Hi!
why when I create a top network to make my wedges,
I absolutely have to restart my Houdini when I get to the "ROP Composite Output" step?

oddly, if I don't restart my houdini, I have an error at each end of the frame of all my wedges,
I tried on several different scenes, same problem, without restarting houdini, same problem, is there a way to get past this problem?

thank you

hi,
i tried Houdini Engine for 3dsMax.
SideFx shows some presentation for some DCC.
that's simply about as SOP-Modeling.

I'm wonder, can i get all Houdini tools on 3dsMax through Houdini engine?
example,
*)set alembic file for emitter geometry
*)executing DOP, POP and Pyro, Fluid
*)caching geo with bgeo-format or alembic
and so on.
OR, simply modeling SOP only?
attachment picture shows simple example.

i try above contents, but i cannot get them any yet.
i cannot find any parameters on the HDA in 3dsMax.
i want to see clearly this.

thanks

Heya

I'm having some issues running the python SOP node as i would have thought it would.
I've managed to get a kinect to run inside of Houdini off a Python SOP node.
The process is multithreaded using QT and i'm trying to update the position of my points.
The hou.setPosition is running inside a while loop which is off the main thread so Houdinis UI doesnt freeze and is uneffected.

The issue i'm struggling to figure out is that inside this while loop the position of the points don't update in real time. I can click on a null node connected to the python node below it and the position updates and vise versa if i click onto the python node its self.
And after the setPosition function runs the timeline is increased as well. I've not tried keyframing yet as i would have already expected the setPosition to have worked already.

Does the python node only really update attributes after it's "finished" and in this instance by rendering the null under it the python node has technically "finished" cooking?

Just to add to this. I've continued to look more into the setting of the attributes and watching the geometry spreadsheet it looks like the values ARE changing and animating but the scene view doesnt seem to update. i've tried to have the attributes become a detail instead of setting the point positions and set the detail attrib to the point pos within a solver node. That didnt seem to work either :/
I've also tried putting 2 inputs into a switch node and have it switch values every frame with $F%2. Sadly it seems that physically clicking on a node is my current method to update the viewport. And i found theres a triggerUpdate() function but that doesnt give much luck either.

I had found this post talking about a hdefereval lib.
https://forums.odforce.net/topic/22570-execute-in-main-thread-with-results/ [forums.odforce.net]
I tried using the executeInMainThreadWithResult and it's able to print my debug prints and is also setting the point pos but not updating the ui. The main thing that differs from my code and the example code in the odfoce post is that mine is running QThread instead of threading. But i've not been able to find any info regarding the hdefereval lib online.

Hi,

Is it possible to pass vertex crease attribute from Maya into Houdini via the Houdini Engine plugin.

I've tested a workflow using the attribute via manually exporting to alembic file, but it would be great to use it live with a HDA and Houdini Engine plugin.

David.

Hi,

I am using Houdini 18.5.462

Whenerver I save current working file,Houdini it keep telling me that

Error: "Input data type does not match output for input `(null)`.

Operator save failed."

Then file saved damaged. My current working file is about 45Mb. How can I solve this issue, thank you.

Hello,

I've been spending a few hundred hours now trying to get displacement maps to work and am very close to giving up. As far as I understand, when baking displacement maps from high poly object onto a low poly object, it will automatically assume that the low poly object won't be tesselated (which is stupid of course, because displacement maps only work with tesselated meshes). I tried virtually every texture baking tool on the market, and while they all have their issues, one problem is in common:

For example, when using Labs Maps Baker, it will create this grid-like pattern on the displacement map. That in itself wouldn't be a problem if there was a way to tell mantra (or any other render or real time engine) to avoid smoothing on subdivision. However, unfortunately that's impossible. So Mantra will happily add the displacement on top of the subdivided geometry, effectively resulting in these bubbles:



Now, there's work arounds for this issue, which are all creating massive artifacts / seams:

• I can use the Bake Texture ROP and enable "Render Polygons as Subdivisions (Mantra)" on the low res before baking. This removes the seams, but in return I get tons of baking errors on the mesh. I can play around with the Ray Bias and Ray Max Distance settings, but unfortunately they just move the error areas somewhere else and for example on the wings of my creature it was straight up impossible to remove these artifacts no matter which settings I used.
  
• I tried using Bake Texture to only bake out the difference between the low res and the low res with the subdivisions flag set, but even then, low res to low res, I get a huge amount of artifacts. It's straight up unusable.
  
• I tried using the Labs Maps Baker on a manually subdivided low poly. This worked reasonably well, however I get seams at UV borders:
  
• There's the option to manually add in creasing (for example via creaseweight attribute on all vertices) or apply the displacements on a mesh that is subdivided using OpenSubdiv Billinear. However all of these methods leave artifacts on the polygon borders.
  

