Problem is exactly as the title says: In Houdini 10, shader view works fine, however in Houdini 11 when I click on a shader ball that I want to view in shader view, the shader view shader ball just stays the default white, it doesn't even try to update it, it just does nothing.

Not sure if it makes a difference, but I do NOT have a workstation gfx card (I have an 8800gtx), but seeing as how it works in H10, I don't see that being the problem. Unless something was changed of course.

Information:
I tried these versions, didn't have success with either.
v11.0.446.9
v11.0.462

Windows Vista 64bit
Windows 7 64bit
Haven't tried Linux yet

Any help or ideas would be appreciated!
Thanks

You're right; the shader view has taken a backseat to IPR rendering. If you havent tried IPR/Render View, please do – it provides far more than the Shader View.

oh, ok thanks!

Actually the shader view just doesn't work. It can even make houdini freeze. I am sure that the issue will be resolved in future builds as a shader view is always useful.

In the build 469 shader view still not working with material shader builder.

It appears black.

Anyone else is getting this problem?

Same problem with build 470.

This is really not working right, at least for me, all the shader goes black, if I delete some VEX nodes inside sometimes it appears right on the shader view but for most of the time the result is the same.

I also notice that if I try to see the decal shader from the gallery on the shader view Houdini freezes trying to calculate the result.

Would be just me having this kind of problem?

Nope, not just you. As mentioned by Jason earlier, the shader view obviously hasn't had much attention and there's been major changes to shading. Try using IPR, it's far, far more revealing than the shader ball.

Cheers,

J.C.

Yeah after getting my question answered, I have found render view to be much better, much higher quality, and much more customizable since you have access to all of mantras settings, and you can add whatever else you want into the scene to help view reflections and refractions or whatever else

The only thing I miss from shader view is being able to rotate the shaded ball.

Listen to these guys and check out IPR render view.

If the reason you like shader view is because of the speed of it, you can easily just reduce mantras quality settings and IPR will go quite fast.

If however you like to be able to rotate the shaded object without having to rerender like you could in shader view, Im pretty sure you are out of luck on that one. Unless someone smarter than me knows some neat trick, but I doubt it

If you'd like to tumble using IPR you can do the following:

1) Create a floating Render Viewer or split your viewport in half and make one of the halves a Render Viewer and the other a Scene Viewer.

2) Select a Scene View camera in the Render Viewer's camera menu. This will keep the two camera's in sync.

3) Start a render in the Render Viewer.

4) Rotate your sphere in the Scene Viewer and watch IPR update simultaneously in the Render Viewer. If your scene is quite simple, try lowering the Update Time and Delay Time in the Render Viewer for a more interactive experience.

–Ian

Yeah that's pretty much what I have been doing. Its not quite as interactive as the shader view was, but its very close, as long as the render doesn't take too long to update anyways.

Thanks

Thanks for the feedback guys

I am glad to know(or not) that it's not just me.

I'll try to adapt myself to not use it.

Thanks

The cool thing is that IPR isn't really intended to be a shader ball replacement - it's giving you feedback with more relevant data typically in a lighting environment closer to what the final will be like i.e. invaluable. Of course, sometimes it's handy to have a standard sphere/torus/teapot when doing very preliminary setup, I often have a Sphere SOP or obj in a hip for just that reason. It's not *quite* as fast as the shader ball, but it's not much slower and obviously far more useful for catching things like how shadows/highlights will fall, etc.

Cheers,

J.C.

I do not understand the other method (ipr).

Is it like this?
You have to hide all other objects, create light, create sphere, apply uvs, and rendering in the same scene your working on?

Houdini 11 was the first Houdini I used.

Will Shader View be working in Houdini 12?