Soooo, I'm not entirely clear on the workflow here…(I appreciate that I may be jumping in the at the deep end here)
In the supplied TOPs_GeoImport_Fixed.hip is it essential to write the geo to disk? I know that memory shouldn't really be an issue, so I am just using a File Pattern TOP and Geometry Import TOP, and in /obj/geo1/Initalize the file path is set to
`pdginput(@index, "", 1)`.
So, my main questions are…

1. Does this setup doing anything dangerously stupid?
   
2. Is pdginputa function that somehow knows what files a particular TOP node has input/output depending on when the expression is called in the evaluation chain?
   

Just coming back to this and trying to wrap my head around things and I noticed that the documentation is a little wonky. Current version of the docs for pdginput [www.sidefx.com] state that we have three arguments; index, tagand localize. But in the detailed explanation of those arguments it lists; name, indexand localize

I spoke too soon. It hung again…I will try to reproduce.

I opened the hip in the new build and it seems to be humming away nicely. Thanks!

Ok, I've refined this down to the attached hip file.
The python node /obj/geo1/Initalize is set to read in some data from a csv file, that you will find in $HIP/csv.

In /obj/topnet1 there is a setup that reads files from that directory, localizes that path, then tried to read in the detail attribute ‘frames’ from the aforementioned pyhon node /obj/geo1/Initalize.
Now, this node just errors, saying: SOP Node source type can only be used when generating static work items when it's set to automatic. When I set it to static generation, as is the case with the hip file, it just freezes Houdini. See the attached gif.

^ I posted under the wrong account there. Anyway…

The problem persists. When I check ‘Evaluate with Work Item Attributes’ on the geometry import, Houdini stops responding when I cook that node.

That seems to help. I don't get a freeze any more.
When I import attributes from the geometry import TOP, can I just refer to them via the @attribute syntax in the ROP Fetch? (and the MDD Point Cache Driver I have in my ropnet?)

I can't seem to get the MDD Point Cache Driver's to pick up the correct frame range (I assume this is the problem, as it's erroring out currently, but only after significant writing).

Ah…I thought from the sheer number of tasks created that this wasn't the right option. Now I just need to get the correct frame range from a detail attribute and this should work. Thanks!

17.5.293

I may just be confused about how the ROP Fetch TOP is supposed to work, but I can't seem to get the MDD Point Cache Driver to actually output the anything but a single frame.

1. Open the attached file and go to /obj/geo1/ropnet1/mdd2 and hit Render to Dist. You'll get an mdd file just under 7 MB in size.
2. Go to /obj/geo1/topnet1/ropfetch1. Cook the node and you will see a resulting mdd file that is 59 kB, which is the size of a single frame.

No matter what settings I put on ropfetch1 it will not render out the full mdd file. What am I missing here?

I've tried to use the geometry import TOP as shown, but that just freezes Houdini.

Hi all,
First time using PDG here. I've been fumbling around trying to get this to work, but with time pressures being what they are I'd really appreciate any insight.

See attached image in which I'm using a filepattern to get files from disk, those are then read in the python ‘Initalize’ SOP, in which a detail attribute is set to the number of animation frames. I somehow need to get those number of frames back to PDG so that it can set the FEND environment variable or a PDG attribute that I can use inside my ROP network.

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I asked SESI this as I was dealing with creating handles for assets. Here's their reply…

The movetool_candidate flag is used to indicate whether the handle can simply be changed to support one of the move tools (translate/rotate/scale). The ownerop setting specifies an alternate node whose space is used for the handle to operate in. The owneropgroup setting specifies the name of the group parameter on its owner node. This is used by the handle to know which geometry it should use to compute centroids for positioning itself.

I must admit I'm still a bit baffled by the movetool_candidate explanation.

Hi all,
I was determined to get a clean render out of mantra for this sequence, which I sort of managed to do, but the render times are just too high. I'm looking at over 5 hours per frame for something that is quite simple, as you can see from the attached screen shot.

I could get something that looked reasonable, but to stop the highlights crawling between frames I just had to turn pixel samples up high. Nothing else seemed to sort out this problem (light quality & reflection quality just didn't work). The particular point I focused on was an area on the glass, on the centre of the image at the top - there's a small rectangular reflection from one of the lights, and where this went over the inner lip of the glass there were just always fireflies. The only thing that removed them was cutting the colour limit to 4 (from 10) which dulls the image, and turning up pixel samples to 12x12, which everyone seems to think is very high.

I feel there's something I'm missing when it comes to getting a clean render. I've attached the hip file which contains the geometry and the hdr so, if anyone is able to help, just open the scene and see if you can get a better render time than I did.

Hi all,

I've set up a displacement shader to rotate an object. As you can see, when the displacement is applied, the normals are not smoothly interpolated. 

Is there anyway to fix this without subdividing the entire object?

Hi all,

I'm trying to get the SHOP procedural called ‘Houdini Engine Procedural: Point Generate’ to work, but so far I've had no luck. There's no example and the documentation doesn't actually say how to use it. 

There's the obvious docs listed here:

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/nodes/vop/enginepointgen [www.sidefx.com]

But that's all I can find. 

I've also attached the closest I have gotten. If you go to the shop > vm_geo_enginepointgen1 you can see I've told the procedural to call the Scatter SOP, which it seems to try and do so, but it complains that there are not enough sources specified. Which is fair enough, but I see no way of telling the called scatter to use any geometry as input.

So, has anyone got this working? Perhaps calling their own asset?

tamte
definitely request that
I keep requesting CVEX on delayed load/packed disk for ages as well as being able to nest/chain procedurals, so hopefully one day when more RFEs are submitted SESI will consider it

Submitted and added to the chorus. Although it been open for a while and the link to the original thread was forbidden (I'm guessing the URL is no longer valid).

jsmack
Isn't what you are talking about simply a displacement shader? I'm not sure how you would make a displacement shader move only the vertices, as if it were in sops, but you could add any sort of motion to a surface. (no motion blur though)

I think you may be correct. But I've had a lot of issues getting to grips with displacement in mantra. I'm coming from Lightwave, so my experience there is that displacement just moves around whatever points you have, be that an unsubdivided mesh or a subdivided one.

And then I also tend to run into issues when I try displacments (see attached images). In this case, do I need to recalculate normals myself, or does mantra do that?

I'll do that, but do submit one too. More people requesting it can only be a good thing, and I suspect you may get more traction than me