience.

BabaJ
SideFX doesn't have a quality control problem whatsoever - SideFX is actually very high quality.

They actually do have issue with quality. You cant release software in this kind of state...you can, but you shouldn't. Like Alexey said, we are all beta testers at this point with this kind of release.

BabaJ
SideFX doesn't have a quality control problem whatsoever - SideFX is actually very high quality.

What Houdini does have a 'problem' with is some users that have a difficulty seeing(due too their own defect) that there is an extreme balance of things that actually do work and provide utility vs. issues and bugs which comparatively are on the extreme very low side.

Yeah of course Houdini's bugs are the users' own defect. I hope SideFX best prosperity if this is their dev's mindset.

By the way, amongst the people who pointed out Houdini's issues in this thread, there are

- An actual QA guy
- A person who made probably the best Houdini modeling tutorial online.
- A developer of a quite advanced Houdini plugin.

But of course, it's their own defect, not Houdini's. In the interesting world of software design, the customers are always wrong.

PolyMarvels
Like Alexey said, we are all beta testers at this point with this kind of release.

Actually we are not...only for a small part of the program...that's the part you missed from my post.

There is so much more in Houdini that one can utilize for a wide variety of purposes that simply just works with no issues;
That means, it's not Beta.

kodra
- An actual QA guy
- A person who made probably the best Houdini modeling tutorial online.
- A developer of a quite advanced Houdini plugin.

Only 3 people....you forgot to mention the hundereds that don't even come on the forums because they are busy using Houdini for their own needs, and using the many aspects of Houdini that do work with no issues.

kodra
But of course, it's their own defect, not Houdini's. In the interesting world of software design, the customers are always wrong

In this case yes - there is a difference, like in your case when you continously are harping on the negatives, which are actually in a minority when you compare it to the positives - and I already mentioned that - but you ignore that.

Hopefully this thread gets locked down.

It's one thing to bring up issues, discuss and submit the bugs/rfes if it becomes clear it's not user inexeperience/mistakes.

But then, it's time to move on.

'Users' like yourself though, prefer to keep harping on the negatives repeatedly(and not move on) which serves no one who hopes to come on the the forum and learn something without having to wade through complaints.

Again, hope it gets shut down(these threads that keep harping the same issue) and that I've contributed towards that.