Thanks for looking into Aizatulin. Gave your method a try and unfortunately it doesn't hold up on more complex meshes - just as the other solutions I've tried, none get close to the quality of the built in uv distortion visualizer :/

Hi guys,
I'm animating an octopus like arm using a path and bones with the Follow Curve solver.
Works great inside Houdini but the animation doesn't get exported in .fbx format.
I hoped that the exporter would bake / plot the bone transforms from the follow curve solver but apparently it doesn't.

So is there a way to manually bake the bones animation so that it can be imported in Unreal Engine?

Thank you,
-Adrian

Works great, thanks Sekow! I really need to learn python.

I have another short one, is there a way to count primitive groups in Python?
In hscript I can do something like this: argc(primgrouplist(“/obj/geo1/out_my_boxes”)) but I needed in Python since I use the result in a python expression. Unless there's a way to read the result of a hscript expression in a python expression.

Thank you

Hi guys,
I need some help but it is a bit hard to explain:

So I'm using a FileSOP to read an .FBX file then I do a bunch of changes to the geometry and then I'm using another FileSOP to write the changed geometry to an .OBJ file named as the original plus a suffix, in a subfolder of the original path.

Since I need to do this many many times I'm looking for a way to automatically set the write path based on the path from the read file sop but in a sub-folder, add a suffix to the filename and change the extension from .fbx to .obj.

Don't know to what extend file paths can be manipulated using script in Houdini but hopefully there's a way to do this.

Thanks a bunch,
-Adrian

I switched from XSI a few years ago fearing exactly this. It was a difficult decision because I loved the modeling workflow that XSI has so it took a bit of time to adapt.
However as soon as I “accepted” the node based modeling approach I was in love - yes, I still miss the M tool, yes I still miss the UV tools, yes I still miss XSI viewport speed and stability - but the new approach is much more flexible.

This is especially true for my personal work (indie game dev) where I need to assemble the game props from different parts, atlas uv's and test different variations - the node based system makes all these a breeze.
For example I can model on a house beam in one viewport and have several variations of the house assembled in another, previewing life how the changes I make reflect on the final props.
Or I can see real-time how changing a stone that repeats many times in a paths breaks the pattern, etc.

And then you have the entire reusability of the assets, which in games is essential. Using objectMerge, rewiring and some other tools is super easy to check if one props can be used in different combinations, saving geometry and texture space.

And don't even get me started on how useful it is to setup fbx exporters to save the models with one click.

So while I do miss a few tools from XSI and while I wish Houdini's OGL viewport would be a bit more artifact free - I never looked back. I'm very happy with my “home-made” Houdini pipeline for creating game assets.

The tutorial is the introductory part of my Advanced Lighting in Houdini that you can get from here: http://training.adrianlazar.com/2012/03/25/advanced-lighting-in-houdini/ [training.adrianlazar.com]



Hi guys,
This free tutorial is a basic introduction to Lights in SideFX Houdini. I also talk about a few parameters for shaders and render that are affecting the way light works.

This 80 minutes tutorial is aimed towards beginners or to people unfamiliar with how lights work in Houdini. You will still need to be familiar with the user interface and how to navigate in the viewport.

Also, it has voice :-)

You can find more Houdini Training here: http://training.adrianlazar.com [training.adrianlazar.com]

@ragupasta Thanks man! Lighting is definitely a broad subject since it requires both artistic and technical skills. I'm just glad because I see that lighting gets more and more attention in medium/smaller post production shop and in gaming where not so long ago was pretty much ignored and handled by environment artists…

Hi guys,
Just a quick note that I made a short video preview of the Advanced Lighting in Houdini Training Course that you can watch here:

http://vimeo.com/39322589 [vimeo.com]

Thanks,
-Adrian

Hi guys,
I’m happy to announce my first Advanced Training: Lighting in Houdini.

Get it here: http://training.adrianlazar.com/2012/03/25/advanced-lighting-in-houdini/ [training.adrianlazar.com]





Training description
During almost 4 hours of video training we are going to discuss how to work with lights in Houdini 12 but also what a lighting artist job is in a cg production.
Using a real production scene I’m going to show you that relying just on Global Illumination is not enough to get the job done and that every asset in the scene requires special attention. In this training course I tried to cover both the artistic and the technical side of what a lighting artist has to know since I think both are necessary to be successful in this job.


Note that this video can be both downloaded to be watched offline or it can be streamed online.





Content
Part 1 - Introduction. A few words about me and about the lighting artist job.

Part 2 – Basic introduction to lights, render settings and shader work in Houdini. We use a demo scene to talk briefly about how the above work and interact. If you are a more advanced user you can skip this part since it’s aimed at the beginners.

Part 3 – Global Illumination. Using a real production scene we are going to work with Global Illumination from the PBR and we discuss the pro and cons of this technique. We are also going to briefly talk about a few render settings that are affecting the lighting in our scene.

Part 4 – Building on top of part one we are adding a secondary light for direct sunlight and talk about the improvements of our scene.

