I did something the same on hastily, using your method with “rhexes” and I think, this is will more complex, than seems. The simplest method is the displace map. Or if need procedural shader, to cook another way.

Hi, kevinthebright!
Yes, if we will write i@group_NAMEGROUP, we can call exist group. Strange, that I missed it somewhere in the documentation. Thanks a lot

Hello! I'm little confused with reading existing group in vex editor (Attribute Wrangle). Can't find in documentation mention of this. Example: Exist one group of Points “group1”, need call this group using vexpression. If I use “@”, it just creating new attribute.

mestela, You should write Help Doc for SideFx

sakeating
In the new Point Sop ( Attribute expression sop ), set the ‘attribute’ parameter to N and then in the VEXpression field enter :

v@opinput1_P - v@P

You can use the “opinput_” to fetch attributes from other inputs. This works in wrangles, etc.

Hello, this is great, but can we see it all in help docs? Example: before/after.

Hi!
Many and very many companies use Maya or Modo because of the simplicity and speed of the modeling. You do not need additional knowledge in VEX. You completely devote yourself only to creativity and pushing the buttons in the program. Also Houdini was created primarily for VFX and still in many companies there is a stereotype that this software is highly specialized. It's easier for people to use the entire production pipline in Maya or 3dsMax, because it's easier, it does not require knowledge in programming or - to puzzle over a difficult task. In the labor market it is much easier to find a person who knows Maya or 3dsMax. Of course in the future Houdini can become the main package, to which people will fully navigate and build the entire pipeline. But the situation is such that Houdini - it's difficult.

Few words. Completely switches to other software like Houdini for what purpose? You need to understand that Houdini does not use all the studios in your city. And many do not use it for all purposes and tasks. It can happen that your CV will only have Houdini and you will hard to find a job. You need to know both 3dsMax and Maya very well, both packages. Usually Houdini study after them.

Houdini is a different approach to work. You must completely rebuild your mind for this. It will not be enough for you to know one thing: “press the button”. You need to know a little bit from programming. The most important thing for which Houdini is needed is VFX. The truth is that in Houdini you can do everything without plugins! But for this you must have the knowledge and experience, knowledge and concepts of computer graphics, mathematics. And it's also true that Houdini works stably in big scenes. This is the most beautiful thing! In Houdini it is convenient to make video, adjust for compose, work with stereo. In Houdini many and many things are convenient. But when you are faced with the development of something complicated, you do not have enough knowledge how to do it in Houdini!

Hi, rafal! I appreciate that you took the time to write an explanation, it allows me to find peace of mind, because I already began to tear hair on my head.

Hi, Olaf Finkbeiner!
Good news! I'll happy in this case

Where is menus Overriding Local Material Parameters in Houdini 16?

Konstantin Magnus
copy SOP got split up so it´s not bloating, point node uses VEX now. old users should be experienced enough to handle this.

it´s not getting more convincing, if you post your opinions in youtube-style, either.

I can only agree that it is necessary to go ahead and use VEX. I can not accept a huge number of micro-elements in my Network View when you have a huge scene. Copy node worked well before, actually, I just accustomed to the local variables and stamping - this is the first thing I met when I first opened Houdini. And now a new direction to use VEX, I can't to say that I like it, but it works better and more harder, than local variables! This is something that slows down the understanding of work, need to spend time learning coding on VEX.

How wrote tamte:

tamte
AFAIK this was necessary to cleanup the code and remove dependency on local variables and stamping and the new nodes can be used in compiled blocks and when combined with foreach you can get multithreaded Copy SOP, which is a big advantage compared to old one, but so far you still have Copy Stamp node as well which is the old Copy SOP

Ok, can you demonstrate advantages in scene: “you can get multithreaded Copy SOP”, how it's looks?

tamte
not sure if that was necessary, but it probably allows for more optimized networks, personally I like them more as it's obvious what's going on inside without diving anywhere
nothing is stopping from cleaning up the inside of if/for blocks using subnetworks

The subnetworks this is sh*t, sorry for that. This is what I would optimize in Houdini. What I liked in the blocks “IF-THEN BLOCK” - U can create in shop shader hidden in this block, apply condition (TRU, FALSE, NOT EQUAL), make output parameters and combine it, combine, countless times and All giblets are hidden in one block.But now if I do something new, I'm forced to use an uncomfortable sub-network, or watch 100-500 nodes in a shop.

tamte
then new unified MAT network, while not perfect at this point is a really great leap forward
now you can blend the whole materials, not just layers, as well as control any input of any material with traditional VOPs or share parts among multiple materials as well as quickly preview results of any node by assigning it as a material
but it's true that it's not fully polished and parts of workflow may not work as previously or as expected, the object level overrides may be one of those things, not sure if hiding them was intentional or just temporary

