Read the Houdini documenttion to learn the nuances of navigation in Houdini.

In addition to the Houdini navigation features, Modeler has some improvements:

• AlignView allows you to align the viewport camera to the nearest global plane without the need to change it with Space+1, 2, 3, 4 sequences. This speeds up modeling because you do not need to remember which direction of the object which camera is directed. There are two ways to activate AlignView:

  • Calling a regular Modeler tool with a hotkey.
  • Pressing the Shift key while rotating the vieport camera. This method works the same way as in ZBrush and 3d-Coat.

• The AlignViewTo tool is similar to AlignView, but it is designed to align the camera so that it faces the construction plane or a selected polygon:

  • If you want to align the camera relative to the construction plane, make sure the plane is visible. To activate and configure the plane, you can use the Houdini Volatile C-Plane Operation function. By default, it is triggered by the hotkey "/".
  • If you want to align the camera relative to a polygon, select it, ensure the construction plane is not active, and launch the AlignViewTo tool.

• Alt+Shift+LMB is an alternate link to the Frame tool (Alt+F), which zooms the viewport camera to view selected components or entire objects. If nothing is selected, then all items are shown.

• Quick press and release of the spacebar switches objects:

  • If the mouse cursor was on an empty area of the scene, it switches to object level
  • If over geometry, it activates the container with that geometry
  • If over geometry with an active template flag, it activates that node by setting the display flag. The previous display node will have the template flag set. This is necessary for switching between template nodes of one container.

  Slow usage of the spacebar, for example for navigation or for using standard combinations like Space+1, Space+H, etc., works exactly the same way as in Houdini when the Modeler is disabled.