I am viewing this tutorial which used Houdini 16 in which there is a hot gradient which visualizes the falloff in the bend node. The 'visualize falloff' checkbox is also there.
Looks like it was updated to the more generic visualizers system that uses attributes. Enable output attribute (capture) under the capture section, then click the 📍 to display it as a visualizer.
Awesome. Thank you so much! That did it. However, enabling the capture highlights the entire geometry in colour, even the parts which are not getting bent at all. I played with capture length settings but the entire geometry gets shaded in colour. How can I keep the areas unaffected by the bend remain unshaded, just like it happens in the video?