Hey all,

Usually for material assignment in houdini we would create a string attribute that exists on each shape node, the string gives the material group name. For us this comes from Maya as an alembic.

We would then unpack (to see the attributes) and assign materials using something like this: @mat_group=“paint”

Then the material would be assigned to the pre-determined geometry.

Just testing out the workflow now using solaris and I'm wondering how that attribute can be used to do the same thing?

Thanks

So I've later answered this myself by watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI09YJLZ_6k&t=2s [www.youtube.com]

Creating a SOP Create node lets you do whats needed

I'm glad you found the solution. I wanted to post the answer with an example file, but got sidetracked. Anyway, indeed, SOP Create (or Import Scene) can create geometry subsets from sop groups. Then you can use Assign Material LOP to assign a USD material to each subset.

Alternatively, if you USD geometry has a primvar or an attribute, the Assign Material LOP can partition the geometry based on that attribute, if you use specify CVEX or VEXpression as material specification method.