hi all, is there any way to force polybevel to
accept an edge ‘group’ based on the angle between
adjacent faces? trying to procedurally polybevel
edges seems very difficult. Also I'm having trouble
with the lack of output groups from polybevel
(like those from polyextrude), are there workarounds
to this?

-cpb

You raise two good RFE's (Requests for Enhancement).

Add Support for Edges as a primitive type in SOPs
The problem is that Houdini currently doesn't support edges as a primitive type. This means the Group SOP can only spit out point and primitive groups, not the edge groups that you need.
The PolyBevel can take primitive groups but then the PolyBevel will bevel all edges of the poly faces.

PolyBevel to output what? Edge groups of course!
That is why the PolyBevel doesn't have group support IMHO. You want edges, not points or primitives.
Subsequent PolyBevels can't take point groups and that is where it falls over.

I will submit these if they haven't been submitted already.

It would be nice to have proceduralism around the PolyBevel.


-jeff

Yup, been asking for group sops to support edges for years. It seems so weird to me that in such a procedural package you would have sops that need input types that can't be created procedurally…. doesn't make sense.

I know this is an ancient post, but the problem of procedurally dealing with edges is still a pain. Or am I missing something?

Nope, it's still a big gaping hole in SOP functionality.

After digging around on the forums, I ran into a way to procedurally select edges and then PolyBevel them. Check out the attached hip, it works pretty well.

The process I used goes something like this:
> Group: Select primitives to bevel
>> Crease: To use group of prims, change Operation to “Set”). Or just keep all settings at default if you have no groups.
>>> Subdivide: Turn on “Generate Resulting Creases”
>>>> PolyBevel: use group “creases” made from Subdivide

The big downsides to this approach is when using points to select nearest primitives. The result bevels all sides of connecting primitives versus, just the point path that you may have wanted.

Unless I'm missing something, it would be very very nice to see extensive edge support built into the Group SOP.

I second the request for edge groups throughout Houdini. It seems like it might be quite involved for the developers, so I will hope for this in H10.

any news?
using 3dsmax or older versions of Houdini to do procedural corner-edge bevels is really cramping my style. :cry: