So.. lets say that you needed to design some textures procedurally in Houdini…
Where does one do this today?
Would you:
1) Got to VOPs and create attributes like color etc.
2) Go go COPS and do it there?
3) Do it in Material editor with the nodes there?
4) Do it in Material X editor?
Seems like it would be great to have all of this in one stop shop, but curious what you use and when?
Where do I design materials-textures in Houdini?
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- LukeP
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- freshbaked
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1) Attributes are stored on geometry components so you'd need really high resolution meshes to achieve a high level of detail in the patterns. This approach is nice for simple things like animating masks to mix between textures / shaders where detail isn't a huge issue. Plus the attributes can be exported with the geo for use in other apps. Like if you're shading/rendering in Katana.
2) COPs would be good if you actually need to write out your textures to images for use in other applications as you're working on pixels here. Not sure how the capabilites compare to something like Substance Designer though.
3) Sure. This is where you build shaders so you could design a shader completely procedurally if you want. Or use a combo of texture maps, geometry attributes, and shader nodes. You could bake out texture maps from here if you wanted.
4) Same as #3 but with MaterialX nodes (if you want to export your shader to other apps that supports MtlX)
So it really depends what you want to do, having "all of this in a one stop shop" doesn't really make sense.
Hope that helps.
2) COPs would be good if you actually need to write out your textures to images for use in other applications as you're working on pixels here. Not sure how the capabilites compare to something like Substance Designer though.
3) Sure. This is where you build shaders so you could design a shader completely procedurally if you want. Or use a combo of texture maps, geometry attributes, and shader nodes. You could bake out texture maps from here if you wanted.
4) Same as #3 but with MaterialX nodes (if you want to export your shader to other apps that supports MtlX)
So it really depends what you want to do, having "all of this in a one stop shop" doesn't really make sense.
Hope that helps.
Edited by freshbaked - Feb. 25, 2023 11:28:31
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- LukeP
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- Digipiction
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I'm currently doing a bunch of procedural shading and am doing it all in attributes on very high resolution geometry. This works surprisingly well, with immediate feedback in the viewport and the ability to use all the standard SOP based workflows. Afterwards, I polyreduce and use the Labs map baker to bake texture maps for use with Redshift.
My main issue with this technique is that it takes a while to process the geometry before and after, i.e. the initial remeshing and the final poly reduction.
Overall, I'm quite happy with it though, especially because it allows me to easily reuse setups without any manual texture painting required.
My main issue with this technique is that it takes a while to process the geometry before and after, i.e. the initial remeshing and the final poly reduction.
Overall, I'm quite happy with it though, especially because it allows me to easily reuse setups without any manual texture painting required.
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