It's still a riddle to me on what to do next. So basically here's what I did:
Created an emitter and turn it into a FLIP emitter using the shelf tool.
Added three more emitters using FLIP source.
Each emitter has its own viscosity and density attributes.
Add colors to each emitters(R, G, B 0.1, B 0.9).
Sim went well.

Colors are in the surface geo contained created by FLIP emitter shape tool.

Now here's the thing. I thought I could group the surface (points) using the colors and assign different shaders/materials. I did that and it didn't work. I used group (points) then materials(point attributes on groups).

I would appreciate any help I could get. Thank you

Hello, I need help on assigning different materials based on point color. My scene consists of 1 Dop Network exporting into particle_fluid geo by using the shelf tool. I used several emitters with different color. I was able to access those colors after sim. I thought I can group(points) them and use materialSOP(point attribute) to assign a material to that group. But it seem to not work.

I hope I somehow made sense. Thanks for helping.

Hello, I was browsing sidefx's vimeo page and I noticed in one of the intern's work there's this effect: http://vimeo.com/72062307 [vimeo.com] 3:05 mark. It a fireball falling diagonally. It featured multiple containers covering from trail to head in a “stair-case” position. I was wondering is this done. What's the setup looks like? Thank you!

I attached a screenshot.

Hello, I have a workflow or work practice method. Coming from Maya Hypershade and Renderman Slim, there are shaders that can be customized and by that I mean build a network of nodes to be used as an input to a shader property like diffuse color or spec color or displacement scale. In Houdini, as I know and used, there's MantraSurface and SurfaceModel shader. Those two are highly customizable but my concerns for both are..

MantraSurface is a big network by default. It will get messier as I built custom input nodes. Using network box does do the job. But I think I'm missing a workflow idea of customizing it.

SurfaceModel, however, is clean. But, it lacks the interface.

I hope I my explanation made sense. THank you for helping.

Hi, my system drive (windows) gets full in the middle of rendering out 72 frame bgeo using import_uprespyrofields Dop I/O. I have about 50gb of free disk space in the system drive. I'm using another drive to write out bgeo files.

Lowres' load from disk is On. Max division is 318.
Hi-res is set to 618.

I used Explosion and Upres volume shelf tools.

I thought it was caching. So I switch Off Cache Simulation to Disk and Cache Simulation in the AutoDopNetwork node. That doesn't solve it.

On another issue, how do I continue writing out bgeo if I stopped at say frame 32? Do I need to use a file node and another bgeo render?

I rendered out the volumes using Mantra and it worked well for those written frames.

Thank you very much and I appreciate your help and time.

Our school uses Houdini 12.5.376. I don't see any option in Cloth Object and Cloth Configure Object. Is there a new node? How about initial velocities? Thank you

Hello, quick question: I was going through the couple of cloth master classes posted in the Houdini website and there are some features that no longer exist in the cloth object dop? Like the Plasticity and Tearability options as well as the initial velocity, etc. of the cloth. I would like to know if there are other ways to do this?

Thank you

Hello, I'm trying to setup PRMan and Houdini but I can't find instructions on it one the web. The PC I'm using have RMS installed. But I get error when rendering with Renderman output driver (“CreateProcess failed for ‘prman’).

Operating is Windows 7 with a lot of restriction. I can personal environments though. What should I look for on the Renderman side? How about in Houdini side (houdini.env)?

About converting shaders using slo2otl.py, I'm getting a ”Missing shader definition for ". I tried using fullpath like:
hython %HFS%\bin\slo2otl.py -l D:\metalme.otl D:\metalme.slo
I'm not sure what is wrong, but I think it has something to do with env var.

Hi, I was going through some tutorials that mentioned Pyro Shader with modifiers. I thought it was a powerful and flexible post simulation process. But, as I was searching for it in Houdini 12.5, Pyro Shader and its pre-setup materials doesn't show it. Was it replaced? Is there a new way of modifiying fields?

Thank you very much.

Hi, so I'm following some tutorials from sidefx and I was just wondering if it's possible to use a volume with volume from attribute SOP (transfering point normals to volume) to drive a fluid simulation? I used the volcano tutorial from sidefx's vimeo page as a guide. That means, I used Source Volume with volumeSOP (with points normals). But the problem I'm having is the simulation is different from this Source VolumeDOP.

