Hi, I've converted some metaballs to a set of polygons, and I'd like to turn them into a mesh for texturing, but I can't figure out how. Please could you take a look at my file and advise?

(Note: I end up with as many meshes as there are polygons)

Edit: I checked help on the Convert SOP

When converting from a set of polygons to a mesh, a single mesh will result only if:
-more than one polygon is in the input, and
-each polygon has exactly four points, and
-the polygons are arranged as n rows by n columns
-the polygons share coincident points (see Facet OP)
Otherwise, each polygon is converted individually into a mesh. In fact, any individual face can be converted to any surface. This is accomplished by cutting the face into three or four adjacent sections, and then creating a patch from them.

OK, I'm still having trouble. How I can prepare the geometry this way? (into mesh form)

From what I gather, there is no easy way to do this in Houdini. Would there be much call for a solid mesh conversion feature?

In the attached file is a rough method that will probably be ok for me. There are often artifacts from the Ray SOP though.

To be frank I cannot see any good reason why you would ever want to use a mesh as opposed to polygons when dealing with a organic object like a potato

rob

circusmonkey
To be frank I cannot see any good reason why you would ever want to use a mesh as opposed to polygons when dealing with a organic object like a potato

rob

It's a GM potato

Seriously though… It's just a simple shape I'm going for. And meshes (or NURBS) give the best results when just slapping a texture on there (using Rows & Cols for uv).

I am a noob to modelling though, and I'll keep it in mind.