Hi all.

I have been very interested in the new shot builder tools in Houdini 21, however I have been having a very hard time getting into them and understanding how it is meant to work. As there is little documentation, I followed it as best as I could, but I am getting very odd results. Here's my process:

1. Created a project using the single layer template - starting here to not over complicate
2. Created a shot and switched to it using the shot context dropdown
3. Added a shot load
4. Added a shot edit for the selected shot
5. Diving into the edit shot node (Shot Layer Edit), I added a sop create, just making a bumpy sphere, and also added a simple light primitive
6. I added a shot output node and published the shot.

The result is, as expected, shot_v01.usda, however it contains only the light primitive, and not the sop create.
Odd result. My next step is that I tried to cache out the sop create to a usd file and sublayered it in inside the shot edit node, again publishing via shot output.

Again, only the light primitive exists in the newly versioned shot usda file

I cannot seem to get the shot edit node, or shot output node, to save out or sublayer in newly created geometry made with a sop create node.

Where could I be going wrong?

Attached is an example file of this issue along with the output usd files

Thanks!

Just to add to this - this setup below works using the usd rop node, correctly sublayering the sop create that was cached out to test_v1.usd into the shot usd.

This same setup, when using the shot output node, outputs only the light primitive to the shot usd, and ignores the sublayer entirely. This seems to lead to something being misconfigured with the shot output node, but I have no idea what that may be

sopcreate defaults to creating a new layer. From the Lop nodes, you can see that it's a different color.

Switch to sopcreate> sublayer style> Merge Sop Layer into Exisiting Active Layer
And that will bring the new geom into the layer you are editing to publish.

You can also see those layer modification in "Scene Graph Layers" panel.

Hi there. To add to this, as of Houdini 21.0.456, inside an Edit Layer Block, the Sop Import/Create/Modify nodes, along with Sublayer, Merge and For Each now automatically select the correct Sublayer or Merge type for you (with a warning on the parm panel), in order to prevent this confusion

Thanks! I'll update to that build and test this out. I'll post here if I run into any issues. Thanks for clearing that up!!

This seems to work!

One thing on time samples though: it seems that even if time samples are authored in a sop create node, and the shotoutput node is set to render a specific frame range, only time samples for the current frame are written out to the layer.

Attached is a file with that example

zakkatara
One thing on time samples though: it seems that even if time samples are authored in a sop create node, and the shotoutput node is set to render a specific frame range, only time samples for the current frame are written out to the layer.

Thank you for reporting that. We are aware of the issue, but if you'd like to follow the progress please submit a bug