r/Houdini • u/AbdulKarim04 • 1d ago
PhiAxis compositional guides for Houdini viewport
Houdini already uses Qt for drawing UI overlays, but nor (yet) for compositional guides so I built a small Python tool that calculates the guides mathematically and uses Qt Painter to draw them directly over the viewport while respecting the camera framing and aspect ratio and packaged it into a shelftool for houdini called PhiAxis.
The idea is very simple: open it, choose your guide, check the composition, keep building your scene and move to the next stages of production. (It's not a guarantee for a great shot it's just a helper guide you maybe even want to intentionally BREAK these guides/rules for more interesting storytelling)
I also tested it against frames from films and games that clearly use these composition rules to make sure everything lines up properly.
i know there's a similar bigger tools for this but as far as i know they are paid and more complex than this one
so it's a simple/FREE/lightweight solution
It’s now available on GitHub a simple double-click installer.
Tested on Houdini 20.5 through 22.
https://github.com/abdulkarimnoah01/PhiAxis
https://github.com/abdulkarimnoah01/PhiAxis/releases/tag/v0.8.1 [PhiAxis-0.8.1.zip]
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u/bujbuj1 22h ago
Thanks , this is super necessary
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u/AbdulKarim04 22h ago
Yes especially as someone coming from c4d and blender i was surprised by how Houdini is so powerful but yet doesn't have these simple functions and many other simple features in solaris which have been in blender since forever 😅
If you use it I'd like your feedback, thanks man
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u/isa_marsh 11h ago
This is really nice, but why installation with a script ? A basic package install would be much simpler and safer to use...
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u/i_am_toadstorm MOPs - motionoperators.com 5h ago
you would be shocked at how few users actually understand how to configure and install a package. it's the #1 support request i get by a huge margin.
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u/AbdulKarim04 4h ago
Yes as i_am_toadstorm said many houdini users struggles a bit installing houdini packages/HDAs so the script is just the copy and paste to every current houdini version in the documents directly to the houdini packages folder automatically in one click half of the artists here in the studio always facing problems installing HDAs/OTLs/packages/shelftools properly
But you are right I'll make the installer just a quick option if people doesn't feel safe running it
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u/AbdulKarim04 4h ago
Done Added to github is that you can always ignore the installer and install it manually copying the .json file that refers to the "payload" folder of the Phiaxis tool If the user doesn't feel comfortable running an auto installer script
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u/SimianWriter 1d ago
Nice.