hello out there.

Ok here goes. I am trying to build a network that creates a bouncing ball with springs and a lattice. I have done so with success.

here is my process.

In SOPs:

Create SPHERE… sphere out put to BOX box creates the deforable “boundig box” which is then fed in to the second imput of the lattice. The sphere is fed in to the first output of the lattice. Then another oup of the BOX is fed into the spring as well as a GRID (the collision object) in to the secong input of the SPRING. The out put of the spring goes to the third in put of the lattice.

Ok I get this. it works.. now why can I not use the original shapes as the deforable surface? more specificly how would I get a cube that has been rotated 45 deg to collide with a plane on an edge not a flat surface. I would like to see the dynamics tumble the geometry because of the edge. Is that unclear enough?

Thank!

aurafx

Short question,
who can participate in the Beta test?

I am trying to get a chain to animate correctly around 2 gears. I have tried a few different things. The two best setups I have had: I created to circular animations, and one per gear and then two lines both containing pieces of the gear that would operate at the same speed as the gear animation. I did not like this one because I need to make the gear pieces snap or jump back to their original position. They were only moving a short distance, but the over all effect worked, sorta.
The other setup I have is with singular rotation with an offset pivit and the end result is run through a lattice to give the propper shape, but my density at the squashed ends is certainly far from what I need it at.

I don't think I have yet approached it correctly. I am just looking for some other suggestions.
Thank you
Krets

hello
I have sprites/particles which have the attribute $NUMHIT.
I want to write a shader in vex which will put a different image depending on weather numhit is >0.

In my sprite geometry object I have a grid sop and a pop net sop going into a copy sop. I have then added the createttribute sop ( adding the attribute numhit and making its value $NUMHIT) and finally a shop sop to attach the shader which i have written in vex.

The shader has parameter inputs of 2 colour maps and the parameter numhit. I have put an (if)statement so that if numhit is 1 put the first colour map, else use the other. It compiled fine but when I render i only ever get the first colour map as if numhit is always 0 when i can see clearly that it is not.
Any help would be much apreciated….
I have tried to visualise the attribute with a paint sop but the colour stays constant even when numhit is changing so i think that this might be where the problem lies?
Thanks in advance.

Greetings,

Just recently I was working on a few online courses, one for basic
Houdini and another for scripting using C shell and Perl, when the
courses were canceled. Knowing there is a need for more training
services for these and other CGI related topics, I'm wondering if
there's anyone who would be interested in taking these courses.
They are more or less designed around a 12 week “semester”
but are self paced and can be completed in less time if you want to.
We're thinking of offering instructor online support at about
$99/class fee; we're a small team of seasoned instructors and developers.

Here's the URL's to the near completed syllabi:

http://www.digitalcinemaarts.com/edu/houdini_tutorials/course/syllabus.html [digitalcinemaarts.com]

http://www.digitalcinemaarts.com/edu/TD_tutorials/syllabus.html [digitalcinemaarts.com]

If there's sufficient interest, we will complete the courses and post
updated information and details.

If you're interested in the course, please email me off list at:
info@digitalcinemaarts.com


Thanks,
Mark Story

I just got a new 19“ monitor and houdini is glorious. I am using it for my primary and a 15” for my secondary. How can I drag torn off panes over to a secondary monitor and use them? I can drag them over but I cant click or select anything on the secondary monitor.

I found that there is a “detail attribute” called varmap created automatically when I create a attribCreate sop. I would like to know what exactly detail attribute and varmap doing. :?:
Thx

I did this little test to help someone at 3D Buzz who was having trouble with mcp…and I just realized something strange…there is no watermark?
I rendered the files as water.$F4.pic >> Houdini Apprentice 5.5.208 wrote them to disk as water.$F4.picnc
then I used mcp to make an avi:
mcp -f 1 300 water.$F4.picnc -o -r 15 -w 640 -h 480 water_01.avi
here is the avi (DivX): link [arctor.com]

and here is a frame from the sequence:
picnc [arctor.com]

if I use mplay to convert them to jpg then I do get a watermark.