Since Mantras "Render Polygons as Subdivisions" is adaptive towards pixels, it's actually unknowable (I think) which level of subdivision I have to use anyway. And since all of the subdivision modes available alter all preexisting points, different levels of subdivision appear to result in slightly different geometry (and possibly UVs). An alternative approach would be to apply the displacement in shaders but I have no way of knowing how to do this (I'd need to somehow find out the difference in position of the current input geo vs the original input geo before subdivision) and quite frankly, I am not sure whether this will really help me when exporting my mesh to Mari in order to add in more Displacement Details.

Which leads me to the conclusion: The entire displacement work seems to be pre-alpha at best, and I am not talking about Houdini, I am talking about the VFX industry as a whole. I've tried creating displacement maps in ZBrush, Substance Designer and Mighty Bake as well, which all resulted in faulty displacements (shoutout to Substance Designer here which can not even properly display their own displacement maps - Amazing software!). Is this even a workflow that can be done for characters? Should it be done? Now that I think I know pretty much all there is to know about Displacement maps, I'm wondering if this is even a solvable problem. It seems they are virtually unsupported in all softwares even though most of them have some kind of "support", but then don't actually support it.

I'm using Nearest projection to my mesh as this is the only possible projection since my low res overlaps everywhere with my highres as it is just a retopologized version of it. I am unable to use Cage Baking or Surface Normals baking. I tried UV Match once, but it's also broken as it's using the broken Bake Texture ROP (And the ZBrush variant creates inflated geometry).

Should I abandon this workflow? The information on the internet seems to suggest that Displacement Maps are kind of standard in the VFX industry, but due to the fact that they are pretty much entirely unsupported that seems very hard for me to believe. I feel like my approach to this may be wrong, but everyone I asked also couldn't find out more.

Is there a reasonable solution for this problem or is it just impossible to do?

Is there a way to add custom repellents to the white water solver? for example if I want to add in more repellents in a specific area, is there a way to do it?

How can i export a curve to Unity as a separate Gameobject?
i dont want it to be editable, just a curve i can use as a guide later in code

Hi, was wondering if there is an easy way to adding several searchable keywords for you hdas to make it easier for a user to find them in the tab menu?
Also, I found the Keywords parameter in "Operator Type Properties/Interactive/Shelf Tools/Keywords". But I can't seem to find any documentation for it. What does this parameter do? ( I initially thought this parameter did what I was looking for but it seems I was wrong.)

Hello,
until now we only used the Unity Plugin for Houdini Engine. We are start using it for 3DS Max.
Unfortunately, on the PC of the artist that should use it, we experience some serious lags.
Not only with our own (very simple) tool, but also with the examples that come with the installation.
Very often it works fine for a couple of interactions, results are shown immediately after changing parameter values, but every couple of interactions (like changing a slider value or editing the underlying curve) the plugin (and Max) gets un-responsive for 20 to 30 seconds, which makes it more or less useless for us.

The PC in question has an Intel Core i5-7600K CPU, a Radeon Pro 580 Graphics Card and 40 GB RAM. Neither RAM, VRAM or usage or CPU power are anyway near their maximum, according to the task manager.
We’re using Houdini 18.5.563 and Max 2021.
On my own PC (with much lower specifications) I don’t have these lags.

Is there any way to find out/profile what may be the problem on his system?
Using the performance monitor in Houdini isn’t a big help here, since the problem doesn’t exist in Houdini itself.

Hi,

I try to wrap my head around the following situation. I have a PDG flow that is constantly monitoring a sqlite database and starts can pull between 1 and (a set maximum) of 4 work items at a time. The PDG than spawns 4 processes for another software to process data. So the one startup workitem spawns at 1-4 more workitems.

This works fine for a PDG only environment, but I would like to leverage Deadline for machine/task management. But my head goes into a loop as PDG itself is also a taskmanager. I'm looking for some ideas on how to manage multiple machines, of which some have a certain licensed software while others are meant for other tasks.

Here's a rough sketch of what I think the complexity is.

Tasks spawn work items at the moment. I run a PDG flow it pulls data from a database, then it goes to work. For every task right now I have a PDG flow. But I would want to have a central Dispatcher, that pulls tasks from the database, make the work items and pushes them onto the machines. Some PDG flows spawn commandline tools to manipulate data before running it through another stage. Non of these tasks are trivial basic operations.

I'm looking for some pointers on how to have a single job/task/work item manager to handle all tasks efficiently.
Any info you can give would be of great help. Are there good examples or video's out there that discuss this particular case of PDG use/management?

