I want to thank you for your help… I definately got a “hello world” with the atmosphere object… Very cool and quite simple now that I understand the basics… I still have some questsions though…
It seems that version 5.5 is a transition version from 4 to 6. Therefore I am assuming that this version sometimes has two different workflow models overlapping certain task. For example the legacy material assumes that tweeking the atmosphere parameters will get results without a VEX_(atmosphere) shader. In the atmosphere object there was a context switch from uniform to light halo. I am now assuming that this is the same difference between VEX_uniformfog shader and VEX_litfog shader. Would I be correct in assuming this?
Also, the lights contain an atmosphere tag… I did some experiments with changeing these values but could not determine their intended controls… Could anyone explain how the atmosphere field in a light is intended to control results?
I have one more observation. I assigned a projection map to the lights in my scene and notice a camera obscura with the light volume. It was stated that the light volumes do not respect the cone light parameters. In order to mimic this, assign a circle or a noisey circle hicon matte as a projector map. (Does this projector map have to be grayscale or can I project rgb values through an atmosphere object to mimic a movie projector?) When I dolly out the camera I notice a light ball volume that looks a little like
O><
Where O is the location of the light. > comes from the ball to a point. < is the light beam coming out of the point. This is not what I expected. How can I control this shape of the light. I was expecting a light volume that looked more like
O< or o< or <
If you have read this far you are very brave…I any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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Technical Discussion » Can't get atmoshphere examples to work.
- todd dufour
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Technical Discussion » Can't get atmoshphere examples to work.
- todd dufour
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Thanks so much for the reply. I can not try out your suggestions until I get home tonight. I realy want to crack this nut. I have tried off and on for a couple of days. An hour here an hour there.. Thanks Shops and character are the only legacy stuff I have left… Thanks.
Technical Discussion » Can't get atmoshphere examples to work.
- todd dufour
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I have been working my way through the legacy material. I have made my way to rendering which so far seems to be the most difficult for me to get working. First trying to find where the old button or field is in the new interface or trying to finds its newer counterpart is a little frustrating. I have been able to get most all the concepts, but I just can not get the atmosphere object to render. I have tried the user guide example, intro_shops, and rendering_01. I must be doing something wrong. Is there anyway to get a simple proof of concept scene so that I may debug what I am doing wrong. Maybe the userguide file setup. I think that I almost have the user guide file, but I am unclear how Houdini references
/temp/$OS.pic.
What is the $OS variable. Could I render the $OS.pic to say
ctemp,
or say
dsomearbitrary_directory/$OS.pic.
Does Houdini keep track of the path entered in the z_depth file field?
What are the crucial elements that make atmosphere objects render in Mantra?
Do I need to switch anything in the output settings? I really want to beat this problem.
Thanks in Advance
/temp/$OS.pic.
What is the $OS variable. Could I render the $OS.pic to say
ctemp,
or say
dsomearbitrary_directory/$OS.pic.
Does Houdini keep track of the path entered in the z_depth file field?
What are the crucial elements that make atmosphere objects render in Mantra?
Do I need to switch anything in the output settings? I really want to beat this problem.
Thanks in Advance
Technical Discussion » Cops2 where is the render generator
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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Will the render cop be available in future releases? How to I get into cops1? The render cop seems like a good idea, but I could see it causeing problems wtih cacheing schemes… Thanks for your reply
Technical Discussion » Multi-target-ik Is it possible.
- todd dufour
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I did a tutorial setting up Hoodnik… I just haven't reinforced what I learned there… I was just curious if anyone had ever set up a multi target IK chain and what limitations there are. Currently I am trying to work my way through Shops, Yops, Rops, Cops. Basicaly I am trying to learn the lighting, shading, and compositing aspects of Houdini.
Thanks for your reply… When I get a chance I will be sure to look through all the character and rigging materials…
Thanks for your reply… When I get a chance I will be sure to look through all the character and rigging materials…
Technical Discussion » Multi-target-ik Is it possible.
- todd dufour
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I was playing around with bones the other night. Now I have not checked out the character legacy material and have not read completely through the manuals on bones and characters. I am wondering if multi target ik is possible? Say a goal for the elbow and a goal for the hand all connected in the same IK chain. Just curious.
Technical Discussion » Cops2 where is the render generator
- todd dufour
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I have been working through all the legacy material….The shops are sort of the most difficult, because of the change over to SHOPs and VOPs… NO more Tops or Materials… So I am doing the rendering 1 tutorial and I am suppose to put place from the generator list a render cop… Can't find it or its equivalent.. Seems like a strong workflow… For realism multipass rendering is key… Would love to get this working… Any help would be fab..
Technical Discussion » Color POP Render POP Brain POPed
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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To be perfectly honest with you the code that the usualAlex supplied allowed me to get the expected color out of the color pop without any shaders in sops..
