Does anybody have experience moving FormZ models to SideFX Houdini?

There are quite a few image file formats that the two applications have in common. Unfortunately none of them work successfully for me with I thought was a pretty simple object. In general, I can import that geometry in to Houdini, but then I get an message saying there was an error loading geometry.

I think I am doing thing correctly as I have been able to import 3D geometry from other sources.

I have also posted on the FormZ forum, but I figure I would also check here to see if anybody has luck doing this.

Windows 7 x64
FormZ 8.00
Houdini 14.291

from what I can tell in the docs 3ds files would be your best bet…
can you export something simple and upload it here for us to have a look at?

OK, I'll try that and report back.

Thanks.

Unfortunately, that does not work, it looks like Houdini (14 at least) does not import 3DS files.

I will post some examples if I can't figure out a way to make this work.

Thanks for you help.

OK, I have done some more testing, now it appears as though my current installation of Houdini Indie does not important ANY geometry.

Attached is a file that opened up in Houdini 13, but does not open in 14.0.258. Can any else open this file?

I checked the specs on Indie and it does not appear as though anything has changes with regards to read geometry files.

Thanks for any ideas…

Here is my system:

latform: windows-x86_64-cl17
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1 x64 (6.1.7601)
Number of Cores: 40
Physical Memory: 63.97 GB
Number of Screens: 2
Screen 0: 1920 x 1200 at 0,0
Work Area 0: 1920 x 1170 at 0,30
Screen 1: 1920 x 1080 at 156,1200
Work Area 1: 1920 x 1080 at 156,1200

OpenGL Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL Renderer: Quadro K5000/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 4.4.0
OpenGL Shading Language: 4.40 NVIDIA via Cg compiler
Detected: NVidia Professional
4096 MB
334.95.0.0

A little more information about this error.

I call File > Import > Geometry

Select the *.obj file (in this case)

A new node is created

I click into this node and the file object shows the red error stripes. In the properties the message is “Unable to read file Gear10Teeth.obj”.

The behavior is the same for any file type that I try to open.

I saw the same message but Houdini does indeed load the .OBJ file.

With your node selected move your mouse into the 3D viewport, hold down the spacebar and press the G-KEY. Your gear is huge. SPACEBAR-G will zoom you out to a view that will frame your object.

Nevermind

Turns out it was a problem with the licensing on my system. Very strange. It would be nice if the UI indicated that the problem was the license and not something in the file.

wow FormZ…have not seen that since 1998. My first 3D Program.