Hey guys,
Thanks for the beginners forum… better use it now. Whenever i import an object (*.lwo) it gives me an import node but doesnt display the geometry on screen, is there something else i should do?

regards ric

If you used the File > Import > Geometry menu item then you should see an object node in the network editor and geometry in your viewport. If you don't see geometry then double-click on the node and check to see if there is an error on the file node. If there is still no geometry then the file is not reading in properly. Maybe you could post it for others to try.

If you are importing using a file node at the geometry level then make sure you set the display flag. A common error when people are first learning is to put a node at the geometry level and forget to display it.

Robert

It could be that the file version of your lightwave is too new for houdini. Try saving it as a lower version .lwo or better convert it to the wavefront or iges format.

thanks robert\pagefan, i am using the import geometry, i import the file as a version 5 *.lwo as it failed to load the version 9. All i see when i select the import geo node is a wire representation on the object, deselected it disappears..

seems to work now, it renders normal, flat shaded and smooth shaded fail to display the model, maybe its a videocard issue..

ric

no videocard issue, geometry created inside houdini displays fine, just not the imported one.

Try exporting .obj from lightwave, the obj loader in houdini is better.

eetu.

thanks, that did the trick..

ric

According to the documentation, the lwo loader was made for lw 3.5 - which is more than a decade old

An updated one would be real nice, especially as lw objects have all kinds of per point attributes and such these days. It would be very nice to have them accessible in Houdini.

.. And that would add Modo-compatibility for free, too

eetu.

well, it renders bog-ugly, and even the opengl model looks like it unmerged all polygons and smoothing is applied over corners, all kinds of funky shading going on. It would have to render fine with default mantra settings, wouldnt it?

I'd recommend using obj format for geometry import/export… it is the easiest way I believe…

Yep, normals are smoothed over all points by default. For first aid put down a Facet SOP and tick the “Unique Points” box. That un-merges the points and the edges will look hard.

eetu.

I think that's what he's using. How the obj is created can be critical. Try adding a facet SOP, recompute the normals, try consolidating points.

Cheers,

J.C.

added facet SOP, PREcompute nomals, consolidate points as far as was possible, still looks like it did..

thanks JColdrick,
the consolidate points in the clean SOP did it!