Hello,
just noticed that shop_materialpath attribute, created on imported obj files from Maya, is not recognized by new mat network in h 16. Which is, well, expectable, also i was able to create groups based on shop_materialpath and assign new materials, suitable for mat network, so no problems there.
Anyway I'm still curious, is there a some other automatism like this one, now working with mat network too. Or… shop_materialpath, or something else in this style is considered as obsolete, together with SHOPs. Docs are saying, “SHOPs are obsolete as of Houdini 16”.
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Technical Discussion » shop_materialpath and material network in Houdini 16
- amm
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Houdini Lounge » Houdini 16, booleans and polybevel
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jlait
I guess this answers the question if anyone uses the Round option in Surfsect…?
The Round SOP and the round option in Surfsect are scheduled for dismantling as they rely on pasted surfaces to generate offset surfaces. So if you are using them, we'd like to know :>
I've played a bit in times of Houdini 13, they were looked more like prototype of nurbs fillet/blend engine, definitively not competitor to great and affordable other tools available today, like Autodesk Fusion 360, MoI, even old fashion nurbs tools in Maya LT (old fashion, but still strong and reliable).
Round from Surfsect SOP, Bridge SOP (blend) as well, were able to produce artifacts (bulges, highly uneven distribution) even on simple trims between two spheres, plain errors in case of closed nurbs surfaces (even trims were not intersecting with boundaries). Finally, I think this is only filleting engine today, or maybe in last 15 years, who is asking to manually define the marching steps.
Dismantle them…. Put some copy in museum, perhaps.
Houdini Lounge » Houdini 16, booleans and polybevel
- amm
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vuxAs You said, it doesn't. I mean, I put this thing on internet, so it's hundred percent sure . I think this is clearly mentioned in description of tool. Also, hopefully for me now there is no need to work further on my Mesh Blend thing.
nicoM, nice tool! But it looks like it doesn't fuse the seams between fillets and source surface. Is it true or am I mistaken?
By the way, just to add to wishlist: would be great to have a variable distance fillet as an option, let's say if user would be able to define two points on intersection curve, as min - max blend distance. Imho this should make possible to describe shapes, almost impossible by fixed distance, like body - wings interface on airplanes, so on. Afaik, should be easy to implement such option (while I have no idea how easy is to implement user's interaction of this, in H).
SI Users » kristinka and few questions
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jordibares
Looks great.
Regarding your questions…
1) The best route in my humble opinion would be to use a git repository so you can easily pull the environment files, nodes, scritps, etc… in one convenient way and allow for super-easy updates. Check qLib for how it has been done with Houdini, very very nice approach.
2) Regarding manipulations, I am not sure if there is a way to do what you want in its current form, my suggestion is to write support, they do listen way more than you would imagine.
hope it helps
jb
BTW. The scale may be an issue… you really will want to review it on 1 unit = 1 meter. (my 2 cents)
Thanks for your time.
I'm keeping it on my site [matkovic.com], together with SI version. In one year, feedback was close to zero. As far as I know, significant majority of users of that system are not Houdini users, today. So, generally, I've decided to move on and start something completely new, while I'm not completely sure, where and when that new thing is expected to appear. System itself is really old, last conceptual change belongs to 2011.
Regarding writing to support or git, that's somehow out of my Houdini Indie level of engagement. It's pleasure, not business. If something doesn't fit in certain software, I'll take look into another one, there are nice and affordable choices around.
By the way, in ICE times, versions were not backward compatible, I've considered ‘too much of compatibility’ as an unacceptable limitation. It was only ICE as ‘compatibility holder’.
SI Users » kristinka and few questions
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SI Users » Construction mode
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OneBigTreeamm
It was tied only to traditional, linear blend skinning, never worked together with ICE based Dual Quaternion skin or something else ICE based. Somehow is hard to believe anyone will go, these days, with such built-in, so focused refinement.
I do. It is very helpful to make corrections after posing the model if you don't want to change your weights.
I meant, how hard is to believe *any developer of 3d app* will go…
SI Users » kristinka and few questions
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Thank You Werner. Reminds me to good old times, 2009 or so, when one digit was more than enough to describe the entire user base including me
Anyway, here [antomatkovicdotcom.files.wordpress.com] is bunch of files to get. Hope this just a (new) start
Anyway, here [antomatkovicdotcom.files.wordpress.com] is bunch of files to get. Hope this just a (new) start
SI Users » kristinka and few questions
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Hello,
first of all, something I believe it is a good news. I'm close to finish a ‘port’ of Softimage ICE hair styling system called Kristinka Hair, to Houdini. For now it is a bit ‘compact’, but I think it includes the all main features, including connection to H wire solver, animated deformations as well. That is, for now, ‘fur’ part is not there - as I believe this one already wasn't very popular. Some more info is available here [vimeo.com], here [vimeo.com], and here [si-community.com].
