Houdini 20.5 VEX VEX contexts

Shading context information

On this page

The shading contexts share many common attributes. Each context represents a different stage in the rendering pipeline. Displacement shading is done first, followed by surface shading, then fog/atmosphere shaders. During surface and fog shading, light and shadow shaders may be run in order to compute illumination.

Note

All available variables in all the shader contexts are in world (camera) space.

Optional intersection scoping parameter

When sending rays, the list of objects to intersect against are typically limited by a “scope”, set in the Houdini UI. For example, sending a reflection ray will limit the objects which are tested for ray-intersection to the objects which match the reflection mask of the reflective object.

You can override which objects to test in the following functions:

Function

Default light/shadow scope

Default surface scope

fastshadow

Light shadow

Object reflection

filtershadow

Light shadow

Object reflection

rayhittest

Light shadow

Object reflection

reflectlight

Object reflection

Object reflection

refractlight

All objects ("*")

All objects ("*")

trace

Object reflection

Object reflection

irradiance

Object reflection

Object reflection

occlusion

Light shadow

Object reflection

For example,

Cr = reflectlight(bias, max_contrib, "scope", "geo1,geo2");

…will only cause objects “geo1” and “geo2” to be picked up in the reflections.

All Houdini scoping patterns (excepting group expansion) are supported:

  • * - wild-card match

  • ? - single character match

  • ^ - exclusion operator

  • [list] - character list match

An empty string will set the scope to nothing.

Examples:

  • geo* - Matches all objects starting with “geo”

  • geo*,^geo2 - Matches all objects starting with “geo” except “geo2”.

  • leg*,arm[123] - Matches all objects starting with “leg” as well as “arm1”, “arm2”, and “arm3”.

How the L variable is set

This explains how VEX sets the initial value of L (light direction) in the Light and Shadow contexts. Although Houdini provides a value as explained below, you can set L to any value.

In Houdini, lights can have orthographic or perspective projections. An orthographic light represents an infinite (or very distant) light source with parallel light rays. A perspective light represents a point light source with radiating light rays.

When a perspective light shader runs, VEX sets L to P - Ps, where the P variable contains the position of the light source and the Ps variable contains the position of the surface point being shaded.

Orthographic lights, on the other hand, are initialized so that the direction of L is the same for each light ray emanating from the light source: L = Lz * dot(Lz, P - Ps);, where the Lz variable contains the normalized “z-axis” of the light source (that is, a unit vector pointing down the z-axis in the space of the light). So the scale of the L variable will be the orthographic distance from the plane of the light source and the surface point being shaded.

Opacity vs. alpha

In the surface shading context, there are two separate variables to control transparency: Of (opacity) and Af (alpha) are related, but represent different things.

Of represents the opacity of the surface, when mantra resolves surface colors. For example,

Of = {1, 1, 1}

…makes a fully opaque surface the will occlude surfaces behind it.

Of = {0.5, 0.5, 0.5}

…makes a partially transparent surface.

Of = {1, 0, 0}

…makes the surface opaque to red, but pass through green and blue light. This creates a cyan-colored gel.

Af controls the alpha channel of the output pixel in an RGBA image. If a shader doesn’t set Af, mantra uses the default formula,

Af = avg(Of)

However, if you set this variable explicitly, the shader can control the value of the alpha channel of the output image. This lets you write shaders like “matte” or “shadowmatte”.

For example, the following shader simulates a blue screen effect:

surface bluescreen(vector clr=0)
{
    Cf = clr;
    Of = 1;
    Af = 0;
}

The default surface color is black (vector clr=0). The shader sets opacity to 1, meaning this surface will occlude other surfaces. However, the alpha value of the pixels in the output image corresponding to this surface will be 0 (fully transparent).

If you composite the output image over another image, the background image will be visible through the hole this surface left. You can use this technique to, for example, create a window in a wall without modifying the geometry.

You can set Af to a fractional number between 0 and 1 to create partially transparent areas in the output image.

Note

The default for occlusion() is to use closest sample filtering. To handle transparency, pass it the option: “samplefilter”, “opacity”. This is also handled by the environment light asset, using the Transparent Shadows toggle when in Ambient Occlusion mode.

Special variables

There are several “special” variables you can give as parameters to shaders in the shading contexts. Typically, these are export parameters.

__nondiffuse

If this variable is set to a non-zero value, the light shader will not contribute to diffuse illumination in the standard diffuse() functions.

__nonspecular

If this variable is set to a non-zero value, the light shader will not contribute to specular illumination in the standard phong(), blinn(), or specular() functions.

__contrib_names

An array of string component names whose contributions will be manipulated by the __contrib_amounts export. This export must a constant value, since mantra queries the names before executing the shader.

__contrib_amounts

An array of floats aligned with the __contrib_names array, specifying the amount the light will contribute to each component. A value of 1.0 means full contributes while a value of 0 is no contribution. Currently only 0 and non-zero values are recognized by mantra meaning no contribution and full contribution respectively - there is no support for fractional contributions. This export must a constant value, since mantra queries the amounts before executing the shader.

__nofog

If this variable is set to a non-zero value, no fog shaders will affect the surface color.

__illuminateangle

Indicates the angle of illumination for a light or surface shader to the renderer . Angles are measured from the light’s direction to the edge of the illuminating cone. The angle must be specified in radians and should evaluate to a constant expression. For example, the angle cannot depend on varying values such as P or s/t.

VEX contexts

Shading contexts

See common shading context features for information specific to the shading contexts.

  • displace

    Define a displacement shader with a program that moves a point on a surface before the surface is rendered.

  • fog

    Deprecated. Define a fog shader with a program that modifies the Cf, Of, or Af values to simulate atmospheric effects.

  • light

    Define a light shader with a program called from surface or fog shaders to calculate the illumination of a surface.

  • shadow

    Define a shadow shader by defining a program that’s called from surface or fog shaders to calculate the occlusion on a surface from a light source.

  • surface

    Define a surface shader with a program that sets the final color, opacity, and alpha of a surface being rendered.

Other contexts

  • cvex

  • chop

    Define a custom CHOP operator with a program that edits channel values.

Obsolete contexts

  • image3d

    Obsolete. Write a program for use with the i3dgen program to generate 3D textures.

  • sop

    Obsolete. Define a custom SOP operator with a program that edits geometry point attributes.