Hi.

My current scene makes use of quite a bit of camera mapping.

I want to deform some of the objects, however, because the texture is projected from a camera onto the geometry, any deformations dont effect the texture.

How do I do this?

I assume I have to bake out or lock the texture in some way. Im not quite sure how to do this with a camera projection - and if i do, how do I then reproject it correctly?

Any advice would be much appreciated

Cheers

J

…also, ive read in Maya that you can create a Texture reference object to do this….anything similar in Houdini?

J 8)

ok managed to answer my own question. but ill post for benefit of others

simply created a new geo - inside that an object merge and referenced my projected object.

Now I can deform with the textures staying locked.

Any way I could do alternative methods/improvements?

J


Im suffering from an internal dialogue

As usual, there's a few ways. The most straighforward: I assume you're using a UVTexture SOP to create your UVs - and then you're animating the object on the object level? That would indeed be a problem, and one way around it is to animate on the SOP level instead. Just make sure to put your UVTexture SOP down before you have any animation, then follow with a transform, magnet, whatever and do your animation. Even though you created uv's by projecting from the cam, it's assign at that UVTexture SOP, so if you deform after that, you're good to go. Even if you're parenting or referencing another object for animation, you can reference that after the fact with drag and drop.

You can use the Rest SOP - feed the UV Assigned geo into the left and source the animated geo on the right - it will stick.

You can also make another cam - use one for reference, another for motion. Really depends on all the variables you're dealing with in your shot.

There's more, but I have a cold.

It's these learning experience that really help the animator understand what's going on in the pipeline. While some might argue there's too many ways to do any given thing, I would say no, that's what forces you to think about things like “ok, these are just attributes…now if I pipe them here, then assign them over there…”. It can lead to a very flexible, problem solving approach to things, which is arguably the most important thing about this business(assuming you're not also involved in the creative. )

Cheers,

J.C.

Cheers JColdrick

I appreciate the tips.

The problem was I wanted to deform the geometry at OBJ level with bones, so it needed to be at that level - using the object merge in a new geo seemed to solve that issue really well for me, but im not sure its the ‘right’ thing to do…
…in fact im never sure, but it worked.

Cheers

J

If it works it's right. Unless it's too slow or you hit another problem, then it's not. :roll:
Problem with Houdini is there are too many ways to do things and you can end up with “rabbit in headlight” syndrome. :wink: