hello forum,
being an absolute noob in Houdini:
in ICE you have this great debugging funtionality where you can just RMB on a connection/wire and choose “show values”, which shows the corresponding attribute (any kind of - vectors, colors, arrays, floats, whatever) in the viewport.
see two examples here:
http://xsisupport.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/parametric-cloud-without-repeats.png [xsisupport.files.wordpress.com]
http://xsisupport.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/random-polygon-index-for-extrude-polygon-island.png [xsisupport.files.wordpress.com]
(the small circled V on the connection refers to the values in the viewport).
is there something like that in VOPSOPS?

the only thing i could get working so far is to create a basic attrib like a vector and set it in the display settings.
or am i wrong or missing something obvious?

thanks.
fuat

great forum by the way.

that's it

It's a good RFE, request feature enhancement in the Support menu above.

+1

This would be nice to have. If you created geometry in VOPs, it could be done to an extent for some attribute types but then that geometry would become part of the input geometry. That's why we should also have temporary VOP-level guides. Instead of geoself(), you could have geoguide() or something.

I submitted an RFE for this.

thank you pusat.
fuat

It's a printf VOP but with it's output in the viewport?

What if you have a million points?

jeff
It's a printf VOP but with it's output in the viewport?

What if you have a million points?

in ICE there is an option to display just a percentage of the whole data set.

Or limit visualisation of values only to selected components.

I'm also a fan of displaying only attributes for “selected points”.

-T

Or limit visualisation of values only to selected components.

When you create a custom decoration, there is a Visibility option for Selected Only (ie only show for selected points, prims, vertices) in the Edit dialog. Also available are “always visible” (default), “under pointer”, and “area around pointer”. Makes that million point case a bit less of a wall-of-text.

data visualization of ice is really great, it can even display arrays in a readable way. I hope houdini will get something similar like this.
Talking about arrays, I hope arrays and structs get some love in vops, too. But I have no clue how to display a struct

sekow

jeff
It's a printf VOP but with it's output in the viewport?

What if you have a million points?

in ICE there is an option to display just a percentage of the whole data set.

exactly. plus you can offset your label in the viewport, which is very useful when displaying arrays for example, you can have them next to each other or move them to the corners of your viewport so they don´t cover the screen.

I think even making custom attribute display with single click would help tremendously. Current workflow with user typing manually every single detail is well annoying. I know you can deal with that with Python snippet, but that's not as things should be.

So, if the Print VOP had it's output drive to say the viewport or any other targets (ideas are more than welcome) and had good format options, that would be good?

From what I see of the ICE tree, that dot on the wire is equivalent to the Print VOP in that it takes that wire's data and prints it out as the network evaluates at that point.

Is the Print VOP good enough, if it is branched off the node? The Print VOP can be used to do some very interesting things with strings btw so is worth digging in to if you are curious. The help card hints at some interesting uses.

Make it easy to add the Print VOP? Say RMB on the wire and add a menu option “Print Output”?

since i am very new to H i never used the printVOP, so maybe some other experts here can tell better, but i think what you describe is exactly what “Show Values” does, so this would be perfect, yes!
fuat

I'm too quite new to Houdini, but as an avid ICE user and having already used the Print VOP, I could see this as an perfect “substitue” if one could output the data not only to the Console but in the viewport directly on geometry components.
For example displaying custom per point vectors directly at the belonging point as an arrow or numerical.
Or display Detail Attributes at the center of the object.

And all of this, as already mentioned, with controls like label-offsets, displaying only on selected points/particles (or things contained in groups), displaying only a percentage of the data etc.

hi!

I'm coming with this again, in qLib asset library, there is a shelf tool, which builds all attribute decoration up to the the selected node, honestly I can't live without it now and assigned it to a hotkey.

Thanks for Imre Tuske for making this workflow booster.

I can not work anymore without qLib
Thanks a lot for that!

buki
hi!

I'm coming with this again, in qLib asset library, there is a shelf tool, which builds all attribute decoration up to the the selected node, honestly I can't live without it now and assigned it to a hotkey.

Thanks for Imre Tuske for making this workflow booster.

Will try it out for sure!

Thanks for the heads up!

SYmek
I think even making custom attribute display with single click would help tremendously. Current workflow with user typing manually every single detail is well annoying. I know you can deal with that with Python snippet, but that's not as things should be.

+1

Attribute visualization needs some work to make it a lot easier and quicker to setup. For example you shouldn't need to type the attribute type and class. We could also toggle attribute visibility using the Details View.

Show Values mid-wire style visualization for VOPs would be a great improvement. I think Print VOP is nice but it creates more clutter and you would still need the percentage to show, etc which I submitted long ago. You would still need different coloring too as well as different ways to visualize values, not just texturally but as vectors, matrices, etc.

pusat
You would still need different coloring too as well as different ways to visualize values, not just texturally but as vectors, matrices, etc.

+1
And arrays . I won't stop asking for that . Array attribute is something I really miss from ICE and the possibility that opens is really big. In Vex you can work with arrays but you can't assign them as an attribute . There are some tricks, for example converting the array to string but this is not a solution . I guess you will need also better way to show the data from the arrays in the details view once you make them avalible ( I hope will be soon)

One click visual feedback on the viewport from any point of the tree is something really cool in ICE and I miss this in Houdini a lot.Hope SESI will implement it at some point.