Found 340 posts.
Search results Show results as topic list.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Why is the UV not aligned correctly?
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
UV texture is a useful node if one is starting with something like a line. I find it fairly limited for most models, as there are only 10 options, and most models won't fit one of these unless they are very simple. (Add caps to your tube, for instance, and it will not give you a good map). For models and primitives, I would start with a UV flatten node. (This is very similar to two of the best UV unwrapping programs in the market: Rizome UV and 3DCoat.) Click the "seams" and make edge selections/loops. It is more versatile and generally a better starting point. In your case, just click one of the vertical edges as a seam. You will get a perfect rectangular UV map. You can add a UV layout, uv transform, or UV edit node afterwards to scale this.
Edited by Island - Jan. 9, 2022 17:10:35
Houdini Learning Materials » material layer masking and compositing
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
Could anyone point me to a good tutorial that covers material layer masking and compositing? see https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/82434/?page=1#post-354363 [www.sidefx.com] for the issue. One thing I cannot figure out is how to add a normal texture to a shader by connecting nodes. (I know how to do it by clicking on the bump/normal tab of the shader itself and selecting a texture, but that does not allow masking). My only workaround is to create a black and white jpg mask and then connect it via a convert to the normal scale node (see attachment). The actual normal texture is defined in the principle shader itself, not by nodes. It seems a cludge.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Edited by Island - Jan. 9, 2022 19:16:27
Technical Discussion » Increase null display size?
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
You can change the null's properties under misc to increase size and even make it solid:
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Shader Question and Request for Split Poly update
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
For practice, I started to model a Roland RE-201 device that was used as a starting point for Richard Yot's Modo Shader Tutorial. Although Richard Yot's tutorial has an untextured Modo scene file as a starting point, I decided to completely rebuild the model and UV maps myself in Houdini (and build a studio setup and lights) and then see if I could replicate some of the steps he uses in Modo's layer based system in Modo.
As I have found before, modeling in Houdini is really not that much more difficult than modeling in Modo and sometimes easier. The action centers, falloffs, knife tool are hard to find an equivalent in Houdini, but there are no show stoppers. One thing that is much more useful in Modo is the symmetry mode for edge loop cuts. Houdini, like Blender, only allows either one loop cut or evenly spaced multiple cuts on an edge. In hard surface modeling, one frequently wants to do symmetric cuts and not do the math for a 10% cut on one edge and then a 10/9*10% cut on the remaining edge. See attached movie for how Modo's system works: https://vimeo.com/663805858. [vimeo.com] It would be very helpful in someone would make an HDA/otl to solve this common issue.
The second issue is how to best handle the nodes for materials in Houdini. Is it better to start with adding nodes directly into the mat network, or add a material builder node, or dive into a principled shader to do complicated shader work? Is there a good tutorial on layer masking or compositing in materials? I would like to avoid having to set a polygon group, as some of the masking will be unrelated to different polygons.
As I have found before, modeling in Houdini is really not that much more difficult than modeling in Modo and sometimes easier. The action centers, falloffs, knife tool are hard to find an equivalent in Houdini, but there are no show stoppers. One thing that is much more useful in Modo is the symmetry mode for edge loop cuts. Houdini, like Blender, only allows either one loop cut or evenly spaced multiple cuts on an edge. In hard surface modeling, one frequently wants to do symmetric cuts and not do the math for a 10% cut on one edge and then a 10/9*10% cut on the remaining edge. See attached movie for how Modo's system works: https://vimeo.com/663805858. [vimeo.com] It would be very helpful in someone would make an HDA/otl to solve this common issue.
The second issue is how to best handle the nodes for materials in Houdini. Is it better to start with adding nodes directly into the mat network, or add a material builder node, or dive into a principled shader to do complicated shader work? Is there a good tutorial on layer masking or compositing in materials? I would like to avoid having to set a polygon group, as some of the masking will be unrelated to different polygons.
