Thanks mestela! This is really interesting. I did not know about the polyframe sop. That is going to be very handy for my other spline based shenanigans.
I'm still not entirely sure I'm reading the wrangles right, but I'm going to try to figure that out when I have a little more time.
Your results are really impressive, especially for the road, but they do highlight the fact that there's only so much you can do with directly booleaned geometry.
You can't fix these UV issues with the current geometry.
For my current project, I can probably work with this, as my roads are aligned to the grid… but I'm going to take another pass at this. All you need, technically, are slices going through the geometry at set intervals (though this does make pinching more of an issue).
Thanks again!
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Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Semi-functional roads - Where to go next?
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Semi-functional roads - Where to go next?
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Hi!
I've created something approaching a working method of adding a road to some simple terrain.
I'm using a pair of techniques I found in a forum thread from 2010. The first technique, that cuts the road from the terrain, creates a metaball tube and then the ‘shatter’ option in the new Boolean Sop. To place the power-lines I'm lofting a point along the road curve and then just using Copy To Points.

So far, I think it's working pretty well. It can handle overlaps and pinching, and it's relatively easy to place objects along the road. There's currently a problem with the edges of the geometry. This can be fixed by extending the length of the spline off the edges of the geometry in some way, but for my purposes right now, that's a minor issue.
I'm kind of at a loss as to how to take this to the next step though, like separating the sidewalk into panels, or getting something approaching reasonable UV's onto the road geometry.
To people who have done this, where do I go next?
I've created something approaching a working method of adding a road to some simple terrain.
I'm using a pair of techniques I found in a forum thread from 2010. The first technique, that cuts the road from the terrain, creates a metaball tube and then the ‘shatter’ option in the new Boolean Sop. To place the power-lines I'm lofting a point along the road curve and then just using Copy To Points.

So far, I think it's working pretty well. It can handle overlaps and pinching, and it's relatively easy to place objects along the road. There's currently a problem with the edges of the geometry. This can be fixed by extending the length of the spline off the edges of the geometry in some way, but for my purposes right now, that's a minor issue.
I'm kind of at a loss as to how to take this to the next step though, like separating the sidewalk into panels, or getting something approaching reasonable UV's onto the road geometry.
To people who have done this, where do I go next?
Edited by Zach Hall - 2017年12月3日 18:31:32
Houdini Learning Materials » Shader building and texture information from Geometry
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Ah, all right. Got it rendered then. In other news, I need to learn how the compositing workflow in Houdini works (adds that to the list…).
So, so far it looks like using points to collect geometry data is the only way. That's too bad, as it looks like it'll take a computer-killingly large number of points to get any kind of resolution. Damn, I was hoping for something approaching an interactive frame-rate.
So, so far it looks like using points to collect geometry data is the only way. That's too bad, as it looks like it'll take a computer-killingly large number of points to get any kind of resolution. Damn, I was hoping for something approaching an interactive frame-rate.
Edited by Zach Hall - 2017年1月25日 01:04:02
Houdini Learning Materials » Shader building and texture information from Geometry
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Err… sorry circusmonkey! I don't see anything when I render your scene. I can see that you're writing a color channel to a vertex variable in the SOPs, then in the shader you're exporting it, and in the ROP you're creating another image plane, but when I render, I just get this:

I feel like I'm missing something.

I feel like I'm missing something.
Edited by Zach Hall - 2017年1月24日 22:42:14
Houdini Learning Materials » Shader building and texture information from Geometry
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Konstantin Magnus
No tutorial, but for creating textures based on intersections you can scatter points and read them in as point clouds. Something similar should work for shaders, as well.
Thank you very much! This is useful. I have seen this method used in a digitalTutors tutorial as well. It works quite, but it's heavy and imprecise , you need a whole lot of points for any kind of precision.
Christopher R
You need to be able to make posts or threads ‘favorites’ so you can reference them at a later date on this forum, like this one
There's a ‘Subscribe’ button up by the reply button at the top of the thread. I think that does what you're looking for, though I'm not sure how to browse subscribed threads.
circusmonkey
Interesting subject and I am not sure of your end goal,but Houdini also gives you the ability to grab attributes directly from your geometry and then use it in your shaders or for use as say a matte in a render image plane. I never bother writing out a image , then use that in a shader.
Rob
Thanks Rob! I'm interested in using houdini for some NPR projects I'm working on. I'm hoping to find a way to create brush stamps, lines, and geometry controlled gradients on ramp-shaded objects.
For example, it would be useful to be able to draw a spline on a surface, and then render the spline as a line on the projected surface. Or it might be interesting to be able to use a fog volume to modify the colour of another object to create a gradient related to density.
I'm talking about textures because I'm from video-games and in my head, shaders always end up being textures eventually. You're absolutely correct that you don't actually need to bake out a shader, though in some cases it might be optimal in terms of performance.
