I am not a coder, but as a long-time user of various software packages, I have learned following about software development:
Alpha and Beta stages are closed, and these are the phases where the fastest growth of new features occurs. Then there is the release day of the new version, where all users begin testing it in their weird and unexpected ways (those are the real beta testers).
So, for production environments where a team of artists is working, it's better to choose previous version (H20 in this case), because it has been tested by a large number of people.
And never switch versions during production. It’s the Technical Director's (TD) responsibility to choose the appropriate version of the software for the project. Of coure you should play with newest versions for fun at home (and send bug reports)
Thanks to rapid evolution of Houdini (which I love!), changes must be made, and with those changes, new bugs are introduced. This is why developing plugins for Houdini that will work with new versions must be frustrating, which explains why there are so few plugins (also because you can create anything in Houdini yourself).
Alexey is a hardcore user who is stress testing Houdini in the modeling area. I hope it stays that way because it's the best method for improving the software as a whole. But his reports should be given the highest priority.
In Houdini, as far as I know, for bug fix, you have to send an RFE (Request for Enhancement) where you have to recreate the issue. During production, there's no time for that. I never sent those automatic bug reports from Autodesk DCCs because I was so frustrated at losing work time (though I save very often using incremental numbers, so my files don’t get corrupted).
So, maybe there should be system in Houdini for sending bugs related to Python and UI that wouldn’t require recreating the entire scene? (and I’m not allowed to send any original scene files anyway). It’s TD’s job to recreate bugs and send them to software developers.
Maybe, in future, users will send bug reports with a small amount of cryptocurrency, like Ethereum, and bugs with higher stakes (more money) will be fixed faster automatically by some LLM with trillions of parameters... or by a more skilled human?
I wonder how AI will impact software development.
Anyway, is
Python fused with Houdini’s code (VEX), or is it a separate layer (node)? And how are those problems fixed from a developer's perspective? It's very interesting to me. How should i imagine this under the hood underlying software layers or something
it will help me awoid potential crushes during work.
Saying that Houdini is the only software that have future thanks to its modullar node besed structure wich is the best model compared with other 3D softwares.
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