The volumeTrailSop shows different direction. The input I was using in volumeVOP is Position then output to parameter named vel.

I have used the same volume with point normals to drive a popnet sim and it worked.

So basically, I have a volume with points normal attributes transferred using volumeFromAttributeSOP. I want to use that to direct my smoke sim.

I appreciate any help thank you.

I need advice on which storage to get: SSD or WD Black. SSD sure is fast but I'm thinking twice on the size. So far, particles sim projects that I write out are around 50gb. I have yet to learn fluid and geo. I'm only looking at shots around 7 sec. More on education/exploration.

I currently have an SSD for OS/system and WD Green and 32gb of ram. With the addition of SSD or WD Black how would you work on the setup? Where do you write out geo or cache disk or keep project files.

THank you

Thanks for the reply zdimaria.

There is no info on shell (that's the console window right?). The rendering window (the one that pops up when render button in mantra rop is clicked) reads “Rendering”.

Yes, when I try to render frames beyond 72, it's been rendering for more than 2 hours. I also tried restarting from frame 1 but got the same result once it reached frame 72.

But, when I render in render view, frame 72 render finishes in about 4 minutes.

Hello,

I'm rendering 240 frames in Mantra. The scene contains particle .bgeo file nodes (10 of them). Three lights. So I get into rendering completely upto 71 frames with frame 71 taking 4 minutes. But, it takes forever to render frame 72.

I tried rendering frame 72 in render view window and it renders just fine. All the frames I tried, 72 and forward, are taking too long. The info at the bottom reads 1%.

System ram reads less than 5gb of 12gb. All threads are working hard.

I also checked the particle count. It's roughly around 1.1m in all frames.

What should I do? Thank you

Got it working when I replaced Python 2.7 with Python 2.6.4 as suggested.

Is there a way to keep different version of Python? I mean for Houdini to not use the Python version I install and use its own that comes with the package?

Thanks

Hello, I had a working Houdini Apprentice installed until I launched it after installing Python 2.7(from python website). Houdini doesn't launch and the message below keeps printing in Houdini Console.

I have 0 idea on how to fix this. Should I install Python 3.3? Is there an order of installation I must do? Please help me.

File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 109, in register
if issubclass(subclass, cls):
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 184, in __subclasscheck__
cls._abc_negative_cache.add(subclass)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\_weakrefset.py”, line 84, in add
self.data.add(ref(item, self._remove))
TypeError: cannot create weak reference to ‘classobj’ object

Could not create the default HDA shelf tool for ‘cop2net’:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<stdin>”, line 1, in <module>
File “CPROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.683/houdini/python2.6libs\hou.py”, line 36122, in <module>
import os
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\os.py”, line 398, in <module>
import UserDict
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\UserDict.py”, line 84, in <module>
_abcoll.MutableMapping.register(IterableUserDict)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 109, in register
if issubclass(subclass, cls):
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 184, in __subclasscheck__
cls._abc_negative_cache.add(subclass)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\_weakrefset.py”, line 84, in add
self.data.add(ref(item, self._remove))
TypeError: cannot create weak reference to ‘classobj’ object

Could not create the default HDA shelf tool for ‘opengl’:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<stdin>”, line 1, in <module>
File “CPROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.683/houdini/python2.6libs\hou.py”, line 36122, in <module>
import os
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\os.py”, line 398, in <module>
import UserDict
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\UserDict.py”, line 84, in <module>
_abcoll.MutableMapping.register(IterableUserDict)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 109, in register
if issubclass(subclass, cls):
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 184, in __subclasscheck__
cls._abc_negative_cache.add(subclass)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\_weakrefset.py”, line 84, in add
self.data.add(ref(item, self._remove))
TypeError: cannot create weak reference to ‘classobj’ object

Could not create the default HDA shelf tool for ‘framedep’:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<stdin>”, line 1, in <module>
File “CPROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.683/houdini/python2.6libs\hou.py”, line 36122, in <module>
import os
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\os.py”, line 398, in <module>
import UserDict
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\UserDict.py”, line 84, in <module>
_abcoll.MutableMapping.register(IterableUserDict)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 109, in register
if issubclass(subclass, cls):
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 184, in __subclasscheck__
cls._abc_negative_cache.add(subclass)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\_weakrefset.py”, line 84, in add
self.data.add(ref(item, self._remove))
TypeError: cannot create weak reference to ‘classobj’ object

