New here! I'm coming from 3DS Max, Tyflow, and Phoenix FD, and I'm really struggling to wrap my head around Houdini. I know how I would achieve this effect using the aforementioned software, but I'm struggling with how to do it in Houdini. Here's the gist:
I'm using a Pop Curve Force so that liquid emitted from the lower part of the line will follow the line, curve around, and collide with the wall after it reaches the top part of the line. The problem is, as you can see in the attachment, the liquid is picked up by the curve force again after it slides down the wall. I don't want this.
I could obviously just animate the curve force off so it no longer picks up the fluid, but I'd like to find a more procedural way to do it. What if the sim changes? I'd rather not have to go futs with the keyframes when the force animates off.
My first thought was to assign an attribute to the liquid particles when they birth. Let's say this is attribute is called RAWR and is an integer (I like to pick silly names when I'm learning, it makes it fun). At birth, RAWR = 0, once they collide with the wall, RAWR is set to 1, and the curve force would be set to only affect particles where RAWR = 0.
The problem is, I can't figure out how to actually do this. I was playing around with vops at various levels, and was able to set a custom attribute on my emitter called RAWR:
And then my thought was in the dop network, I'd change RAWR to 1 on collision, but then I realized I can't just stick a VOP after my static object node and bind RAWR to 1. This makes sense on some level, because from what I've read, DOPs calculate in multiple passes, and the order of the nodes isn't necessarily linear - hence why gravity can be put before or after the solver. I think what I'm struggling with is, how do I affect attributes based on events that happen in my simulation?
I know how I'd do this in Max quite easily, but I'm really struggling with how to do it in Houdini. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!!