lewis_T
Those of us that use it 10-12 hours a day in Studios, for years, don't experience the same type of
"it's so unstable, blender doesn't do this" thing at all.

For a standalone / "isolated" linux houdini box, that’s mostly true.

Indies tend to have a whole studio in a box, but that shouldn’t be an issue.

Jackatack
Houdini is very stable software ,like nuke . If you are having crashes the reason is 99% your workflow/setup , always.Check your scene ,go up to your node setup and debug where and when it happens and fix it.
I assure you that 99% its you are doing something wrong.

I assure you it’s not.
Here’s a list - https://www.sidefx.com/changelog/ [www.sidefx.com]

hMonkey
Nope.

Yep.

Few additions on my side, but extremely problematic.

- My Setup is built in a sopnet of stage, and i have an interactive tool there to paint my biome or so. The handle manipulator of my tool are not appearing when i pin the karma render window. If i open a second viewer, the import SOP coudl sometime lag and taking forever
This really should be changed , we are in 2023, we want to work with the tool access all the control we need but see the final render.

- Less an issue, but the workflow to pass via 2d volumes , slow COP and hscript expression to import the result with unsure updating (at least without python script) , is confusing and certainly not ideal.

There is not a single talk about Hou20 programmed for AUG Siggraph 2023
https://www.sidefx.com/houdini-hive/siggraph-2023/ [www.sidefx.com]

edit:
there will be one about Karma XPU improvements in Hou20
https://www.sidefx.com/houdini-hive/siggraph-2023/#xpu [www.sidefx.com]

Maybe SideFX aquired the multiplication and instancing technology from Isotropix Clarisse? And now there are some delay for integration ?

eikonoklastes

hMonkey
Nope.

Yep.

What’s a good emoji for "you’ve missed the point"?

tomtm
Maybe SideFX aquired the multiplication and instancing technology from Isotropix Cl

Most likely delay belongs to a Vulkan viewport.

hMonkey

eikonoklastes

hMonkey
Nope.

Yep.

What’s a good emoji for "you’ve missed the point"?

What's a good emoji for "You can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink"?

hMonkey
For a standalone / "isolated" linux houdini box, that’s mostly true.

Indies tend to have a whole studio in a box, but that shouldn’t be an issue.

Nope.

What is a stand alone isolated Linux box? We work in Studios with all the applications under the sun, believe
me, your hardware and OS/software config, along with what you're jamming into houdini in terms of 3rd party plugs, etc
is what causes crashing.

I do work on the side and treat my home machine like a workstation, with all the tools and applications needed to run a full project.
Houdini is stable for me. It honestly comes down to your hardware and OS, how diligent or not you
choose to be for your "work machine." If you are silly enough to think you can have a work machine that doubles
as your gaming/whatever machine, well that's when people get instabilities.


L

I have Rocky 8.8, Intel with Asus mobo and RTX, Houdini 19.5 is as stable as a rock.

lewis_T

hMonkey
For a standalone / "isolated" linux houdini box, that’s mostly true.

Indies tend to have a whole studio in a box, but that shouldn’t be an issue.

Nope.

What is a stand alone isolated Linux box? We work in Studios with all the applications under the sun, believe
me, your hardware and OS/software config, along with what you're jamming into houdini in terms of 3rd party plugs, etc
is what causes crashing.

Somebody please recall all of these - https://www.sidefx.com/products/partners/ [www.sidefx.com]
they are causing all the crashes.
And yes improperly setting up the env vars could lead to instability, that’s why we have packages now.

"All the applications under the sun"? So at work, in a studio setting you are not on a dedicated houdini win/linux box?

lewis_T
I do work on the side and treat my home machine like a workstation, with all the tools and applications needed to run a full project.
Houdini is stable for me. It honestly comes down to your hardware and OS, how diligent or not you
choose to be for your "work machine." If you are silly enough to think you can have a work machine that doubles
as your gaming/whatever machine, well that's when people get instabilities.


L

That’s odd, I guess then working in the gaming industry must really really suck when working with Houdini on the same box!?
What game install exactly would cause houdini to crash? DirectX? VS? Unreal? Unity? Running Houdini while running a game?
The only instance where houdini would be crippled for sure is with 3rd party audio processing drivers on windows…

Anyway joking aside, for me it’s mostly about viewport reliability.

I’m just curious, on what hardware and os are you running Houdini where everything is so stable? Mind sharing your thoughts on that, so that everyone can benefit? It’s a honest question.

And this is a good example of a dedicated houdini "box":

Tser
I have Rocky 8.8, Intel with Asus mobo and RTX, Houdini 19.5 is as stable as a rock.

Erik Ws

tomtm
Maybe SideFX aquired the multiplication and instancing technology from Isotropix Cl

Most likely delay belongs to a Vulkan viewport.

That would be a pleasant surprise.

eikonoklastes

hMonkey

eikonoklastes

hMonkey
Nope.

Yep.

What’s a good emoji for "you’ve missed the point"?

What's a good emoji for "You can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink"?

What's a good emoji for WAY off topic

kevinthebright
What's a good emoji for WAY off topic

To put things back on track…

Karama XPU Beta
Some sort of Compositing ops update
FLIP Sop updates
Feathers
Viewport VK
Pyro updates
General stability, performance and QoL updates

It’s more of a cross between a wish list and a rumor

hMonkey

kevinthebright
What's a good emoji for WAY off topic

To put things back on track…

Karama XPU Beta
Some sort of Compositing ops update
FLIP Sop updates
Feathers
Viewport VK
Pyro updates
General stability, performance and QoL updates

It’s more of a cross between a wish list and a rumor

That's my list too (mostly)!

hMonkey
I’m just curious, on what hardware and os are you running Houdini where everything is so stable? Mind sharing your thoughts on that, so that everyone can benefit? It’s a honest question.

HP workstations running CentOS 7. I don't understand your "dedicated houdini box" statement. There's no such thing.
It's just a Computer whose hardware and OS are on the Qualified Vendor list, it's not some trade secret.

What I meant by how you treat your machine, is that you lock it off, you don't go messing with the houdini production version,
GPU driver version, OS, and general common sense hardware/software 101.

Aside from that, it's how you build your networks in houdini and play around in general that affects it too.

For completeness, running CentOS in a VM on professional hardware yields the same results. It's all about stable OS that you don't mess around with.


L

if you are a game developer, your "production" machine is literally the gaming rig. this whole "dont treat your pc as gaming pc" is..
i dunno, it is an inadequate statement

I think what may get overlooked is that indie developers and artists don't have a lot of resources for debugging their set-ups. It took me a while to understand how to find bugs in my networks that were causing crashes. One example from not too long ago, a material node that referenced a missing material would crash Houdini. More recently, calling an asset from a gallery when the gallery library file was outside the $JOB directory would do it. It gets easier but for artists in studios, the institutional knowledge, and the guardrails put in place by the IT department, help a lot.

To keep this on thread,

More (esp. visual) examples in the docs.

Crowd AI, better intergration into Solaris

Also, COPs, COPs, COPs!!! Robust with AI training nodes ready to go ala Copycat, esp segmentation

MLOPs out of the box

Stable Solaris layout nodes / Solaris integration with COPs