How to know what version of MaterialX is already installed with Houdini?
And will be there any way of updating it with the future releases of Houdini?
Thanks

Hi!



I have this HDA that creates a couple of nodes below it so that they all work together.


When I create the node, it properly creates all the nodes I expect, but it doesn't lay them out together. In fact, the effect is the same if I comment out the last line.




Any ideas why this might be? How can I get them to stick together, kind of like how the timeblend node stays in the right place when a spark trail node is dropped down?

Thanks!
Anson

I am looking into Houdini for different project related to sound visualization, and realtime audio synthesis and processing. So far Im getting some nice results generating sound withing Houdini, but now Im trying to use some external sources too, as audio input to combine with the one generated within Houdini, but I dont see any preferences on where to choose audioCard settings within Houdini.

I saw already that it picks up the same settins you choose for your windows sound device and recording, but It would be great being able to access buffer settings, audio channels, etc, within Houdini... Is that even possible?

I am using the "Audio In" operator along with the "Record" one, but it seems pretty limited, unless im missing something.

Anybody else in the same boat?

I am currently trying to make a splash simulation when my character jumps into a pool (Using Houdini 19.5, build 605 - education license).
However, right now the water hits the 'glass wall' of the Flip solver boundary but I want it to go beyond it - similarly to how water would go outside the pool in real life.





I tried to follow one of your tutorials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXBms4cpc6A [www.youtube.com] from 6 years ago when you mentioned 'Volume Limits' as it seems it could be the solution to my problem. However there is on longer a tab for volume limits in the flip solver. I was wondering where this feature is now located in Houdini 19.5, build 605?




I'd really appreciate if you could help me or offer alternative solutions to creating my desired simulation

Hello everybody, need a little tip, how to setup single bone stretch based on distance to (rig) CTRL object? Been digging on the net, but only a few tutorials exists and they all addressing the case of a stretchy arm (or leg) case with IK's and the whole shabang, and I'm not in the mood for "R&D" (i.e. pulling my hair out why something won't work as it should). In my case this would be basis for facial rig in combination with franken muscles and FEM simulations (bunch of these stretchy bones with muscles attached to them). Something like this example in the video. Here is the file of my "progress" so far, I need stretching in "Z" axis, volume preservation is not necessary (imho) . I'm sure there will be a s**ttone of problems along the way (since I'm out of geometry/retopo phase), any more tips would be highly appreciated. I guess the rig (if it's ever created) will be as slow as a wounded snail, but who knows...

Hi I was wondering how to put pyrosolver/pyrobake into Unreal Engine 5.2 using the Niagara plugin. I also wanted to ask how to add attributes to the Niagara labs as well, how would know if the updated attributes saved.

Hello! Working with Houdini Indie for a few days now and I am noticing numerous issues with the FBX Output SOP when outputting meshes.

Here are my questions / issues...

1) Why do I get errors with the ROP FBX Output SOP that I do not get with ROP Geometry Output SOP? In my network, I have a height field with erode node. When I try to save the FBX to disk, there is an error on the FBX Output:
"Invalid source ../heightfield_erode/smooth_water/compile_end15, First writable volume has no corresponding volume".

The error is not present when using ROP Geometry Output SOP.

2) How do I output an FBX sequence using the ROP FBX Output SOP? When I set the frame range to 'Render Frame Range' and add '$F' as a suffix to the file name, only the first frame renders.

3) This post [www.sidefx.com] mentions a workaround to outputting FBX sequences using a script, however in my use case, I am noticing that the output is painfully slow. I imagine it's calculating the entire network on every output and trashing the cache, but I'm not entirely sure. Is there a way to get the FBX Output to keep the existing cache and only update the necessary nodes?

4) The ROP Geometry Output SOP seems to do everything I need for outputting OBJ sequences. If I use this node to output FBX files, I can't open the files in Unity or the Windows 3D viewer. They seem to be corrupted / not properly formatted. Is there a way to set proper FBX formatting using the ROP Geometry Output?

Thanks!

Hi -

I'm trying to run a Houdini simulation from a custom C# app. I can easily use my app to open a command prompt, switch to my Houdini install folder, and get hcmd.exe started, but every command after that is ignored. Doing it manually, without the C# app, once I get hcmd.exe running, I can easily use cmdread to read a batch file to handle running hscript and rendering everything. Does anybody know a way to run my Houdini project from the command line using hscript with an argument to make it run the cmdread command after the hip file opens?

Thanks!

Is there any solution to find the intersection points of a parametric curve (bezier ot nurbs) and a circle in VEX (geo wrangle node) ?

I understand that you can solve this through a curvesect node or by own realization a Newton-Raphson function or something similar, but maybe there is some faster way?

Hey everyone,
I'm working with the karma ROP node and VEX shaders.
I have a problem with importing an animated texture with $F3 expression
Karma is only able to read the first frame of the texture.

My workflow is fully in the MAT context and I don't work to get into LOPS / Solaris
is there a workflow that allows karma to read animated textures from the MAT context?

Hi,

In the Scene View, you can select nodes with PageUp and PageDown. Is there a way to set the Display Flag in the same way in the Scene View ?

Thanks for your time, Chris

Hello

I want to layout uvs by models that are close in distance.
I layout the UVs for each group and tried to achieve my goal by using the "Connectivity" feature of the "UV Layout Sop".
However, this method causes the following two problems.

