Houdini 19.0 Nodes LOP nodes

Prune

Hides or deactivates primitives and point instances.

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Since 17.0

Overview

Because USD only allows non-destructive edits, the two methods to “remove” something from the scene are to hide it or deactivate it.

  • Deactivated prims and their children will not be traversed or processed by USD functions or LOP nodes. Children of deactivated primitives don’t appear in the Scene Graph Tree.

  • Hidden prims their descendants and are still processed by USD functions and LOP nodes, but are not shown in the viewport or rendered.

You can write an override of the activation/visibility data of a prim into the active layer, so when it is composed with the lower layers, in the output stage the prim is deactivated or invisible.

For example, the lighting department might deactivate scratch lighting from a layer they receive from the layout department.

Tip

You can see the visibility and activation state of prims in the scene graph tree pane.

How to

  1. Use the “Target Rules” multi-parm to select primitives using various methods. Exclude specific primitives from the target primitives using Add exclusions.

  2. Set Method to “Make Invisible” or “Deactivate”, depending how you want to “remove” the selected prims.

  3. Perform an isolate operation by turning on Prun unselected and targeting the primitives that should not be pruned.

Tips and notes

  • For this node to prune a prim, the prim must pass the “Target Primitives” rules, and then (after the matching set is inverted if Prune unselected is on) it must match the Prune restrictions pattern (if any).

  • Since the Prune restrictions pattern is applied after the matching set is possibly inverted by the Prune unselected checkbox, you can use it to easily refine the contents of the inverted set. If Prune unselected is off, you may find it easier to simply add another target rule to achieve the same effect.

  • You can turn on Add exclusions to add rules that subtract primitives from the matching set. This makes it easy to express things such as “prune everything in this branch except these five specific prims”.

Parameters

Prune Unselected

Reverses the meaning of the node, so it hides or deactivates prims that are not selected by the rules above.

Target primitives

Target Rules

You can specify multiple rules for what prims to prune. Set the number of include rules, or click the plus and minus buttons to add or remove rules. If Prune unselected is enabled, these primitives are the ones that will not be pruned.

Add Exclusions

Show another multi-parm for creating exclusion rules. Prims that match the exclude rules are subtracted from the list of prims that match the target rules to get the final set of primitives to prune or keep.

Exclude Rules

You can specify multiple rules for what prims to exclude. Set the number of exclude rules, or click the plus and minus buttons to add or remove rules.

Pruning Options

Method

Deactivate

Sets the “active” metadata on the selected prims to false.

Make Invisible

Sets the “visibility” of the selected prims to “hidden”.

Prune

When this value is non-zero, the node prunes the matching primitives. If this is 0, the node instead un-prunes the matching primitives, making them explicitly active or visible. This parameter allows you to control the prune/un-prune operation with keyframe animation or an expression (for example, you could prune out the “unfractured” version of an asset at the frame where a fracturing simulation starts). In USD terms, this authors an opinion at each time step about the active/visible property of the primitives.

This parameter is evaluated separately for each primitive that will be modified by this node. you may use the following local variable in this parameter only

@numprim

The total number of primitives being modified by this node.

@prim

Index of the primitive being modified. This value goes from '0' to '@numprim-1'.

@primpath

The path of the primitive being modified.

Note

This will not affect the visibility of ancestor primitives, so the selected primitives may still not be visible. Use the Configure Primitives node to guarantee the visibility of certain primitives.

Prune Restrictions

This node only works on primitives that match this pattern. This lets you add further refinements to the targeting. For example, you can only affect a portion of the scene graph, or only prune primitives with geometry, or only prune Component kinds.

Prune Point Instances Individually

When pruning a point instancer prim, prune the instances individually instead of the entire instancer at once. This is currently only supported when pruning by bounding box.

Prune Ancestors Automatically

If all children of a primitive are being pruned, that parent primitive is pruned instead of pruning the children individually. This rule is applied recursively. This makes the prune operation much more efficient (at the expense of making it slightly more complicated to re-activate or display one of the pruned children). You should leave this on unless you want to un-prune individual children later.

