Hi, I am looking for a way to create smoothing groups in Houdini or anything which can accomplish what I am trying to do. What I am working on is a sword, where it goes from one side that needs to be flat, and move into the next side which should be smooth/rounded. Right now in “smooth shaded” mode it looks rounded across the whole shape and I would like to choose segments that are smooth…

Also, Is there a way to set the smoothing angle? I'm not sure if I'm clear enough on that question…I want to set the angle at which it creates a smooth edge…

Any tutorials or advice are much appreciated. Please keep in mind that I am very new to Houdini, so if you have an answer please be as detailed as possible. I've used other less-expensive modeling programs so I do have experience, but Houdini is very robust and it's hard to find the tools I'm looking for sometimes.

If the question is confusing at all I can upload some pictures of what I'm talking about from different angles. Thanks for your time!

It's always easier to figure it out when you provide pictures with descriptions and arrows and stuff…

On the Facet SOP, there's a parameter for the Cusp Angle. Note however that Houdini doesn't support vertex normals in general, so the Facet SOP will unique the points to give you a sharp edge.

Is your model poly or NURBS?

I'm going to leap and say NURBS… since you say it is rounded in shaded mode. By default the display perference for level of detail is 1, so a NURBS surface will be “smooth”. If it was polys as Edward points out then the facetSOP is one way to get it sharper.

If you want to continue with NURBS then you can add point weights to the CVs on the edge of your sword.

or add more geometry to “tighten” it up

good luck
-k