Hello

Is there a script or command line to run GL renderer, so that I can still use Houdini GUI while GL Renderer does it thing. Currently I can only do that if I launch another Houdini session and load the project there.

Thank you
David Rindner

To load Adobe Illustrator eps in Houdini one should first open eps file
in any text editor and add the following stroke:

%AI3_Note: Houdini Forever

Then in Houdini add a Delete SOP in which one should
delete strange primitives from 0 to 45
It would be nice to make all required changes in geps.exe in next release :roll:

I am having a difficult time with SHOP and VEX. I am not sure that I at all like the texturing tools. Either they are too simplistic, or their power is burried too deeply for a new user. Or I am too used to Maya and 3DS MAX way of doing things. Some basic things I am uable to figire out and they are not covered in eith Help PDF or Tutorial PDF. So I am asking for some help.

1. Why does neither VEX Supermaterial or VEX Texture operator NOT identify houdini PIC sequences as sequences? Only as individual files. Those same file ARE identified as sequences in COPs and when used as backround images. I tried placinf $F after name so the format is name$F.pic. But still only 1st frame of sequence is used. How do I get to use file sequence as texture.

2. Supermaterial does not act very super. While it has many field, they are limited to single file. How would,

Since Side Effects is always working hard on Houdini and releasing new builds is there a change log available? Or an area with release notes? I'm always up for bug fixes, but its nice to see what is fixed. I've seen messages about a “journal” but I have a feeling that is for people with support contracts. Anything us Apprentice users can nibble at?

Thanks,

J. Price

I stumbled on this little trick as I was preparing selection sets for facial rigging. I am dealing with a geomety if the head that is complex and convoluted, while at same time being a single unified mesh. If you have seen screen shots of the geometry know what I am talking about. The head geometry is isolated from rest of the body, and is merged with body geometry downstream from facial rigging SOPs. Still I am dealing with a lot of vertices, and becouse the geometry has many folds, and overlaps, creating selection sets is timeconsuming. You can't just drag a lasso around a region. To create a selection set I first isolate it in view by hiding all points that won't be in the set. Still its a PIA, but it takes less time. So accelerate the selection for hiding I use this little trick.
Select Edit SOP but do not RMB, the selection will be used with Visibility. Single click on vertex (DO NOT RMB).
Switch to Select Primitives (faces). At this point Houdini will select all faces that share the vertex. Do not RMB
Now switch back to Select Points. At which point Houdini will select all points that the highlighted faces share. You'll notice that point selection set has grown.
Repeat this proccess to grow the selection as needed.
In my case, when selection begins to approach vertices or faces I do not want selected, I hide the currently selected set, and begin again. This proccess continues untill only the vertices/faces that I need for the Edit or Transform SOP are left on screen. I simply select all of them and RMB to create the SOP. Then unhide all primitives in 3D. At that time, I can do whatever I need to the selected set without fear of grabing extra points.

Dave Rindner

Hi all

I have this problem with PoluKnit, I've been walkthing through the Apprentice program and following the SpaceShip Tutorial. all is fine until I decided to model the SteeringWheel by my self First I wanted to model the Steeringwheel with nurbs then I decided to do them SubDs so here goes.

1- Made a Poly Circle
2- Revolved that (I know I can use a torus but I like circles )
3- Selected 4 Inner Polys for extrusion, those polys are pointing to the center of the circle to make the the center of the wheel
4- Made a couple of extrusion untill the extrusion started to come close togather.
5- Tried doing a PolyKnit to stitch the polys togather but every time I try to use them it goes all wrong. I choose the first point, then the opsite point, and then the point underneeth it. all is fine, but when I select the fourth point the resulting Poly is tri and not quad. I looked through the manual and found that I can use (q) in the point list, this helpes, BUT the biggest problem is that the resulting poly (in both cases tri and quad) is not stitched correctly. I mean I can see through the edges, and the resulting poly is not conitinues.!

I tried several other option but they didn't help either, like PolyStitch and PolyLoft..etc I even tried Fusing the points togather but even when the points are fused (with high distance) the resulting mesh is not contnious. Also PolyCap wont recognise the boundary to close the upper hole.

