Houdini 20.5 Nodes Dynamics nodes

FEM Solid Object 2.0 dynamics node

Creates a simulated FEM solid from geometry.

On this page
Since 14.0

Overview

The Solid Object DOP creates a Solid Object inside the DOP simulation. It creates a new object and attaches the subdata required for it to be a properly conforming Solid Object. Solid Objects can be simulated using the FEM Solver.

Solid objects are different than rigid bodies. Solid objects are flexible, which makes it possible for them to deform, and can be used to simulate materials such as flesh, wood, and concrete. Solid objects are also able to break dynamically during a simulation, based on the deformation that happens during the simulation.

You can use a tetrahedral mesh in SOPs to create your solid object. Your solid geometry should satisfy guidelines that ensure a fast-running and good looking simulation.

See the section on solid simulation for more information.

Note

Once you convert geometry to a solid object, you can only transform, rotate, and scale it at the first frame.

Solid Object shelf tool

To...Do this

Create a hard solid object

  1. Select the geometry to convert to a solid object.

  2. On the Solid tab, click the Solid Object tool.

Organic Mass shelf tool

Creates a solid finite element (FEM) object that is pliant and elastic, similar to muscle and fat.

To...Do this

Create a squishy solid object

  1. Select the geometry to convert to an organic mass.

  2. On the Solid tab, click the Organic Mass tool.

Parameters

Model

Stiffness Multiplier

This is a multiplier for all the internal stiffnesses of this object.

Damping Ratio

This controls how quickly the object stops deforming.

Mass Density

This is the amount of mass per volume.

Material Model

Choose the model that determines how the material resists deformation. The Neo-Hookean material model is useful for simulating biological tissues (e.g., muscles and fat), and requires the Solve Method on the FEM Solver to be set to GNL.

Shape Stiffness

This determines how strongly the object resists local changes in shape.

Volume Stiffness

This determines how strongly the object resists local changes in volume.

Repulsion

This controls the strength of the contact forces in the normal direction; try increasing this if you get visible interpenetrations between objects in your simulation

Friction

This controls the strength of friction forces at contacts

Deformation

Initial

Initial State

The path to the SOP node with the initial connectivity, position and velocity.

Rest

Rest Shape

The path to the SOP node that defines the rest shape.

Target

Target Deformation

The path to the SOP node with target deformation.

Target Strength

Strength density of the distributed soft-constraint force field that tries to match the target position.

Target Damping

Damping density of the distributed soft-constraint force field that tries to match the target velocity.

Embedding

Enable Embedding

Turns on/off the use of embedded geometry.

Embedded Geometry

This geometry is embedded into and deformed along with the simulated tetrahedral mesh.

Collisions

Collide with other objects of different solver

If enabled, the geometry in this object will collide with all DOP objects that belong to a different solver DOP node. Examples, are Static Objects, RBD Objects, and the Ground Plane. When the Collision Detection parameter on the Static Object is set to Use Volume Collisions, then the polygon vertices will be tested for collision against the signed distance field (SDF) of the Static Object. When Collision Detection is set to Use Surface Collisions, then geometry-based continuous collision detection is used. The geometry-based collisions collide points against polygons, and edges against edges.

When surface-based collisions are used, only polygons and tetrahedrons in the Static Object are considered. Other types of primitives, for example spheres, are be ignored. The geometry of the external objects (e.g. Static Object) is treated as being one-sided; only the outsides of the polygons, determined by the winding order, oppose collisions.

When volume-based collisions are enabled, only points will be colliding against the volumes, not the interiors of polygons and tetrahedrons. When colliding against small volumes, this may mean that you need to increase the number of points on your mesh to get accurate collision results.

Collide with other objects of same solver

When enabled, this object will collide with other objects that have the same solver. These collisions are handled using continuous collision detection, based on the geometry (polygons and/or tetrahedrons). For collisions between objects on the same solver, the polygons are treated as two-sided. Both sides of the polygons collide. The surface of a tetrahedral mesh only collides on one side: the outside.

Collide distinct connected components of this object

If disabled, no two tetrahedrons within this object can collide with each other.

Self-collide each connected component

If disabled, no two tetrahedrons that belong on the same connected component may collide with each other.

Self-collide within each fracture part (defined by fracturepart primitive attribute)

This option only has an effect when fracturing is enabled on the solver. If disabled, no two tetrahedrons that belong on the same fracture part may collide with each other. Fracture parts are controlled by the integer-valued fracturepart primitive attribute.

External

Division Method

If Non Square is chosen, the specified size is divided into the given number of divisions of voxels. However, the sides of these voxels may not be equal, possibly leading to distorted simulations.

When an axis is specified, that axis is considered authoritative for determining the number of divisions. The chosen axis' size will be divided by the uniform divisions to yield the voxel size. The divisions for the other axes will then be adjusted to the closest integer multiple that fits in the required size.

Finally, the size along non-chosen axes will be changed to represent uniform voxel sizes. If the Max Axis option is chosen, the maximum sized axis is used.

When By Size is chosen, the Division Size will be used to compute the number of voxels that fit in the given sized box.

Uniform Divisions

The resolution of the key axis on the voxel grid. This allows you to control the overall resolution with one parameter and still preserve uniform voxels. The Uniform Voxels option specifies which axis should be used as the reference. It is usually safest to use the maximum axis.

Tolerance

This specifies the tolerance used for ray intersections when computing the SDF. This value is multiplied by the size of the geometry and is scale invariant.

Sign Sweep Threshold

After the fix signs process is complete there can still be inconsistent areas in the SDF. Large blocks can become stabilized and stick out of the SDF. A second sign sweep pass can be performed to try to eliminate these blocks.

