At SIGGRAPH 2018 SideFX teased PolyDraw, an upcoming tool for Houdini 17 that allows you to “draw geometry and build on either existing geometry or from nothing, in an empty scene”. Watch the presentation on Vimeo.
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Been using Houdini a lot lately, not having to use another tool for direct modeling would be amazing. GJ! Cant wait!
I really hope they will work on modeling toolset a bit more than that. Instead of just mashing more modeling tools in, focus on improving workflow of the current ones. It’s borderline impossible to model fluidly in Houdini, and that’s the reason you see almost no one ever doing any serious modeling in it. Most of the core modeling tools lack proper viewport interactivity, so you have to constantly break the flow and travel your mouse somewhere in a cluttered UI panel to adjust basic things like inset distance or bevel divisions.
Hopefully this is one of many direct modeling features coming in the next release and not just a one off.. I really like what I saw so far… 16.5 was released around what, early Nov 2017? In theory we should find out in the next few months.
That’s the fate of Houdini. You live by the node and die by the node.
Yeah unfortunately, nodes are great for some stuff but horrible for others.
Houdini needs to have a way to abstract the nodes when the user does not need them. I mean what the user makes there always behind nodes but he does not need to interact with them if does not need.
It’s not related to nodes in any way. If you use a poly modeling tool in Houdini, that operation gets added as a node in a graph. Making modeling tools more fluid would change nothing about that at all. My point is – take a look at Houdini’s bevel tool for example. Holding down MMB and dragging changes amount of bevel divisions and scrolling mouse wheel changes Bevel width. So that when you scroll your wheel, you will get bevel width of a fixed, very large increments, so you will inevitably have to break the flow, go to UI panels and adjust it there.
At the same time, bevel divisions are changed using a MMB+Drag shortcut, which unlike mouse wheel doesn’t go in steps, so it allows for a fine control yet controls something that goes in steps. It’s the other way around.
That’s a really bad oversight in terms of workflow design, and there’s many more of such in Houdini. It seems like someone implemented the modeling toolset, but no one actually used it enough to give a feedback.
Here’s a video example:
https://youtu.be/v2eDBI4v4nI
Shortcut which would allow a fine control is assigned to something that doesn’t need fine control, and at the same time mouse wheel, which doesn’t allow fine control is assigned to something which does need one. Again, it’s a small drop in the sea of issues which make Houdini a hell for modeling.
But my main point is, I am happy that they are finally focusing on modeling, which was Houdini’s weak point for many years, preventing it from being used as an all around DCC app, instead of FX focused package. At the same time I am quite worried that they will interpret weakness of Houdini’s modeling as a lack of amount of tools, and will start mashing more of them (like polydraw), instead of improving control of current ones. Houdini doesn’t have problem with the amount of direct modeling tools. It has a problem with the way current ones are implemented.
use the shift control when you use the wheel on your mouse.
stepsize default: 0.05
stepsize shift: 0.005
stepsize control: 0.5
or do you need more precision?
make a RFE for getting a global Mouse parameter where you can define your preferred setup.
Shift actually doesn’t work in this case (mouse wheel in Bevel tool), only Ctrl does. I can make it less precise, not more. But again, this was just a single example of a class of issues which plagues Houdini’s modeling, making the process obnoxious.
Yes, I know I can customize it in Houdini, but basic modeling tools should not be something users needs to fix first before it’s usable.
i love the direction Houdini is moving. another one node for all should be morphing tools, similar to maya, where you have all blenshapes and weights in one panel plus some advanced painting modifing mesh tools, and another for mixing animations. nodes are fine, but quick way of working with one node is what iam and other artist looking for.