Edited by Island - Jan. 14, 2022 17:36:10
Houdini Lounge » Octane on Houdini 19 OSX
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
3Dlight works fine on my computer but really isn't any faster than Mantra when the scene gets complex. It has a nice car paint shader but I don't see any major advantage over what is built in to Houdini. Regarding Octane: I have gotten replies from Otoy and the standalone version does work with Monterey on my computer. However the Houdini plugin not only is not certified under Moneterey and is only in development for Big Sur but also is set up for Houdini version 18.0-18.5 (three different directories). Probably I should give Redshift a try, but I've given Maxon more money than they deserve.
Houdini Lounge » Octane on Houdini 19 OSX
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
Yes, the problem appears to be octane and Monterey. Otoy has pulled the Houdini plug-in download. The standalone version of octane crashed 12.01 but appears to be quick and stable in 12.1. The enterprise version did not come with the demo scenes that are in the standard version, but it was quick and painless to create my own scene with lights and materials. That worked. Unfortunately the production build of Houdini was fine in 12.01 but glacially slow in 12.1, but that appears to be fixed in the daily build. At least for me, this is not a file permission or graphics card issue. I do like not having to rebuild shaders and lights when I use engines other than Mantra or Karma, but that isn't a huge issue.
Edited by Island - Jan. 6, 2022 15:52:56
Houdini Lounge » Octane on Houdini 19 OSX
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
Exports to Blender or Modo work well, as does tolerating the slowness of Mantra. I was hoping for a workable GPU rendering option within Houdini though.
Houdini Lounge » Octane on Houdini 19 OSX
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
Unfortunately the otoy forums do not allow posts outside the demo forum. I signed up for the paid version but get one year free for a Mac Pro, but that apparently does not count. The posts on the forum are fairly old and the replies are "we are working on it". I've submitted a bug report but got a reply that gives broken links. The standalone version does work and is fast, but it adds complexity to work outside of Houdini.
Mantra is beautiful and powerful but a little slow. Karma is a bit buggy. 3Dlight is pretty good, but really not faster (and is a CPU rendering engine) when one has equivalent render settings and not as powerful as Mantra (but at least uses mild tweaks to Houdini lights). It is hard to match materials in 3Dlight to Mantra's, unlike Arnold which is almost identical for the same settings. Arnold has nice renders and is a bit faster, but requires recreating lights and materials, is limited to production builds of Houdini (and specific to the build) and has a few minor issues of requiring materials to be added before not after merge nodes to avoid render glitches. I haven't tried Redshift, but don't mind paying for a GPU rendering engine if it is both fast and stable.
Mantra is beautiful and powerful but a little slow. Karma is a bit buggy. 3Dlight is pretty good, but really not faster (and is a CPU rendering engine) when one has equivalent render settings and not as powerful as Mantra (but at least uses mild tweaks to Houdini lights). It is hard to match materials in 3Dlight to Mantra's, unlike Arnold which is almost identical for the same settings. Arnold has nice renders and is a bit faster, but requires recreating lights and materials, is limited to production builds of Houdini (and specific to the build) and has a few minor issues of requiring materials to be added before not after merge nodes to avoid render glitches. I haven't tried Redshift, but don't mind paying for a GPU rendering engine if it is both fast and stable.
Edited by Island - Jan. 15, 2022 20:05:26
Houdini Lounge » Octane on Houdini 19 OSX
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
Has anyone gotten Octane to work with Houdini 19 on OSX 12.01? I get crashes even with loading their demo scenes and consistent crashes with trying to use it in Houdini. At least on my Mac Pro, it doesn't seem ready for prime time.
Technical Discussion » Has anyone gotten the Exoside Quad Remesher to work?
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
It works for me, but I have the paid version. Answers from Exoside are very problematic, unfortunately. But it is a good plugin.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » How to slide a vertex or edge in houdini?
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
When you select points or edges and then click the move tool, it will create an edit node. One of the options on parameters is "slide on surface".
Edited by Island - Dec. 31, 2021 17:41:58
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Importing animated FBX scenes from Maya to Houdini
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
Did you try to bake the FBX prior to export? The animation should be ok with importing in Houdini, and you don't need to look at all the nodes if you don't want to. Just put them in a subnet (see attached file).
