JColdrick It's just a personal opinion, but I like tutorials to have completed versions to examine when they're non-trivial like this one. I understand the whole mentality of ‘you don’t really learn it until you manually go through it', but that can be left to the discretion of the end user. Some people find it faster to study working examples rather than go through tab-add-connection exercises, probably related to their amount of experience with Houdini. Maybe in the next incarnation each tut can have a ‘work in progress’ hip file attached?
Cheers,
J.C.
no one else has agreed with you here - so i will! the devil is often (always in 3d) in the detail. a finished hip file (with in progress objs) would be v v useful. seconded! (also, wouldn't these be potentially useful for regression testing?)
I agree. The more examples or work in progress files, the better for all.
digitallysane The Fur node IS rendered, but what gets rendered is the Fur procedural from the shopnet inside it.
Dragos
Exactly. The idea is that the same object that has the fur sop in it has the hair material and fur procedural assigned to it. The other objects (skin, guides…) are then referenced by the procedural. These are the ones that are not renderable but must have their display turned on. The file I uploaded a few posts ago has this setup.
Your trick can then be used to hide these from the viewport while making sure they still contribute to the procedural.
Robert Magee Senior Product Marketing Manager SideFX
Yeah i suppose you could separate everything out so in the end you could have a Geometry object with nothing it, but a material with the fur procedural and Hair shop.
But i guess its neat and easy to have the fur's skin and guide geometry created in the one OBJ, and at render time the procedural takes over.
Also, i was wondering why in the tutorial the Procedural Geometry SHOP input at OBJ level was used along the Material slot? Cant the fur procedural be hooked up in the Hair Material network?
wait, lemmie check.
Yes they can, dont know why they couldn't. I suppose the only reason you wouldnt is maybe it makes the material exclusive to that skin & guide. If you had another description but wanted the same look you would have to copy and rip the Hair shader out.
Serg in the “Styling the fur” section, combing etc, no mention is made of the need to use the attribute re-orient node so that it wont go crazy in animation (deforming skin).
A few months ago in H8, I spent a whole day trying to figure out why my fur went nutz as the skin moved… this during a job with the obvious pressures involved. I was nearly convinced it was a bug but I persevered until I finally found a post with some clues…
this must be in the docs as its a guaranteed stumbling block, specially for newcomers.
cheers S
Hmm..Really interesting, I would definetly like to know what'S the deal with that because I'm totally seeing myself with this same problem in a near future…And would like to know exactly what need to be done to avoid that.
in the “Styling the fur” section, combing etc, no mention is made of the need to use the attribute re-orient node so that it wont go crazy in animation (deforming skin).
A few months ago in H8, I spent a whole day trying to figure out why my fur went nutz as the skin moved… this during a job with the obvious pressures involved. I was nearly convinced it was a bug but I persevered until I finally found a post with some clues…
this must be in the docs as its a guaranteed stumbling block, specially for newcomers.
cheers
If this detail could be added to the docs it would really help !!! As to the workflow. The format is great it gets you up and running in no time !
circusmonkey If this detail could be added to the docs it would really help !!! As to the workflow. The format is great it gets you up and running in no time !
We are still working on a lesson showing how to simulate the fur using wire dynamics. A page on rendering fur on the move would be a good companion to this….
Robert Magee Senior Product Marketing Manager SideFX
When rendering a basic setup (using hair material) I get the second picture. When using a color map , I get a dark border at the bottom (see first picture)
Why is there a dark area at the bottom (using color map) ?
I used UVQuickshade SOP on the grid. Is that correct?
There are two texture maps you can supply: Tip Color Map and Root Color Map. There is also an accompanying tip and root map width parameter that lets you control how soft or sharp the transition is.
Many furry animals have hairs that change color from root to tip. This allows you to recreate that look when the fur clumps up or is blowing in the wind.
If this is not desired simply supply the same map for Tip and Root.
Same thing follows in the furstyle cvex shader in that you can control the shaping of the fir in the Frizz folder from root to tip where the root is more kinky and the tips straighten out.
Bernard Is it possible to use guide geometry for the clumps ? I want the fur clumps to have a specific form….
Please take a look at the “Using clumping” page of the tutorial. It uses a Fur SOP to generate the clump geometry but you may use any custom SOP network. The main thing it needs is a primitive attribute called “clumporigin” identifying where each clump is located on the rest skin.
Serg in the “Styling the fur” section, combing etc, no mention is made of the need to use the attribute re-orient node so that it wont go crazy in animation (deforming skin).
A few months ago in H8, I spent a whole day trying to figure out why my fur went nutz as the skin moved… this during a job with the obvious pressures involved. I was nearly convinced it was a bug but I persevered until I finally found a post with some clues…
this must be in the docs as its a guaranteed stumbling block, specially for newcomers.
There is now a section in the tutorial covering animated geometry. The Attribute Reorient SOP should not be necessary when using the Fur Style SHOP on an animated character.
Bernard Is it possible to use guide geometry for the clumps ? I want the fur clumps to have a specific form….
Please take a look at the “Using clumping” page of the tutorial. It uses a Fur SOP to generate the clump geometry but you may use any custom SOP network. The main thing it needs is a primitive attribute called “clumporigin” identifying where each clump is located on the rest skin.
Thanks derrick.
I've done like you said, but it doesn't seem to work… I used 10 clump guides, scattered over the region.
Bernard I've done like you said, but it doesn't seem to work… I used 10 clump guides, scattered over the region.
Is it possible to take a look at my hip file and see what's wrong ?
I see the problem. The “clumporigin” attribute needs to be a primitive attribute. Your .hip file can be fixed by clearing the “To Point / Set” field and setting “To Primitive / Set” to “*” in the “copy2” node.
