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Point Dynamics With CHOPs - Part 1
Published: Monday, December 10, 2007

 Video
Point Dynamics With CHOPs - Part 1 [51MB QT - 16 min.]

In this blog entry we will push some points around rather abruptly with a magnet force and then settle them back dynamically with CHOPs.

When you think of points moving dynamically in space, your normal instinct is to turn to particle based dynamics. What we want to explore is the dynamic nature in CHOPs. Yes CHOPs can do dynamics and quite successfully.

Watch the video and follow along as we use CHOPs in a simple example with the supplied start file:

point_dynamics_with_chops_part1.zip




User Comments
by futnuh 2007-12-11 01:51:22
Jeff, is the Channel SOP new in H9? I've always just used the export flag in CHOPs to send data back to geometry-land. What are the relative advantages of each method?
by Cylibral 2007-12-11 02:09:09
Hey Jeff another awesome video tut... thanks once again for this and the stuff that was shown in NYC...  
 
George aka Cylibral
by jeff 2007-12-11 11:01:12
Hi Futnuh, 
 
The Channel SOP has been in Houdini since CHOPs was introduced way back in Houdini2.5. 
 
The Channel SOP is really a one-dimensional node: All it does is take CHOP Channel infomration and map that data to an existing geometry attribute. That's it. Nothing more or nothing less. 
 
You can use chsop() expressions to index in to channels and map that to attributes but that is not nearly as efficient as using the Channel SOP. 
 
As for channel exports, that is quite different from the Channel SOP. With exports you can't drive points or primitives on geometry. Only override existing parameters. Yes you can use stamping but CHOPs doesn't take well to stamping in a dynamic way. 
 
Hope that helps clear things up.

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