Just to make sure your issue is with Houdini rather than Maya, you might want to try downloading the free ancient warrior fbx from turbo squid (https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-free-ancient-warriors-model-1774517). There are a couple minor tweaks to this in Houdini to get it to work right, but the animation from fbx comes over fine (Mantra jpg sequence compiled in Davinci Resolve): https://vimeo.com/661370666 [vimeo.com] . The results are similar to that in Blender and Modo: https://vimeo.com/661535519 [vimeo.com] and https://vimeo.com/661653390 [vimeo.com] .
Personally, I would construct the lego set in Houdini. It is much easier than in Maya, as you can use procedural modeling to your advantage. Moving the render into Houdini does not make a lot of sense, unless you want to use liquids, particles, etc. Mantra will be very slow for you, compared to Arnold. If you want to see speed differences, render the demo warrior fbx in Houdini Mantra, Blender Eevee, and Arnold and you will see what I mean. Even 3dlight will be slow compared with Eevee or Arnold. Mantra is very stable and can use point colors, attributes, and other Houdini specific features but for your needs, I don't see any advantage. So I would model in Houdini and consider rendering in something else, rather than the other way around.
Note that Houdini is very particular about pointers to referenced textures and objects, so whatever is built into the fbx will likely require changing the location reference in Houdini. It is often easier to just create a few principled shaders in Houdini and relink to the texture images and then assign these materials to various groups or objects rather than try to fix all the mismatched file references.
Just to make sure your issue is with Houdini rather than Maya, you might want to try downloading the free ancient warrior fbx from turbo squid (https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-free-ancient-warriors-model-1774517). There are a couple minor tweaks to this in Houdini to get it to work right, but the animation from fbx comes over fine (Mantra jpg sequence compiled in Davinci Resolve): https://vimeo.com/661370666 [vimeo.com] . The results are similar to that in Blender and Modo: https://vimeo.com/661535519 [vimeo.com] and https://vimeo.com/661653390 [vimeo.com] .
Personally, I would construct the lego set in Houdini. It is much easier than in Maya, as you can use procedural modeling to your advantage. Moving the render into Houdini does not make a lot of sense, unless you want to use liquids, particles, etc. Mantra will be very slow for you, compared to Arnold. If you want to see speed differences, render the demo warrior fbx in Houdini Mantra, Blender Eevee, and Arnold and you will see what I mean. Even 3dlight will be slow compared with Eevee or Arnold. Mantra is very stable and can use point colors, attributes, and other Houdini specific features but for your needs, I don't see any advantage. So I would model in Houdini and consider rendering in something else, rather than the other way around.
Note that Houdini is very particular about pointers to referenced textures and objects, so whatever is built into the fbx will likely require changing the location reference in Houdini. It is often easier to just create a few principled shaders in Houdini and relink to the texture images and then assign these materials to various groups or objects rather than try to fix all the mismatched file references.
Edited by Island - Jan. 1, 2022 18:45:23
Work in Progress » Motorcycle WIP
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
Here is the finished model, but I didn't spend anytime on texturing (Mari/substance painter etc.) nor even in UV mapping. I didn't try to fix modeling nodes to make it more procedural, but it turned out ok. The zip file is attached if anyone is curious.
The reference image can be found at https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/1929-INDIAN-401-MOTORCYCLE-178592 [www.barrett-jackson.com]
The reference image can be found at https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/1929-INDIAN-401-MOTORCYCLE-178592 [www.barrett-jackson.com]
Edited by Island - Jan. 3, 2022 20:10:13
Work in Progress » Motorcycle WIP
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
One major thing that could improved in Houdini is the poly split node. If one invokes the loop cut and wants to make symmetric cuts, one has to do some math. For example, a tube cut at 90% at the top and bottom requires a 90% cut and then a 81% cut, since the edge is shortened by the first cut. There should be a symmetric option. Also when one wants to make several edge loops cuts at once, there is no way to do this. Both these features could be fixed by an updated node or hda. It is only a small issue but nonetheless, annoying.
It would also be helpful to have a snapping feature when one is using the apostrophe key to move the construction center of a model away from the origin. Usually one would want to snap to the orientation of a point, polygon, or model center to mimic a change in action center in Modo.
For those unaware of the Soft Boolean plugin for Houdini, here is an example that is just as good as MeshFusion, in my opinion.
