Oh yes, I must have been very tired, but I thought that might be one of these cases when you sit for hours over something accessible wuth one click somwhere else
Here goes a solution.
Thank you Edward.

I have three nulls, how to compute any angle of the triangle they form using chops?

I know about obj chop to calculate distabces, I use wave to create sin but I'm a bit stuck with it.

A few more notes on dell:

-It has a really great display, ofcourse dimmer here and there but doesn't change colours with different viewing angle, it's super crisp and have a solid feel.

-My m70 gets really hot sometimes (hard to hold a hand on the bottom), but not in hand area so you work cool.

-It's quiet, I heard many many fujitsu, toshiba and other which got very loud after a few months.

-Quadro is a pro card, no driver fiddling, no artifacts, it just works and makes you forget you have a graphic card. Really sweet. I don't care how much there is to achieve with hacked drivers for geforce series, too much time lost on it already.

Agree with memory, I did exactly the same, shame on dell due to their ram prices.

Now you are in better situation because of centrino duo which seems so much faster with rendering.
Also note that merom is on the horizon along with price drops of older (now hot) systems, I'd wait a few months if I could.

Ok, I quit here, just couldn't resist since I love this machine and it never let me down, even being constantly full throttled for days.

You can get dell precision or some other notebook with quadro. They are more expensive but you are very likely to have no problems at all.
Almost a year ago I asked the same question. After some inner struggle I decided for m70 (an oldie now) and It was the best computer investment I've ever did. Rock solid, sturdy and fast. I'd say go dell (no they don't pay me )

How have you created decent guide hairs? I work on it now for flowers and grass.

You are right cpb, I often find myself trying to build something more flexible that I'd ever need to, and then sinking in too complex networks.

I thought of selection/topology problem but don't have a bloody idea how it can be solved. It seems impossible but who knows?
It would be great to have a fully procedural poly model but perhaps there is just too much hassle in comparison to a fast rebuild.

How do you try to cache it?
If you use a cache sop which caches to memory there will be a problem, try rendering particle simulation to disk as geometry with “rop output driver” SOP, Its a common bullet proof way. Also if you are on windows you are likely to have all sorts of memory problem. There are guys working with big scenes on windows here though .

lisux
You only need to spen more time to use a new tool like Linux, if all of us only use any tool (Linux,MACOs, Houdini, Maya, etc …) because we know it and we don't want to know anymore the would be impossible to know new things.
I know that for many of us is very difficult to spent time testing new trhings, but, at least for me, I have seen that if I knoe that the new tool is probed to be better, the time spent learning it is time I save in the future, this has been my experienced with both Linux and Houdini.

Don't get me wrong, I'm constantly and stubbornly learning houdini along with all goods it provides, and things which are worth time spent on learning eg scripting.
But with linux there is a completely different story because being a 3d animator you just don't have to know how to fix all of them little errors.
The knowledge you gain over certain level is only a time loss because “oh in the next version they'll change it” and the fact that you are so proud of yourself because you found that after uninstalling package “x” because it did not cooperate with current version of whatever and adding a file here and there your cd rom works all right, is just a plain misunderstanding.

I was a very happy linux user for over a year, after long fights I succeeded in many things and houdini was working like a charm (I used suse so I had to create a simple script for it to set the variables and run some services). But a lot of things were just not working properly, wifi once starting once not (yes I checked with all ifconfig iwconfig rcnetwork status rcnetwork restart route and all of them), external harddrives did the same, mp3 players and digital cameras did what thye wanted, network went dead after installing 10.1, problems with raid because of something, filesystem madness between windows and linux (I know about about ex2ifs and that something for ntfs but hey can you say “corrupt data” ).

After all I came to an assumption that either I'll uninstall this shit and start working or all that I'll become will be a medium skilled home network administrator.

Most of these linux problems empowers you with redundant knowledge.

Now I'm back to windows and curse on memory problems with houdini, but that's houdini problem

The part with “psychological trap” is SO true!!!
I'm not proud of that but I'm back on windows for that reason, more time spent on getting things work and learning how to do it then on actual job.
Linux works better when there is an administrator to take care of everything.

You mean compared to suse 10?
I had it installed on suse 10 and worked great.
After installing suse 10.1 I quit using suse for a while
I couldn't get my hardware to work properly under 10.1 and have no infinite time to check why my CD is not working and to “just add a simple file” here and there. Everything is easy “just 15 lines of code”
I'm sort of back to windows, to much pressure from other software.

Sorry for going a bit ot.

Thanks for your replies, I'm staying with 32
I've got enough hassle with this linux thing, just installed new suse 10.1 and my wifi stopped working.
It's a fileserver (say NAS) only and It's main purpose is to hold all my data in one place, not spread on several external drives and a few workstations which is a real workflow killer.
Suse is great but being a linux newbie for a year ( I made my first steps with your help J.C. ) I'm a bit tired of “constant fighting state” it provides

Thanks

ps
Najlepszego SYmek (it's just “all the best”)

I have a brand new athlon 64 machine and installed suse 10 32 bit on it.
While installing I got a message “nice computer but… you are installing 32 bit system on 64 bit machine”
It is supposed to be a file server, cheap graphics, slow processor, but I'd like to test houdini on it anyway.
In download section there is only houdini 64 for debian, can I install it on suse 64?
Is it worth installing 64 bit OS on such machine? It has 1 gig of ram and doesn't need more.

