hello there

i'm a xsi user but i always admired houdini's fx abilities…
now i'm testing/ flirting a bit with houdini as well and wondering about the workflow.

in xsi there's everything in one world, you have happening everything at the same time if you want.
for example: you create a model and then a particle simulation or anything else and it's right there in the same viewport.

in houdini i create a geometry and then create particles and i need to switch between obj vieport and pop viewport. how do i bring those two worlds together then? or how can i work in the same viewport with everything or is that sepparated? especially if you want to interact between your geometry and particles…

thanks for info in advance

There are two simple ways

1. If you already have a pop network set up that you want to use, go into a object and put down a “pop merge” sop

2. If you haven't yet made your pop network it might be easier to put down a pop network at object level, then when you go inside it you will find yourself magically transported to pop land.

Once in a pop network you can use pops like source and collision to bring in geometry you want to interact with.

You can even put an object net inside you pop net and make geometry there just for use in the pop net…. sounds confusing but once you get used to it it makes life simple and organised. You can even wrap the whole effect up in an otl and install it to other hip files. If you do this then changes to the network in one file will effect versions in other hip files…..
Effectively you will have turned your pop network into a plugin!

thanks for info…

here another question before opening up a new thread… - i got this houdini demo from a 3d worldmag cd but there werent included any manuals afaik.
are there good manuals included in the apprentice download? and are those the only videos here on this site or are there any other official sidefx videos?
afaik 3dbuzz requires me to spend lots of time on their site/ forum to get the videos (very annoying) thats why i'm asking…

cheers

Hi there,

If you install Houdini Apprentice (version 5.5 I think) from the CD you got from the 3d world magazine, there should be an option for documentation & they are .pdf files. I don't recommend it because it's an old version & the interface has changed as well.

In the latest Houdini Apprentice, you can browse the documentation with the Help Browser by clicking on the “?” button in the top right of the screen or Help menu -> Help Contents.

With regards to video tutorials, please go to the Sydney Vislab mirror [sidefx.vislab.usyd.edu.au].

Have fun!

Cheers!
steven

gawd, that program is so damn difficult. when going back to xsi it feels like cutting through warm soft butter and with houdini its hitting the fist against iron, lol. but i'm sure when you're really in it's routine.

anyone know how that water in a52's cadillac spot was done in houdini?
they say it was completely done in houdini (no realflow used)… pretty awesome.

Hi,

It's adjusting to a different workflow that's difficult. Once you're used to the workflow, you'll begin to appreciate it.

I spoke to one of the guys who worked on the a52 spot & he mentioned extracting the profile curves & skinning them to extend the water plane as the cars are moving. Then water surface & displacement shaders are applied. Sorry, I can't remember the details.

Cheers!
steven

how can i turn the viewport color to black?
i see you can change gamma, brightness and stuff under preferences but that changes everything.
thanks.

there is no direct way of doing it within houdini to my knowledge. there are some pref files that can be hacked and have been disussed about in the past, so do a search and you may find something.

Visual Paridigms used to have a bunch of custom made houdini desktops but site's not up right now.

http://visualparadigms.com/ [visualparadigms.com]

You can change the viewport color scheme using the display options. Press ‘d’ in the viewport to open the display options, then switch to ‘Background’ and change the ‘Color Scheme’ (top right) to ‘dark’.

well thats good to know..

thanks..

i feel more & more comfortable with houdini in this short time. but i was wondering how do you think the sidefx future is going to look like…
i dont think houdini has no future, it seems as if sidefx has a stable fundament. it's just a bit of my anxiety to learn such an app and then the company maybe goes down 1 year later or something…
but that shouldn't happen, right?

also another question. what's the shortkey for the “renderregion” (as known and “invented” by softimage) in houdini? i know sidefx made one for houdini too (i believe since version6) to preview parts of the viewports by drawing your area in full renderquality or the one you can set yourself. i can't find it in the manuals… and pressing all keys don't get me further.

To render in the viewport, press Tab -> Render then draw the region. You can also select the ROP to render with at the top of the viewport.

Cheers!
steven

thanks… i'm sure it's possible to assign this somehow on to the keyboard right? and also adjusting the “region draw”-settings too?

sure:

houdini/panes/geometry viewers/operations/modeling (SOP)/Render

of course this is just for SOPs, there are also ones for pops/obj etc. an also good thing to keep in mind for the hotkey editor is it's searching ability. i.e. do a action string search for ‘render’ and it would've given you what you were looking for.

as far as the “region draw” setttings, i don't know what exactly you're asking about.. could you clarify?

what i mean is, in xsi i have all the render settings for region-draw as for the final output rendering. there i can rightclick on the region-edge and open up the settings panel to adjust anti-alias, global illumination or final gathering or whatever else…
i thought maybe there's some settings for the houdini viewport render-draw too.

- also (hope i'm not annoying you guys, but i couldnt find it in the manuals) how can i freeze the network or object to some level? or just to set something so i can work in the viewport smoothly without any lagging. when i have high subdivisions the viewport gets lagging and maybe there's some option to “bake” the nodes (which would be sad since its better to have all editable to all times) so one can still work fast?

You can always write geometry out to file and then read it back in with a file sop. Or for a quick fix lock the sop with the little padlock icon found on each sop. Just lock the last one in the network. Remember if you do this though that the file size will get bigger as the geometry will actually be saved in the file.

Another tip is to go to the viewport and hit “d” this will bring up the viewport configure settings, go to the optimisation tab and find lots of ways to speed up redraws.

Also, you can write animated sequences of geometry out to disk and use the cache sop to read it back in…..

Probably some other ways to, like polyreduce…..

the render settings for the viewport region are based on whatever output driver you choose when viewport rendering (it's at the top). So just use the rop you're going to render with or create another rop based on the settings you want for the viewport render and just set it to that.

hope that clears things up.

Also, you unlink panes by choosing a different number in the circle at the top-right hand corner of the panes.

someone once said, everyone who models something more complex than a cube in houdini, is insane… heh

i guess it depends on how your own personal working style is.. as for me I love modeling in houdini and am ten times faster than say something like maya. I hate modeling in maya.. so friggin frustrating.. but again, thats just me.

i've been interested in test driving xsi for sometime though. interested to see how that is.. but then again if i got something i love, then i might as well stick with it.. too bad i'm limited job wise when it comes to that tho (which is why i try to branch out to other packages)..