Wow, guys, did you know that Houdini now has the option “Tangent Plane Snapping” for snapping to primitives? And now the object will snap exactly at the intersection of the axis of motion and the inclined plane, which was impossible in any way in 19.5. I've been asking Sidefx about this for a long time, but I didn't see it in the changelogs and thought they ignored it. But they did it somehow unnoticed by me. SideFx, I express my deep gratitude to you publicly! You made me happy! It’s funny, but recently I was modeling in Houdini, and was putting together a large scene in Blender, because there was a lot of similar object snapping, and I didn’t know that this snapping had finally appeared in Houdini. This is very cool ! Thanks a lot ! All you have to do is save the snapping settings to make the modelers completely happy. SideFx, you are great guys! Lately, you have pleasantly surprised me with the speed of improving the interface! Do not stop !

God, how pleased I am!

That's great news - well spotted! Thanks for the heads-up!

kodra
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.

I've reported 7 more bugs after this. In mere 2 days...

Why am I paying money to be a QA? How much SideFX QA make and where I can apply?

In the meanwhile the very first bug I reported for H20 last year (#133462) is still not fixed in H20.5. It's getting out of hand.

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

... same here, a bug around every corner, and a lot of them I don't even report because it just takes up too much time.

Feels like SideFX is not creating software for users, but just for the hype .

In the comment section of every Keynote and HIVE video, people are cheering for how innovative SideFX is.

I honestly hope they stop being so innovative. I mean it. It'd be better for everyone if they could just spend several months to make the existing features solid and stable instead of pumping out half-assed shining new features every year.

The fact that even the most basic functionalities like viewport and hotkeys can break is insane. It's like releasing a new car model whose steering wheel isn't 100% reliable but cheered for its in-car entertainment system.

The Vulkan viewport, even after one year of beta, is very disappointing. Mac people are crying for Vulkan support, but here I am, on Windows and still using OpenGL viewport. Vulkan performance is just FAR worse even on Windows. I have an APEX animation that runs 60FPS with OpenGL but 28FPS with Vulkan. And Vulkan is now default option? Do SideFX hate money so much that they have to come up with mechanism to push new users away?

Edit: AND I found two more bugs while testing whether Vulkan's performance is really that slow. Jesus Christ...

kodra
The fact that even the most basic functionalities like viewport and hotkeys can break is insane. It's like releasing a new car model whose steering wheel isn't 100% reliable but cheered for its in-car entertainment system.

It's more like people use different aspects of Houdini and in different ways....it's not an entertainment system vs. steering wheel(That's because you are assuming how and what you like to use is the same for everyone else);

But more like everyone has a favorite radio staion/s on that cars entertainment system - some are disgruntled that their tunes are not getting the air play on their station, while others like myself are finding their station is doing quit well.

No matter what, no one can argue that refining existing features in terms of functionality, interactivity and stability is a good thing.
However, Houdini with it's breadth and depth - makes it impossible to address in a short go to satisfy everyone.

There would be many features I would like to see attention given to aka - developer time spent on, but it's highly likely you could care less of those features that matter to me.

SideFX could do what you suggest - and take 2-3 years and halt development of all new features and just do refinement of existing features. Except for stability issues though, that could never happen - what and how one person prefers something to be set up is guaranteed to be different from the next person.

I for one who has been using Houdini since 14.0 or so have found personally, overall, Houdini has gotten 'better' much more so than it has raised 'annoyances'(which have been in the minority).

It's unfortunate judging by your comments, that it seems your experience has been the opposite - more annoyance than anything else.

Hopefully, as you already know - keep putting those RFEs and Bug reports in - I'm pretty sure it's a numbers game in the regard that if many people share your view on those RFEs/bugs - attention will definitely be given to them and resolved/changed.

BabaJ
Hopefully, as you already know - keep putting those RFEs and Bug reports in - I'm pretty sure it's a numbers game in the regard that if many people share your view on those RFEs/bugs - attention will definitely be given to them and resolved/changed.

I have had about 120 email threads with SideFX support. About 40 of them are from last 2 weeks.

You know what's the craziest part of this?

None of these emails are about Copernicus. Literally none. It's not because Copernicus is bug-free. It's because I tried to go through the Copernicus example and crashed twice then I gave up on Copernicus already.

I've already been avoiding the latest shining feature of H20.5, yet I still encountered this many bugs.

SideFX definitely has a quality control problem.

Example: this bug [www.sidefx.com]. Surely different people use different parts of Houdini. But Vellum and DOP are definitely not a niche feature. How is it okay for a bug like this got released into 2 production builds in H20, and the release of H20.5? It's a bug that you can reproduce with even the simplest DOP network.

Another example I mentioned before: Vulkan viewport is unstable. And the performance is often worse than OpenGL. AND SideFX knows it. However they still decided to make it the default viewport in 20.5. Why? Just to have another item checked on release note?

Yet another example is hotkey. There are already multiple threads on this forum about this. If SideFX expected the users to play "number game" and would only fix hotkey until enough people complain, there is a big problem. Even Autodesk isn't that anti-user.

I think this thread has gone from UI design inconsistencies to h20.5 stability. Not sure if SideFX is reading but it does seem like this release has been rushed a bit and now people are feeling it across the various areas of Houdini. Like hotkeys.

