Houdini 20.5 Nodes Geometry nodes

HeightField Distort by Noise geometry node

Advects the input volume through a noise pattern to break up hard edges and add variety.

Since 16.0

Whereas Heightfield Noise changes the height values up and down, this node moves the existing values around by advecting them through a noise field, similar to how a Photoshop filter might distort an image by swirling the existing pixels.

Parameters

Distort Layers

A pattern specifying which layers to operate on, usually height or *.

Mask Layer

If a mask volume is wired into this node’s second input, this specifies which volume in the second input to use to mask this node’s effect, usually mask. Click the “Add mask paint” button to paint the mask directly in the viewport (this automatically adds a paint node to the second input).

Noise Type

Use the dropdown menu to choose a noise type. You have two options.

Simplex

Simplex noise is very close to Perlin noise, except with the samples on a simplex mesh rather than a grid. This results in less grid artifacts.

Curl

Create distortion using curl noise. This can create interesting swirled features at large amplitudes.

Amplitude

Amount of distortion to do. Larger values move, stretch, and swirl the existing features more. With larger amplitude values you should consider increasing the Substeps. Otherwise the entire large-scale change is applied at once, which can create a mess.

Element Size

Distance between peaks of lowest frequency noise.

Element Scale

Anisotropic scaling of noise in the three principle axis.

Offset

World space offset for the noise function.

Roughness

Fractal roughness.

Max Octaves

The number of iterations of distortion to add to the output of the basic noise. The more iterations you add, the more “detailed” the output.

Substeps

Divides the total desired amplitude by this amount and incrementally applies it in steps. This allows finer details and less drastic changes, but is slower. You will usually want to increase substeps as you increase Amplitude to prevent large scale changes from creating a mess.

See also

Geometry nodes