I have a simple setup where I am using a copy to points node and assigning a random texture to the copies.

The only way I have found to get the texture to update in the viewport is to apply the random texture in the material override.

I would really like to be able to manipulate the texture selection in VOPS using by defining the basecolor_texture string. However this only seems to be visible when rendering. The viewport defaults to the texture which is defined in the material. I need to see how textures are working without doing a software render every step.

Is there a setting or process I can use to enable or force the viewport to show the correct textures - the ones that render?

thanks in advance
Jeff

The process available is the one you've already described - apply the random texture as a material override.

The viewport does not evaluate VOP networks, as this would be tremendously expensive in terms of updates and redraws. If you need to see the result of a VOP network as a material, the Render View is what is generally used. Edit: or the render region in the 3D viewport.

thank you for the confirmation

one more question/clarification, so is there no way to pull the string (or file number integer) produced by vops into the material override?

I am kind of new to Houdini and still struggling with the different contexts and which nodes can use which variables - $ vs @, etc

you can put an integer attribute into a path using the vex function sprintf()

for example in a wrangle:

s@diff_path = sprintf(“/my_diff_texture.%d.rat”,i@index);