Hi,

Windows XP Pro SP3
Intel Core 2
2GB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
Houdini 9.1.284

I'm animating in Houdini and the shading in the viewport, ONLY on the geometry, flickers black (meaning turned black on a few frames intermittently and permanently). This seems like an open GL issue or Graphics discrepency between Houdini and my card. The problem doesn't occur when I have wireframe or even hidden line ghost shading turned on. Even with speculars and transperency turned off, it still persists.

Problem 2: Flipbook renders fine (with the black flickering btw) and is dropping frames or, in other words, copying a frame of animation, or freeze framing, hanging, or however else you'd like to describe it. The final render in Mplay and Quicktime, and whatever other app, plays the jpg sequence with this problem.

Amend: The problem doesn't occur when I decrease the resolution to 50%, but what if I want 75%? It starts happening. 100% flipbook crashes.


Any help would greatly be appreciated. :twisted:

I don't know whats causing it but perhaps you could toggle your “Enable Double Buffering” toggle under “Edit>Preferences>General Preferences”?

Do you have anything forced in your video driver, like overriding the application preferences for antialiasing or anisotropic filtering? Sometimes those don't play well with Houdini.

Thanks i'll look into it!

Here's what consol spits out:

Invalid OpenGL driver
Unable to link glBlendColor
Unable to link glBlendEquation
Unable to link glConvolutionFilter1D
Unable to link glHistogram
Unable to link glTexImage3D
Unable to link glActiveTexture
Unable to link glFogCoordf
Unable to link glGenFramebuffers
Unable to link glLockArrays
Unable to link glGenBuffers
Unable to link glDrawBuffers
Warning: OpenGL shader extensions not available.
This is a limitation of your video card
or driver, and will prevent Houdini from
using GLSL shaders.
Set the HOUDINI_OGL_ENABLE_SHADERS


Also, here's another problem i've been having with this scene:

Warning: Bad operator type when binding handles: Object/path
Warning: Bad operator type when binding handles: Object/pathcv
Warning: Bad operator type when binding handles: Cop2/emboss

Anyone know what this is?

Thanks to all!!!

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Also, here's another problem i've been having with this scene:

Warning: Bad operator type when binding handles: Object/path
Warning: Bad operator type when binding handles: Object/pathcv
Warning: Bad operator type when binding handles: Cop2/emboss

This is an indication that you may have a bad build, or something wrong with your Houdini environment. Try downloading a new build and see if that makes any difference.

What is the version of your Nvidia driver? It seems very odd that you'd get an “Invalid OpenGL driver” with an 8800. I believe you can look this up in the Nvidia control panel, Help->System Information.

I've taken this issue to Support. But any help would greatly be appreciated.
:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

I'll try to upgrade to that driver on my XP SP3 system and see if I can reproduce the issue.


ps - what's with the :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: ?

Thanks a lot! You really don't have to go through all that trouble!

:twisted: <– um, that's just me on too much caffeinated beverages. Pay no attention to me.

Oh, I updated to the latest build, 316, and problems persist. Although, it it somewhat better. I think this is legitimately a problem with the current Houdini build that they are working on.

Ishindenshin
Oh, I updated to the latest build, 316, and problems persist. Although, it it somewhat better. I think this is legitimately a problem with the current Houdini build that they are working on.

Hi there,

Have you tried 9.5 instead of 9.1? Does the nature of any of the problems change?

Seems like an asset issue. I will post fix if there is one, just for future reference.

ah, we get this too!!! random frames in shaded GL mode are black. v strange…

WOOT!
thanks Paul…
that means it's not an asset issue… :wink:


what kind of card/driver are you using?
are you on Windows?

this is on a variety of nvidia 8xxx cards running opensuse 10.1 -> 10.3

seems like something thats happened in the last 12 months.

Another thing i'm noticing is that it happens when I make a new camera, not in the persp cam. Is this the same for you guys?

Oh, I also had Houdini installed on another computer completely and still the same issue with different hardware configurations completely. I will update soon to tell you what card exactly.

First big thing:

GForce 7950 GX2


Forceware
162.18
Memory
512 MB
Video Bios
5.71.22.38.16
IRQ
17
BUS
PCI express x16


running on XP SP2
Intel Core 2
2.66 GHZ
2 GB RAM

paul
ah, we get this too!!! random frames in shaded GL mode are black. v strange…

We get that too. Ubuntu & Windows. Nvidia 8800.

Dragos

I am seeing this too, so far only when viewing through a camera.

xp x64 sp2
build 9.5.170
quadro fx3700