User Interface Guidelines for 3D interactions

A.K.A. the Principia Viewportica

Among 3D content creation applications, there is little agreement on how interactions in the 3D viewport work. Each company has their own system of conventions and traditions, which are hopefully at least internally consistent, if not consistent with other packages.

I was tasked with producing a user interface guidelines for interaction and visual aesthetics for the next generation of Houdini’s viewport. These guidelines will apply to our “factory” interfaces as well as provide best practices and reusable parts for the custom Python-scripted handles and viewport interactions created by users.

The actual document is proprietary but I have shared a few illustrations here to suggest the flavour.