Until a full redesign of the Layout LOP eventually happens I’ll use a hacky workflow where I export usd created with the Component Builder to Blender. As long as the components have a usd preview shader the textures will show in Blender as well.

I then convert every asset to a collection (there’s a third party batch script for this), instance them and do the layout just by shift+d duplicating. Export the scene back to Houdini and then replace all prims with point instances pointing to the original components deriving the prototype name from names of the meshes.
Advantages to this is Blender is fab for just manipulating stuff with a fluent UI. And it’s pretty easy to update/replace the prototypes later in the project, which isn’t the case with the Layout LOP.

Hi!

EDIT: seems to have been a glitch/bug, I created a new Material Library from scratch and it now loads downstream with Edit Material LOP just fine.

So now the Material Library has changed in Houdini 20. Instead of the full assortment of nodes available with tab directly when diving in there’s only Karma Material Builder etc.

I can’t change the network downstream with Edit Material Network LOP now. It seems this node can’t access the network inside the Material Builder?

I can of course go inside the material builder to build the network somewhat as before by cutting out the network out of the subnet and place it directly under the Material Library LOP level but then Component builder doesn’t see this material as in Houdini 19 (no material flag perhaps?)

So I then got the idea to make the inputs "public" by promoting parameters (next, next1) on the subnetwork but as soon as I do that the shader doesn’t render.

What is the current correct workflow for creating materials whose network I perhaps what to change down the line?

Ok, good to know will check out that TOP node then. Or resort to write out a usda and find and replace in text editor.

Thank you

Chris

Hi,

Coming back to this particular problem after a year away from Solaris. Is there a way to change reference paths downstream? Last time I checked Modify paths LOP could only be used for texture paths.

Let´s say I have a Stage Manager pulling in files:

/Users/Mike/Documents/Castle/turret.usd
/Users/Mike/Documents/Castle/drawbridge.usd
+100 other files from /Users/Mike/Documents/

And then I want to access the very same data but from a new location:
/Dropbox/USD/Castle/turret.usd
/Dropbox/USD/Castle/drawbridge.usd
etc

Is there a way in LOPS to replace this part in all paths:
/Users/Mike/Documents/
To
/Dropbox/USD/

?

On the ROP fetch set
Output files - Output parm name: outputimage

Then the output becomes the image file itself (path to exr) instead of the .usd so you can process it downstream.

Yeah I get this message too when using SOP create in reference mode. Seems the problem is with using a relative path that points above hip location, like $HIP/../usd/pig.usda. If I use $HIP/usd/pig.usda it's fine.

A relative path above hip works everywhere else like in Config layer and usd rop so it would be nice to have it behave similar in sop create/import.

Yeah to me too response from support was that Houdini requires a three button mouse. Ok, but I think this is a bit dodging the issue. I just want left click to register properly (well left click *kind of* works alright when doing hard press but when using light tapping it's not).

It would be nice to know why left click can't work like in H 17 or in Maya, Substance or every other major app on the Mac platform.

Me too. Running 18.0.287 on Catalina on a MacBook Pro. For example have to click twice outside the TAB menu to dismiss it. Dialogue windows don't go away after clicking Ok only once. It's like my trackpad is not registering correctly.
No such problem on Windows.