Is Join supposed to lower the level of detail on NURBS? I´ve been modelling a head and come to the conclusion that the Join SOP builds a primitive that displays at a lower resolution. It renders fine but in the viewport I have to crank it up.

On the topic. The display properties for level of details affects all objects. Is it possible to change the level of detail per object?


Ver. 8.0.410 XP SP2

Do you have hip file that demonstrates your problem?

As for object-specific LOD, there's a parameter called “Level of Detail” in the Render tab of the object parameters. To modify it, first enable Shading Quality. I think it's only respected in Mantra though (ie. it won't show a difference in the viewport).

Hmm, the LOD in the OBJ parameters is not related to the display quality of parametric surfaces, it has to do with raytracing or something. I don't believe there is a way to set the display quality for individual objects/geos, unless there exists some secret attribute we don't know about, which would be a cool way to control it if you ask me.

Hasn't really been an issue for me though…

Note that I haven't actually tried this, but I believe that a floating point attribute called “lod” on either the detail or a primitive will work.

Wow, it looks like that does work.

hey, sweet.. this is great.. just make sure not to go in to the negatives because houdini goes boom..

thanks Ondrej :wink:

Hi guys! I dont really understand how I should tweak the lod paramater. Going stupid here and tried to animate it since it possible to scope it as a animatable parameter but nothing happens there so I guess its not possible to animate or maybe im missing something.

Here is the file I´m working on. It´s a nurbs head that I am going to use as a reference for snapping curve network onto. Going from mirror SOP to join makes a noticable difference in detail but if you render from join sop you will get a much more smooth surface, well many times more smooth than the display. Cranking up the LOD in the Display Options works but since im going to use it as a reference for building a curve network i want to use a normal LOD “ level 1” for the curves im building but a higher one for this head.

Should I type something in the textport? and if so is it possible to assign a hotkey for to that script for switching levels?

One simple way around it is just to convert it to polys for reference, then you have complete control over the amount of detail.

Also, if you are just using it to snap curves onto why join it?

Have the joined one for rendering and use the un-joined one for reference.

True Simon, I could convert and subdivide it to get a smooth version. The reason for nurbs being that I would like to later on create a otl which I control procedually by adding or removing detail with the refine SOP so although I could convert it in this case I would like to gain the knowledge on how I control the lod per object for later use as well.

The join sop kind of stopped my flow by lowering the detail so it made me curious if i could control the lod somehow. DaJuice and deecue seems to get it and I want a piece of that sweet knowledge

Huh…. when did this “lod” prim attribute existed…?

Hey HiNMity, append an AttribCreate SOP and in the Name field put lod. Set Class to either Detail or Primitive, and in the first Value box put a number like 10 or 20, and the head should look smooth now. Looks nice btw!

Thank you one million times DaJuice that works most excellent.

Simon, the reason I want to join is so that I can paste a nose at zero x which I found not to work at ends.

Now I can continue my Nurbs journey