All this talk about how icons and other UI elements look like is good and useful, but I for one, would rather prefer to see some other areas improved first, like UX, which is a bit harder from a dev pov, but I'd argue more impactful for work.

For example the ability to select multiple transform channels in the param. window, like in Maya or like one can in Anim Editor currently, to zero out or set a value at once. ctrl+MMB is a useful one for resetting to default single channels but way too slow when having more.
There are many others, but I'll leave it at that.

Well.. looks like for simulation guys that set up parameters once in 20 minutes then hit enter and wait for simulation, current UI design isnt problem.

But for animators that tweak those damn parameters and bazier curves all the time it become a problem becouse we have to interact with UI all the time.

Good desigend UI can make you work longer and more effective and thats the point from artist or animator point of view.

And Houdini UI dont have to be reinvented or revolutionized becouse from functional point of view it ewolved well. Only problem is pure design. Mostly spacing for better readibility (something like kerning with fonts), contrast, fonts, and all other elements every artist is aware of. So he can sense good design from distanse.

Clearly somone who say Houdini UI is ok never animated anything for 10 houers straigt.

And when artist see Houdini UI says: no fucking way. iam not gonna look at those not alligned UI all the time. Ill stick with MAYA. And you as studio ower have to deal with it. Wich means that u cant setup whole pipeline in Houdini only.

Good design follows (end) function, don’t confuse design with aesthetics. Design encompasses both appearance and interaction. Call it UI/UX.

Houdini does not have a consistent UI/UX. It’s interface layered with ad-hoc (added by need) features and workflows that require a lot of experience to untangle. It’s a reason it’s hard to learn (and use).

All lot of panels and features have flat out horrible design, in the sense that they act like wac’a mole, occlude info and hide functionality, and read like shit.

of the top of my head:
- sticky notes
- usd inspector/details view
- pdg table
- parameter pane (not all)
- viewport toolbars
- python exception popup
- viewer state inspector
- package inspector
- hda asset manager
- animation editor (might have improved with 20.5)

A lot of this reeks of Qt, which does not give good layout by default. Though for a lot of the interaction it just feels neglected.

ex. begin able to push out something as complex as copernicus, and not make your error pop-ups more digestible feels like a matter of neglect.

As oldteapot7 points out, for those that need to move a lot through the interface, it makes Houdini somewhat of a pain to use. (I was never able to convince an animator to join me in Houdini, main reason begin inhospitable design).

Animation Editor is exactly the same in 20.5.

It's wild that they took time to add the Animation Bar while Animation Editor itself is barely usable.

Making new features instead of polishing existing ones must be deep down in SideFX's culture. Of course new features are always welcomed but come on...

Let's hope they're taking notes and H21 will bring some major improvements in these areas.
A few modeling improvements and fixes - Edge Divide is still working like an early 2000s tool with its quirks depending on selection order (Edge Loop SOP doesn't work for partial ring selections) and no curvature awareness option for either of these. Go to 2:55
And other low hanging fruits from a development pov, but they make a big difference for quality of life.

oldteapot7
Well.. looks like for simulation guys that set up parameters once in 20 minutes then hit enter and wait for simulation, current UI design isnt problem.

But for animators that tweak those damn parameters and bazier curves all the time it become a problem becouse we have to interact with UI all the time.

Good desigend UI can make you work longer and more effective and thats the point from artist or animator point of view.

And Houdini UI dont have to be reinvented or revolutionized becouse from functional point of view it ewolved well. Only problem is pure design. Mostly spacing for better readibility (something like kerning with fonts), contrast, fonts, and all other elements every artist is aware of. So he can sense good design from distanse.

Clearly somone who say Houdini UI is ok never animated anything for 10 houers straigt.

And when artist see Houdini UI says: no fucking way. iam not gonna look at those not alligned UI all the time. Ill stick with MAYA. And you as studio ower have to deal with it. Wich means that u cant setup whole pipeline in Houdini only.

The typography of Houdini is always esoteric and it never gets better.

