Geometry container object

Container for the geometry operators (SOPs) that define a modeled object.

All Parameters Local variables

The Geo object represents a high-level modeled object, such as a character or a prop. It contains geometry operators that define its shape.

RIB output

When generating subdivision surface meshes for RIB output, this node checks for an integer detail or integer primitive attribute named interpolateboundary. If the detail attribute exists, the node turns interpolateboundary flag on in the RIB stream for all subdivision meshes in the geometry. If any primitive has an integer value larger than 0 for the attribute, the sub-division mesh to which it belongs will have the flag on.

Parameters

Transform

Keep Position When Parenting

When the object is re-parented, maintain its current world position by changing the object’s transform parameters.

Pre-transform menu

This menu contains options for manipulating the pre-transform values. The pre-transform is an internal transform that is applied prior to the regular transform parameters. This allows you to change the frame of reference for the translate, rotate, scale parameter values below without changing the overall transform.

Clean Transform

This reverts the translate, rotate, scale parameters to their default values while maintaining the same overall transform.

Clean Translates

This sets the translate parameter to (0, 0, 0) while maintaining the same overall transform.

Clean Rotates

This sets the rotate parameter to (0, 0, 0) while maintaining the same overall transform.

Clean Scales

This sets the scale parameter to (1, 1, 1) while maintaining the same overall transform.

Extract Pre-transform

This removes the pre-transform by setting the translate, rotate, and scale parameters in order to maintain the same overall transform. Note that if there were shears in the pre-transform, it can not be completely removed.

Reset Pre-transform

This completely removes the pre-transform without changing any parameters. This will change the overall transform of the object if there are any non-default values in the translate, rotate, and scale parameters.

Transform Order

The left menu chooses the order in which transforms are applied (for example, scale, then rotate, then translate). This can change the position and orientation of the object, in the same way that going a block and turning east takes you to a different place than turning east and then going a block.

The right menu chooses the order in which to rotate around the X, Y, and Z axes. Certain orders can make character joint transforms easier to use, depending on the character.

Translate

Translation along XYZ axes.

Rotation

Degrees rotation about XYZ axes.

Scale

Non-uniform scaling about XYZ axes.

Pivot

Local origin of the object. See also setting the pivot point .

Uniform Scale

Scale the object uniformly along all three axes.

Look At

Object to point to. Constrains an object so its -Z axis always points at another object’s origin.

Look At Up Vector

When specifying a look at, it is possible to specify an up vector for the look at. This controls the roll of this object when looking at the look at object.

Don’t Use Up Vector

Use this option if the look at object does not pass through the Y axis of this object.

Use Up Vector

This precisely defines the direction of the Y axis of this object while looking. The up vector specified should not be parallel to the look at direction. The value used is specified by the Orient Up Vector parameter below.

Use Quaternions

Quaternions are a mathematical representation of a 3D rotation. This method finds the most efficient means of moving from one point to another on a sphere.

Path Object

A reference to the curve node or object you want this object to follow.

Roll

The orientation of the object around the path.

Position

The position of the object along the path. 0.0 means at the beginning of the path, and 1.0 means the end. The integer portion of the position is used as the primitive number inside the geometry while the fractional part indicates the u value on the primitive.

If the primitive number does not exist, then it is wrapped back to the beginning. So for numbers greater than 1.0 in a path object that only have a single primitive, it wraps around to the beginning again. You can easily animate something moving around a circular track simply by continuously increasing the position value.

Keyframe this value to animate the object moving along the path.

Note

The Follow Path tool on the shelf automatically sets keyframes on this parameter that you may want to edit or replace.

The Parameterization option controls how position values between 0 and 1 correspond to knots on the path curve.

Parameterization

Controls how the Position parameter is translated into a point on the path curve. Use Arc-length (the default) to interpolate the position values evenly along the physical length of the curve.

Use Uniform to distribute the position values between the knots of the curve. This lets you slow down the object at certain points by bunching up knots in the path curve. However, it is much more convenient to simply edit the animation curve to control the speed of the object along the path.

Orient Along Path

Orient the object according to the path’s curvature.

Orient Up Vector

The direction vector of the object’s Y axis to orient with.

Auto-Bank factor

Controls automatic banking of the object as it turns corners. Set this to 0 to turn automatic banking off.

Material

Material

Path to the Material node.

Render

Display

Whether or not this object is displayed. Turn on the checkbox to have Houdini use this parameter, then set the value to 0 to hide the object, or 1 to show the object. If the checkbox is off, Houdini ignores the value.

Phantom

If enabled, this object will only cast shadows and reflections.

Renderable

Allows this object to be rendered in Output Drivers.

Shading

Categories

The categories defining the set membership of this object.

Reflection Mask

Space-separated list of objects to appear in reflections on this object. You can use wildcards (for example, prop_*) and bundle references to specify objects.

You can also use the link editor pane to edit the relationships between objects using a graphical interface.

Light Mask

Space-separated list of names of lights that illumninate this object. You can use wildcards (for example, key_*) and bundle references to specify objects.

You can also use the link editor pane to edit the relationships between lights and objects using a graphical interface.