1. Padding spacing is not uniform.
2. There are many useless UV areas.

any idea?

thanks in advance.

I'm new to using Houdini and I'm using it to create a torch flame for a school project via a tutorial on youtube. The guy in the video imports the torch geo, duplicates it into a separate geometry folder (for the pyro sim), via an object merge and then blasts the handle away so its just the tip of the torch that's going to be affected. He then poly extrudes the mesh so it has some depth and then attaches a 'points from volume' node.

My issue is that in the tutorial the creator uses a point separation value of 0.003 to get a decent saturation of points, but when I use the same value or even a lower value such as 0.001, I get nowhere near the same amount of points as he does. Another problem is that adjusting the value lower than 0.001 basically freezes my pc so that isn't an option, and I shouldn't need to considering his adjustment of the point separation parameter is basically instantaneous whereas mine takes up to 10 seconds at worst to make the change. I have tried placing a transform node after the object merge and messing around with the value to see if that would give me more points but had no success. I have tried this on two separate machines and tried it with two versions of Houdini on each and have gotten the same result all 4 times.

I'll attach the tutorial video if someone would like to try recreating my problem. I'll also include both a screenshot of the points from his tutorial with the 0.003 value as my own project with the same value.

*Its worth noting that I'm using my own torch model for this project instead of his, but my geometry has a similar amount of subdivisions and spacing so it shouldn't really be an issue in theory.

Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX3BGxzKnBA [www.youtube.com]

Hello! The my main task is to make a mask for a terrain that will contain indexed colors 0-255. Each index is a material in a game engine shader. My pipeline is eroding and modifying a terrain, exporting raw bioms masks to COP, set a particular RGB 0-255 color, quantize and mix them and finally export to Photoshop with converting to index colors with custom palette. Can I avoid the last step somehow and export indexes from Houdini?
Thank you.

Hello,

I need help coming up with a way to instance assets in solaris. I made a HDA (at sop level for proof of concept) that builds simple characters by taking modular assets and placing them. We plan to have a lot of these characters in a scene at once. Since each character is grabbing parts from the same USD asset pool, it makes sense just to instance the assets.

The hda I made at sop-level was great for proof of concept, but I am guessing for this to work (as in be instanceable in solaris) I would have to remake the HDA at LOP level?

My guess would be to make a lop HDA that does this:

1. Import the modular USD assets.
2. Place the assets to build the character. The way I did this in sops was by using copy to points. I had points where each piece needs to connect. For example, to connect a head to the torso I made a point at the location where the head needs to connect to the torso. I used a copy to points to either randomly copy one of the head assets or allow the user to manually specify a head asset to copy to the point. It seems I can do the same thing at lop level using the instancer lop. Since inside the instancer lop is sop level, I could use sops (just like my old hda) to create the points at the right locations for the instancer lop to copy the modular assets to.
3. Final step would be to export this character that is made from the original USD modular assets pool to a USD file.

Now lets say we made 100 characters this way. Would there be a way to import those 100 usd files in a way where the modular assets are being instanced? Because each of those character USD files we created are all going to be referencing the same original modular USD assets. Is something like that even possible? I hope that made sense.

Thanks

Hi, I'm trying to export a solaris network from Houdini to Unreal, here's an example:



In Unreal I'd like to overwrite these .usds inside the red rectangle. Is this possible using Houdini Engine for Unreal or any other method?

1. I've tinkered with sending geo nodes from Houdini to Unreal, adding geometry then sending them back to Houdini using Houdini Engine for Unreal and Node Sync. I now know this plugin doesn't work with sending nodes from Solaris context as such (as explained here https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/unreal/inputs.html).

2. I've also tried collapsing the Solaris network into subnet and then that into a .hda, with errors:


3. I've tried Unreal's USD Importer plugin.
Here's a different network I tried this with(ignore the error exclamation, was hacing issues overwriting files):


And here's how it gets imported when importing Main.usd:
-on the left: the scene structure loads correctly inside the USD Stage window in Unreal
-on the right: only Root and Sky are in the Outliner, no Cameras or Lights (because they're Scopes?)

Hi,

I've been trying to set some studio wide defaults for the Digital Asset Save Preferences without much luck so far. Specifically i've tried using the same approach as discussed for other config files here [www.sidefx.com] for `vhda.config` which contains the required settings. I've tried appending `.nosave` as suggested, which works fine for `hopmanager.pref` for example, but `vhda.config` doesn't seem to be getting picked up either with or without that. I'm adding the config file to the `HOUDINI_PATH` alongside `hopmanager.pref` which is working correctly.

Is it possible to set global defaults for this dialog? I'm currently working on Houdini 19.5.682.

Thanks,

Jon

I have a Solaris Scene, with a Material Library, and i want to shade my geometry based on the position of the points. For Arnold i can use user_data_rgb to read vector attributes like DisplayColor. But i cant acces the P attribute. Why is that, and what do i do about it? As i understood, the desired data is now stored in the primitive "points" because of solaris, is that right?

I would be super grateful for help, im kinda stuck and it seems like a super simple thing to do /:

Is there a way to have the default floating window open in the middle of the screen? As opposed to the far upper right, if that's where you click on the Floating Operator Chooser button.

Thanks!

T

Can anyone help me with removing the the annoying NORMAL text spamming all across my Houdini screen. I mean where ever I click I see that text. The version is 19.5. I tried reinstalling houdini but it still wont go away. HELP!!!