Actually we have moved on to a new service as our official swag store: https://shop.spreadshirt.com/thehoudiniboutique/ [shop.spreadshirt.com]

You can now buy Houdini Indie using PayPal!

We have an online store here:
https://shop.spreadshirt.com/thehoudiniboutique/ [shop.spreadshirt.com]

A few recent designs are available.

Sign into the Orbolt website then use this link:

https://www.orbolt.com/upgrade-houdini-files [www.orbolt.com]

Tinkering with the dissolve tool there are a couple things to watch out for. It only works on boundary edges therefore you may need to delete the polygons beside the edge you want to extract - that is if you are trying to get edges or loops “inside” a topology. The second step would then be to select the boundry edges you want(either by hand or with a group) and then press delete (which creates a dissolve sop). On the Dissolve SOP, set Operation to Delete Non-Selected and then set Remove Inline points to OFF - this is especially important if you selected a loop because then ALL the points are inline points and you will see nothing. If you do these steps you should be OK:

At the moment, our support for the Amazon cloud has been suspended. You can find details here:
https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/render/cloudfarm [www.sidefx.com]

The page being found by the search is an old FAQ that was put into draft mode when the information was incorporated into the docs.

We don't have any information about cloud computing on our website at the moment. There is some out of date notes in the docs about working with Amazon Cloud (which we don't at the moment).

Do you want to put your licenses on the cloud or work with a cloud service such as Google Zync or Gridmarkets?

Now you would go to /mat or create a node called Material Network then dive into this node. then you go to the Tools menu and choose Show Tool Palette. You can use the filter at the bottom to find “classic” and from the Shaders menu, you can choose Classic Shader. This should line you up with what is in the tutorial.

Shopnets were replaced with material networks because the mat networks are VOP based and allow for layered shaders.

The best way to avoid issues is to return your license before you make the change then reacquire it on the new drive. You can do this by opening up the license admin app and from the File menu select Return Selected Licenses. Then after you replace your drive, go back to this app and Install them again.

Every user can do this a couple times per year. This is meant to deal with hardware changes.

When you set up a curve in the second input that curve will be “fit” between the start point of the extrude to the “extruded front” which is by default a certain distance from the start based on the distance attribute.

In the attached file, I turned on “Transform Extruded Front” in the Extrusion tab which freed up the front to be moved anywhere I wanted so I point snapped it to the end of the curve. I then used the rotate handle to rotate the end face to align with the curve. This gives you something much closer to what you wanted.

In the tutorial this wasn't needed because the endpoints of the input curve were both aligned along a straight line so the distance attribute did the trick. Since your endpoints are not aligned, the Transform Extruded Front option was necessary.

I spoke with the author - it should be up and running again now.

Here is a version that uses a polybevel to get a nice round edge at the bottom. Added some polyfills to fix up topology at the top and the bottom.

If you created your digital asset using Houdini Apprentice then it would be saved out as a .hdanc (non commercial) file. The 30 day trial is a commercial license for Houdini Engine that cannot load non commercial files. There is no way to open .hdanc files in Engine. You need to get a digital asset from a commercial version of Houdini - you can find some at orbolt.com.

Robert

I found Rob V's Python Masterclass and put it up on the new site as an archived lesson. It is from Houdini 9.5 therefore not sure how much is still applicable in 16.5.

https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/python-and-houdini-95/ [www.sidefx.com]

Thanks harry for the feedback. The goal is to create more editions of using the Houdini Foundations format that covers a wider range of features including VFX, character and lighting. They are a lot of work but there are plans to produce more chapters.

Robert

PS - I was the designer and author of the Art of Maya, along with a team of writers, when I worked at Alias|Wavefront many moons ago. Glad that book helped you too.

A new PDF has been uploaded that should fix display issues. Did you just download it today?

Varomix has a good introductory video for Renderman in Houdini:


https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/renderman-for-houdini-quickstart/ [www.sidefx.com]

There are a few different options for bring these two apps together.

For instance, you can bring the animated character into Houdini via FBX or Alembic then add your effects. You can also use the Houdini Engine for Maya plug-in to create assets out of your effects that you can use inside the Maya UI.

On that chart if something is import only then it is marked as such - eg FBX for Apprentice - a check means that it will import and export which for Indie is the case for FBX.

The latest production build of Houdini brings exciting new improvements to the licensing and render restrictions on Houdini Indie while also adding a powerful new UV Flatten tool and important refinements to FBX import and export. The Houdini Indie program has been a successful initiative designed to provide indie animators and gamedevs, who have a gross income less than $100K USD, with access to the features of Houdini FX with very few restrictions.

In response to feedback from the Houdini Indie community, SideFX is increasing the render resolution limit for image sequences from 1080p to 4K x 4K in order to facilitate the generation of high definition imagery, which is especially important for artists creating VR content. SideFX will also be issuing a supplementary license to all Indie users to allow them to install Houdini on a second computer/laptop, or to work in dual boot mode. The use of these two licenses is restricted to a single artist, who can only use Houdini Indie on one of these computers at a time as per the EULA.

With these added features and the recent addition of third party rendering, SideFX has set a new annual price for Houdini Indie of $269 USD for a single year or $399 USD for a two-year term.

LEARN MORE… [www.sidefx.com]