I consider CHOPs an extremely elegant and fast tool for doing many tasks (complex setups, dynamics, geometry manipulation), but I find the workflow for assembling a few clips of motion very convoluted and inefficient. In a scene with many characters (or just two complex ones), it's just too complicated to save your curves, load the clips, place the sequence (or interpolate) CHOPs, adjust, export, etc.
I'd like something like this: a CHOP which would act as a f-curves container. So, instead o fetching channels, locking the fetch chop, manipulating and exporting, one would right-click on the keyed parameters in the parameter pane (or in the Channel Editor, on groups of channels, or in the viewport,on a manipulator) and choose “Create Clip”. That would automaticaly place a Clip CHOP (or another meaningful name) in a CHOPnet. (Exactly like IK chops are created). The Clip CHOP would contain the f-curves, editable. Now you can delete your original keyframes and animate another take. Then save this into another clip, and so on. At the end of the day, one would have a CHOPnet full of “takes”, ready to be sequenced and mixed, but also ready to be edited at the (original) keyframe level.
This of course could be made even more interactive (drag and drop of parameters in the CHOP viewer etc)
What do you think?
Dragos
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Houdini Lounge » CHOPs as a NLA tool
- digitallysane
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Technical Discussion » Selecting/editing part of channel in CHOP viewer
- digitallysane
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Technical Discussion » Multiple CHOP Network per object in same animation clip
- digitallysane
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Houdini Lounge » CHOPs viewer handles in OTLs
- digitallysane
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I think it would be a nice addition to OTLs functionality to allow the “publishing” of CHOPs viewport handles. At this moment, if I have a complex CHOP network inside an OTL, I can only have parameters of its operators in the Parameters box of the OTL. If I was careful and left the display flag on for the CHOPs I'm interested in, I can open a floating viewer pane, set it to CHOPs context, and navigate inside the OTL to see the graphs update as I tweak the parameters of the OTL. But I want to be able to manipulate them using the handles in the viewer, the way I can with SOPs, objects etc.
Dragos
Dragos
Houdini Lounge » Mental Ray on Select and Escape Oh My???
- digitallysane
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Yes, that would be great. I really don't understand why RenderMan and MentalRay support is available only in the most expensive Houdini option. I think many studios with already established pipelines around RMan or MRay could (and would) use Houdini Select (or Escape, but is it really available??) along Maya or XSI but they can't integrate it in their pipelines, and they don't want to bother with yet another renderer.
Houdini Lounge » Intentions of the Creators of the Apprentice Version
- digitallysane
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brucegregory
Tell me I am wrong and that these guys are really just doing a really good deed for humanity in general and the 3D populace, specificaly.
I won't. I do not expect a 3D software company to exist for the good of humanity or the 3D population, in the sense you suggest.
As for some of your other concerns, I think many of them fall under the term “marketing”. And I think this is “a good thing” to be done by a company, in a marketplace. They try to gain a larger user base for a great, capable, “alternative” package.
Incidentally, I think that giving the oportunity to learn a professional, high-end software to anyone is really good for the 3D population, and humanity in general. Hmmm, maybe I won't like them anymore… :wink:
Technical Discussion » Cg fragment/vertex shaders in Houdini
- digitallysane
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Just read this…
http://www.3dlabs.com/whatsnew/pressreleases/pr03/03-10-29-opengllinux.htm [3dlabs.com]
Dragos
http://www.3dlabs.com/whatsnew/pressreleases/pr03/03-10-29-opengllinux.htm [3dlabs.com]
Dragos
Technical Discussion » Cg fragment/vertex shaders in Houdini
- digitallysane
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craiglhoffman
…but I am very excited at the prospect of doing acceptable quality renderings for visual development, Pre-Vis, SHOP shader development, or even for doing final images for a Kids straight-to-video animated movie on a laptop while sitting on the beach at Bali.
…but with the new character tools and pipeline issues in Version 6, Houdini could be in a perfect position for some guy doing the next “Veggie Tales” in his garage (or a loosely knit web of folks all over the world passing OTL's back and forth). Real time rendering would be a big boon to him.
-Craig
Just look at how fast Kaydara Motionbuilder can be, using just real-time rendering. And the output you get is quite OK. I think this could bring a huge gain to Houdini, in terms of workflow efficiency. Houdini can “feel” slow sometimes, when dealing with characters.
