Computer stats: Inspiron 8200, 2 Gig Pentium 4, 1 Gig Ram, GeForce 4 440 GO, XP,

Houdini Version: 6.0.286

Hello all,

It's been a little while since I worked full on in Houdini, and I do realize that there have been many updates… so I was very meticulous in my investigation prior to writing this. After this lengthy investigation, my conclusion is that this is a bug. Please prove me wrong… I will be relieved.

A perfect example of how this is not working for me, is to load up one of the Houdini pre-made Demo's: /demo/OPspecific/Pops/Instance

When using a network with “Instance's” in Pop's, the Geo-instances aren't showing up when I bring them in to the “Sop” state, as a “Pop Merge”.

The Instances are all referencing the proper “sop” geometry, and the instances DO show up fine in “pops”. It's only when I try to bring the Pops instances back into the “Sop” state as a “pop merge” that they disappear.

The particles themselves seem to show up fine in “Sops”, and I have no problem running the “pop merge” into the “copy sop”. So the network appears to be coming into the “pop merge” in some form, just without the instanced geometry that was originally placed in the pop network. No show on the render as well.

I have even tried building the pops network inside of “sops” (as a “pop network” sop), but again, no instanced geometry out to the Obj/sop state or render.

Also I think the “object merge” might be odd too. I won't get into this one, because I haven't fully investigated it yet.

Is it me? Any Ideas?

thanks

jim

there is a good chance that this file simply gets broken when opened in 6.0.xxx

Hey thanks for the reply.

Yes… it's true, it could have gotten broken when loaded into 6, except that I've tested that already and ruled it out. I wish it was that easy, then I could get down to work on what I want to do.

I opened up Houdini fresh, and built it from scratch… and still no go. I've tried many different configurations. The only reason I even tried the “Demo” at all is that I was worried that it was possible that I might be doing something wrong. Missing something. The “demo” served to confirm my suspicions, and stands as a good starting point for others who may wish to confirm/refute my findings. In fact, I've referenced it against other tutorials, and they are all malfunctioning in the same manner.

I guess it is still possible that I'm missing something, but I was quite through in my investigation before writing this post.

thanks again

jim

Could the problem be related to this thread?
http://www.sidefx.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=287 [sidefx.com]

indubitably, that thread answers the question at hand. to summarize here and to bring up an issue for document clarification:

the instance pop will only allow you to visualize in POPs (when the template flag is enabled) the instanced geometry. you will not be able to see it in SOPs or OBJs. you will be able to see it rendered correctly when 1. you have point instancing checked on the render tab of the object containing the particle system.
and
2. for the instance attribute to be picked up, the point geometry field must be blank.

these are two important points that aren't directly addressed in the documentation for the instance POP… and i will see if we can get that modified.

thanks for clarification edward!

will

Hey thanks for the reply and the insight!

I'll give it a whirl.
I tried playing around endlessly with such noted parameters (and others), I guess I just never got the right combo… and then when “demo” and tutorial examples weren't working properly, I figured it might just be a bug.