Sampling

Geometry Velocity Blur

If enabled, this object’s rendered motion blur will be based upon the vector attribute named “v” in the geometry. The units of the attribute are in (1 unit/sec).

Velocity motion blur should be used if it contains changing point counts since it cannot be rendered correctly with deformation motion blur. For example, a particle system with changing particle counts should use this option.

You can use Velocity blur on these types of objects as long as they have valid “v” attributes. Particles automatically have the “v” attribute so if you are rendering particles, simply enable this parameter.

Dicing

Shading Quality

Shading Quality is used by micropolygon rendering to control the shading resolution. A value of 1 means that approximately 1 micropolygon will be used per pixel. A higher value will generate smaller micropolygons meaning more shading and sampling will occur, but the quality will be higher.

Ray Shading Quality

Ray Shading Quality is used by raytracing when rendering. When raytracing subdivision surfaces or patch surfaces (eg. NURBS), geometry dicing will occur similar to micropolygon rendering. This value functions similar to Shading Quality for these primitives when raytracing.

Note

Only when rendering subdivision surfaces and patch surfaces (eg. NURBS) will this setting have an effect.

Geometry

Backface removal

If enabled, geometry that are facing away from the camera are not rendered.

Procedural Shader

Geometry SHOP used by the renderer to generate render geometry for this object.

Polygons As Subdivision

If enabled, polygon geometry rendered from this object will be rendered as a subdivision surface.

Render As Points

By default, points within particle system primitives are rendered as sphere primitives. Furthermore, if a point is not part of a particle system primitive, then it is not rendered. If this parameter is enabled, then all points (regardless if they are part of a particle system) from this object’s geometry will be rendered as point (circle) primitives facing the camera plane.

Metaballs as Volume

If enabled, metaballs from this object will be rendered as volume primitives.

Coving

Coving is the process of filling cracks in diced geometry at render time, where different levels of dicing side-by-side create gaps at T-junctions.

The default setting, Coving for displacement/sub-d, only does coving for surfaces with a displacement shader and subdivision surfaces, where the displacement of points can potentially create large cracks. This is sufficient for more rendering, however you may want to use Coving for all primitives if you are using a very low shading rate or see cracks in the alpha of the rendered image.

Do not use Disable coving. It has no performance benefit, and may actually harm performance since Houdini has to render any geometry visible through the crack.

This setting only applies to micropolygon rendering.

Automatically Compute Normals

If enabled, smooth normals will we computed at render time if the normal (“N”) vector attribute does not exist.

Misc

Set Wireframe Color

Use the specified wireframe color

Wireframe Color

The display color of the object

Viewport Selecting Enabled

Object is capable of being picked in viewport.

Select Script

Script to run when the object is picked in the viewport. See select scripts .

Cache Object Transform

Caches object transforms once Houdini calculates them. This is especially useful for objects whose world space position is expensive to calculate (such as Sticky objects), and objects at the end of long parenting chains (such as Bones). This option is turned on by default for Sticky and Bone objects.

See OBJ cache preferences for how to control the size of the object transform cache.

Shade Open Curves In Viewport

Any open curves contained in this object will be lit when the viewport is set to do so.

Local variables

IPT

This is typically -1. However, if the object is performing point instancing, then this variable will be set to the point number of the template geometry. For the IPT variable to be active, the Point Instancing parameter must be turned on in this object.

Note

This variable is deprecated. Use the instancepoint expression function instead.

Usages in other examples

Example name Example for

Copy channel node

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Dynamics channel node

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Channel channel node

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Export channel node

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Object channel node

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Lookup channel node

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Geometry channel node

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BlendPose channel node

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Material shader

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Material shader

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Poly Frame surface node

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Poly Stitch surface node

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Spring surface node

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Spring surface node

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Spring surface node

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Spring surface node

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Spring surface node

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Platonic Solids surface node

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Attrib Reorient surface node