Okay. Let's say. You have a large scene with lots of geometry and materials for each object. All these materials you can see in the Material Palette, but there it is extremely inconvenient to work with them! And situation, u have ~200 materials and all this materials in “opened condition” in MAT Network. How u think, I'am wrong about something?

tamte
nothing is stopping you from using H15.5 forever if you are afraid of change,
not sure for how long you've been using houdini or how “old” user you are, but I can tell you that for the past 10 years I've been using it, Houdini was just improving and there were a lot of deprecated workflows and nodes even the full contexts. I'm not saying that I agreed with every change ever, but being able to adapt and trying to understand the reasons behind maybe suggesting improvements is far better than resisting the change

No, this is not an option. Better if Sidefx will read and negative feedback, it might stop creating problems.

AND

FOR ALL CHANGES FROM OLD VERSION TO NEW MAKE VIDEO WITH EXPLANATIONS! Where was and what was removed or changed, because in help read it worse than watching vimeo or youtube

vux
DEPRECATION + OPTIMIZATION

DEPRECATION + OPTIMIZATION = NIGHTMARE FOR OLD USERS! It seems that this is a new concept of SideFX, dismiss your man who is responsible for the development!

tamte
so trying to understand newer concepts meant for replacement/enhancement like VEX, Intrinsics, For Loops, Compile networks may be the first step and then maybe provide feedback and suggestions to SESI about how to make them more user friendly for new users, without sacrificing their flexibility and performance

That it intresting!!! How about my comment here Overriding material [sidefx.com] This is also new conception of Houdini? Why need so much changes in interface, what that it was earlier convenient and working well? Did you ask users? Have you conducted a survey?

Why was it necessary to separate the Copy node and make a lot of it separate?
Why was it necessary to remove IF-THEN BLOCK in shop? And instead did an “open principle”, where ALL nodes, absolutly ALL nodes users see and it uncomfortable when their huge amount!
And what shock me most of all is that new MAT NEtwork - this is new conception of Houdini and old SHOP network soon disappear! I can say with 100% confidence - it's uncomfortable! You do not need to destroy what was good!

Hello everyone! I noticed one thing, which I always used and now it's disappeared. This is Material Overriding on nodes. Now user can't to select "Select and create local material parameters“, ”Create all local material Parameters“ and etc. WHY it was removed? From users are want that they use ”Material Style Sheets" forcibly??

Yep… Actually Python language is very easy to understand. At given instant of time it became very popular in the world and a lot of information you can get. But in Houdini, this language is used as binding element. If you do not know the functions HOM and how they work - is a headache. Also, for the code editor, inconvenient to receive feedbacks and others issues. You can spend a lot of time to finally understand where you're wrong. This video tutorial I already looked. Perhaps this is the foundation to begin to do something. However, this is not enough to do something more complex. Thank you can share your code. It helps in understanding how some things are work.

Looks great! You learned to make its own scripting in Houdini? Have you watched a video tutorials or something like that? How long did it take you to find how the one or the other function, with which it works?

Enivob, the really I agree with you. I think the question here in reality. Inside development department SIdeFX need to appoint a person who will deal with this issue. To do this, most likely, it is necessary to allocate resources and rewrite the existing code. While at the same time it looks strange, against the background of constant innovation.

As always, thank you for the excellent advices! Thanks to this forum and the humans here, I can learn something new, learn and receive great advices.

I would also like to add here links for those who will be looking for any information about Python (old site documentation contains these useful links):

Scripting Learning Python [archive.sidefx.com]
Fantastic tutorial [docs.python.org]
Little tutorial, how to start in houdini:
deborahrfowler.com [deborahrfowler.com]

First of all, I want to ask the staff. In fact, I do not know exactly, is only me have a problems. At the moment I began to study the Python language in Houdini program, how it works. But, I was faced with the fact that the editors, where I can write code and get feedback (errors, notes, instructions, tips), totally not informative and not comfortable. Honestly, it is very difficult to write code in the existing editing windows. It is more about checking the final result. When I encounter with mistakes in the code - it's a real problem.

This problem is just me?

I like how this is implemented in Maya program, but it also has disadvantages. Can I (we all users) expect more friendly code editors in future? Thanks a lot of much!

I think it's all because of the Fresnel parameter, which does not interact in the shader. If you will play with it, you will get the desired result.

mikolaj, over the years, with the renderer Mantra, I can say, that this is normal. Sometimes it works quickly, sometimes not! Raytrace in some tasks slow, Micropoligon running faster all, and if we talk about the PBR, it is also not the fastest. However, often Mantra can handle huge amounts of data without disruption, which gives it a leading quality. Maybe, someday, users will get more faster performance Manta and implementation of GPU rendering. Currently, developers make improvements. When there is improvement - it's good.