Houdini 16.5.319 seems to fix the issue I was having.

Was there any resolution to this? I also have UE 4.18 installed and when I install Houdini 16.5.268 I only get an option for install Houdini Engine for 4.17. I was wondering if it might be because UE is installed in a non default location. My C: drive (I am on windows) is a small fast ssd, so I install things that take a lot of disk space on another drive. I have had this setup for a while and it has worked for quite a while before this.

Was there any fix to your issue? Or is houdini engine not out yet for 4.18?

-bk

Back on the original topic of the tab menu in the network view (and other gui) going off screen. I am seeing this issue too. I am running windows 10 and the latest production build of 16.0.557. Did you find any fix yet or file a bug report?

I am still having the issue with 15.5.632. Not sure what it might be. I can change the extension for the file path on the file node from “.obj” to “.bgeo” and it will immediately write out a file that shows up. But no luck for obj files.

Thanks for trying it out Enivob and Rob! No Rob, you had the right idea. Rob, what flavor of Houdini were you running, Indie? I tried changing the name as well as the file location, but I don't get an output file. I modified the sphere as well thinking maybe the write just wasn't getting triggered during the cook. But I still can't get it to output if its set as an obj. There is a new production build (15.5.632). I am gonna give that try before anything else.

Thanks again for testing it too!

-bk

I defer to Michael on this as it sounds like he has more experience on this and in particular the character rigging pipeline. But I used to work at Laika on more of the shading, lighting and rendering side of things in Houdini, and we had a pipeline very similar to what he described.

I would have actually answered - Yes. HDA's are essentially hip files you are referencing in. You can package up almost everything you might be doing in a hip file with some notable exceptions like bundles and takes.

In short, you can have an hda that is loaded into many hip files. If you change that hda, those changes get propegated to all of you hip files. I use this all the time in shot work and even a lot in the same file if I am doing the same stuff over and over again to different assets.

At Laika, we used a combination of scripts and how Houdini looks for hda definitions in its search path to control which version of an asset each shot got.

If its a simple small project, and hence not a lot of verisons of your asset being used at the same time, there isn't really any scripting or directory magic necessary, putting your work into an hda and having that in your scan path (HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH set in your houdini env) will allow you to use it in several hip files.

-bk

Hey all,

I realized I can't seem to write obj files anymore. Is this true of other people?

I am on windows 10 and working in Houdini Indie. I tried H 15.5.408 and 15.5.607. I tried the file node and rop nodes. I can write bgeo's and fbx files just fine to the same locations (not a permissions or disk issue).

Here is a simple sample file. Give it a whirl.

Thanks ahead of time,

-bk

Oh. Great Thanks! I will check it out.

Thanks for the reply! I will do just that.

Hey all,

Sorry if this is a noob question, but I was wondering if there is a point attribute I can put on the points of my instance node that allows me to use Assets (static meshes) that already exist in Unreal, rather than having to hook them up by hand on the Unreal side. I tried setting the instance node's “instancepath” parameter to the Unreal path (ie “/Game/MyObj”). I also tried the same thing with a point attribute of “instance” on the points, but it doesn't seem to affect the instance inputs when its created in Unreal.

I am hoping there is similar functionality to the way you can set prim attrs of “unreal_face_material” to Unreal paths (ie. “/Game/MyMat”) to materials and get the materials to automatically hook up when you create the object.

I know I could embed the model in the hda pre-Unreal, but I am hoping to avoid that.

Any help is appreciated.

Hey all,

I was wondering if anyone else has seen this issue. I have two macs with separate licenses of houdini indie installed. H15 starts up correctly on each machine. I can render (non distributed) 1920x1080 images on both. But if I try to do a distributed render referencing both machines with the -H mantra flag on the driver/command line of the rop the camera window seems to revert to 1280x720 framing but keeps the 1920x1080 resolution for the window so the image gets shifted.

This appears if I render to mplay or to disk. If I do a distributed render in a renderview it looks correct.

It used to work fine, I am not sure when the issue introduced itself.

Any help would be appreciated. I included two images, correct and not and a simple hou file I was able to repro the issue with. You will have to plug in your own second machine in the command line if you test.

-bk

Thanks for looking at it! The tif is the supplied circle image in the original post. If you right click and save the image you will get it correctly. It is a 16bit tiff. But as I am testing, it seems unrelated to the tif image.

After reading your response, I tried removing the tif from the equation and instead used the “stone wall” procedural instead. I assume this is 32bit float. With the clamp the image looks good, without it I get a similar artifact as before.

This issue makes me wonder if there is some threshold on the specular angle in the code for the shader that switches to a cheaper calculation when its under 0.1 and it is just clamping there to 0… thus getting the artifact.

I supplied the new hipnc file if it helps.

I was able to fix the issue by never letting the map drive the specular angle below 0.1. I did this by adding a “Fit Range” node to the vop network after the texture.

Hey all,

I am seeing an artifact when trying to use H11/PBR Render and the mantra surface shader. I want to control the specular angle with a texture map, but when I do, I get a ragged edge of black around areas transitioning between values.

I used the mantra “uber” shader. I went in and added a texture map to the specular angle using the plug controls on the right of the parameter in the vop network. I tried different render options, including the micro poly renderer. The pattern of the artifacts changes with the sampling but never goes away.

I provide a simple hip(nc) and image that illustrate the problem.

Any ideas? Am I doing something wrong or is something broke?

-bk