Now, questions:
1: Planned distribution doesn't seem to fit into Orbolt rules - it has around twenty nodes, no one is master, I'm using SI style units of 1 unit = 10 cm (allow me to use geometry guides from SI, compare setups, so on), I'm planning to put about five to ten hips as samples, docs most likely will be a PDF…
So, is there another way than Orbolt, to make it available for ‘regular’ Houdini users, not only Indies. I'm using Houdini Indie for all this, that's it.
2: Move tool in H 15. Thing in attached pic is styling node called ‘in between curves’ in action, performing let's call it UV space interpolation, allowing to use only about dozen curves to describe this hairdo. Curves are placed in separate H object, so I'm able to edit them without harm. BUT, it seems than H move tool somehow automatically switches from ‘select and move at once’, to ‘select, then move in new action’. I'd believe behavior is dependent on presence of another objects - if I hide other objects, it is desired ‘at once’, if I have everything displayed, it switches back to undesired, two actions style. So, is there a way to force the move tool to be in ‘at once’ mode, all the time.
first of all, something I believe it is a good news. I'm close to finish a ‘port’ of Softimage ICE hair styling system called Kristinka Hair, to Houdini. For now it is a bit ‘compact’, but I think it includes the all main features, including connection to H wire solver, animated deformations as well. That is, for now, ‘fur’ part is not there - as I believe this one already wasn't very popular. Some more info is available here [vimeo.com], here [vimeo.com], and here [si-community.com].
Now, questions:
1: Planned distribution doesn't seem to fit into Orbolt rules - it has around twenty nodes, no one is master, I'm using SI style units of 1 unit = 10 cm (allow me to use geometry guides from SI, compare setups, so on), I'm planning to put about five to ten hips as samples, docs most likely will be a PDF…
So, is there another way than Orbolt, to make it available for ‘regular’ Houdini users, not only Indies. I'm using Houdini Indie for all this, that's it.
2: Move tool in H 15. Thing in attached pic is styling node called ‘in between curves’ in action, performing let's call it UV space interpolation, allowing to use only about dozen curves to describe this hairdo. Curves are placed in separate H object, so I'm able to edit them without harm. BUT, it seems than H move tool somehow automatically switches from ‘select and move at once’, to ‘select, then move in new action’. I'd believe behavior is dependent on presence of another objects - if I hide other objects, it is desired ‘at once’, if I have everything displayed, it switches back to undesired, two actions style. So, is there a way to force the move tool to be in ‘at once’ mode, all the time.
SI Users » Construction mode
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McNistor
An XSI user after skinning (capturing) a character which means adding an “envelope” operator in the animation stack (which sits above modeling) could go at any time and change point position or even the topology long after the envelope weights have been adjusted.
.
It was tied only to traditional, linear blend skinning, never worked together with ICE based Dual Quaternion skin or something else ICE based. Somehow is hard to believe anyone will go, these days, with such built-in, so focused refinement.
Beside that, for ‘model in one space, see it in another’, perhaps most comfortable, long run approach is two objects setup, using H Object Merge, Softimage clone, or Max ‘reference clone’. Sow some Max setups of this kind, long time ago.
SI Users » Construction mode
- amm
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keyframeHad show display operator in H, just to be able to work with attribute vops and such, without constant changes of displayed result. Just been curious how it works with H ‘edit’ node, have to admit that my view port skills in H are somewhere around drawing the curve, not much more.
Just out of curiosity,
What does the intended workflow look like if you DO have the show display operator mode set?
G
In Softimage, ‘construction mode’, for example, allows to move (deform, exactly) object deformed by curve, along curve, if ‘deform by curve’ op is above modeling, in ‘animation’ region. You just move points along some axis of object space. Another example is shrinkwrap op (like H Ray SOP) applied above tweaks. And so on. In some cases (envelope (skin) op), SI calculates inverse deformation, so it's possible to edit the corrective shapes on object deformed by envelope, while SI takes care of ‘baking’ the deltas down into reference pose. If I'm correct (could be wrong) Modo has some similar capabilities.
By the way, ‘inverse view port feedback’ is not strange for 3d apps - uv editing could be a common example.
SI Users » Construction mode
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SI Users » Construction mode
- amm
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Hello,
Is there a way to re - assemble the SI behavior, or more exactly, something similar to behavior of Maya tweak node. Let's say, once I have something like in attached pic, that every next edit, invoked by view port action, became in existing Edit node, even this one is somewhere in middle of chain - not in new Edit node appended after displayed node.