Dragos
Technical Discussion » Cg fragment/vertex shaders in Houdini
- digitallysane
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craiglhoffmanAs far as I know the latest release of MentalRay (3.2) already does this.
…but sped up using the graphics hardware. I think they are shooting for winning people over from Renderman.
I wonder if VMantra can start taking advantage of Graphics card hardware to speed up it's rendering?
http://www.mentalimages.com/2_1_1_technical/index.html [mentalimages.com]
and
http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/v3/new_v35/ [softimage.com]
Dragos
Houdini Lounge » How would you control object positions with VEX
- digitallysane
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meshsmoothYou can constrain 3 objects even without CHOPs, using the Blend Object. But yes, you can do it in CHOPs, and a lot more. CHOPs can work on hundreds/thousands of channels simultaneously if needed, and they're fast.
Can you make constraints between 3 objects within chops?
Do most operations have to happen at one channel at a time in chops?
A rotation is a complex thing and to looke at it one channel at a time is counter productive.
Look at the help for the MathCHOP, for example. The ObjectCHOP would also interest you for constraints. The same goes for Transform, Pretransform, Geometry, Composite, Blend, Lookup CHOPs.
Take a little time to explore CHOPs, because they open a whole new way to approach things.
Dragos
PS and you can always use VEX/VOPs to build a CHOP if you really need some special constraints…
Technical Discussion » Cg fragment/vertex shaders in Houdini
- digitallysane
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MichaelCI think the reason might be portability. If you write a shader in Cg, you have to do this only once, and then compile it for different APIs (DX,OGL), instead of re-writing it from scratch for each one. This might be interesting, I suppose, for game developers who have to use DX on Windows and OGL for Mac/Linux. It seems to me that the approach is identical with the one taken in “normal” programming: you write a program in C because you can compile it for different platforms, instead of writing assembler for each platform. Probably Cg tries to become the standard “development language” for shaders.
If you are writing something in Direct X or writing something in Open GL, and these API's make an SL available to you, as a programmer, why would you want to leave that API to make shaders?
Maybe I'm saying something stupid, but I think it wouldn't be impossible (but it would be probably useless) to write a Cg compiler that outputs compiled RenderMan (or Mantra) shaders.
Dragos
Technical Discussion » Cg fragment/vertex shaders in Houdini
- digitallysane
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Right now there are 3 major competing standards. Cg from Nvidia, Microsoft's DirectX SL, and Open GL's SL. The reason why this is such a big deal is because it's the future of real time graphics, and which ever one the developers flock to, has the potential for the greatest success. Customers will follow the developers and eventually this stuff is going to end up in set top devices and cel phones. It's a big market and the potential for licensing and revenue from software and hardware is huge.OK, I knew most of this, but my understanding (maybe I'm wrong) was that Cg works on top of DX SL or OGL SL, to make it easier to write shaders for those, and also to make more portable shaders. So you write a shader in Cg, then compile the same source for DX9, for OGL2, for OGL1.2, for DX8,etc. (and anything that might appear in future, if someone writes a Cg compiler for it). Exactly like you would write a program in C and then compile it on Windows, Mac, SGI etc.
Dragos
Technical Discussion » Cg fragment/vertex shaders in Houdini
- digitallysane
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Hmm, it's getting pretty confusing for me. I browsed through the pages at
http://www.graphics3d.com/guides/cg_1_1/index.html [graphics3d.com] and http://www.fusionindustries.com/content/lore/code/articles/fi-faq-cg.php3 [fusionindustries.com] and I read something like this:
How do you see the implementation of Cg shaders in Houdini? Would they be called from VEX shaders? Would Houdini have a Cg editor/compiler embedded? A translator of VEX in Cg?
Dragos
http://www.graphics3d.com/guides/cg_1_1/index.html [graphics3d.com] and http://www.fusionindustries.com/content/lore/code/articles/fi-faq-cg.php3 [fusionindustries.com] and I read something like this:
The Cg compiler translates the Cg high-level shading language (which is extremely similar to the DirectX HLSL) to assembly code that can be loaded on graphics cards supporting DirectX….So, yes, it's a hardware-oriented programming language, but it finally compiles into DirectX (or OGL) “assembly”. This made me think that (at least in theory) VEX can be extended for use in hardware programming.