Now the Spaceship tutorial did walk through the PolyKnit when doing the Spaceship legs and that worked fine. but my guess is that it wonly worked because the the legs were not connected in the first place. meanin they were not originated and still coneected through the same surface. The legs were made through a duplicate OP but it's different than having the same source SOP PolyKnit it self. DOES that make any sense????

So can anyone please help out in here

Thanks in advance

I3D

Hello all fellow Houdini users.

Just want to post an update on my Houdini creature project. I promised that, once finished, I will make the project available for free. And I intend to keep that promise. The project is featured by SideEffects on Apprentice page at http://www.sidefx.com/products/apprentice/profile/david_rindner/index.html [sidefx.com]
You can also see the white test of completed geometry at http://sv2.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/imgView.php?imgID=6685 [sv2.3dbuzz.com]

What I am doing now is setting up the facial rig. I may not have time to setup complete articulated skeleton rig, but I want to at least have facial rig included, as the creature has a complex interlocking clamshell mouth.
Basically I want the model to be able to open and close it mouth, blink, and do some basic facial expressions. I don't think it will need all 16 phenome expressions. That said, I really like the way the faical rigging can be done in Houdini using traditional weighted shape animation. The BlendSOP is where mixing takes place. The channells of BlendSOP can be tied via CHOPs or expressions to sliders. My preference is to have freefloating nulls that are constrained to Y axis motion as controlles for shape animation weights. Those nulls are parented to camera so they are always floating in camera view. Its just my Maya/MAX approach transfered to Houdini. Well thats all. If anyone has a suggestion, please drop me an e-mail. Someone on this board said that Houdini is easy to learn, once it clicks. I have to agree with that.

Dave Rindner

I had trouble getting houdini to run, see the “hserver.exe Integer Division by zero error” thread, but after reinstalling windows they whent away. but upon reinstial .net studio the problem returns. I guess studio .net replaces some of the dll's it hserver links with. has any one gotten these two to work together?

Thanks
Andrew

Hey
Some folk over at the 3dbuzz forums mentioned how small the handles for non-uniformly scaling and translating were on his machine so I checked mine and.. hey they are small

We are both running houdini on linux, ver. 5.5.197 running at 1280x1024x24..

Any idea what can be made to increase either the handle size or tolerance? Sometimes it can be difficult to select the right handle….

Thanks in advance Have phun!

EDIT: sorry about the double post, at the time I clicked reply.. there was no other post! I guess everyone's just racing for the 200 points heh capn crunch?

Is it possible to adjust the size and tolerance of the manipulator handles?
If you have to edit a file, will it be the same file on all platforms, or is it platform specific, or is it not even possibe because that information has been compiled in the code. I remember reading somewhere, (think it was here) the GUI could be sized up and down, to adjust the size of the icons with setting an environment variable. Would I have to go about doing the same for adjusting the manipulator handle?

-capin_crunch

When trying to get new licenses over the weekend I have managed to mess up my Houdini installation. Not realizing that the Houdini server was down I attempted to remove and reinstall the program any number of times. After running the program for a month I cannot now renew my licences. When I try I get and error message saying that “Cannot connect to license server on ‘mycomputer ‘”. Looking under the Administrative Tools: Services: Houdini License Server I find that it is disabled. When I try to start it I get a message saying that “Error 1058: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no in enabled devices associated with it.” The Houdini licenses Client seems to be running all right. The folder key is empty. When I run the Houdini License Administrator there is 2 red lights at the bottom of the dialog box with 2 messages. 1) Server not running and 2) Invalid server key. When I run the dialogistic information there is a message ‘verify that sesineted is running’ I have no idea on how to correct this as removing and reinstalling seems to have no effect. I am in need of some serious HELP.
This is for the apprentice version.

Where would the feathering control for feathering masks, be found. I tried using Expand tile in Matte COPs with Shrink option, but its not the same. Looks to me that Expand tile is used to cleanup after keying COPs. I am looking for feathering like in Photoshop and After Effects.

Thank you
David Rindner