Could not create the default HDA shelf tool for ‘batch’:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<stdin>”, line 1, in <module>
File “CPROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.683/houdini/python2.6libs\hou.py”, line 36122, in <module>
import os
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\os.py”, line 398, in <module>
import UserDict
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\UserDict.py”, line 84, in <module>
_abcoll.MutableMapping.register(IterableUserDict)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 109, in register
if issubclass(subclass, cls):
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 184, in __subclasscheck__
cls._abc_negative_cache.add(subclass)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\_weakrefset.py”, line 84, in add
self.data.add(ref(item, self._remove))
TypeError: cannot create weak reference to ‘classobj’ object

Could not create the default HDA shelf tool for ‘dopnet’:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<stdin>”, line 1, in <module>
File “CPROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.683/houdini/python2.6libs\hou.py”, line 36122, in <module>
import os
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\os.py”, line 398, in <module>
import UserDict
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\UserDict.py”, line 84, in <module>
_abcoll.MutableMapping.register(IterableUserDict)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 109, in register
if issubclass(subclass, cls):
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 184, in __subclasscheck__
cls._abc_negative_cache.add(subclass)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\_weakrefset.py”, line 84, in add
self.data.add(ref(item, self._remove))
TypeError: cannot create weak reference to ‘classobj’ object

Could not create the default HDA shelf tool for ‘geometry’:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<stdin>”, line 1, in <module>
File “CPROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.683/houdini/python2.6libs\hou.py”, line 36122, in <module>
import os
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\os.py”, line 398, in <module>
import UserDict
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\UserDict.py”, line 84, in <module>
_abcoll.MutableMapping.register(IterableUserDict)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 109, in register
if issubclass(subclass, cls):
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\abc.py”, line 184, in __subclasscheck__
cls._abc_negative_cache.add(subclass)
File “C:\PYTHON27\LIB\_weakrefset.py”, line 84, in add
self.data.add(ref(item, self._remove))
TypeError: cannot create weak reference to ‘classobj’ object

Is there a way to view images in Render View with gray background? Is there a shader that I can put say on a grid to serve as that? I'm rendering images with some black info and I couldn't see it because the BG is black. Thank you.

Here's the file. Hope it gives you more idea on what I'm trying to say. Basically I have an animated Polygon shape that's emitting FLIP fluids. After rendering with 0.025 particle separation, particles are emitting from the origin(0,0,0). I don't recall those emitting in 0.05 separation. This happens to me a lot. Hope someone shares a solution. THank you!

Hi, can anyone help me determine the random particles emitting from the scene? I use the shelf tools available in H12 to create FLIP fluids emitting from a source geo. Usually a circle or grid. Then, not modify anything that has something to do with the SOP source, etc. The problem is, which I encountered in different project scenes, particles are emitting from old locations, when I translated the geo source, or particles are emitting from the origin(0,0,0). This usually happens, or at least I notice, when I have put some time on the scene and render it the geometry. I was wondering if there's a setting to reset caches (it shouldn't be cache because the unwanted particles stay after re opening the file) or reload the emitter/particles. Does anyone else encounter this? Can you please advise me on what to watch out for. Thank you and happy working!

thanks for the suggestions.

the reference image/file has 2mil particles. i have little less 1.3m minus the ones not showing in the frame. About the particle scale, I tried rendering the particle geo with its pscale changed with addSOP > pointSOP. It was displayed 0.6 in the details view. I tried 0 and 0.1, it doesn't change. Should I re-render the particles and change the scale from there? Is this camera or actual scene size trick?

Hello, can someone suggest how I can improve the look of spray? The bottom one in the attached image is my render. The top one looks really detailed and small. In my render, the spray particles are too globular. I've tried motion and increasing the shutter speed(to 1.5). Other than that, I'm clueless how to get that effect. For particles, I've done wedge with particle random seed. That's 130k x 5wedge. It takes a while to render when I added another 5wedges. I also added variance velocity to the particles.

thank you very much.