Mo and Manu from Entagma did a pretty cool Nerd Rant about Houdini 19, and USD/Solaris is one of the things that they still mentioned it's getting better but not quite where it really needs to be. I know that SideFX is acutely aware of the current situation and trying to address it while not getting themselves into a panic mode and making some bad choices even worse. I believe that their unlocking Karma from Solaris is a signal that they "get it" but obviously we're still at least a couple of years away from this USD/Solaris becoming the preferred method that many of us choose to work in.

I will make my contribution and pave SideFX with RFE‘s, while I’m doing my little side project exclusively in Solaris :-D

But using 2 contexts(obj, lops) that basically do the same thing, doesn’t feel right to me. (It’s like Photoshop with 2 layer palettes with one only doing pixel stuff and the other for grading.)

But as a Nuke for 3D it’s already working pretty well. Let’s see how it goes

Best

CV
But using 2 contexts(obj, lops) that basically do the same thing, doesn’t feel right to me. (It’s like Photoshop with 2 layer palettes with one only doing pixel stuff and the other for grading.)

lops can do everything obj can do but is also procedural. However that comes at the cost of complexity, a little like how sops is more complex than some non-procedural direct modeling program. A simpler non-procedural context that is free of all the complexities, but can be fully ingested by a more flexible procedural context is in many ways an interesting paradigm. Just look how hard it has proved for sops DM tools to compete with a regular direct modeler over the years, often because the proceduralism "gets in the way".

It's worth looking at Omniverse while its still in free open beta, as it helps solidify the pros and cons of Lops. It's USD based, has its own fast renderer, but goes a more traditional linear approach vs Lops procedural approach.

Generally it conforms to the pros/cons of a Houdini workflow. If all you need to do is load an object, light, camera, render, Omniverse is likely a better fit for you. If you need to do more complex setups, change lots of things at the last minute, make reactive adaptable setups, deal with all the usual hassles of real world production, Lops handles that stuff better.

CV
But using 2 contexts(obj, lops) that basically do the same thing

Best

I'm still very new to Houdini so it's just my 0.00002 cents.

From my understanding, at least for individuals, the best way to work with LOP is to use SOP Create and ignore /obj. Only export extra .usd when absolutely necessary. This way I can minimize the mental overhead and treat /stage as an upgraded version of /obj.

It worked okay-ish for me in modeling/general layout phrases, but when I tried to lookdev/lighting everything feels so sluggish and buggy. I don't know if it's Karma's fault.

The biggest disconnect for me is the lack of Help in LOPs directly inside Houdini.

If you don't have advanced knowledge of USD concepts, you actually have to go hunt OUTSIDE of Houdini to figure out the intricate nuances of USD and why you cant change the material on an Reference.

raincole
but when I tried to lookdev/lighting everything feels so sluggish and buggy.

I often position material library, lights and other things I‘m currently working on at the lowest possible position.
That way information doesn’t need to travel the whole stream downwards and Karma reacts a lot faster to changes.

Or you create the lookdev in a separate lop network with turntable and component builder and load it to the main lops as usd.

I'm loving Solaris and Karma in H19. The gold standard for solo artists has always been Maya/Arnold. You can do everything in one place and use built-in, world class tools to complete every stage of a project.

With H19 you can finally do that in Houdini too, without sacrificing convenience.

Right now I'm working on lookdev for my animated short film coming up next year, plus some smaller projects for practice, and it's second nature to pop on over Solaris to see how things are looking. The USD stuff is pretty much irrelevant for me, other than it makes for a very simple and powerful export format to render scenes on the cloud. Couldn't be happier!

mestela
If you need to do more complex setups, change lots of things at the last minute, make reactive adaptable setups, deal with all the usual hassles of real world production, Lops handles that stuff better.

That’s exactly the stuff I need!

Building a scene, having Art Director / Creative Director / Supervisor/ Client / Woman of the client etc. basically sitting next to me giving Feedback on a huge scene being interactive because of proxy’s and Lods(Variants).
Being able to branch that Feedback out to another stream. If they come to a conclusion you can easily take the Layout of the Art Director, the light from the supervisor and the bigger logo from the client and mixing stuff up and have usable output on top, that what really makes me about Solaris!

Currently I try in Camera Modeling with Sop Create and it works ok if you have a second Monitor with Monitor01 showing the model in isolation („hide other objects“) and Monitor02 showing the scene with („link to pane 2“).

With Sop Create it is also possible to Object Merge other Sop Creates which is great.

But working with („Show All Objects“) I haven’t found out to make it work like /obj with Wireframe and all that.

raincole
From my understanding, at least for individuals, the best way to work with LOP is to use SOP Create and ignore /obj. (

I think I'm going to try and adopt this approach. I'm working on some tutorial content and I split it between OBJ and LOPs and it fell down once things get to medium complexity - it was just too difficult to manage.

But I like the idea of having everything in one context and I have control about what/how things come onto the /stage in LOPs by organizing things into SOP Create nodes.

Daryl Dunlap
But I like the idea of having everything in one context and I have control about what/how things come onto the /stage in LOPs by organizing things into SOP Create nodes.

This is developing very nicely. There are steps that dont need to be on the stage at all (such as building up an agent (layers, clips, etc.) and for that I'm putting down a SOP Network inside a SOP Create LOP. SOP Network node dont have a Display flag, so they are ignored automatically in LOPs, but they are still accessible/referenceable elsewhere.

So I can have a SOP Create node, that works like OBJ context while still in LOPs - and when I need something out of there on the /stage, I just drop a SOP Import LOP.

It does feel like Inception a little bit, so many levels.....Quickmark's are gonna be crucial in this kind of setup.