Mark Wallman

Mark Wallman

About Me

EXPERTISE
VFX Artist
INDUSTRY
Film/TV

Connect

LOCATION
United Kingdom
WEBSITE

Houdini Skills

Availability

Not Specified

Recent Forum Posts

USD How to instance geo onto Skeleton Feb. 9, 2026, 9:30 a.m.

Hi Hive mind.

I have a student who has made a mechanical spider with very dense poly data. The skeleton animation is being done in Maya.

My idea is to export the skeleton anim out of Maya, and bind in Houdini. As there are many shred pieces I was thinking of somehow instancing the geo onto the joints.

My thoughts are:

-looking into SOPs crowds with an FBX skeleton anim. And then using a SOP crowd import

-layering a USDskel into LOPs and somehow instancing the geo on.

Does anyone have any experience with this. Im currently trying to Google some answers for the best way to look into it.

Thanks in advance for any advise/links/pointers.

Best. Mark

SOP level COPs and Solaris Dec. 3, 2025, 3:40 p.m.

Hi.

Being dump here. If I am animating APEX characters in SOPs what is the best workflow to animate a camera.

So far I have been in Solaris witha SOP create to make characters and then either referencing in a usd camera or using a lop camera.

Best

LOPs Background plate output changes from 20.5 to 21 Dec. 1, 2025, 11:31 a.m.

Hi.
In 20.5 the backgrondPlate LOP has two outputs.

The second one goes to Karma Render Settings with the option:

Image Outputs->AOVs (Render Vars)->Import Render Vars From Second Input

In 21 the backgroundPlate Lops only has a single output.

How would I go setting this up in 21?

Many thanks for any help.

Regards

Mark

EDIT: OK it seems to just work plugged into the left Karma input :-)