Houdini Learning Materials » Shader building and texture information from Geometry
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Hi!
I was wondering if there were any good tutorials for using geometry information to produce textures in Houdini.
The kind of stuff I'm interested in are things like:
That sort of thing. Any information would be really handy. Thanks!
I was wondering if there were any good tutorials for using geometry information to produce textures in Houdini.
The kind of stuff I'm interested in are things like:
- using volume intersections to change colours
- using geometry intersections to create masks
- using scattered points to draw brush strokes
That sort of thing. Any information would be really handy. Thanks!
Technical Discussion » Can't find bake shader in Houdini 15
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Hey everyone!
Digging through some old patch notes, I found this [webcache.googleusercontent.com]:
“Changed: The Bake Shader has been removed, with the functionality being moved into the VR lens shader. This means that any image plane can be baked, as opposed to be limited to a fixed set of planes. Bake shading controls have been moved from the Bake Texture ROP to standard shaders, which means bake settings can be adjusted on a per-object basis.”
This appears to show that the help documentation is inaccurate. The Bake Shader node no longer exists.
I think this tutorial [sidefx.com] will show you how to bake properly in H15.
Digging through some old patch notes, I found this [webcache.googleusercontent.com]:
“Changed: The Bake Shader has been removed, with the functionality being moved into the VR lens shader. This means that any image plane can be baked, as opposed to be limited to a fixed set of planes. Bake shading controls have been moved from the Bake Texture ROP to standard shaders, which means bake settings can be adjusted on a per-object basis.”
This appears to show that the help documentation is inaccurate. The Bake Shader node no longer exists.
I think this tutorial [sidefx.com] will show you how to bake properly in H15.
Houdini Learning Materials » Unwrapping Rectangular Prisms - How do I make the UV's pack and align vertically and horizontally?
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Thanks. I'll give that a try. When I gave it a cursory look earlier, it did not appear to have any kind of alignment system. I'll give it another go.
Houdini Learning Materials » Unwrapping Rectangular Prisms - How do I make the UV's pack and align vertically and horizontally?
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Hi!
I'm making an object out of cubes and rectangular prisms. The texture packing tool is doing a good job of optimizing space by rotating the various rectangular sections, and for organic shapes that would be perfectly fine, but for cubes and rectangles it would make my texture work easier if the UV's aligned vertically and horizontally.
I can't find an easy way to do this. I could do it manually using the UV Edit SOP, but that seems to be sort of against the Houdini ethos. Is there a way to have the UV's packed automatically, but not end up with weird rotations?
- Jack
I'm making an object out of cubes and rectangular prisms. The texture packing tool is doing a good job of optimizing space by rotating the various rectangular sections, and for organic shapes that would be perfectly fine, but for cubes and rectangles it would make my texture work easier if the UV's aligned vertically and horizontally.
I can't find an easy way to do this. I could do it manually using the UV Edit SOP, but that seems to be sort of against the Houdini ethos. Is there a way to have the UV's packed automatically, but not end up with weird rotations?
- Jack
Technical Discussion » Update To Daily Build - How do I move my license over?
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Hmm, nope, that got me a ‘noncommercial generic’ license. I assume I'd get my indie license if I ‘returned the license to the website’ but the instructions for doing that says it can only be done twice.
Technical Discussion » Update To Daily Build - How do I move my license over?
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Hi! I have a license for Houdini Indie, it's installed fine, but I've been working on the 15.0.313 build for a while and I'm trying to do some retopology. When I went to try to use the ‘straighten’, ‘tweak’, ‘cut’, and ‘space’ features of that tool, I couldn't make them work, the shortcuts did nothing.
I assumed I was outdated, I haven't updated my Houdini in almost a year, so I downloaded the new daily build. All well and good, it installed fine, but when I try to open it, it opens the new version of the Houdini License Administrator and my licenses don't appear to be there.
The old version still works, the old version of hkey still has my licenses listed, but the new version doesn't. I could return the licenses to the website and download them again, but a) that seems like an overly elaborate method to use when getting builds daily and b) the website tells me that I can only do this two times in total so that seems like not the right move.
How do I move my license information from one version of houdini to another on the same machine?
Thanks!
I assumed I was outdated, I haven't updated my Houdini in almost a year, so I downloaded the new daily build. All well and good, it installed fine, but when I try to open it, it opens the new version of the Houdini License Administrator and my licenses don't appear to be there.
The old version still works, the old version of hkey still has my licenses listed, but the new version doesn't. I could return the licenses to the website and download them again, but a) that seems like an overly elaborate method to use when getting builds daily and b) the website tells me that I can only do this two times in total so that seems like not the right move.
How do I move my license information from one version of houdini to another on the same machine?
Thanks!
Edited by Zach Hall - 2016年9月5日 17:49:43
Technical Discussion » Volumetric Lights and the Atmosphere Node
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Hey, thanks for the helpful answer, I appreciate it. Though I don't appreciate you appropriating my thread for a political message. That's not cool. Thanks for your help though.