On a secondary level.. I personaly have not gotten into Shops, texturing and lighting yet.. Although, I have been following some post on odforce dealign with a GI hack in vex with some tricky shader compositing… I just have not gotten to outputting images yet.. I think that I am still too wraped up in the entire procedural modeling, CHOPs and now playing physics with POPs is just blowing my mind… I was just having some diffiuclties and have not been able to get to it until tonight 2:00 am california time… Last night I was out on the smooze tonight I tried chasing the wife around the apartment… You know priorities… I redid the fire pop legacy tutorial and implemement alex's sop network and everything worked perfect… Again It was so nice of him to help me out… Tommorrow I move on to flocking…. and beyond…
On a secondary level.. I personaly have not gotten into Shops, texturing and lighting yet.. Although, I have been following some post on odforce dealign with a GI hack in vex with some tricky shader compositing… I just have not gotten to outputting images yet.. I think that I am still too wraped up in the entire procedural modeling, CHOPs and now playing physics with POPs is just blowing my mind… I was just having some diffiuclties and have not been able to get to it until tonight 2:00 am california time… Last night I was out on the smooze tonight I tried chasing the wife around the apartment… You know priorities… I redid the fire pop legacy tutorial and implemement alex's sop network and everything worked perfect… Again It was so nice of him to help me out… Tommorrow I move on to flocking…. and beyond…
Technical Discussion » Color POP Render POP Brain POPed
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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I love your saying at the end of your signature… Did you make that up? Awesome Philosophy! I feel that way everyday now that I face the unknown cash flow….
Technical Discussion » Color POP Render POP Brain POPed
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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Alex again I am blown away by your kindness and willingness to help me… Honestly, I have been studying Houdini Aprrentice since August/September 2002… I put a second on my truck to buy a kick ass HP system with a nvidia 900 gxl board simply to learn Houdini…. It is everything I always wanted in a graphics app…. I try to get in an hour or so a day…. Currently I am a fulltime employee at a commercial post facility in west hollywood. Ring of Fire…. My title is Lead Motion Graphics Artist/ Special Effects Artist.. Some title uh… Well I basicaly assit the inferno and henry artist with the things that they can't do or are simply below them…. Don't get me wrong they are great artist and great friends that have taught me alot… but when I got my first taste of Houdini I felt like iggy from taxi in the episode where tom hanks brings some pot brownies to a havard dorm room and Iggy (Ignakowski) first gets stoned.. I had that kind of high and I never turned back… Sometimes going through the legacy material gets frustrating, because there are little differences that don't quite equate… I think I get something but what the !@#$…. When I post someone always comes to my rescue…. I know that once I get it I owe the next generation of newbies some support… Thanks your file totaly works and is exactly the type of bench mark I need to debug my setup…
I wish I could say I fixed my file but I went to a designer friends house tonight for drinks and conversation… See January 31 is my last day of employment at Ring of Fire and I will enter the crazy world of Hollywood (although all the coolest shops and boutiques are in Santa Monica, Venice and the Westside) for the first time in 3 years… So I have a little networking I got to do from time to time… And tonight was one of those nights.. I am home now but its almost 1 am and I have had a bottle of wine… So my debug skills are a little blurry so tomorrow night… I will get the file working…
Sorry for the personal rant I have had a bottle of wine…. And I am very grateful of your time and help… I also surf oddforce on a daily basis… I know that you can post links there… I just took your code and pasted it into the textport and viola perfection… Thanks Todd
I wish I could say I fixed my file but I went to a designer friends house tonight for drinks and conversation… See January 31 is my last day of employment at Ring of Fire and I will enter the crazy world of Hollywood (although all the coolest shops and boutiques are in Santa Monica, Venice and the Westside) for the first time in 3 years… So I have a little networking I got to do from time to time… And tonight was one of those nights.. I am home now but its almost 1 am and I have had a bottle of wine… So my debug skills are a little blurry so tomorrow night… I will get the file working…
Sorry for the personal rant I have had a bottle of wine…. And I am very grateful of your time and help… I also surf oddforce on a daily basis… I know that you can post links there… I just took your code and pasted it into the textport and viola perfection… Thanks Todd
Technical Discussion » Color POP Render POP Brain POPed
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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When I get home tonight I will definately, try this out… Can't wait…. It is so nice to have a user base with such willingness to help newcomers… Thanks
Technical Discussion » Color POP Render POP Brain POPed
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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I followed all your directions and learned and relearned some things. In my viewer everything looks great (opengl) but within mantra still white spheres.. Could I have messed up the rop settings? I am still at a loss.. Gues I will now focus on the bombing exorcies… Thanks Though… I am sure that once I become more familiar with pops I will figure it out. There isn't any way you would post a pop to sop with your recipe.. It would help me debug this thing alot thanks…
Technical Discussion » Thanks a million
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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Sorry for starting a new topic I meant to respond to some help the usualAlex gave me… Thanks alex..
Technical Discussion » Thanks a million
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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I finaly got home got the kids dinner and updated to the lastest service pack and the lastest Houdini apprentice version… Now to try that POP_fire tut again… Thanks for the info.. will respond back when I got this sucka.
