sascha I need VEX shader which parses a bitmap texture pixel by pixel to asign a different pixel color value to each particle id. Or can I get the same effect with a bitmap input through another method?
It really depends what you want to do. As always a little more information is helpful.
There's usually more thatn a couple of different ways to do things in Houdini.
Yeah, i know it sounds crazy. I was having some issues with scrubbing geometry in SOPs. Essentially just a file in reading bgeos from disk.
It seems, by default, Houdini would set a display flag in a COPnet after a file load even if you unchecked it before a save. And despite being set not to cook COPs on first load, scrubbing would be tedious.
However going into COPs un unchecking the display flag would cure things.
Now I don't know the under the hood stuff, but it's a fairly compelling argument. It's something that I get consitently.
It could well be a win2k issue. We don't have Linux here so I can't test. I might try getting a dual boot going at home to see if I can get it to replicate there, but there it's winXP. Worth a go i guess.
I was talking to Jenny at SESI and she said they didn't have a win2k system so I'm thinking I mif=ght be stuck with this for a bit.
Ok, maybe I over-reacted. I get a little protective, when you wade in here with barely a handfull of posts to your name telling oldtimers their comments are ourageous. do you realise how arrogant that looks?
Anyway, a lot of the tools/functionality you mention are already there. It does help to know your way around Houdini (no dig intended). Sure, I can see when you come from other packages it all looks and feels a bit arse about tit. It's never been the easiest package to get into when you come from a standard GUI. But patience pays.
Houdini is in fact a very strong and robust modeller. Perhaps a little awkward to newcomers, and its poly tool set has limitations but it has a power and flexibility unparalleled anywhere as an overall package.
It is a tricky thing to get a balance between the nodeless freedom of modelling in say Maya, and yet retain the procedural paradigm. It is altogether a different way of working.
When processing geometry sequences, that come from other packages, for effects it's great to be able to edit the geometry to better do the effects and have that just trickle down the pipe.
Honestly, if modelling is an issue to folk, they do it in what they know best, be it Zbrush, Mirai, Max, or whatever. Sure it's nice to have all the best tools from all the packages all bundled up in houdini. I can think of a few I've seen in XSI.
Perhaps a return of the model SOP would be an answer to this, but I don't know if that requires a re-write of the code and how like ly that'll be.
I've been of the mailing list a while so I guess i'm not up to date there, but I've been keeping bang up to date on the builds, and I'm still finding COPs to be problematic. I'm using win2k, so that perhaps doesn't help.
But I'm experiencing issues that seem to indicate that COPs when I'm in SOPs.
The display flag is left on, and COPs aren't being referenced anywhere. Unchecking the display flag will return Houdini to operating at full speed.
Welcome to the Forum, Fresh Apprentice User There.
Hope you come to enjoy it for the fun factory it is.
Anyway, you can use a point SOP and a point expression to take the normalised difference between point 0 and 1 to give you the normal. Attribute transfer should do the rest, or again you could use the point SOP and an expression to reference the points from the copy SOP.
hmm there doesn't seem to be a solution to that as far as i can see. you could do it manually with the transform jack disconnected, but that's not ideal. you'd need to align the construction plane to the polyface and then orient the transform handles. it's a PITA i know. I'm sure SESI will get round to making it better.
emcjagger This does speed things up wonderfully, but, since I'm using Apprentice, the saved image has to be small and watermarked. Is there a way to do a “static cop net cache” type thing without saving an external image?
I think you're SOL.
However, if your image data doesn't change, then instead of saving out, try a screen grab and use that. The only way to get around COPs slowdown is to really not use it. I find there's just something plain wrong with it.
Ah Reggie. Your soapbox is a little creaky. Please spend a little more time playing with it before you start asking SESI to turn Houdini into a 3DsMaya-like.
It's a fundamentally different paradigm and there's plenty of folk out here in the 3d badlands that have no issue with it. It's perhaps your lack of experince in the package that is the root of your frustrations.
And whilst you may be an expert modeller, perhaps we may be allowed to do things our way, instead of yours. crazy idea i know!
What you see as a drawback is seen as others as an advantage. You say it ain't so, but once you've spent more than 5 minutes in front of it you just might begin to see.
Le_monkey_butt For those who would like to have a simple introduction to the HDK, I retrieved the presentation done by this SESI's guy last year. I post it on the exchange. Enjoy.
Hey Mr butt monkey
I tried to read it, but it made no sense. You french or something? Or you been eating too many nuts?
Take the chrome ball image and project it on to a sphere and unwrap it.
It'll distort like heck on the edges, but you can clean that up with a bit of photoshop work.
I can't remeber whether reflection mapping uses polar or cylindrical mapping. maybe tinket with that to find out. that way you can make sure you unwrap correctly.
that'll give you a flat image that you can use as a reflection map. I'mn not sure it matters if it's 4:3. unwrapping it to a square map should be fine.
It's also worth checking out Dell outlet. They do a bunch of ex-lease equipment for cheap. Might be some bargains there, but sometimes the choie is limited.
As for the exploding batteries, I think it was due to a bad batch made by Sony. If you bought no I'm sure it'd be a good un.