Prune Class Primitives

Enable this option to allow the Prune LOP to affect class primitives (also known as abstract primitives). This option is disabled by default because normally when pruning parts of a scene, it is the individual prims inheriting from classes that you want to prune. Class primitives themselves are never rendered, so there is little reason to prune them from the scene. However it is sometimes useful to prune class prims as a way of pruning all inheritors of that class.

Collection

Create Collection

Creates a USD collection with all the primitives that were modified by this node.

Collection Primitive

The primitive on which to create the collection. If the specified primitive does not exist, the node will create it.

Collection Name

The name of the collection to create.

LOP nodes

  • Add Variant

    Adds one or more variants to a variant set on a primitive. This node creates the primitive if it doesn’t exist.

  • Additional Render Vars

    Create multiple render vars.

  • Asset Reference

    Reference, Transform, and select variants of a USD Asset.

  • Assign Material

    Assigns a material to one or more USD primitives. You can use also programmatically assign materials using VEX, programmatically override material settings for each assignment, and programmatically assign materials to geometry subsets.

  • Attribute VOP

    Create/edit USD attribute values using a VOP network.

  • Attribute Wrangle

    Create/edit USD primitive attributes using a VEX snippet.

  • Auto Select LOD

    Automatically selects a level-of-detail variant based on the primitive’s distance from the camera.

  • Background Plate

    Sets up hold-out or matte objects that leave holes in the scene through which the background is visible. These prims still take shadows and contribute to reflections as if they were the background.

  • Bake Skinning

    Bakes animation driven by a UsdSkel into transforms and point positions.

  • Basis Curves

    Creates or edits a basis curves shape primitive.

  • Begin Context Options Block

    This node begins a block of LOP nodes, within which certain context options have certain values.

  • Blend

    Partially applies edits to a layer’s attributes based on a fractional weight.

  • Blend Constraint

    Blends transforms according to a list of weights specified as parameters.

  • Cache

    Caches the results of cooking the network at different times, increasing playback speed.

  • Camera

    Adds a USD camera to the scene.

  • Capsule

    Creates or edits a capsule (tube with hemispherical ends) shape primitive.

  • Collection

    Creates/edits collections using primitive patterns.

  • Component Geometry

    Geometry container or import source, in a network created by the Component Builder tool.

  • Component Geometry Variants

    Sets up geometry variants, in a network created by the Component Builder tool.

  • Component Material

    Assigns materials to geometry in a network created by the Component Builder tool.

  • Component Output

    Assembles the final Component prim, in a network created by the Component Builder tool.

  • Cone

    Creates or edits a cone shape primitive.

  • Configure Layer

    Edits metadata on a layer.

  • Configure Primitives

    Edits various metadata on one or more primitives.

  • Configure Properties

    Configures metadata on properties (relationships and attributes).

  • Configure Stage

    Configures metadata for how to load layers into the stage and asset resolution.

  • Copy Property

    Copy properties from one primitive to another, or renames properties on a primitive.

  • Create LOD

    Uses the PolyReduce SOP to automatically generate multiple levels of detail from a high-res model, and stores them as USD variants.

  • Cube

    Creates or edits a cube shape primitive.

  • Cylinder

    Creates or edits a cylinder shape primitive.

  • Distant Light

    Creates or edits a USD Distant Light, representing a far-off light source such as the sun. Adds some useful Karma-specific attributes.

  • Dome Light

    Creates or edits a USD Dome Light prim. A dome light emits light inward, simulating light coming from the sky/environment surrounding the scene.

  • Drop

    Runs a simulation to drop primitives under gravity.

  • Duplicate

    Creates copies of a prim (and its descendants).

  • Edit

    Interactively transforms prims in the viewer. Can use physics collisions to position props realistically.

  • Edit Context Options

  • Edit Material

    Allows you to edit an existing USD material by modifying parameters and shader connections. This can be useful if the existing material is on a non-editable layer.

