Hi,
Starting from scratch here too…
Do french people have sort of a problem with keyboard shortcuts ? numeric ones or many others seems not working (MACs or, WIN+Bootcamp+mackeyboards). Do i have to switch every time to a US one ?

Anyway for the last couple of days, doing my homework, houdini seems fantastic but.
- I can't feel right with selections and snapping …
- I can't for now understand how to simply reproduce the ease of pass/partition system of SI, is it so different in houdini ? can someone could point me to a guide ?

A+
Noël

Pass system in Houdini is different to xsi, but very powerfull, too. Where xsi is very streamlined with a certain workflow, in houdini it is up to You how to setup passes with the toolset.

mantraRops are like passes, You can specify if or how mantra renders certain things in the object tab. i use it for example to prevent nodes to appear in my renders, that are just for processing. You can easily do this by establishing a naming convention in You scene. for example by naming all renderable objects with a ren_ prefix and adding the wildcard ren_* in the candidate object field no other object gets rendered. wildcards are very powerful in houdini.
another way is to use bundles, in houdini they are the closest thing to groups/partitions in xsi. bundles can be used in many places, where a list of object is needed, for example shadow mask.

Another great tool set are takes. takes store parameter overrides per take and as soon as You switch to that take all overrides are applied, all output nodes, like mantraROP, have a take field where You can specify the take it should be processed with. Takes are not limited to rendering, You can use it for lowres/highres sim setups, for simulations with different seeds, for animation takes, all stored in one setup.
Another thing about takes to mention is that they can be stacked, for example You create a RENDER take and set all objects to be hidden. now add child takes to this and setup You different passes, with that child takes. Unhide objects, change materials, change what You need in that particular child take used for that pass. when working in maintake, where most of Your setup work will happen You can not really break any of Your renders, as long as You as You hide new objects in that RENDERTAKE. You can script that, too.
When the child take of RENDER is active, all overrides set by RENDER are applied, and are only overwritten by the child take. The described workflow is just a example to explain the hierarchy nature of takes.

it might be a little bit confusing at the beginning, but it is very powerful. And as far as I remember when I hit the world of passes in xsi the first time in version 2 it was confusing in the beginning, too.

hope that helps You to get started with that subject.

for that keyboard thing, I must admit I use US or UK keyboards since 10 years, because their layout works just fine with the applications I use. and i do not really care that I have no ä, ö or ü

Thank you for your time, i appreciate.
I Need to dig this now

for that keyboard thing, I must admit I use US or UK keyboards since 10 years, because their layout works just fine with the applications I use. and i do not really care that I have no ä, ö or ü Smile

Year i agree this is not a stopper bug, just need to order some apple keyboards and let go french email communications ! ;-)

NNois
- I can't for now understand how to simply reproduce the ease of pass/partition system of SI, is it so different in houdini ? can someone could point me to a guide ?

Have you seen the Softimage to Houdini guides [sidefx.com] thread? Specifically, Jordi started a Organizing Overrides guide. Here's a direct link to the guides from that thread:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y0ti6tyf7o3435u/thsQH1Kf2o [dropbox.com]

For your keyboard, you can't use an azerty, some shortcuts won't work, specially the one linked to the viewport, like switching between different components types, primitive, points, edges… and also switching to the front, side, persp view. So what I do is switch to an US keyboard each time I launch Houdini, kind of difficult at first but we get used to it.

I just get a mac french canadian keyboard, qwerty but with all the french stuffs (éèçà^¨) and nearly everything is fine but no <>. Too bad…
US Keyboard seems to be the only fully working option.

ben4096
I just get a mac french canadian keyboard, qwerty but with all the french stuffs (éèçà^¨) and nearly everything is fine but no <>. Too bad…
US Keyboard seems to be the only fully working option.

Yeah, we're working on fixing this. Some of the problems are rather ancient in nature (hello X11!), but I too would like to be able to type in my name in the Font SOP, accents and all.

Hello,

That is the worst thing on Houdini so far, we just need international keyboard compatibility, the font tools are so amazing for motion design stuff that it is a huge pity not to be able to use it nicely with a french (or any other beautiful language) Keyboard.

Doing vex with a french keyboard is a pure sport, you just lose weight.

I couldn't find a way to type ` and { and ^ which are quite useful sometimes…

Cheers.

Jerome Pastorello
Hello,

That is the worst thing on Houdini so far, we just need international keyboard compatibility, the font tools are so amazing for motion design stuff that it is a huge pity not to be able to use it nicely with a french (or any other beautiful language) Keyboard.

