Hello everyone,


I'm using Houdini apprentice, and I've had this issue since the start.

Whenever I convert polygons to VDB's, the volume becomes gets a dark shading which makes it very hard to see, so very hard to work with. I can't seem to find a topic on this issue or any volume/vdb diplay settings in Houdini.

To see what I'm doing I always have to add a convert back to polygon sop at the end which slows down my work flow.

Does anyone have an idea about the issue?

Thanks in advance!

Houdini works best on nVidia based graphic card. What graphics card are you using?

Try turning on HDR Rendering inside the Effects TAB of the Display options (D-KEY).

Here is the display on my 660GTX.

Hello, thanks for responding!

I'm using an nVidia based graphic card as well.

I tried turning on HDR rendering but it didn't change much.

Nvidia card and driver version?

Mac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB

That graphics card memory is below the minimum 2GB of vRam requirement. Which might be why the display is dark. The graphics card ran out of memory.

You might be able to test that theory by using less memory. Try increasing the Voxel Size of vdbfrompolygons1, up to 1 or even higher. This will decrease the VDB quality. By making the voxel size larger, less voxels are needed to cover the area. This may reduce the video memory footprint?

If the end goal involves converting back to polygons you may want to finish out the network chain and see if the viewport works better displaying polygons instead. So convert to VDB, do VDB operations, then convert back to polygons.

Maybe have a looksee at the System Requirements page.
Specifically relating to your video card.


Graphics Cards

A GL3.3 compliant graphics card is required. GL4.0+ is highly recommended.

2GB VRAM or more is required. Less than this can result in display errors such as blank windows. High DPI displays (4K, 5K) or multiple monitors require a minimum of 4GB.

It is VERY important that you install the latest driver for your graphics card. Failing to do so may result in display issues and/or slow performance:

- NVidia: 320 or higher

- AMD: FirePro 12.104.2 or higher

- Intel 10.18.10.3958 or higher.

Cheers

Lewie

I tried to increase the voxel size to 5.0 and the dark square remained.
The computer I'm using is 7 years old, the old driver may be the issue, changing the voxel size didn't change very much. This is really the only issue I've had with Houdini performance wise (to my surprise since I'm using such an old computer).

I'll continue to add a convert VDB back to polygons at the end of my network for now, unless someone thinks of a different solutions.

Thanks for your responses!

Best