Nicolas Heluani
Sept. 17, 2016 08:30:03
I am almost ashamed to ask this but I cannot seem to find how to override display options in houdini.
Basically I want to display a few object as wireframe in the viewport.
This is , a very common task in any other 3D apps I worked with but I cannot seem to find a way to do it.
tony_a
Sept. 20, 2016 12:07:14
There's probably a better way, but I usually just go inside the objects I want to be wireframe, put down a primitive sop, then go to the Face/Hull tab and set Close U to unroll.
Nicolas Heluani
Sept. 20, 2016 12:27:32
In light of no other way I will start doing the same…but I may put a request feature for this one after all is so useful for optimizing the scene when you are focusing in one single mesh.
Nicolas Heluani
Sept. 22, 2016 17:09:59
To whom it may help apparently I overlooked that you can effectively override display options for specific elements and selection on a scene under the display option marker tab There you can set display options for Scene Geometry, selected Scene geometry, current model geometry, etc. Is not the same but it works for my objective.
dansidi
May 24, 2018 07:36:09
Nicolas Heluani
To whom it may help apparently I overlooked that you can effectively override display options for specific elements and selection on a scene under the display option marker tab There you can set display options for Scene Geometry, selected Scene geometry, current model geometry, etc. Is not the same but it works for my objective.
Hi Nic,
Where can I find that
display option marker tab thing?
Thanks!
Nicolas Heluani
May 27, 2018 13:34:45
dansidi
Nicolas Heluani
To whom it may help apparently I overlooked that you can effectively override display options for specific elements and selection on a scene under the display option marker tab There you can set display options for Scene Geometry, selected Scene geometry, current model geometry, etc. Is not the same but it works for my objective.
Hi Nic,
Where can I find that display option marker tab thing?
Thanks!
This was so long ago I think I was refering to the marker tab on the display options of the viewport (pressing d on a viewport) the options there were of help to me.
Luke Letellier
Dec. 17, 2018 20:46:01
Thank you Tony_A for your answer two years ago.
jsmack
Dec. 18, 2018 01:52:23
Add the detail attribute ‘gl_wireframe’ with a detail wrangle:
julca
Dec. 18, 2018 03:29:59
jsmack
Add the detail attribute ‘gl_wireframe’ with a detail wrangle:
Thank you for the tip !
Please is there a parameter to always display object as textured/shaded ?
jsmack
Dec. 18, 2018 04:30:41
You mean to override the display mode for a specific mesh when the pane's display mode is wireframe? That you cannot do because the the wireframe mode draws the geometry differently, there would be no way to render specific elements shaded. Only in a full-draw shaded mode can some elements be forced as wireframes, (or converted geometrically to open lines.)
julca
Dec. 18, 2018 09:15:00
Ok, it's too bad but thank you for your response.
papsphilip
Sept. 4, 2019 17:03:49
jsmack
i@gl_wireframe = 1;
Nice!what about other display modes? where can are these attributes listed in the documentation?
malexander
Sept. 4, 2019 17:11:54
They're documented in model/attributes, under Viewport display attributes. There are four:
- gl_wireframe - force wireframe (1) or shaded (-1)
- gl_lit - draw with lighting (1) or no lighting (0)
- gl_showallpoints - draw points even if connected to geometry
- vm_cuspangle - angle in degrees for generating cusped normals
jsmack
Sept. 4, 2019 18:35:40
twod
They're documented in model/attributes, under Viewport display attributes. There are four:
- gl_wireframe - force wireframe (1) or shaded (-1)
- gl_lit - draw with lighting (1) or no lighting (0)
- gl_showallpoints - draw points even if connected to geometry
- vm_cuspangle - angle in degrees for generating cusped normals
The first tab of the visualize sop can set some or all of these too, for more of a ‘user-friendly’ method.
julca
March 19, 2020 11:04:33
twod
They're documented in model/attributes, under Viewport display attributes. There are four:
- gl_wireframe - force wireframe (1) or shaded (-1)
- gl_lit - draw with lighting (1) or no lighting (0)
- gl_showallpoints - draw points even if connected to geometry
- vm_cuspangle - angle in degrees for generating cusped normals
That's fantastic !!!

The ability to set some shaded (and textured !!) mesh while other are wireframe are super méga usefull !
smbell
Sept. 16, 2025 21:32:13
Anyone know how to do this with the new Vulkan viewport. These seem to not work anymore.
CYTE
Sept. 17, 2025 02:19:09
What do you need that the Visualize Properties node can't do?
Cheers
CYTE
toonafish
Sept. 21, 2025 10:22:41
Is there any way to adjust the settings of the "visualize" SOP of multiple objects simultaneously ?
Nicolas Heluani
Sept. 22, 2025 00:38:30
You could merge a bunch of objects and change the visualize there....does this helps achieve what you want?
toonafish
Sept. 22, 2025 04:09:05
Nicolas Heluani
You could merge a bunch of objects and change the visualize there....does this helps achieve what you want?
Thanks, I was afraid of that.
Wonder why only display settings like "bounding box" or "point cloud" are available at Geo level, and not all other display settings. What a huge timesaver that would be...