Is there a way to tumbling in houdini more like 3ds max or maya? I feel off when moving around in houdini or just not use to the way it tumbles.

Have you tried all the different options in the preferences?

I've changed 3D viewport preferences and still feel restricted. Is there a combination of the three tumbling setting that would be a good solution? Tumbling Method, Panning Method, and Default Homing. Why does Homing parameter have 11 choices.

Homing has 11 choices because there are 11 possible directions that you might want to home to. I don't see why that would be a problem?

As for tumbling I find the houdini standard to be better than max, so I guess it 's a personal thing.

While the Classic houdini tumble takes a bit to get use to, I find it much more efficient and flexible.
There is also the Ctrl and Alt keys that restrain the tumble.

The one most close to other 3D applications would be Tumbling set to 80's style Euler Tumbling.

80's style Euler Tumbling is very close

One great feature that people sometimes miss is the ability to change the center of tumbling using points on your geometry. Press spacebar - z and click on a piece of geometry. It now becomes the center of focus and you can tumble around it.

A bit of a clarification on that instruction.

You don't need to click on the geometry, just move your cursor over the part of the geometry you want to set the tumble from.

If you are in View mode, then you can just hit the z key while you have the cursor over the geometry.

If you are in a tool mode, you need to hold the Space bar down to temporarily get to View mode, then hit the z key.

You'll know it has worked because the chosen geometry will be centered in the viewport.

Homing on selected geometry, “g” key, will also recenter the tumble.

Thanks a million!

I like the shift-z option myself. The viewport doesn't jump around.

I re-map z to shift-z and shift-z to z in the hotkey manager to get around the auto-center jump and no modifier key required.

I just noticed that I can only tumble 180 degrees in the 80's tumble mode. Change this and you'll be able to do full turns (I like better).

Look in preferences/3D.

I don't understand how full liberty of movement (tumbling upside down and fully sideways) can be achieved with any of Houdini's tumbling methods. Take a look at tumbling in Blender to see how it should be done. Really, this is one of Houdini's weakest points…

Not sure I follow. I do that all the time using the standard houdini tumble method. You can just keep tumbling in any direction with no limits.

The shift Z trick is great, works in LOPs as well, but doesn't work in the render view.

Anyone have a fix for that? Testing w/ Renderman specifically if that helps.. ideally we'd be able to tumble around while IPR-ing