I managed to get my scene working after taking a look at your material setup. The fog nodes apparently show up in SHOP but not in the Material Pallet. I would never have figured that out.
I managed to get my scene working after taking a look at your material setup. The fog nodes apparently show up in SHOP but not in the Material Pallet. I would never have figured that out.
Technical Discussion » Volumetric Lights and the Atmosphere Node
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Hi everyone!
I'm trying to create a simple volumetric light. Googling around I found a thread that mentioned it should be easy. All I theoretically need to do is drop an “Atmosphere” node in the scene and connect it to a volumetric material. I tried to do that, but when I render, I don't see the atmosphere. I also don't really know how to control things like the thickness of the atmosphere or anything like that.
Does anyone have any resources, or could anyone offer any direct advice? The help files have been singularly unuseful in this instance.
I've included my test scene. Thanks!
I'm trying to create a simple volumetric light. Googling around I found a thread that mentioned it should be easy. All I theoretically need to do is drop an “Atmosphere” node in the scene and connect it to a volumetric material. I tried to do that, but when I render, I don't see the atmosphere. I also don't really know how to control things like the thickness of the atmosphere or anything like that.
Does anyone have any resources, or could anyone offer any direct advice? The help files have been singularly unuseful in this instance.
I've included my test scene. Thanks!
Technical Discussion » Turn a bezier spine into a tube
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Technical Discussion » Turn a bezier spine into a tube
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Ahh… sweep seems to do close to what I'm looking for. Is their an easier way to control the level of subdivision then to use a “Convert” node?
Technical Discussion » Turn a bezier spine into a tube
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Hi everyone!
I'm looking for a way to turn a bezier spline into a tube. So far, the only way I've found anything approaching a useful way to do this has been to create a curve and then create a circle and use polyextrude with the “spline” method on the circle. The circle extrudes following the spline.
This… sort of works, but the workflow is so incredibly awkward (aligning the circle to the origin of the spline is not particularly easy) that I know there simply must be a better way.
Anyone know how to do this?
I'm looking for a way to turn a bezier spline into a tube. So far, the only way I've found anything approaching a useful way to do this has been to create a curve and then create a circle and use polyextrude with the “spline” method on the circle. The circle extrudes following the spline.
This… sort of works, but the workflow is so incredibly awkward (aligning the circle to the origin of the spline is not particularly easy) that I know there simply must be a better way.
Anyone know how to do this?
Houdini Learning Materials » The Houdini Way of Making a Simple Instance
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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That was my first idea, but I ran into a problem with parenting them. Is there an easy way to parent HDA's? Whenever I make them they don't have a object-level slot for that.
Houdini Learning Materials » The Houdini Way of Making a Simple Instance
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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I was really looking for object level separation, so pretty much everything on the SOP level is out.
I like the idea of using object merge in a separate geometry node. Very clever. I think I'll give that a try.
I tried using the ‘Instance’ node, but it appears to be setup to create instances of one object based on the placement of points in another object and appears to only work at render time. I suspect that I wasn't using it correctly, but I couldn't find any examples.
I like the idea of using object merge in a separate geometry node. Very clever. I think I'll give that a try.
I tried using the ‘Instance’ node, but it appears to be setup to create instances of one object based on the placement of points in another object and appears to only work at render time. I suspect that I wasn't using it correctly, but I couldn't find any examples.
Houdini Learning Materials » The Houdini Way of Making a Simple Instance
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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I am building a simple scene. I want to have two copies of an identical object (in this case, a chest of drawers) that I want to be able to position separately.
What is the best way, in Houdini, for me to do this?
What is the best way, in Houdini, for me to do this?
Technical Discussion » Boolean Modelling Resources for Houdini
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- Zach Hall
- 22 posts
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Thanks everyone,
I'm aware of the general flakiness of Boolean implementations. I'm of the opinion that we have a chicken and the egg problem regarding Boolean modelling. The tools are flaky, so nobody uses them, which means that nobody fixes the tools, which means that nobody uses them etc. etc.
The area where they're usually messy is in the resulting topology. They might give you an approximation of what you want, but the meshes that they create are nearly unusable.
I'm using the indie version of houdini so I don't think I can open your hip file dnaulin, do you know of any videos or documents describing the workflow?
I'm aware of the general flakiness of Boolean implementations. I'm of the opinion that we have a chicken and the egg problem regarding Boolean modelling. The tools are flaky, so nobody uses them, which means that nobody fixes the tools, which means that nobody uses them etc. etc.
The area where they're usually messy is in the resulting topology. They might give you an approximation of what you want, but the meshes that they create are nearly unusable.
I'm using the indie version of houdini so I don't think I can open your hip file dnaulin, do you know of any videos or documents describing the workflow?
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