k76

Dear Riviera, PradeepBarua and Danwood82. Thank you guys for your quick response and willingness to help!

I'm sorry for my being too emotional about the issue. I really liked the concepts Houdini is based on and, frankly, think the software is fantastic. It was my experience laid top on expectations of a flawless streamline that led me into somewhat discrepancy with the reality and, consequently, to a frustration.

We all, the mac users, (ok, at least some of us), have a strong feeling of being princes of the whole IT industry, assuming every software is obliged to run on macs smoother and more efficient even on vintage machines than the rest of the cpu junk. My experience proved the irony behind that.

I really wish I could use Houdini, and maybe, after I'll have upgraded all my garage of macs, what I definitely do not want to do at the moment (I love you, Steve – nothing can beat the feel of older OSXs), I will return to a stable, mac-proof OpenGL debugged masterpiece.

Meanwhile, the Houdini community on the forums is a jewell of the 3D world, very friendly and helpful, not mentioned the vast professional experience of the artists.

Cheers!

Dear developers and fellow co-sufferers.

This POS (Piece Of Software), which is Houdini 12.0.543.9 on my 10.6.8 mac os, has completely undergone all the limits of my patience. First, on coming to this forum, me, being full of desire to help in development of aforementioned POS, being so grateful for letting me touch the King Of 3d Magic, - me was going to start the series of posts of my experience of working with the software.

Now, after seeing thousands of posts, related to technical issues with the POS, I have to post only my final rambling and my feeling of what I have had already.

Today I am wiping away the Great King of Rats from my system just to stay sane and mentally balanced.

After hundreds of crashes (dozens of times each day), after dealing (and finally discovering roundabouts) of UI glitches, after having had hundreds of hours spent dealing with technical issues all I have to do is just surrender and return to good old Lightwave and Blender. And in the end, just to part good friends here is my contribution as a permanent beta tester.

1. User UI
UI is cluttered, one needs too many clicks. Spacebar for navigation works 83% of all the time, which is, definitely, absolutely unsatisfactory.

2. Bugs everywhere
I have never seen any node or operation which is flawless.

3. OpenGL
Forget about it. Too buggy to explain.

4. Help documentation
No definitions of terms (e.g., I don't understand what shape or hull means in the context). Reading the obscure explanations can only give, sporadically, a hint of idea after reading it several times.

Sorry, dear developers, the Buggini is too far from being a stable version. Let's name it a pre-beta. But it is not fair to turn the users, whom you charge even as low as 100$ for apprentice, into beta-testers, and more bizarre seems marketing it at the price for a commercial license. Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not going to install a new OS to justify the requirements of new, ‘bug-free’, version of the software.

I really liked the concept of procedural approach, which you declare, I didn't like at all the implementation.

Yours,
Sincerely,
Kyril