My guess is you'll probably need to eyeball the aperture until it matches. I don't know how much you can rely on DV cam's focal lengths as meaningful units anyway.
Cheers,
r.
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Technical Discussion » Camera matching
- rangi
- 306 posts
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Technical Discussion » texture paths in OTLs after history has been deleted.
- rangi
- 306 posts
- Offline
my $HOME/houdini/jump.pref file:
$JOBDIR
$PIC
$ROTO
$MAPS
$GEO
$SGEO
$HIP
$JOBDIR/otls
$SHOTDIR
$SHOTDIR/hip
$SHOTDIR/otls
Puts that list in the jump-to part of the file dialog. All them vars are filled out with a 456.cmd file located in the shot directory (one up from where the hip file is saved) along with other shot specific info.
Knows you know this jc, just posting it here to share the goodness.
($JOB is used as the jobname, rather than the job directory.. hence $JOBDIR)
r.
$JOBDIR
$PIC
$ROTO
$MAPS
$GEO
$SGEO
$HIP
$JOBDIR/otls
$SHOTDIR
$SHOTDIR/hip
$SHOTDIR/otls
Puts that list in the jump-to part of the file dialog. All them vars are filled out with a 456.cmd file located in the shot directory (one up from where the hip file is saved) along with other shot specific info.
Knows you know this jc, just posting it here to share the goodness.
($JOB is used as the jobname, rather than the job directory.. hence $JOBDIR)
r.
Technical Discussion » texture paths in OTLs after history has been deleted.
- rangi
- 306 posts
- Offline
AH.. OK. So it's not your Shops, it's your maps. Maybe make a $MAPS var. Or, better, make a maps_path parameter on your character (defaulting to $MAPS) or… better yet, encapsulate your maps into your asset and reference them using opdef syntax.
Lotsa options!
r.
Lotsa options!
r.
Technical Discussion » texture paths in OTLs after history has been deleted.
- rangi
- 306 posts
- Offline
i think George is assuming you are using a Shader SOP to apply the shaders, where “Use indirect references” is a toggle.. but I recommend a different approach.
Create a SHOP Network node inside of your character's asset. Put your SHOPs in there and reference them using relative paths.
ie. if your shopnet is called mySHOPS and contained a shader called “myHead” then you'd put in the head object's shader string “../mySHOPS/myHead”, as opposed to what you probably had which was “/shop/myHead”.
So, we have a relative path to an embedded node, instead of an absolute path to a node outside of the asset. Crucial shit, all assets should be built with this in mind.
Create a SHOP Network node inside of your character's asset. Put your SHOPs in there and reference them using relative paths.
ie. if your shopnet is called mySHOPS and contained a shader called “myHead” then you'd put in the head object's shader string “../mySHOPS/myHead”, as opposed to what you probably had which was “/shop/myHead”.
So, we have a relative path to an embedded node, instead of an absolute path to a node outside of the asset. Crucial shit, all assets should be built with this in mind.
Houdini Lounge » Motionbuilder plugin
- rangi
- 306 posts
- Offline
Harlequin,
First up, are you a under sidefx customer support? If so, and you're after direct answers to questions, please post them to support@sidefx.com. If you are not, then please realise that in your posts you are making requests of people to spare some time and explain things to you. A bit of patients and you might find understanding. You probably recieved not one person replying because your tone of emails makes you sound, as we say in oz, like a bleeding whinger.
Moving on… Houdini doesn't have a great many plug-ins. The reason we love it is because buying a plug-in is generally un-necessary when you have an open-architecture and a huge number of small, useful tools. Sidefx don't waste their time providing plug-ins in response to every RFE, instead theyprovide general tools that answer those same issues.
Having said that, I'm sure that if enough supported customers requested a motion builder plug-in we'd end up with the best in the buisness. But it seems that as a use of resources it's low on the priorities.
I'd suggest looking at mcbiovision as Robk suggested, although going through the .bvh route requires shifiting to raw channels. From my small experience with this utility I suggest using the -o flag as what you get in houdini is more similar to what you have in motionbuilder… ie. you have joints instead of bones.
If you don't use the -o flag you'll need to run your .bvh through my little perl hack to keep the end joints of the chains from disappearing. Apparently biovision supplied sidefx with example files that included redundent joints; that no longer seems to be the standard. I run this script even though I do use the -o flag as it still shows me a better rep of the heirachy.
http://www.sidefx.com/exchange/info.php?fileid=203&versionid=203 [sidefx.com]
Goodluck with this. In developing a pipeline, I'm a firm believer in building things up from small tools, rather than buying into a plug-in. You end up with a much more flexible solution. If that's not your caper, Max has plug-in's for everything and maybe that's where your heart lies.
r.
First up, are you a under sidefx customer support? If so, and you're after direct answers to questions, please post them to support@sidefx.com. If you are not, then please realise that in your posts you are making requests of people to spare some time and explain things to you. A bit of patients and you might find understanding. You probably recieved not one person replying because your tone of emails makes you sound, as we say in oz, like a bleeding whinger.