For some (unknown) reason, I believed this is purpose of ‘selectable template’ flag. But it doesn't work ( for me, for now) in this way.
I'm asking after entire day of searching docs and googling, without results.
Is there a way to re - assemble the SI behavior, or more exactly, something similar to behavior of Maya tweak node. Let's say, once I have something like in attached pic, that every next edit, invoked by view port action, became in existing Edit node, even this one is somewhere in middle of chain - not in new Edit node appended after displayed node.
For some (unknown) reason, I believed this is purpose of ‘selectable template’ flag. But it doesn't work ( for me, for now) in this way.
I'm asking after entire day of searching docs and googling, without results.
SI Users » Compounding in Houdini?
- amm
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Guys,
what I've talking is closest to description by Jeff: 'What you describe is a parallel workflow where you use VOP nodes to construct vex logic to be read in to a SOP at the top".
No need for anything additional, especially not self convincing, imho.
what I've talking is closest to description by Jeff: 'What you describe is a parallel workflow where you use VOP nodes to construct vex logic to be read in to a SOP at the top".
No need for anything additional, especially not self convincing, imho.
SI Users » Compounding in Houdini?
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MartybNzamm
But, abstraction of creating an attribute in advance, while overridden parameter, somewhere later n network is not even greyed out - this is really unpleasant part.
Do you have an example of this. I'm probably too familiar with H to understand the issue.
Typical short example could be H wire object/solver. There's ‘width’ parameter which is doing what is supposed to do, as long it is ‘alone’. If ‘width’ is set earlier in static network, width parameter in DOP network acts as multiplier of what is previously set in another network. But it doesn't display anything about new state. To figure out what exactly a number means, one has to checkout both networks, possibly to MMB over nodes. Which is a double inspection, for something really basic.
Longer story is something like pic - it's ICEs (custom, but frequent) ‘strand function curve’, acts like ‘flying gradient node’. Under the hood it takes a previously set relative distance of hairs (like ‘hairdist’ in Mantra fur procedural), pass it through function curve, output is able to modulate any float attribute of same class. So, user is able to attach the gradient where he wants. Also it shows very exactly, what is modified, while ICE disables the overriden scalar input in ‘main’ compound.
This one is a ergonomic workhorse, used by everyone. Now in Houdini, so far I was able to re assemble the ‘flying gradient’ alone, in similar way to H 14 ‘attribute randomize’ but user has to type the name of modified attribute, (instead of ICE's plain plug-in), while input field of modified parameter is still alive, but does nothing. Maybe I'll find a way for disabling by using expression or something.
In short, I think there's some kind of too early pushing the user into ‘analytic mode’.
Regarding Indie license, very personally I'm more around assets for others, hard surface modeling or animation. However I'd believe majority of people are around rendering, where Mantra is, imho, really nice baby, but in category of CPU path-tracers. One would like Octane, V-Ray's interpolated GI, what not.
SI Users » Compounding in Houdini?
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MartybNzOf course it is not only that, this is only a not so good metaphor. First reason is Indie license, which effectively disables around 4/5 of possible work. Second is not enough of confidence, which is nothing unexpected. Felt enough confident with Softimage after let's say two years. Now is only one year of H, while I'm learning Maya, too.amm
Just to make clear, I really like Houdini for home, evening experiments, ICE uniformity become somehow boring through the years - but, that constant ‘diving’, plus compositing app node style (no any modern 3 app looks like this) are parameters that rounds my willing force to zero, to use H for anything with deadline - while ICE can go.
To clarify are there other reasons too to not use H for serious work? Just want to be sure that these issues are the major reasons.
Thanks!
Third is, that these days, work of one man band, or small studio, already is described by something like Max - or more correctly, it is ‘formed’ by Max and similar apps (where I feel familiar, already) - so even Softimage and especially ICE, represent a huge overload of abstractions. A lot of comments about ICE, by ‘small people’, on SI forums, actually were negative. I think it was a small exodus in ‘back to Lightwave and Modo’ direction, when ICE was introduced. Perhaps some my ICE stuff holds the record , of several pages in one day on old XSI Base, full of negative comments about been too technical. Now, when happened what happened, ICE is all good.
However that ‘compounding’ question, this is where I am, very personally, sensitive as an author of some ICE stuff, mainly used by small shops and individuals ( but not only them ). Where development was a sequence of simplifications, but at one point, finally got a few of artistic souls. able to promote it by their really attractive work. Or, people just figured out that there is no other choice , who knows.