The sign sweep threshold governs how big of a jump has to occur for a sign transition to be considered inconsistent. If the values of the sdf change by more than this threshold times the width of the cell, it is considered an invalid sign transition. The original geometry is then ray intersected to determine inside/outside and the result used to determine which sign is correct. The correct sign is then propagated forward through the model.

Max Sign Sweep Count

The sign sweeps are repeated until no signs are flipped (ie, all transitions are within the threshold) or this maximum is reached. Too low of a sign sweep threshold may prevent the process from converging. Otherwise, it tends to converge very quickly.

Fracturing

Enable Fracturing

Allows fracturing for this object. The solver must also have fracturing enabled.

Fracture Threshold

The relative amount of stress in any direction above which dynamic fracturing will occur.

Drag

Normal Drag

The component of drag in the directions normal to the surface. Increasing this will make the object go along with any wind that blows against it. For realistic wind interaction, the Normal Drag should be chosen larger (about 10 times larger) than the tangent drag.

Tangent Drag

The component of drag in the direction tangent to the surface. Increasing this will make the object go along with any wind that blows tangent to the object.

External Velocity Field

The name of the external velocity fields on affectors that the object will respond to. The default is vel, which will make the object react to fluids and smoke when the Tangent Drag and the Normal Drag have been chosen sufficiently large. The Tangent Drag and Normal Drag forces are computed by comparing the object’s velocity with the external velocity.

External Velocity Offset

This offset is added to any velocity that’s read from the velocity field. When there’s no velocity field, then the offset can be used to create a wind force which has constant velocity everywhere. This wind effect is more realistic and more accurate than the wind that is generated by DOP Forces.

Attributes

Create Quality Attributes

This creates a primitive attribute 'quality' on the simulated geometry. The worst quality is 0, the best quality is 1. The better the quality of the primitives, the better the performance and stability of the solve will be.

Create Energy Attributes

This toggle allow the object to generate attributes that indicate the density of kinetic energy and potential energy. In addition, an attribute that indicates the density of the rate of energy loss is generated.

Create Force Attributes

This toggle allows force attributes to be generated.

Create Collision Attributes

Create Fracture Attributes

Visualization

Creation

Attributes

Locals

ST

The simulation time for which the node is being evaluated.

Depending on the settings of the DOP Network Offset Time and Scale Time parameters, this value may not be equal to the current Houdini time represented by the variable T.

ST is guaranteed to have a value of zero at the start of a simulation, so when testing for the first timestep of a simulation, it is best to use a test like $ST == 0, rather than $T == 0 or $FF == 1.

SF

The simulation frame (or more accurately, the simulation time step number) for which the node is being evaluated.

Depending on the settings of the DOP Network parameters, this value may not be equal to the current Houdini frame number represented by the variable F. Instead, it is equal to the simulation time (ST) divided by the simulation timestep size (TIMESTEP).

TIMESTEP

The size of a simulation timestep. This value is useful for scaling values that are expressed in units per second, but are applied on each timestep.

SFPS

The inverse of the TIMESTEP value. It is the number of timesteps per second of simulation time.

SNOBJ

The number of objects in the simulation. For nodes that create objects such as the Empty Object DOP, SNOBJ increases for each object that is evaluated.

A good way to guarantee unique object names is to use an expression like object_$SNOBJ.

NOBJ

The number of objects that are evaluated by the current node during this timestep. This value is often different from SNOBJ, as many nodes do not process all the objects in a simulation.

NOBJ may return 0 if the node does not process each object sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

OBJ

The index of the specific object being processed by the node. This value always runs from zero to NOBJ-1 in a given timestep. It does not identify the current object within the simulation like OBJID or OBJNAME; it only identifies the object’s position in the current order of processing.

This value is useful for generating a random number for each object, or simply splitting the objects into two or more groups to be processed in different ways. This value is -1 if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

OBJID

The unique identifier for the object being processed. Every object is assigned an integer value that is unique among all objects in the simulation for all time. Even if an object is deleted, its identifier is never reused. This is very useful in situations where each object needs to be treated differently, for example, to produce a unique random number for each object.

This value is also the best way to look up information on an object using the dopfield expression function.

OBJID is -1 if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

ALLOBJIDS

This string contains a space-separated list of the unique object identifiers for every object being processed by the current node.

ALLOBJNAMES

This string contains a space-separated list of the names of every object being processed by the current node.

OBJCT

The simulation time (see variable ST) at which the current object was created.

To check if an object was created on the current timestep, the expression $ST == $OBJCT should always be used.

This value is zero if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

OBJCF

The simulation frame (see variable SF) at which the current object was created. It is equivalent to using the dopsttoframe expression on the OBJCT variable.

This value is zero if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

OBJNAME

A string value containing the name of the object being processed.

Object names are not guaranteed to be unique within a simulation. However, if you name your objects carefully so that they are unique, the object name can be a much easier way to identify an object than the unique object identifier, OBJID.

The object name can also be used to treat a number of similar objects (with the same name) as a virtual group. If there are 20 objects named “myobject”, specifying strcmp($OBJNAME, "myobject") == 0 in the activation field of a DOP will cause that DOP to operate on only those 20 objects.

This value is the empty string if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

DOPNET

A string value containing the full path of the current DOP network. This value is most useful in DOP subnet digital assets where you want to know the path to the DOP network that contains the node.

Note

Most dynamics nodes have local variables with the same names as the node’s parameters. For example, in a Position DOP, you could write the expression:

$tx + 0.1

…to make the object move 0.1 units along the X axis at each timestep.

See also

Dynamics nodes