the subnets in that last file could/should be Houdini Digital Assets (hda)
hdas will allow you to build as simple or as complex a tool as you want - with a control interface to drive all the parameters etc
then you can just chain together the hdas to build the whole thing
hdas can also contain the logic and functionality to write out geometry etc

it's a big topic but essential for doing this kind of work - I didn't mention it earlier because I didn't want to distract you from the basic Houdini operators…
there are some simple vids that describe them here:
https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=254&Itemid=409 [sidefx.com]

Any idea why my shading is so weird? You'll notice I just connect the transforms into the merge as a cheap way of prefabbing. Perhaps the HDA would fix this? But something weird happens in that the shading seems to reset per module…

it's just a lack of normals
if you MMB on a node it will show you some information about the type of geometry in the node and it's attributes.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but when I turn primitive normals on I can see they're all there and pointing the right way



Thanks again, I feel like I have Yoda teaching me how to use the Force

Update: I'm blind, I already had a Normals node after, I just wasn't rendering it. With that on, everything looks right! Nice! Now to learn how to use materials/textures!

be sure to look through the tutorials under the Learning menu…
and Rohan Dalvi has some free tutorials on materials etc
http://www.rohandalvi.net/ [rohandalvi.net]

Those are fantastic looking! Also it's sometimes tricky for me to watch videos, which is why I've lately been just literally going node by node in the sidefx manual. I wish more people would blog about solutions and tricks since that's much easier to digest when you're away from your computer

it's the way of the world….videos are faster to make and text is a drag to edit esp with the need to make images etc…