Part 5 - Continuing our lighting process we start taking care of almost every asset creating RimLights, KeyLights and FillLights so we can get the most of them.

Part 6 – Final render and conclusion.





While this training is made in SideFx Houdini the techniques and the principles you’re going to learn here can be easily applied in any 3d software. Every 3d package can work with Point / Omni Lights and Spotlights and these lights are the ones you as a lighting artist will use maybe 80% of the time.

This Video Training Course is released directly by me, the artist, so there’s no middle man to charge half of the price – and this is the reason I’m able to keep the price so low.





Enjoy the Training Course,
-Adrian

Hi guys,
Is there a way to export the keyboard shortcuts from H11 and import them in H12?

Thanks,
-Adrian

Great initiative!
Feel free to put mine there also: http://training.adrianlazar.com/free-houdini-training/ [training.adrianlazar.com]

And this looks like the main issue today with the GPU acceleration, it's too sensitive about what graphic card you have, what drivers and what OS. I can't make it work on my MBP - the pyro just dissapears when is turned on. Also at work on my hp z800 workstation with a 4Gb firegl card and win7 64bit there's no difference between cpu and gpu.
But good thing that the CPU simulation is much much faster than in 12.

Same with me, on MBP I had to switch back to old Houdini viewport because there where just too many artifacts like completely white materials. Thinking about installing Ubuntu also.

Pressing “,” should enable pivot mode. You can also enable pivot mode from the right click menu.

Hi zarti,
I'm happy you like it.

About making a tut for how CHOPS / bone setup works the problem is that I don't know either. I want to make tutorials about what I know best to do and unfortunately I don't know almost anything about CHOPS, animation or character setup.
If some day I'll learn it and what I've learned might be useful for other people as well then definitely I'll make a tutorial.

Guys I'm very happy you like it

@circusmonkey: it does't have sound and I explained why in another tutorial thread, here: http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=24898 [sidefx.com] .
I wrote that it doesn't have any voice over on the cover but looks like some people don't see it, I'll try to mark it better. I also edited my first post to specify that there's no VO

@dulo: you're right, it does take some time to record training, it's not as straightforward or as easy as many people think - and as I thought also before starting. On the other hand it's very rewarding to share with others your knowledge so it make it worth the effort. The only issue is with time in crunch periods.

@AndyAl92: you're welcome, glad you like it

if a mod want's to merge all me threads about the video tutorials I recorded please go ahead :-)

——————————-



Hi guys,
In this new free SideFX Houdini Training Video I’m going to show you how flexible the standard Mantra Surface Shader really is.

Watch it here: http://training.adrianlazar.com/2012/02/21/houdini-shading-with-the-mantra-surface-shader/ [training.adrianlazar.com]

At almost 2 hours long this video tutorial is focused on shading and shading only. Using just the parameters that are exposed by default in the standard Mantra Surface Shader I’m going to create 26 materials representing different types of surfaces: wood, metal, glass, plastic, concrete, paint, etc.
The scene used in this training video is from a real production, a short movie that me and a friend are currently working on.
On a few occasions I had to cut out the render time in order to keep the video easy to follow.
It doesn’t have any voice over but from time to time short tips are displayed on screen.

A small note: Remember that the Mantra Surface Shader is not a black box and that it can be heavily modified if you dig inside.

Make sure you don’t miss any tutorial by sending an email with the subject “subscribe” to news@training.adrianlazar.com or by following me on twitter: AdrianLazar3D

Hope you like it and for more tutorials visit my Houdini Training page here: http://training.adrianlazar.com [training.adrianlazar.com]

Hi, ragupasta!
First, I'm glad you find the tutorial useful.

You are right about the mic use, many people would benefit from audio but it would also require much more of my time recording a tutorial. Since English is not my native language that usually translated in many re-takes because of speaking errors - I've tried that

On the other hand having text on screen can offer some benefits over audio - you can pause it to read it easier if you don't speak English natively and it doesn't suffer from accent / pronunciation issues that audio spoken by people like me that don't have English as the mother language.

So because I don't have the time needed to record good quality audio and since I don't want to make an audio that would do more harm then good I think I'll stick with text only for the free tutorials. If in the future I'll find it easier to record audio then sure I'll add that.

But I definitely think audio is a good choice and I plan to have both audio and screen tips for my advanced tutorials.

-Adrian

what CPU is that and what OS are you using?

Hello,
I recorded a new free tutorial video for creating a Counting Frame in Houdini that you can watch here: http://training.adrianlazar.com/2012/02/12/creating-a-counting-frame-in-houdini/ [training.adrianlazar.com]
We should be able to change the width, the height and the placement of the counting spheres in a procedural, non-destructive way.

The workflow showed in this training video is a mix of procedural and traditional modeling. It also deals briefly with setting up some lights, shaders and a render output.
The counting frame is just one of the many objects I'm currently building for Project School, a short movie me and a friend are doing.

I also launched a website where I’ll put all the training, find out more here: http://training.adrianlazar.com [training.adrianlazar.com]

Hope you'll enjoy the videos,
-Adrian