Technical Discussion » Color POP Render POP Brain POPed
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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I have a chance at my dream job. During my interview it was suggested to me to study POPs and ROPs as much as I could… So that is what I have been focusing on. I am having some trouble with some of the POP legacy material. Specificaly the color pop, render pop, and mantra. I have been working on the POP_fire_4_pdf last night and after appending a color pop and making the suggested changes I could see the update in open gl with no problem. Then I went to render with view mantra as noted and all I got were a bunch of white blobby spheres and no alpha ramping as expexted. The tutorial stated that I should see the color changes and the alpha effect. I tried debugging this for a while before moving on…. Am I missing something or should this tutorial work straight out of the box. Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated as I have had a similar problem in a previous tutorial… Thanks In Advance Todd
Technical Discussion » Completely VEXed
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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Since my last post I have made some progress… I made it through the VEX examples down to the cop example v_flipper. flipper.vfl compiled fine and I made all the necessary directories and change the VEXcop and VEXcop2 I am curious should the flipper code be in cop or cop2… It seems to initialize into the cop menus either way I have tried both.. When I apply that filter to an image the image disappears and I get a red flag in the middle of the tile… Any suggestions…?
Technical Discussion » Completely VEXed
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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After some serious cold medicine and two boxes of tissues I finaly figured out the VEX scripting examples in the help files. WOW that took a long time…. First of all for some reason or another my Administrator folder was hidden…. Joy… Hidden folders basically SUCK. So after I unhid (is that a word) everything, I could find my $HOME directory.. Cool
So here was the rest of my day
At some point in the vex scripting basics a VEXsop file needs to be made that points to all the users vex files.. The example says
include $HH/vex/VEXsop
v_RandMove vex/Dialogs/Sop/RandMove.ds -label “VEX Random Mover”
After not being able to get my VEX sop to be read into houdini I tried the vex surface example.. In that example it states
include $HH/shop/SHOPsurface
“As with in the VEXsop file we created above, this line makes sure that the standard Houdini surface shaders are ‘seen’ by Houdini. Without this line, only your own shaders would be recognized by Houdini”..
Well In a desperate attempt, I deleted that line and all was fine..
I am curious if in Houdini 5.5 that line is still necessary to inform houdini to include the default shaders and VEX sops… I seem to have no problems after deleting the line… WOW :shock: that was a fun filled day of hacking…
So here was the rest of my day
At some point in the vex scripting basics a VEXsop file needs to be made that points to all the users vex files.. The example says
include $HH/vex/VEXsop
v_RandMove vex/Dialogs/Sop/RandMove.ds -label “VEX Random Mover”
After not being able to get my VEX sop to be read into houdini I tried the vex surface example.. In that example it states
include $HH/shop/SHOPsurface
“As with in the VEXsop file we created above, this line makes sure that the standard Houdini surface shaders are ‘seen’ by Houdini. Without this line, only your own shaders would be recognized by Houdini”..
Well In a desperate attempt, I deleted that line and all was fine..
I am curious if in Houdini 5.5 that line is still necessary to inform houdini to include the default shaders and VEX sops… I seem to have no problems after deleting the line… WOW :shock: that was a fun filled day of hacking…
Technical Discussion » Completely VEXed
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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I thought that was funny. I am trying to follow along Jason Iversons vex tutorials on odforce… Since I am an apprentice, I relaized I had no idea how to create the vex code…So I looked it up in help under the shops What is vex… I am on an NT… When I start up the command line tools and type cd $HOME I get a return value of Sytem can not find that path… I have tried all the other Houdini variable also and get the same reponse… when I ehco $HOME in the textport I get CDOCUME~1/ADMINI~1/LOCALS~1/Temp I have tried many times to navigate to this directory. For the life of me I just can't find it in the windows explorer… I follow along with the help by simply writing the code, compiling it to $HFS/houdini/vex/Sop.. I got no errors.. I really want to get through Jasons tutorials aobut vex writing escpecialy as it relates to image3d shaders.. Can I change my defualt $HOME variable to something I can find on my System…. Thanks for any help
Technical Discussion » Strange happenings in COP
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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I have to admit that I find the cops very slow. Considering how fast all the other aspects of Houdini are I was suprised to find using a mono tile and a blend tile to be less than interactive.. I do lot of after effects and combustion and I think that their cacheing systems must be way more advanced… I did like the fact that there is a cache sop. That way the end user can manage cacheing… Hopefully SESI will include a cache cop or is there one already… Also I would have thought that the compositor would have worked in 3d-space almost all modern composting tools are 2.5 d now. I was kind of expecting that from SESI.. Oh well I guess I won't throw out After Effects and Combustion upgrade offers just yet..
Technical Discussion » User guide tcl example
- todd dufour
- 48 posts
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I think that might be it… At some point yesterday I figured out that I needed to change the /comp to /img but I was still having trouble with the variable being read in the get_start_range procedures… I am at work now and do not have any access to houdini, but when I get home tonight I will try your changes…. I am rather sure that will work… Thanks. I was getting quite frustrated…
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