Time flies! It's been approximately 6-7 weeks since this Si forum was established. It would be very interesting to hear some thoughts:

What is your experience of Houdini now you are more comfortable with it?

Thanks all and big cheers to Halfdan for the forum initiative !

In general, I'm really liking it. I had always been intimidated to learn Houdini, but now after trying out all the other alternatives, I am feeling more and more like this is the software for me.

The main reason, is because of it's clear and logical core workflow. I've been following all the other threads about making Houdini a better modeler, or improving its animation tools - and don't get me wrong, I agree with the majority of those statements, but, I'm mainly choosing Houdini because the way it processes data is so clear and logical, which is ironic, given the manner in which you can create incredibly complex networks, but built from very simple blocks - it is very Nuke-like…another plus.

So, after 6-7 weeks, I'm feeling pretty comfortable - at least understanding what's going on and how to utilize the core workflow (which is really just about passing data around). I feel like I could open up someone else's finished scene and reverse-engineer it to gain more knowledge and insight. I've realized it takes a relatively short amount of time to understand how everything generally works, and of course a lifetime to properly master it.

I just don't think I can go back to software built on black boxes and plugins. And I'm not interested in becoming a hard-core coder, so Houdini's nodes, expressions, networks, and digital assets make the most sense - for now. Having said that, I'm also usually working as more of an artist/generalist, so I GREATLY value tools that are quick, intuitive and elegant, while remaining powerful.

I'm looking forward to continue learning as much as possible, and can't wait to see how Houdini continues to improve.

Nice Keith! Good to hear. Seems like everyone is getting stuck into the workflow and getting on with it. Very cool.

Good to hear Nick you have finally accepted Houdini into your life.

Rob E

Just relax and let the smile-hooks do their work.

jason_iversen
Just relax and let the smile-hooks do their work.

Hes hooked already

Rob E

I can sum up my own (very limited) first impressions of Houdini as follows. It's fast to do difficult things but slow to do simple things. I'm sure this is just down to familiarity and hopefully with time I will adapt.

All in all, I like it. A lot.

Sam Howell
It's fast to do difficult things but slow to do simple things.

nick angus
I do find traditionally complex tasks are often simpler and far more logical. However some things I often regard as simple can be quite overwhelming.

the first week
i feel love for “ merge sop”

i am already missing stuff when getting back to xsi.

eetu

I thought Yoda said that….

after about a month using H, i can say some UI features are just great and very practical. interface overally feels best out there. Mantra and lighting tools are superb. i was also working with some volumetrics and was surprised how fast i was able to get good looking results that i would never achieve using SI. so far, everything is great and overally i like it a lot for many reasons. BUT when it came to handling larger scenes with lots of objects and external files, this is where i hit the wall real hard this is a point im very anxious to resolve and find a good workflow to make the life easier. very typical scenario is when i have a scene done and want to do some changes to it - load different caches, change camera, save it as a new shot and render it. sounds simple, but unfortunatelly, i havent found any way how to view and edit all the caches or all textures used in the scene, (for example), other than manually search for them, clicking on each object separately and typing a new path for each of them. which is… when you have, say, few hundred entries to change… well, you get the picture saving the scene as a new shot into different folder (bcs we got folder per shot) turned out to be pretty bad idea too and took me another few hours of finding and fixing broken links to external files. im not sure if i just overlooked something, or this kind of tasks require completely different approach in Houdini? anyway, if you guys can share your workflows for this i will appreciate it greatly. also for those who are familiar with SI terminology, how would you substitute for things like External files manager? this are functionalities i miss badly in Houdini and i think it would not be too hard to implement? Data tree is virtually asking for it

cryprosporidium
after about a month using H, i can say some UI features are just great and very practical. interface overally feels best out there. Mantra and lighting tools are superb. i was also working with some volumetrics and was surprised how fast i was able to get good looking results that i would never achieve using SI. so far, everything is great and overally i like it a lot for many reasons. BUT when it came to handling larger scenes with lots of objects and external files, this is where i hit the wall real hard this is a point im very anxious to resolve and find a good workflow to make the life easier. very typical scenario is when i have a scene done and want to do some changes to it - load different caches, change camera, save it as a new shot and render it. sounds simple, but unfortunatelly, i havent found any way how to view and edit all the caches or all textures used in the scene, (for example), other than manually search for them, clicking on each object separately and typing a new path for each of them. which is… when you have, say, few hundred entries to change… well, you get the picture saving the scene as a new shot into different folder (bcs we got folder per shot) turned out to be pretty bad idea too and took me another few hours of finding and fixing broken links to external files. im not sure if i just overlooked something, or this kind of tasks require completely different approach in Houdini? anyway, if you guys can share your workflows for this i will appreciate it greatly. also for those who are familiar with SI terminology, how would you substitute for things like External files manager? this are functionalities i miss badly in Houdini and i think it would not be too hard to implement? Data tree is virtually asking for it

Hi cryprosporidium, I'm not really the pipeline guy here and I'm also alone at the moment using houdini, so no tool yet for pipeline stuff, but I can tell you some trick i'm using to update version of cache easily. You can at the /obj level create a null and add some custom parameter(the little gear beside the name of the node in parameter window) on it which you will use to drive cache's version

ie a null obj with param (string type) called version : “v003”
link this channel to the Geometry file param and insert chs expression like `chs(“/obj/null/version”)` in the name.

Or you can use textport with opchange which will act like search and replace. type it in textport to get the help about that.

If you know python, you can write your own script to load latest version of caches…

Hope it help a bit

Cheers

Doum

or you can define variable i.e. $SHOT (Edit>Aliases And Variables…) and set all of your paths to :
${HIP}/Textures/${SHOT}/texture.ext
and just change $SHOT variable according to your needs

owlYzarc
or you can define variable i.e. $SHOT (Edit>Aliases And Variables…) and set all of your paths to :
${HIP}/Textures/${SHOT}/texture.ext
and just change $SHOT variable according to your needs

Hi owlYzarc,

Is it possible to put Hscript in variable ? something like SHOT = hou.hipFile.name().split(“_”)?

Have you read the Data Management chapter of the Softimage to Houdini guides? I discuss various approaches to all this and some tricks.

jb

cryprosporidium
other than manually search for them, clicking on each object separately and typing a new path for each of them.

I like what the others have already said. But also check out from the main menu, Render > Pre-Flight… You can use that to get a bird's eye view of all the referenced files.

thank you guys a lot! im not used so much to use expressions so far and i still got bit of a problem with syntax, so i tend to look for some kind of tool for everything (as used to from other 3d apps .-). but this is only a matter of time and your hints are very helpful. defining global paths via null is the way that im probably most comfortable with.

jordibares: yes, i have. your pdf`s were first i was reading and they were a huge help for first steps and understanding terminology. so thanks a lot ;-) anyway, houdini is much more technical and very different in many aspects than SI, so i probably need read through several times until i fully grasp it.