I will post hip file when done if ok with creator of soft Boolean plugin. Richard Yot gave permission to include his methods translated to Houdini in the file.
It would also be helpful to have a snapping feature when one is using the apostrophe key to move the construction center of a model away from the origin. Usually one would want to snap to the orientation of a point, polygon, or model center to mimic a change in action center in Modo.
For those unaware of the Soft Boolean plugin for Houdini, here is an example that is just as good as MeshFusion, in my opinion.
I will post hip file when done if ok with creator of soft Boolean plugin. Richard Yot gave permission to include his methods translated to Houdini in the file.
Edited by Island - Dec. 21, 2021 18:51:31
Work in Progress » Motorcycle WIP
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
I am following along Richard Yot's excellent tutorial on modeling in Modo, but altering the technique to recreate this in Houdini. I've used Alexey Vanzhula's soft boolean plugin for the extensive parts that used MeshFusion in Modo. Some things are actually much easier in Houdini while things like cuts and action center/falloffs are more difficult. Overall, there isn't really a huge benefit or decrement to using Houdini for modeling over Modo at least for this kind of work. I haven't done the engine (final part) yet, but so far, so good. This illustrates the point that one doesn't need another 3D app to do modeling if one is using Houdini. Attached is a wireframe and Mantra render.
Richard Yot uses extensive procedural modeling features in Modo and not surprisingly, these are much easier to do in Houdini (usually in several ways, unlike the limitations in Modo). Non linear procedural features in Modo are pretty unintuitive and one needs to hide a lot of construction steps to make the workspace half way interpretable. The falloffs in Modo are quicker, but an attribute wrangle with a ramp in Houdini is much more customizable. Symmetrical modeling is easier in Modo (edge loops, symmetrical features to edit, etc.). One can sometimes get around this with clip and mirror nodes in Houdini, but not when one only wants to perform symmetrical modeling of a particular feature. Overall, it is much easier to fix and adjust the model in Houdini. In Modo, one frequently needs to do mesh cleanup of errors generated in the procedural modeling.
Richard Yot uses extensive procedural modeling features in Modo and not surprisingly, these are much easier to do in Houdini (usually in several ways, unlike the limitations in Modo). Non linear procedural features in Modo are pretty unintuitive and one needs to hide a lot of construction steps to make the workspace half way interpretable. The falloffs in Modo are quicker, but an attribute wrangle with a ramp in Houdini is much more customizable. Symmetrical modeling is easier in Modo (edge loops, symmetrical features to edit, etc.). One can sometimes get around this with clip and mirror nodes in Houdini, but not when one only wants to perform symmetrical modeling of a particular feature. Overall, it is much easier to fix and adjust the model in Houdini. In Modo, one frequently needs to do mesh cleanup of errors generated in the procedural modeling.
Edited by Island - Dec. 15, 2021 00:19:01
Technical Discussion » putting an arrow at the end of a curve
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
Technical Discussion » putting an arrow at the end of a curve
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
I want to put an arrow at the end of a curve/sweep. I can't think of a way to just make sure the terminal point has a normal associated with it, so my only workaround is to clip the curve to create a very short segment near the end, copy to points and then delete one arrowhead. (see attachment). Is there a more elegant way to do this?
Technical Discussion » Polygon ring selection
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
Technical Discussion » Polygon ring selection
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
For over a year, clicking two adjacent polygons while holding the "A" key does not select a loop on OSX. It always just selects the polygons on the shortest path between the two polygons. According to https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/basics/select.html [www.sidefx.com] it is supposed to do a loop selection. Has anyone gotten this to work? I tried all the shift etc modifiers without success.
Edited by Island - Aug. 20, 2021 11:53:30
Houdini Lounge » Apple Silicon support?
- Island
- 340 posts
- Offline
Four repairs. My prior Apple computer died in three years.
Addendum: five repairs in a year. Apple broke a speaker replacing the logic board. Time to address crashing and defective board: one year.
Addendum: five repairs in a year. Apple broke a speaker replacing the logic board. Time to address crashing and defective board: one year.
Edited by Island - Aug. 3, 2021 17:21:46
-
- Quick Links