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General ¶
The node ring appears around the node at lower zoom levels to make it easier to click flags. This controls when/if the node ring is visible.
Always
Always show the ring when you hover over a node.
At or Below Zoom Level
Only show the ring when you hover over a node when the view is zoomed out (so the nodes appear smaller).
Never
Don’t show the ring when you hover over a node.
When Show Ring is At or Below Zoom Level, this is the highest zoom level at which the ring will appear when you hover over a node. Drag the slider to the left to make the ring only show up when you are zoomed out more (when nodes appear smaller).
When Show Ring is At or Below Zoom Level, clicking this sets Show Ring Below to the network editor’s current zoom level. You zoom in/out in the network editor to the level where you would like the ring to start appearing, then click this button to set Show Ring Below.
When Shorten Long Node Names is on, shorten node names wider than this width (in network units, roughly equal to one node width). Decrease this to shorten long node names in the view.
The view fades the middle of very long wires to avoid clutter.
The view can decrease the brightness of images in the network to avoid distraction.
You can turn on showing and snapping to the grid in the network editor menus.
The horizontal space between grid lines, where one unit is roughly one node width.
The vertical space between grid lines, where one unit is roughly one node height.
Badges ¶
Badges appear next to a node to inidicate various information. You can choose whether a badge is small (shown below the node name), large (shown next to the node body), or not shown.
See the Geometry (SOP), Solaris (LOP), and PDG (TOP) pages for more badges.
This node has an error that prevented the node from fully cooking. You can click the info button in the node ring, or press 
on the node, to open the node info window to read the error message.
A node inside this subnet has an error.
This node has a warning. A warning does not prevent the node from cooking, but may indicate a problem you should fix, such as a missing file. You can click the info button in the node ring, or press on the node, to open the node info window to read the warning message.
This node has a purely informational message. Houdini’s factory nodes do not often generate info messages, but you can add them to your own assets with the 
Error node. You can click the info button in the node ring, or press on the node, to open the node info window to read the message.
This node has a comment string. You can click the info button in the node ring, or press on the node, to open the node info window to view or edit the node’s comment. In the info window, you can also make a node’s comment visible in the network editor (below the node name).
This asset is unlocked for editing.
This asset is locked for editing. The asset is using its on-disk definition.
This node is a network with editable contents.
This node has a specialized editable network inside (APEX or UsdShade).
For a node like the 
File geometry node that can be set to save or load, this indicates the node is loading from disk.
The output of this node can change dependeing on the time (usually this means it has animation). This means it will recook if you change the current frame.
This node is cooking continuously based on a live input (such as a video source). Nodes that can display this badge usually have a parameter to turn off live recooking.
These badges are usually not useful unless you're a developer working with the HDK.
By default Houdini does not actually create the internal contents of digital assets until the node cooks and you dive inside. This badge indicates Houdini has not loaded this node’s internal contents.
This node has cached its output. Hidden by default because it would be on for most nodes. May be useful for HDK debugging.
VEX code associated with this node is compiled and cached.
These badges are related to legacy workflows.
This node is affected by a constraint network.
This bone has kinematics (FK or IK)
This node has parameters with different values in different takes.
Extra text ¶
You can show various types of information as extra text next to a node.
See the Geometry (SOP) and Solaris (LOP) pages for more extra text options.
Controls the display of the node comment when you choose to show the comment in the network editor.
You can click the info button in the node ring, or press on the node, to open the node info window to view or edit the node comment. In the info window, you can also choose to show a node’s comment in the network editor (below the node name).
Controls the display of an important value next to the node.
Different node types set the “important value” string as a “descriptive parameter”. For example, the 
Switch node which input it is currently using, and the 
Attribute Wrangle node displays the first few lines of the VEX snippet.
Controls the display of a list of context options used in the node.
Controls the display of which output the node is sending to the viewer.
Geometry (SOPs) ¶
This node’s node type does not have a verb, it cannot be compiled to run more efficiently in a loop.
Many geometry (SOP) node type provide their implementation logic as a function, called a verb, that Houdini can use separately from any instantiated node. If all the nodes inside a for-each loop have verbs, Houdini can compile the loop into a much faster and more efficient form. So it is useful when working with for-each loops to be able to see if there are any nodes inside the loop that don’t have verbs (are not compilable).
This nodes has its lock flag turned on, so its output is frozen (not based on its input or parameters).
This is a different kind of “locked” from a locked asset. With geometry nodes you can “freeze” (lock) the output so the node always replays that output without recooking, even the inputs or the node’s parameters change. This can be useful if you have a node that takes a very long time to recook, and you don’t want to risk having some change accidentally recook the node.
This node has its unload flag turned on, so it does not cache its output geometry.
This node has geometry with 64-bit precision. This may be useful for HDK debugging, or tracking down nodes using a lot of memory.
Show the ID of the geometry detail. This may be useful for HDK debugging.
Solaris (LOPs) ¶
This node’s Debug flag is on, so changes made by this node are always put in a separate USD layer.
This LOP node has unloaded payloads.
This LOP is filtering which payloads get loaded.
Controls the display of the name of the USD primitive modified by this node.
Controls the display of the number of layers in this node’s scene.
PDG (TOPs) ¶
These options control how task items dots appear in the body of TOP nodes.
How many columns of task item dots to show in the body of each TOP node.
How many rows of task item dots to show in the body of each TOP node.
When there are more than this number of work items, the node groups them into pages. When there are multip pages you can switch between them using a control at the bottom of the node body.
Increasing this number lets you see more task statuses without having to switch pages, but can make the nodes tall and unwieldy.
Controls which work item statuses show up as dots in TOP node bodies.
Show work items that finished running.
Show work items that are currently running.
Show work items that need to recook because their inputs changed.
Show work items that didn’t finish because you canceled the node cook.
Show work items that didn’t finish because of an error.
The order in which task items appear as dots in TOP node bodies. The Automatic combines several sort criteria.
Reverses the order set in Sort Work Items by. For example, if Sort Work Items by is set to Task ID, when this is on the nodes show the work items with higher task IDs before lower task IDs.
Houdini can visually merge dots of similar work items so they appear as a single group. This is purely to help keep nodes with large numbers of task organized visually, it does not affect the work items themselves.
Off
Don’t collapse work items.
By Batch
Collapse work items that are marked as part of the same batch. The batch can be set by the node that created the task.
By Attribute
Collapse work items that have the same value for a given attribute.
When Collapse Work Items is By Attribute, this is the name of the attribute to use to visually merge task items.
When you click dots to select them, Houdini can show lines representing dependencies between the selected dot and dots on other nodes upstream and downstream. When this is on and a dot is selected, Houdini hides all dots except the selected dot and its upstream and downstream dependencies.
Use the value of a work item attribute to tint the work item’s dot in TOP node bodies.
When Color Dots by a Work Item Attribute is on, this is the name of the attribute to use to tint work item dots.
When you click dots to select them, Houdini can show lines representing dependencies between the selected dot and dots on other nodes upstream and downstream. This limits the levels of dependency shown up and down. For scenes with a large number of work items, this can make the dependency visualization faster and easier to understand.
This TOP node doesn’t know how many work items it has until the upstream nodes cook.
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Themes ¶
Themes control the values for new/unassigned items. When you customize wire styles for a network type, or node shape/color for all nodes of a certain type, that information is stored in the current theme.