So, from that, always amazingly interesting point of view, of ‘encounter of cultures’ (programmer and artist, here) , I'd believe any as much clear message is important - against somehow typical bombarding with all possible options. Perhaps it's not that much about combining the VOP and SOP context - ICE tree from link, full of switchers, is mine, ‘my artist’ won't go with all that. But, abstraction of creating an attribute in advance, while overridden parameter, somewhere later n network is not even greyed out - this is really unpleasant part.
Also, any as much simplified, streamlined default of saving and installing HDA's is welcome, while actual state is good enough, imho.
Anyway I hope I'll have some exact, finished ‘product’ to share (small hair system), the end of this year, so let's wait and see.
thank you for reading a long story
SI Users » Compounding in Houdini?
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jeffammprobiner
But how to get a SubNet node to expose the parameters?
If you mean ICE style ports, or something like this [knowledge.autodesk.com]. There is no such functionality in H. Generally you can imagine SOP nodes as separate ICE trees, so communication is limited to processing the previous result, saved attribute or expression, and that's it. Inside custom Attribute VOP (or old VOPSOP), there is some sort of ‘compounding’ - but user have to dive in, also only one ‘turn’ is allowed, no way to ‘set and get’ data like in ICE.
Bummer, but well, that's what we have to accept in H life.
?
Something like pic, obviously is not possible in H, while in ICE it is possible [matkovic.com] to have a mix of what's in H called SOP, together with all sorts of math or any else nodes, all that nicely exposed in one ICE tree, without writing a single letter of expression. Or, to ask from opposite side, why loop nodes in H 15 are ‘flattened out’, if everything is already presented in best way.
Just to make clear, I really like Houdini for home, evening experiments, ICE uniformity become somehow boring through the years - but, that constant ‘diving’, plus compositing app node style (no any modern 3 app looks like this) are parameters that rounds my willing force to zero, to use H for anything with deadline - while ICE can go. I'm afraid I'm not alone with such stance.
I do not have ‘my artists’, I am 3d artist.
Regarding 25 years of research, I just only hope, that there is no some stronger team around, who will need one or two years, to prove exactly opposite.
My apologies if I said something inappropriate.
SI Users » Compounding in Houdini?
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probiner
But how to get a SubNet node to expose the parameters?
If you mean ICE style ports, or something like this [knowledge.autodesk.com]. There is no such functionality in H. Generally you can imagine SOP nodes as separate ICE trees, so communication is limited to processing the previous result, saved attribute or expression, and that's it. Inside custom Attribute VOP (or old VOPSOP), there is some sort of ‘compounding’ - but user have to dive in, also only one ‘turn’ is allowed, no way to ‘set and get’ data like in ICE.
Bummer, but well, that's what we have to accept in H life.
SI Users » nurbs swap uv, nurbs invert normals, invert nurbs curve
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SI Users » nurbs swap uv, nurbs invert normals, invert nurbs curve
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Hello,
I hope I'm just unable to find appropriate SOPs. So how to do these actions, described in subject. For now I was able only to emulate swapping of UVs, by running a Carve and Skin SOP. But, how to inverse curve, or inverse normals of nurbs Surface ? By ‘inverse normals’, I of course meant something like skinning along inverted curves, not how tessellated mesh is displayed.
I hope I'm just unable to find appropriate SOPs. So how to do these actions, described in subject. For now I was able only to emulate swapping of UVs, by running a Carve and Skin SOP. But, how to inverse curve, or inverse normals of nurbs Surface ? By ‘inverse normals’, I of course meant something like skinning along inverted curves, not how tessellated mesh is displayed.
SI Users » Primitive attribute VOP and array
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mantragora
BTW. I didn't even used there vectors stored in array, because I don't see them used anywhere in attached image. It seems to just test array size, generate new array of numbers from 0-arraysize(), divides it and use it as U value. And that's it. No vector reading from original array.
Well, it is an array, you should believe me Exactly is an array of locations, (relative coordinate interplated between points), from there you'll get point position or any else existing attribute. I intentionally made a screenshot of tooltip. But yeah, because of node polymorphism, you know that there is an array, only by tooltip, or by red node if trying to drive the wrong context (similar to attribute class in H), or, by what is plugged into port - that ‘invisibility’ is not a nice point, imho.
Wouldn't hurt to see the extension of work on array nodes in H15, already started in H14. It's not only geo querry in ICE, able to process an array - it is also a bunch of curve creation nodes ( I mean, ‘virtual’ curve). Or, feeding a random array into ray direction of ICE raycast (H intersect), creates a sort of ambient occlusion effect. And so on.
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