Houdini 21.0 Nodes Geometry nodes

APEX Pack Character geometry node

Packs a character’s skin, rest pose, and animated pose into a character folder structure.

On this page
Since 21.0

This node packs a character’s skin, rest pose, and animated pose into a character folder structure. See packing KineFX characters for example uses of this node.

Parameters

Character Name

When turned on, adds the input character elements (skin, rest pose, animated pose) to the specified character in the input animation scene (on the Character/Scene input). For example, if Character Name is set to test, the character elements are added to folder test.char in the character folder structure. Turn on this option if the Character/Scene input is an animation scene. Turn off this option if the Character/Scene input is a character (the rig tree view shows only character elements and no .char folders) or there is no Character/Scene input.

Shape Path

The name for the skin/shape to pack in the character folder structure.

Note

Most APEX nodes expect the character’s skin/shape to be named the default, Base.shp.

Skeleton Path

The name for the skeleton to pack in the character folder structure.

Note

Most APEX nodes expect the character’s skeleton to be named the default, Base.skel.

Rig Path

The name for the rig to pack in the character folder structure.

Note

Most APEX nodes expect the character’s rig to be named the default, Base.rig.

Add FK and Bone Deform Components

When turned on, creates a rig (set to the name specified in Rig Path) and adds it to the character folder output (Character/Scene output). The rig contains an FK hierarchy for all the joints as well as bone deformation functionality (the rig graph contains a sop::bonedeform node). See graphs for deforming geometry for more information.

Animation

When turned on, takes the animation on a source skeleton (from the Animated Pose input) and adds it to the character folder output (Character/Scene output) under the /animation/*.clip folder.

Use of the parameters in this section require the Character/Scene input to be an animation scene. You can create an animation scene by piping your character elements into an APEX Scene Add Character SOP, then connecting the APEX Scene Add Character SOP to the Character/Scene input on this node. See packing KineFX characters and animation scene setup for more information.

Map Using

Specifies the method used to map the rig controls to the skeleton joints.

Mapping Property

Maps based on the Mapping Property Name.

Match By Name

Matches controls and joints with the same name.

Match By Xform

Matches controls and joints based on proximity.

Note

All the mapped controls are keyed in the output animation.

Mapping Property Name

When Map Using is set to Mapping Property, this is the name of the mapping property that maps joints on the skeleton to its driven controls. This property is stored in the properties dictionary on the controls (TransformObject nodes), and can be created by the APEX Map Character SOP.

Frame Range

The range of input frames to evaluate.

Frame Pattern

The set of frames to set keys on in the output animation. Use Houdini’s group syntax to specify the set of frames. For example, 1-100:2 ^10-20 sets keys on every other frame from frames 1 to 100 except between frames 10 and 20.

Inputs

Character/Scene

The character or scene geometry in a character folder structure.

Rest Geometry

The skin geometry with capture weights (boneCapture point attribute).

Capture Pose

The rest skeleton geometry.

Animated Pose

The animated skeleton geometry.

Outputs

Character/Scene

The input character folder structure with the added skin, rest pose, and animated pose.

See also

Geometry nodes