Hi
I am learning Houdini and I have some very basic questions. I have not been able to find the answers in the tutorials or documentation.

How can I save a geometry with the applied colors, texture etc. to export to other packages?
I do not know if I am modeling the geometry properly (colors and shaders) or if it is that I am not saving it properly.

When I save the geometry, it looks like it is losing some data.

Can anybody give me the answer or point me to the right tutorials?
Thanks

Ungria

I dont think one can export vex shaders from houdini to other packages only if u make a renderman shader then I think u will make a .slo and take out the shader. But normal vex shaders, to my knowledge one cannot.
If you want to export everything ie, texture and geometry in one file I dont think that is possible yet.
Have you tried right clicking on the geometry and choosing save geometry as option and saving as .obj file?
I have used houdini with maya and I have not “lost” any vertex or point from to and from by using obj format.

Hi
Yes, I have my network, I save the geometry to file, I have tried all the extensions, specially obj.

I know the obj files are supposed to support color.

I need the whole model, not only the geometry. I thought that could be possible with Houdini.

Is there any way I can add at least just color, not texture, and export the geometry with it?
Thanks
Ungria

What do you mean? Why would anyone want to export from Houdini to another software package? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

Sorry, I don't think .obj format supports colors, their is usually a .mtl file needed that describs the surface attributes for .obj files and Houdini neither reads or writes that file.

Here is what the docs have to say on the subject.

.obj … Uses gwavefront - polygonsonly. Only texture and pointnormal attribute (groups are kept on read)

For further information look under Help Formats>Geometry Formats Supported by Houdini

Maybe the information you need is in there, looks like the Lightwave format supports color.

Hi
I am not interested in creating an animation, or rendering in 2 D
I need the geometry for my work with information visualization.

I used Houdini instead 3D max because it was easier to build with it but I did not realize the resctrictions for saving the geometry.

Thanks

ungria

obj supports point colors and texture uv's so you should be able to easily re-create what you had in houdini by importing .obj in to another package then applying a shader and re-apply the texture map(s) on the pre-existing uv's. This assumes that you weren't using any procedural shaders.

You can also bake the material right in to the point colors of your geometry using the bake vex SOP if your geometry contains mesh surfaces (no polygons). This will naturally carry through with .obj's.

I don't know of any standard geometry data format that supports, geometry, textures, shaders and more. Sounds like you are describing a specific file format like a rib file (doesn't support embedded textures), .ifd file (Mantra file that does support embedded textures and materials), max file, a .hip file, etc. Either that or you are describing a specific translator to move data around which is different than a specific file format.

What is it exactly that you need? What data format are you used to dealing with that handles embedded textures and materials?

Just did a search on data file formats that support extended data with textures. There are quite a few actually. They all seem to be intended to support the scientific community and many seem to be linked somewhat tightly to different hardware manufacturers of: tunnelling electron microscopes, CAT and MRI scanners, and more.

There doesn't seem to be an open standard in this community either. Just everyone publising their own standards.

jeff
obj supports point colors and texture uv's so…

I don't know if the .obj format supports point colors, but the Houdini implimentation of it does not, I think it uses the .mtl files for colors. See my post above.

I tried saving a .obj with colored points then reading it back in… no colors.

Iges supports primitive colors. Not great but better than nothing.