Say I have a scene with two boxes in regular Houdini /obj context

I can activate the move tool, click a box, move it, click the other box, move it, all without deactivating the move tool.

If I have the same scene in LOPs, two cubes, and press t to switch to the move tool and drop an edit node, I can't select anything. To select one of the cubes I must select it AND press enter, only then have I made a selection that will work with the move tool.

Is this a bug? Or is there a toggle somewhere for this behavior? It feels incorrect and would slow set dressing tasks considerably.

Lovely! It doesn't show up under hou.ParmTemplate which makes sense now as not everything has a setDefaultValue.

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/hom/hou/FloatParmTemplate.html [www.sidefx.com]

Thanks a bunch for the tips

Found this while looking up how to SET the defaults via code, but a definite +1 for making it even MORE obvious, and a big thanks to whoever had the idea in the first place.

Is there by chance an hscript command to set the default of a given parameter?

I looked through http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/commands/opparm.html [www.sidefx.com] and couldn't find anything there, same on the python side of things.

Awesome, that totally works. Here's the resulting command:


FWIW I actually ended up bypassing Houdini's HDA system all together and just using saveItemsToFile(). I can then call loadItemsFromFile() to get the nodes back and manage the versioning etc myself.

When saving an HDA via python, how can I set the default values for said HDA? I'm able to copy the parameters via the following code, but would love to set their initial values as defaults as well.

+1 for not having to arbitrarily switch platforms, seems like a silly workaround.

Can confirm that switching to Windows allows loading of OTLs.

+1 for not having to arbitrarily switch platforms, seems like a silly workaround.

Can confirm that switching to Windows allows loading of OTLs.

Done and done, thanks for looking into it

Ah, so it is mesh distance fields. Apologies, I missed that crucial step (they were already on in my scene). I can confirm that it doesn't crash when they're not on, though they're needed for raytraced shadows.

To enable mesh distance fields:
1. Open Project Settings (settings dropdown)
2. Under Engine>Rendering > Lighting check “Generate Mesh Distance Fields”
3. Restart the editor
4. Execute the steps in my previous post.

Quick crash video attached.

For sure:

1. Import the digital asset
2. Set inputs > line to curve input
3. Set inputs > object to an imported fbx (I used the attached sphere)
4. Move one point on the curve
5. Right click the point, add point
6. Move the newly added point
7. Unreal Engine hard crashes

Windows, Unreal Engine 4.7.6, Houdini 14.0.361

Ahh got it, thanks for the reply! I was trying every combination of ctrl + alt + shift I could think of

Adding a point then moving that point hard crashes Unreal at the moment. I have mesh distance fields on for the project, seems like it might be crashing during that step.. Regardless at least I know how it's supposed to work now

When creating a Houdini Engine asset in Unreal you can specify a SOP input as a curve input. Once you choose curve input Houdini Engine presents you with a lot of options: Polygon, Nurbs, Bezier, CVs, Freehand, Breakpoints.

So far I can only get it to show the start and end point of a line. Am I doing something wrong? Are curves not fully implemented yet? Just curious how to create a multi-point or bezier curve in Unreal.

Checked both docs and couldn't find much, hopefully not missing something obvious Simple scatterLine otl attached.

We're always running the latest version and typically run the preview versions once they're stable. Each dot release of Unreal Engine has a lot of good features, just like the dot releases of Houdini (and Houdini Engine).

To clarify:

1. Put 0,0,0 in the opacity
2. Go into the shader and connect the color (multiply1 on a constant material) directly to Ce, skipping the premultColors node
3. Turn your color down a lot, like .1,0,0 for nice additive red

Also worth noting that it won't render properly in Micropolygon mode.

This was super helpful, thanks for posting!

I'm trying to compile the Field3D plugin on windows in order to transfer smoke from Houdini to Fume.

This is the command that I'm currently running from the field3d directory where f3dtools.C file is located:

hcustom f3dtools.C -i cie/ark/programs/houdini/houdini13.0/dso -L “CProgram Files (x86)/Microsoft SDKs/Windows/v7.0A/Lib/x64/” -L “CProgram Files (x86)/Microsoft SDKs/Windows/v7.0A/Lib/”

When compiled with no change to the code, the compiler complains about error C2664: ‘void GU_Detail::sortPrimitiveList(GU_AxisType)’ : cannot convert parameter 1 from ‘fpreal32 *’ to ‘GU_AxisType’

If I comment out this line, then the compiler gives a classic fatal error LNK1120: 25 unresolved externals.

It seems like almost all of these errors are LNK2019: unresolved external symbol in the f3dtools object file, followed by a string beginning with: “__declspec(dllimport) public: class std::basic_string . . . . . .”

Is there a precompiled version of this plugin somewhere? I'm surprised it's not just included by default, without it there's no way to get smoke out of Houdini which is a big barrier to adoption.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Thanks so much for your reply Doum! Incredibly helpful, this will serve as the basis for a lot of the stuff I want to do in Houdini. Really appreciate it.

All of the magic seems to be happening in sopsolver1. At first glance there's not much in there that's familiar to me so it will take a bit to digest.

I'm honestly surprised it's not more straightforward to emit geometry and kick it into a physics simulation, but as long as this works I'll hopefully only need to set it up once

Learning Houdini and having trouble creating “raining boxes”.

I'm emitting particles, copying a box to each particle, then killing the particles after they're born. I then specify $FF for the RBD Packed Object's creation frame, but boxes are only born on the first frame, not every frame. This worked fine on my laptop but isn't working on my desktop at work. I've attached the simple scene file in hopes someone can point me in the right direction.

Is this the best way to achieve the effect? Should I be going about this another way? Thanks in advance for any help / guidance.

Learning Houdini and having trouble creating “raining boxes”.

I'm emitting particles, copying a box to each particle, then killing the particles after they're born. I then specify $FF for the RBD Packed Object's creation frame, but boxes are only born on the first frame, not every frame. This worked fine on my laptop but isn't working on my desktop at work. I've attached the simple scene file in hopes someone can point me in the right direction.

Is this the best way to achieve the effect? Should I be going about this another way? Thanks in advance for any help / guidance.