With that said - I think 20.5 - bugs aside is a massive release. Especially if you think it’s 7 or 8 months after 20.0.

Those who are complaining about the stability issues and entering 40 bug reports in a week - since to my knowledge SideFX doesn’t have a known bugs or issues public list - what are the common areas you see problems with? Vulkan viewport? (which I agree is surprisingly slow sometimes compared to what has been promised and why it was done in the first place) new functionalities? Old eg modeling? Just trying to understand if there are common themes or areas of instability.

LukeP
what are the common areas you see problems with

To me, animation is the most buggy part.

Unfortunately, even I reported a lot of bugs, I didn't report the most important and fatal ones. I only reported the ones that I can easily and reliably reproduce.

I also experienced a lot crashes. But they're always quite random so I really don't know how to report them. I didn't report the random crash I encountered with Copernicus, for example.

Even all the bugs I've reported are magically fixed overnight, Houdini is still a quite unstable app, just with less UI bugs.

...Perhaps I should just stop reporting. The more I think about it the more pointless it seems. Perhaps I'm just wasting SideFX support's and my own time. Perhaps the only reason I'm complaining in this thread is that I realized how pointless it is. Why are we still here? Just to suffer?

kodra

LukeP
what are the common areas you see problems with

To me, animation is the most buggy part.

Unfortunately, even I reported a lot of bugs, I didn't report the most important and fatal ones. I only reported the ones that I can easily and reliably reproduce.

I also experienced a lot crashes. But they're always quite random so I really don't know how to report them. I didn't report the random crash I encountered with Copernicus, for example.

Even all the bugs I've reported are magically fixed overnight, Houdini is still a quite unstable app, just with less UI bugs.

...Perhaps I should just stop reporting. The more I think about it the more pointless it seems. Perhaps I'm just wasting SideFX support's and my own time. Perhaps the only reason I'm complaining in this thread is that I realized how pointless it is. Why are we still here? Just to suffer?

Don’t need to dramatize this It was an honest question. Reporting defects is always a good thing and yes, I hear you on the stability frustrations and some that are just random crashes. For those - there should be a core dump of some sort that could be shared.

Ah and yes, Copernicus, Vulcan, Hotkeys, Animate are all in beta (with exception of hotkeys) so I would expect them to have some instability issues. SideFX approaches it differently. They get the technology out in beta to get user feedback as they built out the feature set, fix stability etc. Unfortunately this does mean that they are often not stable and production ready. In general it also makes many 2+ year old tutorials - often no longer meaningful or best practices.

I know things will be better and out of Beta. I just don't know if I can live long enough to see them.

...ok now I'm dramatizing it too much.

Anyway I like more features as much as the next guy. I just think they should err on stability side more.

The only important thing about buttons is the need for a button to temporarily enable or disable snapping. This is what we need to hammer home to developers.

RGaal
The only important thing about buttons is the need for a button to temporarily enable or disable snapping. This is what we need to hammer home to developers.

I’m confused…

Well i guess that every software have bugs.. its the way how developing software works. Personally i like SideFX philosophy wich is giving us a lot of new tools. And yes they mayby in beta state but we are participating in inproving them. Its like cooperation that help evolve and build greater tools that help in our work. Like a teamplay

For production its always better to use software that was released at least 1 year ago (with all actual patches). And play with new tools in Houdini's arsenal just for fun and for finding bugs so SideFX can fix them and imrove. They have loooong good reputation in this field, specially compared to other "developers" like Autodesk. (R.I.P. Softomage XSI)

Anyway mayby you have some advices hot to avoid those bugs? Specially for new users that dont have expierience how to work around and eliminate software crushes? and propably do stupid things xD

I mean where those bugs usually are located? Fe. in new nodes or its cumulative stuff, are they in vieport area or mayby in UI.. how to feel them?

oldteapot7
Anyway mayby you have some advices hot to avoid those bugs? Specially for new users that dont have expierience how to work around and eliminate software crushes? and propably do stupid things xD

My only advice is to not bother. At least for skeletal animation, stick to Maya or Blender. Moving data between apps is much easier than trying to work around random crashes.

If unfortunately you've already made a non-trivial rig in Houdini (emphasis: if you haven't, DO NOT bother), my advice is to always exit APEX animate state if you're not using it. Having a viewport with animate state on while doing any other things, literally anything -- switching desktop, open another viewport, change camera's parameter, change a rigscript upstream -- is very prone to crash.

Just don't bother.

I record a video where random crash happens.

As you can see it's not some exotic rig. Literally just the built-in Electra. And I'm not doing something advanced. AND Houdini doesn't even show me where the crash log or core dump is (there seems to be a popup showing that, but the popup crashes together with Houdini )

Link dosnt work It says video is private...

I dont even know what that APEX thing really is exept its some new framework or something that is used in rigging and animation. And that is new and still in beta so crushes should be normal. Iam still learning H. and will sit to animation stuff propably in one year so i hope till then it will be bug fixed and working

Main thing i started to learn Houdini is that there was more love for animation wich will make this package completet from pipeline point of view.

It's actually not about APEX. I managed to reproduce the crash without using APEX. Actually, without using one single node.

kodra

It's actually not about APEX. I managed to reproduce the crash without using APEX. Actually, without using one single node.

Can we please take this thread to a separate one? This has nothing to do with the design inconsistencies which was the purpose of initial thread I think…