Scatter SOP inherits normals from source geometry, be sure they are there, display them and if they are missing, put a facet sop before scatter with “post compute normals” checked or a point SOP with add normal checked.
This should help, if not, use a hammer, I always do it

I wonder what do you render if rendertimes of vray can be beaten by mantra?
I got to the point in which I ceased to understand using another renderer than vray. It's just so blazingly fast. The GI is superb, when I tried to render the same scene (architectural interior with lot of glass and brushed alu) in mantra, rendertime was plainly unacceptable.
I don't think it's only a matter of shaders.
Are rman renderers good only for feature production, and why? I got once it but now I'm thinking again.
I had the same feeling when I load the bolex tutorial ad hit render…slow as hell, what the heck, this is just a very standard setup?
Perhaps I should stop thinking about houdini as a rendering machine but only as geo generator, then load the geo sequence into max and save lightyears of setup? I looks impossible to use mantra in a small <10 person studio and survive, when you need a bit of photorealism.
I have some rman knowledge now and the thing looks so clean and easy and logical, flexible, open etc, but probably it's just for the very big guys and my interest in it is totally impractical.
What is “flexibility”? In some years of work in the business I found speed much more important then the possibility to sink in some rib,mi or anything.
Perhaps the 5 hours you are talking about are with some mblur,dof and everything, but how does mantra compare to this? From my experience what takes an hour in vray, takes 5 hours in MR and ten times more in mantra (not talking about dof and mblur).
I was very hot about houdini for last year, but I can't see how would I use it in no feature film 500 processor and 300 employees studio.
If someone could pour a bucket of cold water on my head and enlighten me I'd be very grateful.

I absolutely agree, and don't want to criticize mantra or anything else.
But there always come a difference between a big studio like DD and a small few person beginning company with tight budget like me.
Your “production values” for GI are 256 rays, mine hardly ever reaches 64 .
Two different worlds with different needs.
In my free time I'm trying my best to learn rendering technology from several books and I'm beginning to see the power of renderman compliants.
There should be more open shaders prepared in VOPs but probably this is just a matter of time.
I hope for multibounce in mantra because it's a fast way to make images so much lighter and pleasant for the eye.
Not ranting anymore…
Thanks for your replies

P

I have architectural backgroung and therefore my main day to day work is arch renderings.
Not that I'm not bored
I began hating max so I moved to XSI but still after smashing my keyboard I moved back to max just for vray. After some years of XSI i found it really weak compared to houdini so I started learning it heavily with some success.
But still when there is a serious deadline it all ends up in vray.

I know the effect can be achieved in any renderer etc etc, but this damn thing is really fast and really doesn't need testing to get good results, far better than anywhere else after hours spent.

Often the deadline is just too short for testing and you use what you are sure will help you out.
Whether it is an animation or a still, vray operated by quarter brainer will render it.
And sometimes, late at night I really eagerly turn into a quarter brainer and want a fast effect without having to remember everything and set up and think.
By the way, there have to be some reason why DD uses it


I usually write such posts when I'm pissed off and this is just the case.
XSI 5 ceased to cooperate at 3 at night so I grabbed all scene, put to olgood max, vray'd in half an hour and went to bed.
I really hate it. I'd like to use houdini, plant procedural trees and make otl's for everything but for now it looks … impractical for the kind of work I do.

sum][one
The most expensive software?… not anymore guys.. not anymore.

look at Softimage website.. and you'll find out by yourself..

geez.. I'm so happy now to have something to say to who tells me Houdini is the most expensive software… sorry for going OT.. and for maybe talking about something said already.

Cheers.

It's just a marketing trick.
The software is not there yet, they want the 95k message to widespread and make people talk about it, then, after release, they'll cut the price to 1/10th to make people say `huh…only 10k` and still they are at the top
Sorry, I can't see what's SO special about a bunch of face rigs. Are the promo vids that impressive?

I'm quite frustrated about that vray thing.
Just had a fast job - many interior renderings. I don't have a commercial houdini. I modeled everything in xsi, tried to render (had 2 hours to the meeting) but somehow it didn't want to render.
When I exported everything to max vray rendered whatever resolution with GI in a matter of minutes, quite pretty (without shaders).
This really makes me angry because most of the time I'm forced to use max because of this renderer, it gives great quality in no time, is fast and firm.

Now after this foreword, I know a bit how to tweak mantra's GI, but one bounce will never give this beautiful soft look fast. Deadlines are very tight. I'd like to use houdini for work oneday but from what I see it would be impossible now. Are we going to get multibounce, fast global illumination in the future?
I know this is a question without answer, but now the only thing I could do is to use AIR (which is fast and very attractive) or Mental Ray (which is old and clumsy), but I'd need to spend 17 k and would not have the power and control of shading as in mantra.

Oh if only Vray was rman compliant …

Thanks Jason!

My question was a bit more basic
I'm on my motorway to learn vex. I'm browsing a few books on rman in my free time just to gain some firmer background. Most of the rsl shaders look short and clear, and there are so many examples around. I need the skill to translate them vex, it seem to solve many of my problems.

I have two very successful instalations on suse 10.
one is quadro fx1400 go and the second is ti4600.
I don't even want to know driver specifications. Just hit “download nvidia driver” in yast and everything went smoothly.

suse is great