Hi,

I'm trying to do a bit of modelling and need an image plane. How is this done in Houdini?

Cheers
Henster

Hi,

The way I do it in Houdini is by creating a separate Geometry Object (so that I can toggle between showing the world or the current object only – spacebar + e). Inside that specific Geometry Object, I create a simple grid plane. In this grid plane, append a UVTexture SOP to create the UV coordinate. Afterward, append a Shader SOP.

Now, go to the SHOP network and put down a VEX Plastic Shader or VEX Decal shader (You may prefer to use the latter one) and apply your texture map. In any of the VEX shader, go to the “OpenGL” tab, You should see something like “Texture Map” and “Alpha” somewhere in there. Play with these. The OpenGL tab here will often control what you see in your viewport. However, any changes made to your OpenGL tab WILL NOT be rendered at render time.

After you've done this, go back to your Shader SOP again and apply this particular shader and voila. (Use regular smooth shading will do. Don't go to VEX Shading in your viewport unless you have reason to)

The UV Texture SOP can be use to control the orientation of your texture display.

Hope this helped.
Alex

Why not just use viewport background images?

There is a great vid tutorial that outlines the viewport background method.

http://www.vislab.usyd.edu.au/sidefx/houdini_video/video_data/real/modeling/rocketship_01.rm [vislab.usyd.edu.au]
http://www.vislab.usyd.edu.au/sidefx/houdini_video/video_data/divx/modeling/rocketship_01.avi [vislab.usyd.edu.au]

By the way, is there no longer a proper index page for the new tutorilas site?

Shannon, you mean this?
http://www.vislab.usyd.edu.au/sidefx/houdini_video/index.html [vislab.usyd.edu.au]

or this

http://www.vislab.usyd.edu.au/sidefx/houdini_video/by_topic/modeling/index.html [vislab.usyd.edu.au]

the Val's Shoe videos use background images as well.

Yup, those are the pages I'm familiar with. However, I don't believe that the community site links to anything but the directories. Check it out.