Take a look at this darling:



Which info is the most obvious and taking the most screen space, besides the numbers of points/primitives?

Guess what, it's timestamp. For some reason, SideFX believes when the user is viewing this panel, the information they care the most is when the node was created and modified. Not attributes, but time.

I honestly can't remember the last time when I need to check these timestamps. But for SideFX they must be super important. :o

kodra
I honestly can't remember the last time when I need to check these timestamps. But for SideFX they must be super important.

It's not that SideFX thinks it's super important.
It's just that you haven't worked on a scene with 30+ attributes present,
to 'appreciate' the insignificance( in terms of screen space ) of the two timestamps Modified/Created.

kodra
Animation Editor is exactly the same in 20.5.

It's wild that they took time to add the Animation Bar while Animation Editor itself is barely usable.

Making new features instead of polishing existing ones must be deep down in SideFX's culture. Of course new features are always welcomed but come on...

Why is the animation editor barely usable?

By the way, I use edgeflow from the modeler and there is another free one on orbolt. In principle, they work fine. Of course, it's a pity that they are not in the original instruments.

RGaal
By the way, I use edgeflow from the modeler and there is another free one on orbolt. In principle, they work fine. Of course, it's a pity that they are not in the original instruments.

in the upcoming modeler edge flow was rewriten from scratch. now it is multithreaded and works much better.

alexeyvanzhula1984
in the upcoming modeler edge flow was rewriten from scratch. now it is multithreaded and works much better.

I'm really looking forward to the new modeler !

alexeyvanzhula1984

RGaal
By the way, I use edgeflow from the modeler and there is another free one on orbolt. In principle, they work fine. Of course, it's a pity that they are not in the original instruments.

in the upcoming modeler edge flow was rewriten from scratch. now it is multithreaded and works much better.

when is the new modeler coming????

LukeP

alexeyvanzhula1984

RGaal
By the way, I use edgeflow from the modeler and there is another free one on orbolt. In principle, they work fine. Of course, it's a pity that they are not in the original instruments.

in the upcoming modeler edge flow was rewriten from scratch. now it is multithreaded and works much better.

when is the new modeler coming????

when h20.5 will be more stable

alexeyvanzhula1984

LukeP

alexeyvanzhula1984

RGaal
By the way, I use edgeflow from the modeler and there is another free one on orbolt. In principle, they work fine. Of course, it's a pity that they are not in the original instruments.

in the upcoming modeler edge flow was rewriten from scratch. now it is multithreaded and works much better.

when is the new modeler coming????

when h20.5 will be more stable

What’s unstable? It’s been pretty stable for me

Assuming you’ve logged all the bugs? I find SideFX support pretty awesome.

LukeP
What’s unstable? It’s been pretty stable for me

good joke

LukeP
find SideFX support pretty awesome.

Many bugs in Houdini 20 that I reported by sending RFEs are still not fixed. But they love closing threads. So, I'll say it loudly once more: Houdini's stability decreases with each release.

Since 20.5 release I've reported more than 30 bugs. In less than two weeks.

The number is not exaggerated. Actually if we counted the bugs I experienced but SideFX can't reproduce, it would be close to 40.

(It's more than the number of bugs I reported for Blender in 5 years of usage)

I do think SideFX' support is quite good. If it was Adobe they wouldn't even respond my emails. But man that's a lot of bugs.

Houdini 20.5 is in the Beta stage, and we are all beta testers. Now I'm not upset that I wasn't given the opportunity to be a beta tester.

I'm frustrated by the "curve" node. It breaks Houdini with a probability close to 100% if you move the points in it a little. Although it is much more stable now, in version 20 it crashed almost immediately. But even now, when I launch the node, I understand that the crash of this file is inevitable. Very frustrating, I always need curves.

20.5 still not stable at all. The objects get despaired from the viewport all the time.
Yesterday I did press "Ctrl+S" to save three times and Houdini crashed and guess what? the file get deleted from harddisk!
"Open recent" showed $hip at the beginning of the path but it's not in the folder anymore! so I was forced to open the last backup file.