Instant Meshes Bridge Sop

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I'm on the current win10 64bit. Followed the directions. The temp geo folder is on my DT and the .exe for the instant meshes is also on my DT.

The standalone executable is working. Very impressed by that and it has gotten my excited to get this in Houdini.

Cheers on the reply. I'm on the most recent daily build of Houdini.
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Happy to help, hopefully we can get it working for ya!

Next question, is which version of the OTL? I'm using the latest one from earlier in this thread here [sidefx.com]
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By OTL do you mean the HDA? I'm using the one in the original post. The Luiz, the author suggested that one has been updated to reflect all of the changes/modifications.


I will try the one you posted with the “autocook_instant_meshes.hipnc (57.8 KB)”

Sound good?
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Sorry, yeah HDA

HDAs used to be called OTLs until a few version ago, and their folder in your houdini preferences folder is still called otls - old habit!

I'll try that one and see if I can't repro your issue. I'm on Linux.
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Sounds great. I'm going to install the HDA you posted and see if I experience any difference. One thing I just realized is that I'm installing the HDA to the .HIP and not to the asset directory (which I will try now).

What linux distro are you on out of curiosity. I played around with the idea of switching to Linux as it is so much lighter than Windows. It scares me though. In the middle of setting up our render farm with Centos 6.5 / deadline / Maya / Vray.

Not used to ipTables and setting up sambas. Crazy new world.
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Oh, yeah I see what happened; that version you're using might be trying to write/save to some place it doesn't have permissions; it should just work with your current directory, I thought. But that newer version uses $TEMP, which is cross-platform, so it'll just use your Houdini temp dir on whatever OS you're running.

Holler if that didn't actually work for you. And don't forget to point the Instand Meshes Location parm to wherever you have the instante meshes exe.
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No worries, it's crazy/scary at first, but I really enjoy using Linux. But setting up network/farm related stuff on Linux does crank up the scariness a fair bit more than just your own desktop machine

I use Linux Mint, with the Cinnamon desktop. Ubuntu/Linux Mint make getting a relatively recent/stable Nvidia driver really simple, which was the original reason I went that route. But I really like Mint, the Update window is really great and helping you see which updates might clobber your system.

You could dual boot your current windows machine, or try it on a spare laptop/desktop you might have around. Give it a try, it's awesome
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Oh, it won't matter whether the HDA is installed in the local hip only
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It's shouting at me! Saying a variable isn't defined in your python node. Did the built in API change? I assume this is an internal variable to Houdini you are calling as it doesn't seem to be defined in the python node. The mystery thickens.

Attachments:
err.jpg (90.8 KB)

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Hahaha. That was the problem. Just commented out -

# disable IM dialog box 
#si = None
#if os.name == 'nt':
    #si = subprocess.STARTUPINFO()
    # hide_instant_meshes_dialog:
        #si.dwFlags |= subprocess.STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW

and it works. I don't know what exactly it was that I commented out, but it's doing the trick. Now.. I know you've done a lot to help me out already, but any way to get this HDA to work in Indie? It wants to revert me back to none-commercial which makes me sad.

Thank you again so much! Super awesome stuff.
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Aha, major bug on my part, in that windows-specific section of code (the if os.name == ‘nt’ check). I've updated it, try this one.

Attachments:
instant_meshes_bridge.hda (90.2 KB)

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negative. Back to

“Python error: Traceback (most recent call last):
File ”“, line 26, in
NameError: name ‘hide_instant_meshes_dialog’ is not defined



EDIT: Also should add I haven't been restarting houdini fresh each time either. I do not know if this is necessary when installing/uninstalling HDAs.
Edited by 9krausec - April 17, 2017 22:16:12
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It shouldn't matter, the names should overwrite. But maybe it didn't overwrite, and that's why the error is back?

Re: indie, I'd need to upload it to Orbolt for it to work, since that'll allow it to download in your format. There was talk about this being part of the Games Shelf, but it's not there currently.

However, it'd be a good learning opportunity for to recreate this! Just keep an Apprentice session open for you to look at it, and add the nodes manually to a subnet; then RMB on the subnet to create the HDA. You can copy the python code to the Indie session without tainting it. Have you made your own HDAs before?

(sorry if you have, and I'm just coming across as condescending!)
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Not condescending at all! I was going to, but when I opened up the .HDA in notepad++ there was legible code and then a bunch of it below was compiled jibberish (so I assumed there was something additional involved than just node work. Something that was compiled into the HDA).

Reverse engineering stuff is the best way to learn! I will happily rebuild what you've created.

I'm just super thrilled that there is a Python node! Makes it more flexible than Maya imo. Great! Thank you again for the support goldleaf!
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Took me a while, but I learned a lot! Here's goldleaf's revised otl as a .hdalc (houdini indie). Cheers! Thank you again goldleaf for the help.

Attachments:
c_instant_meshes_bridge.hdalc (21.4 KB)

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where can i get the compiled version of it for windows 64?
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WooooW
much:)
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yes i just found out all you have to do is scroll down then theres the compiled version for windows mac and linux
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Anybody using it with 3d scans?

The problem with instant mesh is that it destroys the UVs.
So in case you have a 3d scan + texture, you're going to lose it.

I was wondering what could be the workflow to bake again the texture from the original model to the new one created by instantmesh.


Here it explains the workflow for blender, but I'm unable to reproduce it in Houdini
https://blog.sketchfab.com/retopologise-3d-scans-low-poly-game-assets/ [blog.sketchfab.com]



cheers
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Is it possible for sidefx to implement this as part of the standard tool set ?
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