It would be interesting to know if the radial many is “locked” to the viewport or if it's possible to set it up for the network editor as well - I would love to be able to set up a custom radial menu for the network editor.

And if it isn't, that would be an awesome thing to implement, imo.

As for the radial menu in the viewport, in regard to the create sub menu, I would love to be able to right- or middle click to automatically place the item at the origin, like control-clicking an item in the create shelf.

***

On a sidenote for the SESI staff/devs reading this - you people are awesome, what you have done with H16 is immensely impressive, not only in what you've added but in regard to what's been prioritized and how you look to the future of the software. So thanks, you are really making life easier and better for us end users.

Hey Everybody,
radial menus in the network editor is a really great idea and could speed up workflow even more.
I think you guys did an awesome job with Houdini 16! Congrats!

I discovered a small glitch with the radial menus on my setup:
when i switch my Global UI Size to Large the radial menus appear with some rows of pixels missing(see attached image).

Cheers
CYTE

GC: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Driver: GeForce Game Ready Driver Version:378.66
OS: Windows 10

I've asked about this before, and sidefx say they've been investigating the idea for a while. I'm guessing there may be many options for what items would appear in the menus, being contextualized by a network editor.

It would be a great addition for sure, there's just lots of things that makes no sense to add in the viewport - like a copy- or wrangle SOP, etc… I'm using shortcuts for creating a couple of SOPs, T for transform, K for copy, etc, it's just something I'm used to from Nuke, but a customizable radial meny in the network would be even better.

Right!

It would probably be quite interesting if customizable radials could be downloaded from Orbolt.

Suggestion for H16 users, basically radial menus per context. You could have an array of modeling SOP in the radial menu for fast modeling, for example. We already know SideFX has hinted at scripts for modeling and animation; and they do want to expand the modeling and animation area of Houdini.

Which reminds me, where are the tutorials for rigging in H16 or must one rely on the old rigging tutorials ? The update to muscles was needed considering as everyone mentions the other package muscles system is aging. Then again; I don't really know what else one expects from muscles, muscles are muscles as humans besides our muscles shrinking or growing they don't go into a metamorphosis while we are alive, therefore I suppose for all around animation and visual effects packages such as Houdini the developers can either add bells and whistles to the former system or reconstruct as was the case with a few things in H16.

jason_iversen
It would probably be quite interesting if customizable radials could be downloaded from Orbolt.

Though I really don't use Orbolt at all myself, yeah, that possibility would probably be appreciated by many.

Christopher_R
Suggestion for H16 users, basically radial menus per context. You could have an array of modeling SOP in the radial menu for fast modeling, for example. We already know SideFX has hinted at scripts for modeling and animation; and they do want to expand the modeling and animation area of Houdini.

Yeah, that would be great, I would love to be able to create custom radial menu setups for POPs, VOPs, to get quick access to the stuff I use the most in the network view… I really do 90% of my work in the network view, I rarely do anything in the viewport view unless I really have to, like doing selections and such, but tweaking parameters and such, I do all that in the network (connected-) properties pane, never in the viewport.

Christopher_R
Which reminds me, where are the tutorials for rigging in H16 or must one rely on the old rigging tutorials ? The update to muscles was needed considering as everyone mentions the other package muscles system is aging. Then again; I don't really know what else one expects from muscles, muscles are muscles as humans besides our muscles shrinking or growing they don't go into a metamorphosis while we are alive, therefore I suppose for all around animation and visual effects packages such as Houdini the developers can either add bells and whistles to the former system or reconstruct as was the case with a few things in H16.

You can be pretty certain there will be several master classes on the new areas like the rigging and muscle/skin stuff.

Not sure if this is possible already, but it would be good if you could register a python callback to generate the menu items on the fly. I'm sure someone would come up with a very interesting adaptive system which might change menu items based on, say, current geometry types – like engaging the PolyModel tools if you're working with Polys, etc.

Well, Houdini is already split in that regard in terms of hotkeys in the contexts, or do you mean based on the current SOP type? Mesh, volume, etc? That would be cool, if you're adding something to a VDB, your radial meny will be for VDB/volumes, if it's a mash, you'd get the poly tools, a.s.o…

That's right, adaptive to actual entities your context contains… data-driven menus, as it were.

Or they could start populating with “Save and Quit” items based on the time of day

Christopher_R
Suggestion for H16 users, basically radial menus per context. You could have an array of modeling SOP in the radial menu for fast modeling, for example.

This. Why limit the radial menus just to three keys ? One reason could be to reduce the number of hotkeys but that can be easily circumvented by making them context sensitive.

V: Viewport related stuff: C planes, Adjusting pivots, Snapping, framing selections, changing viewport type and so on etc.
X: context sensitive triggers… Eg with polygons.. ermmm.. Primitives selected, pressing x brings up options for that task. With a potential 24 ( uhh I think there are more but I can't be bothered to count )slots per context, Sidefx can cram in so many of them in just one category. One each for edges, points, normals, terrain, VFX, rigging etc
C: Basic nodes creation.

