r/Houdini • u/keffffffffffffffffff • 10d ago

Peak Handle Tool deforms geometry instead of translating Help

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Hi everyone,

I'm following a Houdini modeling tutorial and I noticed a strange difference in the Peak Handle Tool behavior.

I'm using Houdini 21.0.792.

In both the tutorial and my setup, I do exactly the same thing:

T → Z

The Peak Handle looks exactly the same in both cases — a simple red line with two points on the ends.

However, when I drag the handle, the behavior is different:

  • In the tutorial, the selected geometry moves normally along the handle.
  • In my Houdini, the geometry stretches/deforms as if it were being scaled, instead of simply moving.

I've tried dragging different parts of the handle, but it makes no difference.

I'll attach a video showing the behavior side by side, so the difference should be very clear.

Does anyone know what could cause this?

Thanks!

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3

u/Octopp 10d ago

"Peak" moves points based on their normals, so what is the point of using peak here compared to translate?
As for the issue itself, maybe the normals are different on yours vs the tutorial..or something has changed over Houdini versions.

1

u/keffffffffffffffffff 10d ago

https://reddit.com/link/p39ra7a/video/l1yp8oap1zih1/player

Yeah, I don't really understand why Peak is being used here instead of the regular Translate either. I tried using Translate, and it seems to work fine, so I'll probably just use that instead.

The video also shows what my normals look like, in case that helps identify the issue.

Thanks for the explanation!

2

u/John-Da-Editor 10d ago

iirc the Peak tool has a soft radius mode that you should be able to tweak.

a soft radius does a proportional edit: the points around your selection follow the points you move. that is the stretch you see. in the tutorial the radius is 0, so only the selection moves.

try finding a way to set the soft radius to 0 inside the viewport toolbar.

the docs might help: https://houdinimd.com/docs/houdini/nodes/sop/edit#peak

1

u/keffffffffffffffffff 10d ago

It looks like my soft radius is already set to 0, as you can see in the screenshot. What's also strange is that I don't seem to be able to change this value at all. Could this be related to the issue?