The improvements to the network editor in Houdini 16 is probably my favourite aspect of the release. It answers many of the complaints you mention Oliver.
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Olivier Jeannel Sent: 24 March 2017 09:46 To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com> Subject: Re: Random Thoughts about H. Getting back to the subject of organisation, I still consider myself as a houdini beginner. The thing is, it so open that you quickly import the ice science into vop and you get comfident enough quickly. My experience is with the 15.5, and probably not the latest release. I found the stiky notes not that handy ( clicking on it sometimes close it, or it gets in the way), naming a node or an area. was a pain, you enter the name hit "enter" and it bounces back to its previous name. Having to retype 3 or 4 times until it catches it correctly. The surrounding colored area that you can draw around your network were buggy as well. Once the network surrounded it was mostly unworkable... So finally I just relied on colored nodes... I also found the node editor to be a bit buggy when working with a high number of nodes. It can get slow, and the mouse pointer was clicking in an unprecize manner (when trying to pick the line between 2 nodes), sometimes creating disaster. And by high number of nodes i mean : my final scene was having one big obj/geo node for the animation, containing a dozen of complete big sop trees (with for each, vop, and a few dops, some cachefiles..). I found that working within one single big node was better than having to jump back and forth into exterior nodes. But the downside is that I had to navigate (swim) in that huge forest of slow undocumented trees. Seems they fixed all this naming, note and coloring in the 16. If someone can confirm. On Thursday, March 23, 2017, Andy Goehler <lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com <mailto:lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com> > wrote: Regarding Passes, at first it felt really strange, everything seemed different. But after some time and getting into bundles the basics were mastered. What always bugged me in Softimage was managing partitions across passes. If there were changes you’d be hunting down all the partitions in various passes. I’ve always wished for something expression based. With wildcards on ROPs and smart bundles this opened the doors of freedom. I never worry about that anymore. For overrides I use object merges, as Jordi mentioned. This is not ideal, but manageable, not to mention extremely flexible and always reflects changes. I’ve looked into material style sheets and they are quite powerful, but not as nice to manage from a UI perspective. I found I’d rather manage additional objects with object merges and their material assignments, etc. Nevertheless, MSS can get the job done. What I’d wish for is a graph similar to Katana, where nodes collect the objects and lights. Additional nodes provide material assignment and overrides. Or simply bundles with overrides :D I’m still putting the pieces together to file an RFE with SESI. Andy On 23.03.2017, at 14:11, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','a...@andynicholas.com');> > wrote: Yep. Worth mentioning the Material SOP too where you can override on a per point/primitive/global level if you need to. It was also pointed out to me the other day that the Material SOP is capable of generating material stylesheets for you. I'm still getting my head around that particular functionality, but I can see it has the potential to be very helpful in a more automated pipeline. A On 23/03/2017 12:36, Jordi Bares wrote: Indeed, no matter which software we choose we will certainly miss Softimage overrides and passes… Houdini offers a few approaches but none of them is as smooth and easy as Softimage. The best route I have round is to use Object_Merges to do the overrides but indeed it is not as nice… :-P BTW, check Material Style Sheets… will open some new avenues that may be useful. jb On 23 Mar 2017, at 08:50, Rob Wuijster <r...@casema.nl <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','r...@casema.nl');> > wrote: @Jordi and others: Besides all the new stuff to learn, where - as you said - some stuff is easier than others (VEX), my main gripe is rendering. I still try to get some workflow running where I can easily create Passes/Partitions/overrides like I did in Softimage. I know it's not the same thing in H, but not being able to quickly override shaders on top scene level, or in bundles is a huge miss. It often results in multiple shaders and switches. There's also Takes, but from what I've read on it most people stay clear from it. And there's material stylesheets which are a tad over-designed and not really user friendly imho. So any workflows people developed on rendering, after starting to use Houdini, are very much welcome. cheers! Rob \/-------------\/----------------\/ On 22-3-2017 11:36, Jordi Bares wrote: Yet for the points mentioned, I would have an easier time agreeing with you if indeed I found "some things to be easier, and others not", whereas beyond what could be associated to "XSI muscle memory", the sheer quantity or proportions of things that are not not just easier, but considerably much (much!) easier, makes it hard to just overlook and just "go with it", especially when knowing how things can be. Putting aside the fact we have to move out of Softimage sooner or later (hardware, OS, drivers, freelancers, support, etc… will eventually force us out) Putting aside those areas Sofimage can’t compete because it does not have the functionality (heavy duty FX mostly, Terrains, Game integration, etc…) I would like to focus on those day to day scenarios you feel are not easy in Houdini, after all we could submit this input to Side Effects. Is there any particular scenario you feel strongly Softimage is much more comfortable/easy/convenient? :-) jb ------ Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com');> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm. ------ Softimage Mailing List. 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