Your patience will be rewarded soon.

Cristin

Hi,
Downloaded aprentice and on a french keyboard this is not fixed completly as i can't have access to 1 - 2 - 3 etc shortcut on the main keyboard, again, it's only working on the numpad, so can't have access to spacebar + num etc… annoying

NNois
Hi,
Downloaded aprentice and on a french keyboard this is not fixed completly as i can't have access to 1 - 2 - 3 etc shortcut on the main keyboard, again, it's only working on the numpad, so can't have access to spacebar + num etc… annoying

Do you mean 1/2/3 by themselves, or while holding down Ctrl/Alt/etc?

I want this to work dammit

Edit: Never mind. Installed French keyboard. 1/2/3/4 spit out &/é/"/' respectively :shock: Does the French keyboard work for shortcuts properly in Soft?

halfdan
Installed French keyboard. 1/2/3/4 spit out &/é/"/' respectively :shock: Does the French keyboard work for shortcuts properly in Soft?

Yes i know, in fact on a french keyboard to achieve a real 1/2/3 we need to hold SHIFT.

Some facts:
-For example in SOFT or MODO all keyboard shortcuts don't need to hold shift to make a 1 2 3, the keyboard behave like a US keyboard… handy

-On text field now in SOFT or MODO the system reverts and use the real International keyboard 1 2 3 without SHIFT type &/é/“ as it's needed to type correctly

-On houdini the system now seem to use only the real International keys, why not ?!… BUT there is anyway a bug SHIFT+1 don't spit out a 1 and SPACE+SHIFT+1 don't make any change to the viewport

Anyway, in my personal case i could remap &é” to 123, maybe it's better this way but I tend to prefer the MODO/SOFT behavior where key shortcut are assigned to the US physical reference because not every keyboard have the same chars on there keys but they all have the same keys in place.

What do you think ?

usefull

Hello
Is Houdini compatible with the french keyboard now?
I have a problem with selecting all and deselecting all. In the doc, it says : “A: Select all, N: Select nothing”.
But when I press “N”, it selects all, and when I press “A”, nothing happens…
What's the matter?

The docs would be incorrect for H14.

For me in H14 “N” selects all and “Shift-N” selects nothing.

The best way to see what options are available when working in the viewport is to RMB (RightMouseButton) on to empty space and see the context menu.

In the Select mode/tool, the RMB menu shows all the options including those that are bound to hot-keys.

Many of the interactive viewport tools will have meaningful RMB menus in the viewport empty space.

Also use RMB on any handles presented by the tool. Also lots of options bound to handles used by the tools.


If N and Shift-N do not work, please submit a bug.

Hope this helps.

So it was not an Azerty keyboard problem. Thanks a lot Jeff!!!

NNois

halfdan
Installed French keyboard. 1/2/3/4 spit out &/é/"/' respectively :shock: Does the French keyboard work for shortcuts properly in Soft?

Anyway, in my personal case i could remap &é" to 123, maybe it's better this way but I tend to prefer the MODO/SOFT behavior where key shortcut are assigned to the US physical reference because not every keyboard have the same chars on there keys but they all have the same keys in place.

Hi,
I'm curious, how did you achieve to remap to “é” ?
I have a french keyboard and when I want to remap to “é” it will only work until the next restart (and it put a blank in the shortcut editor)
As you can see in the video below, as soon as I restart houdini “é” is no longer valid and tells me the shortcut is “alt+ctrl+shit+cmd+”
https://streamable.com/nca6 [streamable.com]
At first, I'm showing that the defaut shortcuts “1/2/3” & “&/é/”“ are not working, then I remap the keys and it's working until the next start where it lose ”é".

Is there some sort of workaround for this issue ?
Many thanks !
(edit : thx ndickson :p)

akimine
…in the video below, …

It looks like your video link wasn't supported by the forum software. The link was https://streamable.com/nca6 [streamable.com].

Hello

Im experimenting a lotùs of odd shortcut behavior problem and my guess is it's due to my azerty keyboard.
I use the Houdini Hotkeys manager is always showing a qwerty keyboard and i canùt find international keyboard option to change that..
I mean, we are mi 2020, H18, this is basic but essential.

I hope i missed something there but frustration for now didn't miss me

Looking forward your answer

________________________________________________________________
Vincent Thomas   (VFX and Art since 1998)
Senior Env artist & Lighting & MattePainter & Creative Concepts
 http://fr.linkedin.com/in/vincentthomas [fr.linkedin.com]