Houdini 20.5 Nodes Geometry nodes

HeightField Paint geometry node

Lets you paint values into a height or mask field using strokes.

Since 16.0

Parameters

Reset Strokes

Click to clear all strokes in this node.

Recache Strokes

Re-cache the input volumes and re-apply any existing strokes.

Layer

The name of the layer to paint into, for example height or mask.

Tint by Current Layer

Apply an implicit heightfield visualization to change the tint layer to tint white-to-red the current stroke layer.

LMB Operation

Sets what to do when you drag on the surface. You can choose different actions for , ⇧ Shift + , and ⌃ Ctrl + .

Paint FG

Sets/adds to the heightfield in the painted area with the foreground paint value. See Paint mode for how a stroke affects the attribute values.

Paint BG

Sets/adds to the heightfield in the painted area with the background paint value. See Paint mode for how a stroke affects the attribute values.

Blur

Replaces the heightfield locally with the blurred version of the heightfield. The Blur/Sharpen Radius is used for the blurred version, so controls how extreme this is.

Sharpen

Replaces the heightfield locally with a sharpened version of the heightfield. The Blur/Sharpen Radius is used for the sharpened version. In image processing this is known as an Unsharp Mask.

Sample FG

Copies the raw heightfield value at the clicked location into the foreground paint value.

Sample BG

Sets/adds to the heightfield value in the painted points with the background paint value. See Paint mode for how a stroke affects the attribute values.

MMB Operation

Sets what to do when you drag on the surface. You can choose different actions for , ⇧ Shift + , and ⌃ Ctrl + .

Paint FG

Sets/adds to the heightfield in the painted area with the foreground paint value. See Paint mode for how a stroke affects the attribute values.

Paint BG

Sets/adds to the heightfield in the painted area with the background paint value. See Paint mode for how a stroke affects the attribute values.

Blur

Replaces the heightfield locally with the blurred version of the heightfield. The Blur/Sharpen Radius is used for the blurred version, so controls how extreme this is.

Sharpen

Replaces the heightfield locally with a sharpened version of the heightfield. The Blur/Sharpen Radius is used for the sharpened version. In image processing this is known as an Unsharp Mask.

Sample FG

Copies the raw heightfield value at the clicked location into the foreground paint value.

Sample BG

Sets/adds to the heightfield value in the painted points with the background paint value. See Paint mode for how a stroke affects the attribute values.

Paint Mode

Use the dropdown menu to choose a mode for combining the brush strokes with the heightfield values.

Replace

Replace the heightfield value with the current paint value.

Add

Add the paint value to the heightfield value.

Multiply

Multiply the heightfield value with the paint value. Useful for applying a scale effect.

Maximum

Sets the heightfield to the maximum of the paint value and the existing heightfield value. This acts much like replace, but won’t affect things already bigger than the paint value.

Minimum

Sets the heightfield to the minimum of the paint value and the existing heightfield value. This acts much like replace, but won’t affect things already smaller than the paint value.

FG Value

The paint value for strokes made with foreground tools. For masks this would usually be 1, or for the height layer the highest peak you want to be able to make or the most you want to be able to add/subtract/etc at once. Pressure sensitive input can scale this value down.

BG Value

The value for strokes made with background tools.

Blur/Sharpen Radius

The Blur and Sharpen operations perform a global blur and then use the brush to paint in the blurred or sharpened version of the heightfield. The radius controls how extreme this blur is.

Radius

The maximum radius of strokes. Pressure sensitive input can scale this value down.

Opacity

A scale on the FG value. This can be useful to drag into the viewport as a HUD handle so you can adjust the strength of each stroke on the fly, especially if you don’t have a pressure sensitive input device.

Soft Edge

The brush is drawn with a solid core that drops off to zero. The soft edge controls what percentage of the brush is in the drop off. Soft Edge of 0 will thus make a hard edge, and a soft edge of 1 will have a smooth fall off from the core.

Opacity Pressure

Scales the effect of stylus pressure on opacity.

Radius Pressure

Scales the effect of stylus pressure on brush radius.

Strokes

Drawing Plane

The plane onto which your drawing is projected. There are basically two useful options: the plane corresponding to the orientation of the volume (ZX by default) so you can draw looking “down” at the ground, or “Geometry” so you can draw onto the visualized terrain.

XY/YZ/ZX Plane

Project onto the given plane. Choose the plane that corresponds to your volume’s orientation.

Screen Plane

This option is copied from the underlying Stroke SOP and is not useful for height fields.

Geometry

Finds the geometry under the mouse as you draw and maps it onto the corresponding coordinates on the ground plane.

Stroke Quality

The sampling rate of the brush stroke. Higher values can capture more detail but use more memory and are slower to display.

Save HeightField Cache to Hip File

Controls if the cached heightfield is saved to the hip file. Saving may bloat the hip file, but not saving will slow loading as the entire cache process has to be played back, and risks that behavior will not be the same.

Changes to this option will only take effect with the next recache or stroke drawn.

Bypass HeightField Cache

Keep strokes active and do not cache. If the input changes, the strokes are played back on the new input to get a result, allowing layering over animated inputs. This can be slow as the strokes have to be replayed each time.

Note: HeightField Cache mode is re-enabled anytime a stroke is drawn.

Snapshot

Move Stash to New File

Saves the data parameter into a new file, updates the geometry file to point to the new file, and clears the data parameter. This will externalize the geometry and reduce the size of the .hip file at the cost of having to manage an external file.

The default name and path are controlled by the HOUDINI_STASH_DIR and HOUDINI_STASH_FILENAME environment variables.

Load Stash from File

Explicitly loads the specified geometry file and stores it in the data parameter. This internalizes the stash file. The external file could be deleted after this, as the authoritative copy is now in the data parameter.

Strokes File

File path to store the brush strokes of the paint operation.

Baked Strokes File

File path to store the result of the painting operation.

Geometry nodes