I also have no idea what outdated is supposed to mean. Maybe for modern folks it's outdated if you can't swipe it left and right, I literally don't understand.

Check out screenshots of Windows 3.1 if you want to see something that actually looks outdated.

First of all, I would like to ask you to calm your anger. I really love Houdini - it's one of the best programs I've ever used. My primary specialization is UI design, and I've developed designs for the Huawei operating system, Honda and Mitsubishi, Airbus. My team and I have received the Red Dot Design Award, if that means anything to you. So, I believe I have the right to express my thoughts on the UI/UX of our beloved program.

I checked, and even in version 9, the design was pretty much the same, which was over 15 years ago. The same panels, the same buttons, the same redundant design elements. I'm not saying everything should be changed from scratch, but refreshing an idea that's been around for 15 years seems feasible to me. Especially considering that this outdated design paradigm, like outdated legacy code, hinders the integration of new elements into the program itself. If you look at how the MaterialX Library screen looks, it's hard to bear.

And yes, I fully understand that UI design for a powerful program like Houdini isn't the highest priority. But in 15 years, you can take a little look in that direction. In the closed thread about expectations for version 20, there were many comments about a "refreshed" design - that's what people want. So why not give them an updated design?

With absolute respect to all participants in the thread.

I agree with Nikyone!

It's sort of possible right now to customize the interface and people have come up with some nice, modern-looking designs. But, there are many UI elements that remain hardcoded.

A good interface translates to a more manageable learning curve and faster, smoother interaction with the software. It's an important consideration.

In my view the main issue with Houdini's UI is there's just too much... stuff. The more recently-added tools are starting to fix this, but we're still left with a lot of legacy clutter, like this:

Nikyone
First of all, I would like to ask you to calm your anger. I really love Houdini - it's one of the best programs I've ever used. My primary specialization is UI design, and I've developed designs for the Huawei operating system, Honda and Mitsubishi, Airbus. My team and I have received the Red Dot Design Award, if that means anything to you. So, I believe I have the right to express my thoughts on the UI/UX of our beloved program.

I checked, and even in version 9, the design was pretty much the same, which was over 15 years ago. The same panels, the same buttons, the same redundant design elements. I'm not saying everything should be changed from scratch, but refreshing an idea that's been around for 15 years seems feasible to me. Especially considering that this outdated design paradigm, like outdated legacy code, hinders the integration of new elements into the program itself. If you look at how the MaterialX Library screen looks, it's hard to bear.

And yes, I fully understand that UI design for a powerful program like Houdini isn't the highest priority. But in 15 years, you can take a little look in that direction. In the closed thread about expectations for version 20, there were many comments about a "refreshed" design - that's what people want. So why not give them an updated design?

With absolute respect to all participants in the thread.

My personal opinion is not that it’s a UI thing with Houdini… but rather a combination of things that frankly result in a very scary on-boarding for new users. To me main areas are:

1) Small visual refresh… just make it a bit more sexy. Even a standard ‘flat look’ theme would probably satisfy many. But it’s also icons and even things like fonts or sliders - it’s basically kind of ugly and outdated. Like my jeans! I love wearing them! Had them for 6 years, to me there’s nothing wrong with them, they are comfy, but my wife told me that I need to get another pair because she’s embarrassed to go out with me :-)

2) Documentation - don’t get me started… for someone coming brand new to Houdini and wanting to start with the help docs - this is a an absolute nightmare. It largely reads like an amalgamation of copy pasted stuff from developers documentation of functions <- haven’t seen much progress here tbh… it’s just as bad today as it was 5 years ago. Houdini Foundations book is a typical example of how not to write a book imho. Luckily there’s so many great tutorials and SideFX team is awesome in helping with much of that.

3) Viewport enhancements <- looks like SideFX is working on that, amazing!

4) Many user experience and workflow enhancements <- SideFX is constantly working on that

5) Animation editor enhancements <- SideFX is working on that in H20

6) Overall the approach to anything houdini seems R&D and technical directors first, artists later

7) Constant changes - while getting stuff early is great, it normally takes SideFX 3-4 releases to get something right… this means that docs are changing or poorly created, naming is not well thought out, nodes become obsolete, most of the tutorials for example someone did 2 years ago might no longer be valid with H20 or most optimal

8) Naming of nodes and parameters. Honestly the biggest problem I think with houdini is not knowing what the various nodes are and what the parameters (named for developers or scientists) do. A while ago SideFX started videos on how to use each node. That was such a great idea. Too bad that it was stopped after a few nodes.

9) Not separating advanced from basic parameters or low level nodes from workflow nodes

10) Too much emphasis on managing data vs workflows

11) Anything that would make better clarity in the attributes and node editor, debugging etc.

12) Then there’s a ton of little annoying things… for example, why can’t I have shortcuts for everything, why am I constantly waiting for things to cook, why am I spending 30% of my time setting display tags, why can’t I click a node and adjust parameters without the viewpoint ‘cooking it’ and showing it and much other stuff, why can’t I have a info panes like parameters panes so I don’t have to constantly middle click the node or click the ‘i’.

13) Legacy… how many ways of authoring materials do we have now? With Solaris you basically have to learn two sets of nomenclatures. Lagacy areas and nodes should be marked as such.

14) UI freezing when calculating dynamics - huge PITA

15) Shortcuts… just not available for everything

16) Clarity on basic stuff… we have points, polygons, vertices, but there’s also edges, polylines, and many other terms that should be explained in Houdini right of the bat. Add a core concepts section and spend 30-50 pages explaining the core things about each domain of houdini

death by a thousand papercuts as someone called it in the previous thread.

Цифровая фотография
I also have no idea what outdated is supposed to mean. Maybe for modern folks it's outdated if you can't swipe it left and right, I literally don't understand.