Thanks for reading!
-Johan

Hello i face Simple Issue Related to "connectadjacentpieces" Node

i'm watching a training , imagine i have two boxes the guy who teaches going to give each boxes unique string using attribwrangle

and in the next step he going to merge them and connect them to "connectadjacentpieces" node" and set it on "adjacent prices from surface points"

then he middle click on connectadjacentpieces node to see info , he have a "2 unique strings" available , but for me when i set it on "adjacent prices from surface points" it going to remove my strings "0 unique"

does anyone face this issue?

I have a simulation in a neutral pose exported from Marvelous Designer as an OBJ that I wish to continue simming, and also the original 2D fabric panels as a separate OBJ file. What is the best way in Vellum to transfer the panels' geometry data (rest/bend length, etc.) to the simulation geometry?

Currently, to provide the sim with the panels' original rest length I'm creating a cloth constraint for the sim, and a cloth constraint for the panels and just copying the rest length over with an attribute constraint... however I suspect there is a more elegant way to do this and it feels like I'm not getting everything I need this way.

Cheers,
Jon

Keep getting this error when i try render a groom, any idea?


Error
Unable to save geometry for: /obj/Groom_hairgen/RENDER
SOP Error: Invalid source /obj/Groom_hairgen/python2
Error: Python error: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 87, in <module>
File "C:/PROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.499/houdini/python2.7libs\houpythonportion\Geometry.py", line 120, in addAttrib
create_local_variable)
File "C:/PROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.499/houdini/python2.7libs\hou.py", line 36520, in addAttrib
return _hou.Geometry_addAttrib(self, *args)
OperationFailed: The attempted operation failed.
The default value must contain at least one element
.

One thing I find tricky about KineFX is the fact that every rig seems to need a fairly extensive network of nodes which is a pain to remember how to wire together every time. I thought it might be helpful to create a digital asset with a basic setup, then all I'd have to do is plug in a model, draw a skeleton and the rest would take care of itself. I'm a total beginner to KineFX so I'm not sure if the attached pic is a good starting point. Is there anything I have there that I shouldn't? Anything I should add? Feels like I can make my bones, paint weights as needed, pose, and that should cover it, but I'm definitely open to suggestions. Thanks!

"Bro! It's the 24 long weekend bro! WOOOOOOOoo! Two-fer! Yeah!"
Is what you would have heard if we weren't in the middle of a pandemic, but here we are.

The Toronto folks will be on vacation this coming Monday, May.24th. Some of us are taking this Friday off too for an extra long weekend. We'll be back on Tuesday, May.25th.

Hey guys,

so we're currently investigating if Houdini Engine works with our environment pipeline and after getting Houdini and testing around a bit I'm still left with a few questions. First of all I want to tell you the general idea of ours how we would like to use Houdini.
We want to setup the landscape and all actors which are scattered around within houdini. On top of that, we would have a few hdas which would load cities which are loaded from a file and as a whole placed on the landscape which then adjusts based on the needs. At last we would have hdas for roads, fences etc. This whole setup we would then like to sync directly UE4. Our designers could adjust the roads and fences without being required to have houdini up and an running. But afterwards, our TA would then sync this version of the map back to Houdini so they're both on par. So there's a few things which I didn't manage to achieve right away where I would like to know if I just failed.
- placing/instantiating an hda within Houdini (without and with a running session) and then get it into UE4 synced
- placing an hda in UE4 without a running session led into a empty actor
It would be much appreciated if someone could clarify these points!

Thanks,
Stefan

Hi!

I'd like to write some images to where my hda is located in my unreal project.
Is there a way to get the path to this directory using python in pdg?

HDAnode.type().definition().libraryFilePath() returns actual hda position and os.getcwd() returns engine exe folder. So no luck there.

Any help is much appreciated!

Hi,

i´ve got quite a simple setup. i have a moving figure and i apply a pointdeform to a piece of junk, that should move the same way.
The piece of junk is a redshift proxy object, it renders fine, but i need to unpack it in order to make it move correctly.

Sadly i lose the texture in the process. I tried to promote to primitive attributes and point attributes with a * flag.
But then redshift crashes and houdini becomes unresponsive.
I also tried an attribute transfer, same problem, i also tried to cache thinks out, also the same.

In order to get the texture, which attributed do i need, to restore the texture (uv and Cd? primitive or point attribute) and which would be the best way to do it?

thank you

Hi friends,

I got a bit more into landscapes for UE4 and while I was building an HDA to trace a dirt path on my already fully textured and layered landscape, I encountered an annoying need : all the previous layers of grass, rocks and such needed to be updated because my dirt layer was mixing with them.

So I did a small tool HDA that picks a heighfield, and a mask, and goes through all the layers existing inside the heighfield to make a subtract using the feeded mask.

I am posting this for 2 reasons:
-maybe I missed out an easy solution to do this
-if that can help anyone (or better : end up as a Labs tool; but I might as well dream about that)

Any feedback would be nice

Gargam