  • Edit Material Properties

    Lets you build a spare parameter interface that reflects material or shader input attributes to directly edit their values.

  • Edit Properties

    Lets you build a spare parameter interface to directly edit attribute and relationship values.

  • Edit Prototype

    Switch point instances or USD instanceable prims to instance a different prototype.

  • Edit Target Layer

    Allows you to apply edits directly in a lower layer, instead of overriding prims and attributes in the active layer.

  • Error

    Generates a message, warning, or error, which can show up on a parent asset.

  • Explore Variants

    Visualize, set, or extract variants on primitives.

  • Extract Instances

    Converts (heroes) an instance into a real editable prim.

  • Fetch

    Grabs the output of another LOP, potentially in another LOP network.

  • Follow Path Constraint

    Constrains a prim to follow a path curve.

  • For Each

    The end node of a For-Each loop block.

  • Geometry Sequence

    Imports a sequence of geometry files into LOPs as animated geometry.

  • Geometry Subset VOP

    Creates USD geometry subsets within geometry prims (similar to groups in SOPs) based on evaluating a VEXpression or VOP network.

  • Graft Branches

    Takes prims/branches from the second input and attaches them onto branches of the scene graph tree in the first input.

  • Graft Stages

    Takes scene graph trees from other inputs and attaches them onto branches of the scene graph tree in the first input.

  • HDA Dynamic Payload

    Cooks a OBJ or SOP asset on disk and imports the animated geometry output as a USD payload.

  • Hermite Curves

    Creates or edits a hermite curves shape primitive.

  • Inline USD

    Parses usda code representing a layer and adds it to the layer stack.

  • Insertion Point

    Represents a point in the node graph where nodes can be inserted.

  • Instancer

    Instances or copies primitives onto points.

  • Instancer

    Creates a constant volume within a box.

  • Instancer

    Create multiple render products sharing common settings.

  • Karma

    Renders the USD scene using Houdini’s Karma renderer.

  • Karma Procedural

    Sets up render-time instantiation for Karma.

  • Karma Render Properties

    Configure Render Properties for Karma.

  • Karma Standard Render Vars

    Create standard karma render vars (AOVs/Image Planes).

  • LOP nodes

    LOP nodes generate USD describing characters, props, lighting, and rendering.

  • LPE Tag

    Manage Lights LPE Tags.

  • Labs RizomUV Optimize

  • Labs RizomUV Rectangularize

  • Labs RizomUV Unwrap

  • Layer Break

    Starts a new active sublayer that subsequent nodes will edit, and indicates all previous layers will be discarded when saving to disk.

  • Layer Replace

    Replaces all uses of a certain layer with a substitute layer from its second input.

  • Layout

    Provides tools for populating a scene with instanced USD assets. You can place individual components, paint/scatter components in different ways using customizable brushes, and edit existing instances.

  • Light

    Creates or edits a USD Light prim. This node also adds some useful Karma-specific attributes.

  • Light Linker

    Creates USD light link properties based on rules.

  • Light Mixer

    Lets you interactively edit USD properties for multiple lights.

  • Load Layer for Editing

  • Loft Payload Info

    Adds basic information from inside a payload to the primitive that loads the payload.

  • Look At Constraint

    Constrains a prim to always point toward a target.

  • Mask from Bounds

    Sets a primvar based on whether/by how much selected prims are inside a bounding shape.

  • Material Library

    Authors USD material primitives from shader VOP nodes.

  • Material Linker

    Creates material assignments based on rules.

  • Material Variation

    Creates attributes/primvars to override material parameters per-prim/instance.

  • Merge LOP

    Merges the layers from incoming stages into a unified layer stack.

  • Mesh

    Creates or edits a mesh shape primitive.

  • Modify Paths

    Modify asset path attribute values.

  • Modify Point Instances

    Modifies point transforms and property values for individual point instances.

  • Null

    This node does nothing. It can be useful to insert a Null into a network as a fixed point in the network that you can refer to by name in expressions/scripts.

  • Output

    Represents the output of a subnetwork. Allows you to design a node asset with multiple outputs.