Moving on… Houdini doesn't have a great many plug-ins. The reason we love it is because buying a plug-in is generally un-necessary when you have an open-architecture and a huge number of small, useful tools. Sidefx don't waste their time providing plug-ins in response to every RFE, instead theyprovide general tools that answer those same issues.
Having said that, I'm sure that if enough supported customers requested a motion builder plug-in we'd end up with the best in the buisness. But it seems that as a use of resources it's low on the priorities.
I'd suggest looking at mcbiovision as Robk suggested, although going through the .bvh route requires shifiting to raw channels. From my small experience with this utility I suggest using the -o flag as what you get in houdini is more similar to what you have in motionbuilder… ie. you have joints instead of bones.
If you don't use the -o flag you'll need to run your .bvh through my little perl hack to keep the end joints of the chains from disappearing. Apparently biovision supplied sidefx with example files that included redundent joints; that no longer seems to be the standard. I run this script even though I do use the -o flag as it still shows me a better rep of the heirachy.
http://www.sidefx.com/exchange/info.php?fileid=203&versionid=203 [sidefx.com]
Goodluck with this. In developing a pipeline, I'm a firm believer in building things up from small tools, rather than buying into a plug-in. You end up with a much more flexible solution. If that's not your caper, Max has plug-in's for everything and maybe that's where your heart lies.
r.
Technical Discussion » Losing a bone importing bvh mocap
- rangi
- 306 posts
- Offline
Hi guys,
I'm playing around with some .bhv biovision motion capture files and bringing them into houdini. I may be missing something obvious but it seems to be losing the last bone at the end of each heirachy branch…
In the .bvh file it describes a tree of joints listed as:
LeftHip -> LeftKnee -> LeftAnkle -> End site
Each of those joints has an offset which is essentially the bone length.
I run the mcbiovision program over this .bvh and cmdread the generated .cmd file. The script creates the bones that connect the joints as:
Hips_To_LeftHip -> LeftHip_To_LeftKnee -> LeftKnee_To_LeftAnkle
And the correct animation (rotation) channels are read in through the .bclip and exported from chops to these bones. All good. Except, I'd expect another bone called something like LeftAnkle_To_EndSite, which would be the foot. It would have the rotations of LeftAnkle from the .bvh file.
I think I could write a perl script to add an extra bone at the end of each chain in the .bvh file, as well as buffering the channel data lines. But I don't want to go to that hassle if it's a simple bug or I'm using the script incorrectly.
The heirachy the cmdread creates is the same if I use noK, FK or IK.
Anyone else been here?
Beers,
Rangi.
I'm playing around with some .bhv biovision motion capture files and bringing them into houdini. I may be missing something obvious but it seems to be losing the last bone at the end of each heirachy branch…
In the .bvh file it describes a tree of joints listed as:
LeftHip -> LeftKnee -> LeftAnkle -> End site
Each of those joints has an offset which is essentially the bone length.
I run the mcbiovision program over this .bvh and cmdread the generated .cmd file. The script creates the bones that connect the joints as:
Hips_To_LeftHip -> LeftHip_To_LeftKnee -> LeftKnee_To_LeftAnkle
And the correct animation (rotation) channels are read in through the .bclip and exported from chops to these bones. All good. Except, I'd expect another bone called something like LeftAnkle_To_EndSite, which would be the foot. It would have the rotations of LeftAnkle from the .bvh file.
I think I could write a perl script to add an extra bone at the end of each chain in the .bvh file, as well as buffering the channel data lines. But I don't want to go to that hassle if it's a simple bug or I'm using the script incorrectly.
The heirachy the cmdread creates is the same if I use noK, FK or IK.
Anyone else been here?
Beers,
Rangi.
Technical Discussion » SLOPES for Dummies
- rangi
- 306 posts
- Offline
Hi Squid,
I'd look at the area chop.. You pipe a constant into the area chop and it will return a slope… ie. you put in a rate and it returns the amount so far. If you put in an animated value, it treates it like a rate and accumulates at that animated rate… that make sense?
Basically, you can say spin at speed 5, then slow down to 2, and it won't spin backwards. It will just spin slower.
Think back to calculus. It's returning the are underneath the graph.
Beers,
r.
I'd look at the area chop.. You pipe a constant into the area chop and it will return a slope… ie. you put in a rate and it returns the amount so far. If you put in an animated value, it treates it like a rate and accumulates at that animated rate… that make sense?
Basically, you can say spin at speed 5, then slow down to 2, and it won't spin backwards. It will just spin slower.
Think back to calculus. It's returning the are underneath the graph.
Beers,
r.
Technical Discussion » 'set driven key' in houdini
- rangi
- 306 posts
- Offline
Try using the chf() function… type exhelp chf in the textport.
Create a spare channel or a param of an hda, set keyframes on this channel or put expressions into or however you want to define the function.
Then reference it with something like chf(“../myFunctionChannel”, ch(“../myInputChannel”))
This is a roll your own version of maya's driven keys.
Hope this helps,
Rangi.
Create a spare channel or a param of an hda, set keyframes on this channel or put expressions into or however you want to define the function.
Then reference it with something like chf(“../myFunctionChannel”, ch(“../myInputChannel”))
This is a roll your own version of maya's driven keys.
Hope this helps,
Rangi.
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