Hi everyone-

I'm starting a project that will invlove modeling a lot of gears and my challenge to myself is to do it all in Houdini.

In the past I would have probably individually modeled the gears and made a few variations, probably taking a lot of time.

My question is, using Houdini, might there be a way to create a digital asset that can build gears for me? Varying the gear teeth, holes in the gears, etc. I'm not very familiar with Digital Assets, so any information would be really helpful.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thank you.

http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=8184 [forums.odforce.net]

Digital Assets are what you want indeed. I don't know if you have a CAD background but think of them as blocks or cells which you can reuse. With copy stamping you can add all the variation you want.

Start out with modeling a basic gear, drop them in a subnet, rmb on it and create a hda. Then you can add the parameters to control everything.

In your scene you could add points and copy gears on it with copy stamping, then you get all the variation you want. Or if you want to have more control you could also make a primitive of it and tweak settings on individual gears.

Wicked! Thanks guys for the quick response.

-arctor: great link thank you!

- Pagfan: You make it sound so easy. Can't wait to feel that comfortable in Houdini!