Hi!

I've made this thin-film shader thingy, and would like to animate some parameters. However, if I keyframe any of the parameteres I would like to animate, nothing happens. Anyone have any clues what's going on? Thanks!

Here's the parameters I'd like to animate

Link if preview doesn't work: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0lme18n6kkr0avj/thinfilm%20parameters.JPG?dl=0 [www.dropbox.com]

Here's the HIP file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wc0evahhvwx54fq/SoapBubble.hipnc?dl=0 [www.dropbox.com]

Hello, parameter animation only functions on the top level of a material. Encapsulate your material network in a material builder vop, and place the animation on the builder vop level.

Alternatively, use animated geometry attributes or user properties.

Thank's a lot! I'll look in to this as soon as I'm able to

Ok this is starting to get confusing =S

If I go to the material palette, drag&drop a principled shader, double click that - I'm in the material context. Now the shader seems to consist of
“a compiled material builder with a principled shader inside it, and parameters connected to it”. Is that right? Am I understanding this right?

If I want to be able to animate any custom parameters; I have to place those parameters, together with the shader - inside a material builder node.. Right? Well, now I don't get any update in the viewport if I for example connect a parameter in to the basecolor and tweak that. Why is that? It works in render though…

And what's the SHOP context all about? I can't make a material builder - but I can make a material shader builder? And I can also make a matnet - which seems to place me in an shop/matnet context - where I can make more material builders?

I know it can be hard to answer all these questions on a forum, but if anyone could clarify some of it, or knows about any good sources for learning about this, I would really appreciate that.

Thanks

There's a good masterclass video from sidefx on the subject. Hope it helps.

https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/houdini-16-masterclass-custom-shading [www.sidefx.com]

Great, thanks! Will have a look at that class asap. Btw, is the shop context kind of replaced by the mat network? Is there a quick explanation why you would choose to make your material in the shop context instead of the mat?

johanbogeberg
Btw, is the shop context kind of replaced by the mat network? Is there a quick explanation why you would choose to make your material in the shop context instead of the mat?

Yes, the shop context is all but deprecated. Non-material shaders used to require a trip to shops, but now any shader type can be created as a vop as of 17. So, you never need to make a material in shop context, unless you have some legacy shop material you need to use, or are using a 3rd party renderer that is still shop based.

Thanks a lot for your input!

Let's see if I got this right..

Claim 1:
When developing and tuning a shader, it's quite convenient to do that in the mat context, specially with the ability to drag and drop nodes directly in the render view in order to see what's going on.

Claim 2:
When I'm done, it's smart to collapse everything down to a material builder, so that the shader will compile the first time I'm rendering, and therefore be quicker to render next time. Unfortunately I'm no longer able to drag and drop nodes in to the render view - but I'm able to animate all the parameters.

Claim 3:
No reason to dive into the shop network. Unless what you said.


Oh, and one last question. For now…
If I connect a custom color parameter, or a texture in to a principled shader's basecolor input, it would be handy to see this in the viewport as well. How would I do that?


Again, thanks a lot!