  • Parent Constraint

    Makes a primitive appear to inherit the transform hierarchy of another prim somewhere else in the tree.

  • Points

    Creates or edits a Points shape primitive.

  • Points Constraint

    Position and Orient primitives using point positions from a geometry.

  • Primitive

    Bulk-creates one or more attributes of a certain type.

  • Prune

    Hides or deactivates primitives and point instances.

  • Python Script

    Lets you write Python code in the node to use the USD API to directly manipulate the stage.

  • RBD Destruction

    An example of how to a fracturing simulation in USD, also useful as a canned effect.

  • Reference

    References the contents of an external USD file into a branch of the existing scene graph tree, or removes/replaces existing references.

  • Render Geometry Settings

    Applies renderer-specific geometry settings to geometry in the scene graph.

  • Render Product

    Creates or edits a UsdRenderProduct prim, which represents an output of a renderer (such as a rendered image file or other file-like artifact produced by a renderer), with attributes configuring how to generate the product.

  • Render Settings

    Creates or edits a UsdRenderSettings prim, which holds the general settings for rendering the scene.

  • Render Var

    Specifies a custom variable computed by the renderer and/or shaders, either a shader output or a light path expression (LPE).

  • Resample Transforms

    Generates interpolated transform time samples from existing time samples on USD prims.

  • Restructure Scene Graph

    This node has various operations for editing prim paths, variant sets, and composition arcs.

  • Retime Instances

    Offsets and/or scales the timing of animation on selected instances.

  • SOP Character Import

    Imports a character or animation from a SOP network into the USD scene graph.

  • SOP Create

    Lets you create geometry in a SOP subnetwork inside this node, so you can create geometry in-place in the LOP network instead of needing a separate SOP network.

  • SOP Crowd Import

    Imports a crowd from a SOP network into the USD scene graph.

  • SOP Import

    Imports geometry from a SOP network into the USD scene graph.

  • SOP Modify

    Converts USD geometry into SOP geometry, runs the SOP subnet inside this node on the geometry, and converts the changes back to USD overrides.

  • Scene Import

    Imports models, materials, and lights from the Object level into the LOP network.

  • Scope

    Creates a scope primitive. Scope is the simplest form of grouping, and does not have a transform. Scopes can be useful for organizing the scene tree.

  • Set Extents

    Sets the bounding box metadata of selected primitives.

  • Set Variant

    Selects (switches to) one of the variants stored in a variant set on a primitive.

  • Simulation Proxy

    Generates low-poly collison geometry suitable for physical simulation and creates a proxy relationship to the original model.

  • Sphere

    Creates or edits a sphere shape primitive.

  • Split Point Instancers

    Splits a point instancer into two or more instances, which divide up the original instances.

  • Split Primitive

    Splits USD geometry prims into child primitives based on geometry subsets or primvar values.

  • Stage Manager

    Provides a convenient interface to reference in many files at once and place them in the scene graph tree.

  • Store Parameter Values

    Lets you store temporary (unsaved) data in the stage.

  • Sublayer

    Imports from USD files or other LOP node chains into as sublayers, or removes/replaces/reorders existing sublayers.

  • Subnet

    Encapsulates a LOP subnetwork, allowing you to organize and hide parts of the network.

  • Surface Constraint

    Constrain a prim to stick to a surface.

  • Switch

    Passes through one of several inputs, based on a parameter choice or expression.

  • TimeShift

    Outputs the stage as it is at a different point in the timeline.

  • Transform

    Edits the transforms of selected USD primitives.

  • Transform UV

    Moves, rotates, and scales texture coordinates on USD primitives.

  • USD ROP

  • USD Render ROP

  • Unassign Material

    Unbinds a material from one or more USD primitives.

  • Value Clip

  • Vary Material Assignment

    Assign different materials across a number of prims to create variation.

  • Volume

    References volume data on disk into a volume prim containing field prims.

  • Xform

    Creates or edits an Xform prim. Xform (and its sub-classes) represents a transform in the scene tree.