For modeling improvements, I'd like to see symmetric loop slice, a better knife tool, a better polypen tool, improved sculpting, and a more intuitive way to set action centers to transformed objects. All this is doable currently in Houdini, but much more of a struggle than in other programs. That said, I love Houdini and it is my primary 3D tool (though I use Blender, Modo, zBrush, 3dcoat, Rhizom UV, etc. as needed).

So far, not slow ups! Thanks.

Make sure you have the exact version of Arnold and Houdini installed. Otherwise it will not work. Arnold only has versions for Houdini production versions and these have to match the version. Currently the installers will write the lines to Houdini.env.

I wonder why the tutorial was centered around use of the Attribute VOP. It is certainly easier to do it using a material network, remembering to use rest position and UV coordinates nodes. Before this tutorial, I've used the Attribute VOP for modeling, not shading.

Thanks for the thoughts. Leaving out any binds, just connecting a constant to the roughness channel causes the color to break. It would be easy to set the whole thing up in the material network, but the tutorial uses Attribute VOPs instead. It looks like one can do either color/displacement/etc. through Attribute VOPS or through the material network but not both. Using a principled shader itself is not a problem, but perhaps it is the VEX code that gets generated with any connected inputs. I'm not sure why point color would be deleted because generally a principled shader will allow point color unless this is turned off.

In Rohan Dalvi's procedural texturing tutorial, unlike most other tutorials I've seen, he uses an Attribute VOP to affect UV's, displacement, and color. He just places a principled shader on his objects and lets the attribute VOP control the rendered look. However, if one connects anything to the roughness channel of the principled shader, it removes all color given by the attribute VOP. Even connecting a simple constant to the displacement channel of the principled shader does the same. Why is this? Attached is a simple Houdini file showing the scene and rendered view. If one disconnects the nodes connected to the roughness channel, it will render displacement and color correctly.

I get several Houdini crashes each day. Usually things lock up with an evaluating python message. The license server routinely will not connect remotely and SideFx tech support does not know how to set up a local server despite several attempts. Unfortunately, Houdini is not reliable on a 2019 Mac Pro with production or daily builds.

The local licensing server does not work on my computer. I've dealt with tech support twice on this and in the end they said I needed to go back to sidefx remote licensing server. So this may not work for you.

It is much better in 19.0.522 but again this issue gets bad after I've had Houdini open for awhile. Still not fixed.

Sure:

It looks like I found a solution. I was considering trying to measure curvature and base color on that attribute, but a simple ramp off an occlusion worked ok. It still would be better to control this by curvature, but I don't know how to set this up.

I can create a simple color shading effect by assigning an attribute to points and having them effect color (see attachment)if there is a simple model where the attribute is easily defined, but is there a way of creating the same effect based on surface shading nodes so that it could be used for more complex objects? What I want is the equivalent of some ambient occlusion color and noise but done as a shader, not an environmental light or render pass. The attached Houdini file and image are what I would like to obtain, but without having to use a point attribute/color. Thanks.

Thank you jsmack and Tomas. Thanks for confirming that you can't use an attribute directly in a transform node (but it is fairly easy with a few lines of VEX to accomplish the same thing). I think based on the suggestions above that I was able to get it to work but it is certainly a lot more complicated to set up compared with a layer based system. (See attachment, if anyone else wants to solve a similar problem). Second image is a more complicated version for controlling anisotropic direction. This is glacially show on my Mac Pro 2019.

There is sluggish and unusable. Here is my unusable issue with trying to move UV's in Houdini (the movie is really boring and doesn't show spinning beachball). After about three or four minutes, the UV's move a it before restarting the spinning beachball. My activity monitor shows CPU is 95% idle, so it isn't exactly taxing to a 2019 Mac Pro with pretty high specs. The same behavior is on the most recent production and daily builds. Especially bad is trying to load textures, change settings in materials and then rendering, adjusting UVs. The delays are in minutes, not seconds. Part of this is that the Apple Mac Pro 2019 really isn't good for 3D work, even with the expensive upgrades to the base model. I think it is more of a FCPX machine.
https://vimeo.com/672881792 [vimeo.com]

Are you saying you would add an attribute wrangle node before each transform with code something like:
And have the transform use this attribute for the z rotation (which I can't get to work)
and have the material use this attribute for the UVtransform of the channel you wish to change using a bind? I don't see where I could connect this to the UVtransform node to alter the UV rotation.

I have used layer based and node based software for years: After Effects vs Nuke, Modo vs Blender, Substance Painter vs almost every 3D texturing system. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. But on this forum, it is implied that material overrides are easy with a nodal system. These actually are very easy in a layer based system, but how would one solve a simple issue like having material overrides on just one channel.

As an example I've explained before, if I have multiple dials (for a radio, television, audio mixer, etc.) where the dials are rotated slightly differently, but I want to have just the anisotropic direction stay the same for each dial, the only way I know in Houdini is to set up different materials for each dial. There is tons of overhead with that, but it allows me to reverse the dial rotation in the anisotropic UV map ("UV_Xform13" is controlled by the relative reference to the z rotation of the preceding transform node). The attached object nodes show basically how one dial is reused with transforms for the set of dials. But after each dial, I have to assign a different material to the front face group to control for the anisotropic direction. The material shader for one such dial is shown in the second attachment.

Is there a way to not have to recreate a shader for each dial but just override the UV's for a single channel in a node based system (without using Python)?

Thank you both. I see how to combine bump and displacement as Tomas suggests (and was the method in a tutorial I saw), but I don't understand what the input channel is for on the principled shader for bump texture. What would connect with it?

Anisotropic direction can be simulated by a color map easily created with blends in illustrator. (see attachment) But the direction does not change as the dials are rotated even though an arrow or line texture connected to the diffuse color does. Rotating the dial shifts the anisotropic direction unlike in real life, so I need to add separate uv transforms to each dial face anisotropic direction connection to reverse the dial rotation, leaving the apparent anisotropic direction unchanged. There are lots of images showing this like:

https://www.123rf.com/photo_45537064_control-panel-of-old-classic-color-analog-television-it-has-channel-selector-dials-push-power-switch.html [www.123rf.com] or

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/835488168353982828/ [www.pinterest.com] or

https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/82528/ [www.sidefx.com]

Layer shaders can mask just the anisotropic direction for each dial, so they don't require rebuilding any of the other parts of the shader for each dial. It is much simpler and quicker. In a node based system like Houdini, I had to use the relative reference to rotation in z of the dial to rotate in the opposite direction the anisotropic direction's UV transform. But that required separate materials for each node.

Thank you, Tomas. I had done the method you suggested but don't know why there is an input parameter on the principled shader for baseBump_bumpTexture or how that might be connected to anything. This comes up when I want to have a separate displacement and bump texture. Is there anything that can be connected to the baseBump texture input channel itself?

Using a node based system for materials unlike a layer based system definitely makes certain things more complicated. For instance, if I want a set of dials rotated to different angles but keep the anisotropic direction the same for each but the dial marker rotated, it requires a lot of different materials (one for each dial). In a layer based system, one would just create a dial marker rotation override but keep the anisotropic direction the same for all dials.

It is easy to specify a texture path directly in the principled shader bump tab, but how does one connect a texture node to the principled shader by nodes? There are ways of connecting a texture node to displacement or normal, but the texture node only has a color output and the input for "baseBump_bumpTexture" is a string. There are times I would like to modify the texture image in Houdini to change the bump with nodes.

Thank you! That fixes it in a simpler way.