Hi,
I'm new to Houdini and am already stuck. My problem is that I don't find out how to texture models from modellibraries imported into Houdini in obj format. Included in the obj format are polygon groups an the uv's are already layed out. If I import them for example in 3ds Max I can select the polygon groups by material id and just apply textures. I went through a bunsh of tutorials and am trying now for days to find out how this might work in Houdini but without success.

Attached is a small model of a palmtree which took about 5 miutes to texture in Max.

Thanks in advance for helping.

Hi ..
Inside the geom node ..u can layout a material node…and there would be a material groups u can select and give a path to shader u want to apply to that material group….u can keep adding multiple tabs on material nodes to assign in to different groups in poly …
I hope it helps

thanks !!

A question about the material ID's. Is the originating geometry an obj file or a Max geometry file, or something else? The material id's are not present on the obj file when I import in to Houdini.

The obj comes in with N and uv attributes but no groups.

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Here's one way to just plow along. The goal as mentioned above is to create groups of geometry then use a Material SOP to assign some materials to each group.

in SOPs, Tab Group and start selecting the least populous parts: the stems.

Turn on select connected primitives by either tapping 0 while in select mode or rmb on the Geometry Select Mode button in the upper right of the viewport.

Now select one prim on each stem and the entire stem should select. Hold down Ctrl-Shift and continue adding more stems to the selection. Enter when done.

After you have put all the stems in to a group, use a Blast SOP to delete non-selected on that group to see if you were successful. Pull of to the side and put down another Group and select the base.

In that second group SOP, you can create the leaf group. Go to the Combine Tab and create a new group called leaves, press the != not button and select the stems and base groups.

Now you have three groups to assign materials to with a Material SOP.
Create three Mantra Surface shaders, one for stems, base and leaves. Assign your texture maps.

In the Material SOP create three material shading operations andselect the geometry group and the associated material for each layer.

It took me about 5 minutes to get to the state of the scene file attached.