My Experience with Houdiuni (A list of feature suggestions and bugs)

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Been using c4d for 10 years. Mostly character animation. Just finished my first job in Houdini after learning it for few months. Its a great app, I love it, the procedural nature is very appealing, but its has some flaws. Hopefully they will be fixed in future. Apart from bugs, some character animation features also felt a bit behind the times. So I made a list as I was working of some things that would really improve the workflow for me. fyi im on mac osx sierra (not ideal!).

SUGGESTIONS / BUGS FOR HOUDINI DEVS:
  • houdini crashes when alt middle mouse scrub in dope sheet timeline
  • to be able to drag divider when viewport in split view would be nice
  • custom safe frame size not possible?
  • some hot key to flip between previous tool and current tool (like c4d)
  • be good to access keyframe interpolation while in dopesheet
  • is there a shortcut to flip between dopesheet and curves?
  • short cut to set frame interpolation (cumbersome to go into curves all the time)
  • no transform keys tool in spline view? (to be able to squash and expand a load of keys)
  • warning that auto takes is on (this was a bit of a nightmare accidentally saving changes as a take)
  • spherical skinning deformation (like c4d. this is so needed! deforming a bend elbow and the mesh collapses looks not good)
  • its too hard to select keys in dope sheet while zoomed out far
  • copy and paste key frames barely works in dope sheet, its very buggy
  • sometimes when i drag mouse in curve editor it adds a new key in spline

hope this is helpful. Looking forward to character animation improvements in the future.

J
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Did you log them?
https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/25347/ [sidefx.com]
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Thanks for reporting the issues you had your first Houdini job.
I greatly appreciate your first time feedback.

shmo
houdini crashes when alt middle mouse scrub in dope sheet timeline
I couldn't repro that crash. Can you create a bug report with more information about it.

shmo
to be able to drag divider when viewport in split view would be nice
I'm sure we have an RFE somewhere about it. As a workaround you can create a split pane for another scene viewer.

shmo
custom safe frame size not possible?
The Video safe areas are harcoded to 90% and 95% to follow the old Title/Action Safe frames.
I'll resurrect an old RFE #12337 that was asking to expose the percentages.

It is however possible to use a custom SOP geometry to draw a Custom Camera View Mask.
On a camera, do Edit Rendering Parameters from the Parameter Editor Gear Menu.
Drag and drop the Viewport Display/View Mask folder to create the optional render prop.
Activate Camera View Mask on the display options.
Create a grid or any geometry and link a SOP to the new parameter on the camera.
I attached a scene that demonstrate how to set it up.
I'm not sure I recommend to use it, as it's an obscure feature and pretty hard to setup.

shmo
some hot key to flip between previous tool and current tool (like c4d)
I'm trying to think about how it would behave when swicthing from OBJ to SOP and when selecting new nodes. Houdini does keep a list of previously active objects per pane that you can cycle trough using Pane's arrow buttons, but the current active tool isn't saved with that history.
Are you thinking about toggling only between the Select/Rotate/Translate/Scale/Show Handle tools? and simply having an hotkey that would do the same as clicking the last button that was active.

shmo
be good to access keyframe interpolation while in dopesheet
Logged as RFE #78543

shmo
is there a shortcut to flip between dopesheet and curves?
Yes, Hit ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’.

shmo
short cut to set frame interpolation (cumbersome to go into curves all the time)
No there's no one currently.
I do like the idea of having shortcuts for Constant/Linear/Bezier.
Logged as RFE #78544
You can assign Hotkeys yourself using the Hotkey Editor and going to the /Houdini/Panes/Animation Editor/Animation Graph context.

shmo
no transform keys tool in spline view? (to be able to squash and expand a load of keys)
We do have the Box/Box with Pivot tool in the Graph Editor. You can activate it using the ‘Y’ key.

shmo
warning that auto takes is on (this was a bit of a nightmare accidentally saving changes as a take)
Can you describe a bit more the problem you experienced?
Do you want a very apparent viewport hint that tells the auto take is active?

shmo
spherical skinning deformation (like c4d. this is so needed! deforming a bend elbow and the mesh collapses looks not good)
Did you try using the Dual Quaternion option on the Deform SOP?
You can paint a blend attribute to blend between dual quaternion and linear blending.
Our Simple Female rig has it setup.

shmo
its too hard to select keys in dope sheet while zoomed out far
I remember fixing a bug in 15.5 about keys not showing up when zoomed out.
Can you try updating to a more recent 15.5 build.

shmo
copy and paste key frames barely works in dope sheet, its very buggy
I have a bug already logged for it. It took me some time to be able to repro it because I was always hitting ‘Q’ on the keyboard to clear the dopesheet selection between operations.

shmo
sometimes when i drag mouse in curve editor it adds a new key in spline
This has to be that you are holding the Alt key to pan the viewport.
Alt+LMB does add keys at the current cursor position.
I logged an RFE #78546 to be able to move it do a different key.

Attachments:
camera_mask_from_sop.hip (127.6 KB)

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wow! thanks for your response. So helpful!

I will do the bug reports.

some hot key to flip between previous tool and current tool:
Sounds minor but surprisingly I use it all the time to flip between translate & rotate while posing character or selecting single face & edge loops while modelling for example. Just handy, not essential.

warning that auto takes is on:
sometimes i was forgetting i was in a sub take with auto takes setting nodes to hidden etc and recording it. In C4D with auto key on the window has a red outline to prevent you from accidentally auto keying a bunch of parameters. not essential, just an idea.

few extra bugs i noticed:
can't double click to file icon open file
viewport sometimes not update, have to open new scene view window
open file with another file open causes crash

Great about the other stuff, Dual Quaternion etc.. looking into it now.

Really like Houdini.

Thanks,

J
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shmo
few extra bugs i noticed:
can't double click to file icon open file
viewport sometimes not update, have to open new scene view window
open file with another file open causes crash

are you on a mac?
Michael Goldfarb | www.odforce.net
Training Lead
SideFX
www.sidefx.com
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Hi guys,
Hope it's okay to add a few thoughts here…

Copy and Paste never works for me in the dopesheet. Best I can do is middle mouse drag and re-key that pose somewhere else. I'll be a bit stuffed when I have to copy a whole section of animation though.

It would be cool if the alt key could work with all interactions also, I know it wasn't originally Houdini's navigation key but it's been adopted in all other views.

Also the lack of interaction in the dopesheet is kinda annoying, it only updates when you release the mouse. That seems kinda weird since the curve editor is super smooth.


Digging heaps of elements about animating in Houdini though
Thanks,
Pete
Edited by peteski - 2016年11月21日 23:28:02
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