Is there a way to control the density of the scatterSOP over the surface of a mesh, using an image?
For example with the pic expression or so. Or prehaps by fusing the points controlled with an image.
Controlled distribution of points using the ScatterSop
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- kgoossens
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Hi everybody
Is there a way to control the density of the scatterSOP over the surface of a mesh, using an image?
For example with the pic expression or so. Or prehaps by fusing the points controlled with an image.
Is there a way to control the density of the scatterSOP over the surface of a mesh, using an image?
For example with the pic expression or so. Or prehaps by fusing the points controlled with an image.
A computer is almost human - except that it does not blame its mistakes on another computer.
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- pbowmar
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- kgoossens
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- 289 posts
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pbowmar
Hello,
Yes, you can use an attribute to control the scattering of points. See attached. The only real trick is making sure the Bias in the Scatter is set to 0. Also, the higher-res the underlying grid, the better the image function's results.
Cheers,
Peter B
Thanks Peter!
Is there a way to read the texture immedialty into the scatterSOP, independent from the ammount of vertices placed on the input geometry?
Else my base geometry will grow to complex if I want to have the right ammount of resolution.
A computer is almost human - except that it does not blame its mistakes on another computer.
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- pbowmar
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Hi,
Well, there is the PointMap SOP, but it's a Protoinstall which means it's experimental. However, my quick testing indicates that it should do what you want.
If you're on Windows, go to the Start Menu, Houdini menu, and select Command Line Tools. In there, type “proto_install” then select the PointMap option (number 17 in my test). Install it to your $HOME (usually the first option). Restart Houdini and voila, there is now a Points from Map SOP.
The downside of this is that it won't pick up the colour of the map, unlike Scatter which will. Also, because it is in Proto_install, it is not support by SESI. However, I have used it in production regardless )
Scatter IMHO is the best way. I've run grids of extremely high resolution into Scatter with no problems. Obviously, not a realtime solution, but it works just fine.
This is getting into a bigger topic, but what I'd suggest is setting up a system that creates your highres grid, applies colour, scatters the points then immediately writes that out to disk. Follow with a File SOP that loads it back in, and you only have to dump out the points once. If you set it up with a ROP, if things change you just click the button on the ROP, and you're done.
This is a very common practice, by the way, since you don't ever want to sit and wait for recooking if you can avoid it )
Cheers,
Peter B
Well, there is the PointMap SOP, but it's a Protoinstall which means it's experimental. However, my quick testing indicates that it should do what you want.
If you're on Windows, go to the Start Menu, Houdini menu, and select Command Line Tools. In there, type “proto_install” then select the PointMap option (number 17 in my test). Install it to your $HOME (usually the first option). Restart Houdini and voila, there is now a Points from Map SOP.
The downside of this is that it won't pick up the colour of the map, unlike Scatter which will. Also, because it is in Proto_install, it is not support by SESI. However, I have used it in production regardless )
Scatter IMHO is the best way. I've run grids of extremely high resolution into Scatter with no problems. Obviously, not a realtime solution, but it works just fine.
This is getting into a bigger topic, but what I'd suggest is setting up a system that creates your highres grid, applies colour, scatters the points then immediately writes that out to disk. Follow with a File SOP that loads it back in, and you only have to dump out the points once. If you set it up with a ROP, if things change you just click the button on the ROP, and you're done.
This is a very common practice, by the way, since you don't ever want to sit and wait for recooking if you can avoid it )
Cheers,
Peter B
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