And while they are at it, expand them to other UI areas.

Want to copy and paste parameter ? Just hover over the channel, Press C, slash up, "copy parameter", then change parameter, Press C again, slash down, "paste relative reference"
Animation editors, shading, VOP networks can all benefit from this global workflow.

jason_iversen
That's right, adaptive to actual entities your context contains… data-driven menus, as it were.

Or they could start populating with “Save and Quit” items based on the time of day

Saving is sooo 2016… I would love a procedural file format, as in a format registering everything you do in the app, HOM style, so to speak, so you could open a file and have a slider to go back to a specific time or wherever you wanted to, add bookmarks and version splitting within the same file, that would be really cool. And probably immensely heavy - but hey, you have 2 Gb/sec read speeds off m.2 disks now, I'll manage waiting an extra 4 seconds…

nisachar
…

I really don't care about the presets, I'll likely mess around like crazy with those anyway, change everything, so as long as it's implemented, so you have a radial menu in the network editor, and you can set it up as you describe (or however anyone wants it) - I'll be really happy.

Has this officially been submitted as a RFE feature request? Been about a year now since this thread was created and radial menus in ALL contexts would be very welcome.

I have a handful of Python scripts and I find myself visiting the shelf a lot to execute them. A hotbox/radial menu jam in all contexts that a user can map scripts to would be super-duper neato.

I'm about ready to look at smilebox as an alternative - (simlebox git [github.com]), but it would be nice to stay straight Houdini for this.

Cheers.

I've also been working on one in my free time, you can see if it works for you if you want
https://vimeo.com/251253577 [vimeo.com]
https://github.com/dchow1992/houdini_markingmenu [github.com]

but be warned, still sort of in active development when I find the time and I haven't had a chance to build any sort of wiki yet. But it should work with any nodes or loaded shelf toolscripts

That looks fantastic, but I installed in H17 and get:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “Mouse Event Handler”, line 1, in <module>
File “/opt/hfs17.0.352/houdini/python2.7libs/nodegraph.py”, line 21, in <module>
import nodegraphhooks as hooks
File “/opt/hfs17.0.352/houdini/python2.7libs/nodegraphhooks.py”, line 9, in <module>
from houdini_markingmenu import markingmenu as mm
File “/opt/hfs17.0.352/houdini/python2.7libs/houdini_markingmenu/markingmenu.py”, line 21, in <module>
from widgets import mousepath, menuitembutton
File “/opt/hfs17.0.352/houdini/python2.7libs/houdini_markingmenu/widgets/menuitembutton.py”, line 11, in <module>
import buttonfunctions as cmds
ImportError: No module named buttonfunctions

Any suggestions?

dchow1992
https://vimeo.com/251253577 [vimeo.com]

That's fukn brilliant. No clue why SESI hasn't implemented this in the network editor - I get that for modelling it makes sense having this in the viewport, but as I work in SOPs, this makes way more sense for a lot of stuff than having it in the viewport.

Very, very nice.

jandress
That looks fantastic, but I installed in H17 and get:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “Mouse Event Handler”, line 1, in <module>……..(etc)
Any suggestions?

I can confirm it's working tip top on Houdini 17.0.431. Be sure to place the “houdini_markingmenu” folder and “nodegraphhooks.py” inside the “python2.7libs” in your “documents/houdini17.0” folder (if you are using default env variables).

If you are still having issues you can try modifying the PYTHONPATH variable in the houdini .env file (documents/houdini17.0/houdini.env) to -

PYTHONPATH = “$HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR/python2.7libs;”

^I don't believe that should be necessary as python2.7libs should pick up just by being in your user prefs directory.

Sounds like you might be placing the source files in the wrong area. Good luck!

dchow1992
I've also been working on one in my free time, you can see if it works for you if you want
https://vimeo.com/251253577 [vimeo.com]

This is amazing!

Thank you so much for sharing. The customization is great! I love that you can launch your own scripts as well.

I never have to ‘aw’ myself an attribute wrangle again. From now I'm pick-whipping a ‘YEEEHAAAW’ node!

Hey SESI. Take note!

Hey dchow1992,

this is really a great tool and a massive work speedup! Thank you so much!
Can somebody give me a hint how a user function could be created that lets me jump to another network type?
I want to have on shift right-click a menu that lets me jump to obj, mat, out, img etc…
thanks in advantage!

Cheers
CYTE

Well colour me embarassed, I was trying to install into the houdini software directory in /opt instead of /home/<username>/houdini17.0 since that was the only place I could find with a preexisting python2.7libs directory.

Working now and I am loving it so far. I think it will be a real speed booster.