I have a few simple questions that I have not found easy answers for any help or points in the right direction would appreciated.

1. In Maya I can specify a loft as either linear or cubic. I would like to create lofts with multiple closed curves where the interpolation is linear between spans and does not result in a smoothed shape and perfectly intersects the spans.

2. In Maya I can specify a normal angle to poly objects(0-180) to specify hard or soft normals. I can not figure out how to replicate this in Houdini.

3. In general what is a good approach towards Hard Surface UV mapping? I am working through the UV tutorials that just came out but they are geared more towards organic UV mapping.

4. As a general question what is a good coneptual workflow for the creation of hard surface polygonal geometry? Like as an example. Create Box, Extrude faces, Fuse and Clean Up thena apply UV's.

5. How can I transform a face or a series of points perpindicular to the normal of the object rather than world space?

Thanks for any help

s

1. Try playing with a Skin SOP and closed polygonal curves
2. Try the Facet SOP's Cusp Angle option
3. Not sure. If you're using NURBS, UVTexture SOP with Texture Type set to Rows & Columns
4. Not sure.
5. Use the Peak SOP, or the Peak option in the Edit SOP.