Hi all, i've used HDRShop and LightGen to generate a lighting setuo in Houdini. I having a bit of an issue understanding the quote below, havn't really used the textport and have no idea how to open the HScript though the textport.

Any help would be great.

Kind regards

JT


“Source the resulting file into HScript. It will add the lights to the scene description. It also generates a variable called ”lightgen_dimmer“ that can be used to dim all of the lights simultaneously”.

Not near Houdini at the moment, but one of the middle menus has “Textport” - select that and a textport will open. In that, type:

source myfilename

where “myfilename” is the complete path to, and the name of, the file that was created. It should create some stuff for you in your current session of Houdini. “hscript” is just the command line version of houdini - no interface - typically used for batch renderings and other things. You probably don't want to use this - strictly speaking that help message probably isn't really worded correctly, even though it's not wrong. You'll want to do this in your current Houdini session…

Cheers,

J.C.

Since Houdini 6.0, you can directly use HDRI maps in Mantra to do ambient occlusion. There's even a tutorial. Click on the question mark in the upper-right corner of the Houdini window to open up the help browser. Choose User Guide Contents, Lighting, Environmental Illumination.

PS. You can get pre-converted light probes in the Houdini .rat format at http://www.odforce.net/codex/tools.php?type=other [odforce.net]

hi all

bit of a general issue - i have noticed that bump/displacement textures go really flat when lit with GI (Ambient occlusion). Is this a known problem, and is there a solution? perhaps just exaggerate the displacement more than with normal lighting?

Hi J.C, thanks for the reply. I understand what your saying but I'm still having a few problems. The file created though HDRShop has no file extention! Dose Houdini need a file extention in order for it to read an HScript? If so, what should I add?

Thanks again,

JT

did you try it without adding an extension?

If that does not work, try ading .cmd to the file generated by lightgen and then source it via the textport.

Hi, I managed to get the lightgen file to source via the textport with the file extention, but when I drop my test object in (a sphere with a VEX decal shader) the object renders as pure white, theres no lighting effects! Very odd.

Sorry to keep bothering you!

Kind regards,

JT

as far as I remember, the script creates a dimmer variable which you can adjust in the aliases/variables dialog.