Check out screenshots of Windows 3.1 if you want to see something that actually looks outdated.

Outdated is inconvenient. Inefficient. Although people have already come up with a lot of convenient and effective things. When interacting with Houdini, you spend an incredible amount of time on the simplest things, on fighting with the interface, on fighting with documentation, with strange names, with strange locations. And every time you ask yourself - was it possible to save my time 2-3 times ? Yes! I have already seen similar facilities in other programs. It's already been invented.
The Pythagorean theorem was the same in the time of Pythagoras. But now the presentation and study of the material has changed a lot for the better. You would be very unhappy if you were taught mathematics according to the methods of the ancient Greeks, right? I am absolutely sure that if the management had set the task for the team - "to make the interface CONVENIENT for hands and eyes and understanding" - they would have effectively solved this task. It is clearly seen that such a task is not being set at all. It 's annoying . Especially against the background of well-known free programs. Convenience always wins.

:S
still so intimidating to me
i just cant start learning
am i that depressed and despaired ?
kind regards.

HGaal
You would be very unhappy if you were taught mathematics according to the methods of the ancient Greeks, right?

I wish I could have Pythagoras as mentor !

i wonder how out-of-core will work , because in kerma xpu lecture that was last month he said that one of the device can fail when outofmemory but when i think about it the idea of out-of-core its to use RAM (switch data between RAM and vRAM like redshift) ,
soo anyone know how it will work in h20?

habernir
i wonder how out-of-core will work , because in kerma xpu lecture that was last month he said that one of the device can fail when outofmemory but when i think about it the idea of out-of-core its to use RAM (switch data between RAM and vRAM like redshift) ,
soo anyone know how it will work in h20?

They mentioned this in the Houdini 20 Sneak Peek Full Feature List [www.sidefx.com]
• Robust multi-GPU architecture with failsafe out-of-core capabilities

We have to wait till next week to find out.

Nikyone
First of all, I would like to ask you to calm your anger. I really love Houdini - it's one of the best programs I've ever used. My primary specialization is UI design, and I've developed designs for the Huawei operating system, Honda and Mitsubishi, Airbus. My team and I have received the Red Dot Design Award, if that means anything to you.

I'm not angry, just confused as stated, but maybe you can explain it.

So here are four UIs, from Houdini, Blender, Maya and Cinema4d. And I fail to see what makes the top left outdated. I'm not a fan of the thick panel dividers, but other than that I just don't get it. They all have buttons, they all have panels, what's the big difference (obviously regarding UI, not UX)?

habernir
i wonder how out-of-core will work , because in kerma xpu lecture that was last month he said that one of the device can fail when outofmemory but when i think about it the idea of out-of-core its to use RAM (switch data between RAM and vRAM like redshift), soo anyone know how it will work in h20?

There is a lot of data that XPU has to put on the GPU
eg
- mesh geo
- mesh primvars
- textures
- volume data
- BVH structures (for raytracing)
- etc...

Some of that can go out-of-core (eg textures, mesh primvars, volume data, etc...)
Some of it cannot (eg BVH structures etc...)

If the GPU does not have enough memory for the non-swapable stuff, then XPU will fail the device with an "out of memory". This can happen even if the GPU has lots of physical memory, due to perhaps some other application or instance of Houdini (or even the HoudiniGL window) already taking up lots of memory.

Digipiction
And I fail to see what makes the top left outdated.

i can give you one example right off the bat. you can scroll through tab presets in blender, and when you move mouse to the edge of the screen, cursor does not get stuck on the screen edge, but jumps to the opposite side, so you can easily continue scrolling the Playbar.
small things like that will go a long way

oh and you can drag and drop images right into material networks. imagine that! but there's more - you can drag and drop MOVIES and use them as a texture, and "it just works".

good luck with that in karma

how is Houdini not outdated in that regard?

osong
i can give you one example right off the bat...

There is a misunderstanding - the original comment I replied to stated the following:
"Oh.. still outdated UI design..."

I took this to be a statement based on the visual design of the UI, especially considering that it was made in response to the H20 video, which does not show whether or not certain UX based things have changed. All of the things you mentioned are about functionality (UX) rather than visual design.

Digipiction

osong
i can give you one example right off the bat...

There is a misunderstanding - the original comment I replied to stated the following:
"Oh.. still outdated UI design..."

I took this to be a statement based on the visual design of the UI, especially considering that it was made in response to the H20 video, which does not show whether or not certain UX based things have changed. All of the things you mentioned are about functionality (UX) rather than visual design.

UI and UX are 2 faces of the same issue, however.

When I work with the Type Properties Window and I find myself screaming each time I have to resize some inner section, where should I direct my rage, at the bad UI or the bad UX?

visual design? dont really care. it looks okay, but works not okay. whats the point of it looking prettier and still not performing any good?

i was thinking about "design is how it works not how it looks"
some people suggested new icons or something.. it will change nothing

Judging by some comments, it’s time to create PRISMS 2.0

osong
oh and you can drag and drop images right into material networks. imagine that! but there's more - you can drag and drop MOVIES and use them as a texture, and "it just works".

good luck with that in karma

how is Houdini not outdated in that regard?

You don't create shader networks in Houdini, you work with shader nodes, you can drag and drop images/movies in shader nodes texture slots no problems!

Alexey_Vanzhula
Judging by some comments, it’s time to create PRISMS 2.0

Lol. That guy by the name "damm" answered my post over at cgpress where you got it from... :-D

Sygnum

Alexey_Vanzhula
Judging by some comments, it’s time to create PRISMS 2.0

Lol. That guy by the name "damm" answered my post over at cgpress where you got it from... :-D

cgpress.org [cgpress.org]