How do you see the implementation of Cg shaders in Houdini? Would they be called from VEX shaders? Would Houdini have a Cg editor/compiler embedded? A translator of VEX in Cg?
Dragos
Technical Discussion » Cg fragment/vertex shaders in Houdini
- digitallysane
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I'm not too familiar with this, but as I understand Cg is just a development language (an interface) for DirectX and OpenGL shaders. So you write a Cg shader and compile it for different architectures. Maybe this could be achieved directly in VEX, by creating a new context (Real Time Operator). Or extending the already existing OpenGL context.
Dragos
Dragos
Technical Discussion » procedural modeling question
- digitallysane
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Another solution (which doesn't involve grouping, but works only if the geometry type is NURBS or Mesh) would be to append a Carve SOP to your tube, First V=1, Extract, Extract type=3D isoparametric Curves. This would give you the end cross section of your tube, and you can make a sweep on it.
Dragos
Dragos
Technical Discussion » constraints, set driven key and ik
- digitallysane
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You can get much of the Set Driven Key functionality with the LookUp CHOP, which uses one channel to lookup values from another.
Dragos
Salut Calin, mai stii si altii din Romania care tocmai exploreaza Houdini? Poate facem un club
Dragos
Salut Calin, mai stii si altii din Romania care tocmai exploreaza Houdini? Poate facem un club
Technical Discussion » Getting pivot point POS in absolute World coords
- digitallysane
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I did try placing a null at the origin and called it “world”. However the CHOP operator calculated a LOT slower than the blend, so im sticking with the blend for know.
In the Channel tab of the Object CHOP you should put $F in the Start and End fields. Otherwise the Object CHOP calculates the distance for the whole range of the animation and it's slow.
Dragos
Technical Discussion » Poly/SubD modelling in Houdini
- digitallysane
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For videos you can look here: http://www.vislab.usyd.edu.au/sidefx/houdini_video/by_topic/modeling/index.html [vislab.usyd.edu.au]
The workflow for subD modelling is explained quite well.
Dragos
The workflow for subD modelling is explained quite well.
Dragos
Houdini Lounge » Why to choose Houdini instead of Maya, Max, XSI or LW?
- digitallysane
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I found listed here many of the things I like about Houdini. I just want to add to this the “feature” I find the most exciting: CHOPs. The things you can do are quite incredible, once you get used to the approach. I came to Houdini Apprentice from Touch Designer, where I saw CHOPs for the first time, and I'm still amazed about the uses I find for CHOPs all the time.
Another cool thing is the whole “open” architecture/workflow. There are moments when Houdini feels more like a “toolkit” than an application, so you can do crazy things with it. Touch is again proof of the Houdini “technology” adapted to unusual stuff.
The thing I don't like is the licensing model, with the four versions: Select, Halo, Escape, Master. Houdini is quite modular, and I'd like to be able to purchase it by modules. For example, have a Select license and add POPs to it. Or CHOPs. Or buy Escape and then buy MentalRay output, etc. This would also make it easier to integrate Houdini with other packages (it's strange that you have to buy Master to be able to use Mental Ray. Pretty hard to justify for a XSI shop, for example)
Dragos
Another cool thing is the whole “open” architecture/workflow. There are moments when Houdini feels more like a “toolkit” than an application, so you can do crazy things with it. Touch is again proof of the Houdini “technology” adapted to unusual stuff.
The thing I don't like is the licensing model, with the four versions: Select, Halo, Escape, Master. Houdini is quite modular, and I'd like to be able to purchase it by modules. For example, have a Select license and add POPs to it. Or CHOPs. Or buy Escape and then buy MentalRay output, etc. This would also make it easier to integrate Houdini with other packages (it's strange that you have to buy Master to be able to use Mental Ray. Pretty hard to justify for a XSI shop, for example)
Dragos
Houdini Lounge » A humble request to think about?
- digitallysane
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You might want to check Touch 101. Is wonderful for art-related stuff and real-time, and it has some very nice tools for synchronizing with external soundtracks
www.derivativeinc.com
www.derivativeinc.com
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