BryanRay
The extra layer will be expressed in the Scene Graph as another descendant of the asset. For instance, if you had 'light1' in your extra layer, then your component output (assuming otherwise default configuration) should have descendants called 'geo', 'mtl', and 'light1'. You could control the light using a Prune, Light Edit, or Light Mixer, just like any other primitive.

Knowing the standard prim path outputs, you could build a primitive pattern to select the extra layers. For instance:
/componentoutput1/* ^(/componentoutput1/geo /componentoutput1/mtl)

That selects everything under /componentoutput1 except for 'geo' and 'mtl'.

Heileif

NMVHS

AhmedHindy

The solution to this problem is to use one ComponentMaterial node per geometry variant. You need to plug them between the ComponentGeometry nodes and the ComponentGeometryVariants node. You can hook them all to the same materialLibrary node.

this maybe works for this simple setup, but what about a for loop for the component geometry lop that feeds into the componentGeometryVariants lop?

I cant get the materials to apply to each variant except the last variant.

I'm exploring a similar setup with for each loop. I wonder how you set up the component output node in the end? I lost all the variants somehow after adding component output node.
Thanks!

I have the same problem :/

AhmedHindy

The solution to this problem is to use one ComponentMaterial node per geometry variant. You need to plug them between the ComponentGeometry nodes and the ComponentGeometryVariants node. You can hook them all to the same materialLibrary node.

this maybe works for this simple setup, but what about a for loop for the component geometry lop that feeds into the componentGeometryVariants lop?

I cant get the materials to apply to each variant except the last variant.

ghostpro
I think I have narrowed down that my client cannot seem to access the shared folder through Hqueue client. The client can see the files just fine through windows explorer. Does anyone have experience with the log on options for the Hqueue client service? I am only running a local account on the client machine. In order to map the shared network folder I had to use a username and password which is seperate from the local account.

goldleaf
The For Each LOP is not actually changing the variant, it's just cycling through the variant set's values (i.e. all of the "model" variants). Similarly, when iterating over primitives or numbers, those are just values filling out the context option values.

To see these values in this case, you could use a Set Variant LOP. Set the prim path to "/model" and variant set name to "model". Then you can use `@VARIANTNAME` set the variant. If you don't want to author the setting of this variant, append a Layer Break after the Set Variant node.

To edit the variants via For Each LOP, you'll also need an Add Variants LOP. You just need to make sure all of your additions/modifications are children of the variant primitive (i.e. "/test" in this case).

This is a workflow we want to improve in future releases. Hopefully this example helps in the meantime.

OneBigTree
Is there any new information on this?
I have tried using the Fetch in 19.5 but it fails immediately in HQueue.
Same with the new Karma ROP in the Out context. Mantra works fine. Some of the output log below:

.........................
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/stage/usdrender_rop1/outputprocessors", line 2, in expression
File "D:\SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.303/houdini/python3.9libs\loputils.py", line 11, in <module>
from pxr import Gf, Vt, Tf, Kind, Sdf, Sdr, Pcp
File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.303\python39\lib\site-packages\pxr\Gf\__init__.py", line 29, in <module>
from pxr import Tf
File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.303\python39\lib\site-packages\pxr\Tf\__init__.py", line 163, in <module>
PreparePythonModule()
File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.303\python39\lib\site-packages\pxr\Tf\__init__.py", line 87, in PreparePythonModule
with WindowsImportWrapper():
File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.303\python39\lib\contextlib.py", line 119, in __enter__
return next(self.gen)
File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.303\python39\lib\site-packages\pxr\Tf\__init__.py", line 47, in WindowsImportWrapper
dirs.append(os.add_dll_directory(path))
File "D:\SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.303/python39\lib\os.py", line 1111, in add_dll_directory
cookie = nt._add_dll_directory(path)
OSError: The parameter is incorrect: '.\\python39'

PROGRESS: 0%
Generating Output File: R:/nettest_karma2/nettest_karma2.karma1.0016.exr
Error running Python menu script in parameter,
Output Processors (/out/karma1/lopnet/rop_usdrender/outputprocessors):
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/out/karma1/lopnet/rop_usdrender/outputprocessors", line 2, in expression
File "D:\SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.303/houdini/python3.9libs\loputils.py", line 11, in <module>
from pxr import Gf, Vt, Tf, Kind, Sdf, Sdr, Pcp
File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.303\python39\lib\site-packages\pxr\Gf\__init__.py", line 29, in <module>
from pxr import Tf
File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.303\python39\lib\site-packages\pxr\Tf\__init__.py", line 163, in <module>
PreparePythonModule()
File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.303\python39\lib\site-packages\pxr\Tf\__init__.py", line 87, in PreparePythonModule
with WindowsImportWrapper():
File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.303\python39\lib\contextlib.py", line 119, in __enter__
return next(self.gen)
File "D:\SIDEEF~1\HOUDIN~1.303\python39\lib\site-packages\pxr\Tf\__init__.py", line 47, in WindowsImportWrapper
dirs.append(os.add_dll_directory(path))
File "D:\SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.303/python39\lib\os.py", line 1111, in add_dll_directory
cookie = nt._add_dll_directory(path)
OSError: The parameter is incorrect: '.\\python39'

------------------------------------------------------------------

RichardFr

inki

RichardFr
- the animated geometry gets published as anim.usdc and added as a sublayer in the scene.usd, which can be loaded by downstream departments

I am bit confusing this part.
"- the animated geometry gets published as anim.usdc and added as a sublayer in the scene.usd, which can be loaded by downstream departments"
what this means?

Should I use traditional way caching out animated geo as usdc? like file>export>
Or is there other way?

Yes you can save out your animated geometry as .usdc from the file->export menu. Then you have a file, which contains only your animated geometry and nothing else (no shaders, no camera, no props...).
This file can be added now as a new layer in the scene.usd file. In my video that happens automatically in a post-export process. If you are exporting it manually from the file menu, you can layer the scene.usd and the anim.usd in Solaris with 2 sublayer nodes.

mestela
AFAIK there's no quick native lops equivalent.

That said here's two alternatives. One is to use a sopmodify, use whatever sops tricks you want, those changes will be propegated back to lops. Here I've used the labs align and distribute to put many boxes and spheres in a row, but you can play with the options to put them in a grid if you want.

The other options is to directly modify the transforms with vex. I've done a very brute force hack in this example, just setting the x position to the prims element number, but it works.

Both methods have pros and cons. Sops is good because you can use all your sops knowledge, but can get slow if need to process lots of things. Lops wrangles use a same-but-different syntax to sops vex, takes some getting used to, but performance scales better.