Edward Jaworenko

EJaworenko

About Me

EXPERTISE
Technical Director
INDUSTRY
Film/TV

Connect

LOCATION
Calgary, Canada
WEBSITE
https://jaworenko.design/

Houdini Skills

ADVANCED
Procedural Modeling  | Environments  | Digital Assets  | Solaris  | VEX
INTERMEDIATE
Hair & Fur  | Cloth  | Mantra  | Karma  | Lighting  | PDG  | Python
BEGINNER
Character Rigging  | Animation  | Fluids  | Destruction FX

Availability

Not Specified

Recent Forum Posts

How to quickly move pivot to object center in LOP? April 26, 2024, 5:22 p.m.

This definitely seems a bit cumbersome, but for the example of a transform node pivot specifically, the following python function placed in the "px" parm will set the pivot to the center of a selected primitive (py and pz too).
Note that I haven't tested it with multiple prims selected, but it at least fits a few use cases.
I may add a variation of it to a right-click menu just for easy setting vs worrying about adding a python script directly to a parm expression.
from pxr import UsdGeom
node = hou.pwd()
# Get the stage of the input node to avoid recursion
stage = node.input(0).stage()
if stage is not None:
        # Other nodes might need "primpath", but you could functionally add any prim path you want here
        focusprim = stage.GetPrimAtPath(node.evalParm("primpattern"))
        if focusprim is not None:
                cache = UsdGeom.BBoxCache(1.0, ['default', 'proxy', 'render', 'guide'])
                bounds = cache.ComputeLocalBound(focusprim).ComputeCentroid()
                # node.parmTuple("p").set(bounds) crashed Houdini via recursion, but this seems to work.
                node.parm("py").set(bounds[1])
                node.parm("pz").set(bounds[2])
                return bounds[0]

Best Houdini Utility Entries Jan. 14, 2024, 9:25 p.m.

Node Weaver is a toolset that is intended to ease the workflow of Houdini TDs. In time that is what it will do, but not yet.

  • Primary tool to be considered: The package includes a Custom Node Shape Creator that was designed to be as dead-simple as possible to use. It would be great to see more custom node shapes in use but it would help if artists knew how to make them!
  • It also includes a Node Shape File Inspector that allows you to import node shapes and see what went into making them, or modifying them if you'd like.
  • Finally, it includes a Color Palette Configurator that has a bunch of utilities for making adjustments or additions to the 36 node colors you get in a palette by default in Houdini.
Though they're not tools directly, Node Weaver also includes:
  • a shelf with a shelf tool that prints out all of the callback scripts, default value expressions, and menu scripts in a node.
  • A right-click menu item that makes it possible to set node colors with the color wheel window.
Big focus on the aesthetics of actually working in Houdini, but hey, this competition only calls for one tool as-is. Hope you find the tools to be useful!

About Unreal Engine 5.2 PCG Plugin June 29, 2023, 2:42 p.m.

There is a level of sophistication that you still can't hit with PCG for certain types of layout. But I think it would be very interesting if Houdini Engine could actually interface more directly with PCG in some fashion. I'm building tools to do so at work, examples being having a way to directly export points from Houdini to bring into PCG via importing a Data Table. This might be out of the scope of Houdini Engine, more likely a labs export tool, but if it could even sync points at the click of a button between software then it would be almost like sessionsync for PCG layout between the software.
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