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Twist surface node

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Attrib Promote surface node

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Copy surface node

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Copy surface node

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Copy surface node

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Copy surface node

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Copy surface node

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Copy surface node

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Copy surface node

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UV Transform surface node

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Wire Blend surface node

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Project surface node

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Font surface node

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Font surface node

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Hole surface node

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Curve surface node

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Visibility surface node

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Edge Flip surface node

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Join surface node

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Attrib Create surface node

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Clip surface node

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Clip surface node

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Poly Loft surface node

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UV Project surface node

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Layer surface node

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Torus surface node

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Box surface node

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Peak surface node

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Add surface node

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Point surface node

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Point surface node

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Point surface node

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Point surface node

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Point surface node

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Point surface node

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Point surface node

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Duplicate surface node

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Rest Position surface node

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Fur surface node

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Fur surface node

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Fur surface node

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Fur surface node

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Fur surface node

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Fur surface node

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Bulge surface node

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Bulge surface node

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Force surface node

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Curvesect surface node

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Revolve surface node

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Convert surface node

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Convert surface node

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Convert surface node

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Convert surface node

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Convert surface node

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Convert surface node

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Delete surface node

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Delete surface node

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Refine surface node

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Comb surface node

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Dop Import surface node

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Dop Import surface node

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Primitive surface node

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Primitive surface node

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Primitive surface node

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Primitive surface node

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Primitive surface node

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Magnet surface node

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Magnet surface node

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Curveclay surface node

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Curveclay surface node

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Sphere surface node

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Grid surface node

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Rails surface node

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Transform surface node

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Surfsect surface node

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Particle surface node

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Particle surface node

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Particle surface node

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Particle surface node

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Particle surface node

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Particle surface node

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Particle surface node

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Particle surface node

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Particle surface node

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Particle surface node

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Cap surface node

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Cap surface node

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Cache surface node

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Carve surface node

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Carve surface node

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Carve surface node

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Fit surface node

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Fit surface node

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Profile surface node

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Dissolve surface node

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Channel surface node

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Divide surface node

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Skin surface node

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Skin surface node

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Skin surface node

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Skin surface node

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Resample surface node

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Clay surface node

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Stitch surface node

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Extrude surface node

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Sequence Blend surface node

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Sequence Blend surface node

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Sequence Blend surface node

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Sequence Blend surface node

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Sequence Blend surface node

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Crease surface node

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Blend Shapes surface node

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Blend Shapes surface node

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Fillet surface node

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Edge Collapse surface node

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Poly Knit surface node

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Circle surface node

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Paste surface node

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Paste surface node

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Fractal surface node

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Fuse surface node

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Poly Wire surface node

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Attrib Transfer surface node

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Attrib Transfer surface node

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Attrib Transfer surface node

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Smooth surface node

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Poly Patch surface node

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Vertex Split surface node

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Blast surface node

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Triangulate 2D surface node

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Triangulate 2D surface node

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Lattice surface node

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Lattice surface node

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Merge surface node

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Edge Cusp surface node

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Ray surface node

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Deform surface node

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Match Topology surface node

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Edit surface node

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Attrib Copy surface node

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L-system surface node

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Edge Divide surface node

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Sweep surface node

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Sweep surface node

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Sweep surface node

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Sweep surface node

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Cookie surface node

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Cookie surface node

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Cookie surface node

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Point Cloud Iso Surface surface node

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Poly Split surface node

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Bridge surface node

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Creep surface node

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Creep surface node

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Creep surface node

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Creep surface node

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Creep surface node

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Creep surface node

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Attribute surface node

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Facet surface node

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Metaball surface node

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Split particle node

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Split particle node

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Follow particle node

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Follow particle node

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Follow particle node

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Follow particle node

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Follow particle node

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Follow particle node

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Follow particle node

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Attractor particle node

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Attractor particle node

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Attractor particle node

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Attractor particle node

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Soft Body particle node

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Turn particle node

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Torque particle node

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Property particle node

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Lookat particle node

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Event particle node

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Orbit particle node

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Orbit particle node

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Orbit particle node

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Orbit particle node

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Rotation particle node

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Interact particle node

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Instance particle node

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Instance particle node

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Instance particle node

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Instance particle node

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Wind particle node

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Limit particle node

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Attribute Transfer particle node

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Stream particle node

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Color particle node

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Color particle node

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Creep particle node

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Creep particle node

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Creep particle node

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Fan particle node

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Collision particle node

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Collision particle node

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Collision particle node

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Collision particle node

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Collision particle node

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Collision particle node

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Meta-Loop Import VEX node

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Ray Trace VEX node

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Torque render node

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Torque render node

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Torque render node

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Torque render node

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Torque render node

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Torque render node

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Torque render node

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Mantra render node

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Mantra render node

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Mantra render node

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Mantra render node

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Field Force dynamics node

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RBD Point Object dynamics node

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Fluid Object dynamics node

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Fluid Object dynamics node

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Fluid Object dynamics node

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Fluid Object dynamics node

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Fluid Object dynamics node

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Fluid Object dynamics node

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Fluid Object dynamics node

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Blend Solver dynamics node

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Wire Solver dynamics node

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RBD Fractured Object dynamics node

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Copy Objects dynamics node

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RBD Angular Spring Constraint dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Emitter dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Emitter dynamics node

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Smoke Object dynamics node

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Smoke Object dynamics node

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Smoke Object dynamics node

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Smoke Object dynamics node

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Smoke Object dynamics node

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Smoke Object dynamics node

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Smoke Object dynamics node

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Smoke Object dynamics node

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Gas Surface Tension dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Solver dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Solver dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Solver dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Solver dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Solver dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Solver dynamics node

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Buoyancy Force dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Sink dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Sink dynamics node

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Cloth Solver dynamics node

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Cloth Solver dynamics node

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Cloth Solver dynamics node

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Cloth Solver dynamics node

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Cloth Solver dynamics node

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Cloth Solver dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Object dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Object dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Object dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Object dynamics node

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Particle Fluid Object dynamics node

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RBD Glue Object dynamics node

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RBD Glue Object dynamics node

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RBD Glue Object dynamics node

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RBD Glue Object dynamics node

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RBD Pin Constraint dynamics node

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Reference Frame Force dynamics node

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Vortex Force dynamics node

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Geometry compositing node

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Sticky object

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Path object

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Rivet object

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