Paul Newman
Paul Newman
About Me
EXPERTISE
VFX Artist
INDUSTRY
Film/TV
Houdini Skills
Availability
Not Specified
Recent Forum Posts
How to do this particular HScript with Vex? Dec. 3, 2016, 10:56 a.m.
Konstantin MagnusThanks for your time to teach me with an example scene!
Setting up dozens of geo nodes with the same content looks not very Houdini-like to me.
One way of scaling tubes up and down is using a copy SOP. Also make sure to have a look at CHOPs for these kind of effects.
Coming in cold on a deadline, the main thing is to get something that works ASAP.
I did originally use the copy SOP for non-animating shafts. The idea of animating a point before copying geometry onto it is so cool! That's another Houdini a-ha moment for me!
Cheers!
How to do this particular HScript with Vex? Dec. 3, 2016, 6:21 a.m.
Hi!
I needed to automatically animate about 80 tubes to illustrate drilled shafts in the ground, animating the Y-scale of each shaft from 0 to 1 at a fixed speed, but not all shafts at once. I did not want to keyframe all that by hand.
As a Houdini newbie I excitedly jumped into solving it with Vex. A SOP Vex exposed the points while I really just needed quick access to the Y-scale attribute at object-level. I briefly considered an Attribute Wrangle node but I was sorely pressed for time considering that I still had to learn how to code Vex, HScript or whatever was required. Although I had read somewhere that HScript was deprecated, I went for it.
In the Textport I setenv:
playPoint = 140
scaleDuration = 20
spread = 100
I wrote the following HScript for the Y-scale of the first tube before making copies:
HScript description:
It works like a charm! The global variables allowed me to very easily time the animation. HScript is suitably fast = real-time viewport playback for all those tubes.
Questions:
(1) Would you do this using SOP Vex? If so, how?
(2) Would you use an Attribute Wrangle? If so, how?
(3) Any other clever / efficient way to solve this?
I needed to automatically animate about 80 tubes to illustrate drilled shafts in the ground, animating the Y-scale of each shaft from 0 to 1 at a fixed speed, but not all shafts at once. I did not want to keyframe all that by hand.
As a Houdini newbie I excitedly jumped into solving it with Vex. A SOP Vex exposed the points while I really just needed quick access to the Y-scale attribute at object-level. I briefly considered an Attribute Wrangle node but I was sorely pressed for time considering that I still had to learn how to code Vex, HScript or whatever was required. Although I had read somewhere that HScript was deprecated, I went for it.
In the Textport I setenv:
playPoint = 140
scaleDuration = 20
spread = 100
I wrote the following HScript for the Y-scale of the first tube before making copies:
{float n = atof(substr($OS,7,3)); float v = 0; p = int($playPoint + ((rand(n) - 0.5) * $spread)); if ($F > p) {v = ($F - p) / $scaleDuration;} if (v < 0) {v = 0;} if (v > 1) {v = 1;} return v;}
HScript description:
- get tube geometry node name (“shafty_001”)
- strip out digits (“001”) and convert digit string to float
- use digit (unique to each auto-numbered tube) to seed the random generator (ranging from 0 to 1)
- offset random values between -0.5 and 0.5 to allow start time either side of a point in time
- multiply offset with ‘spread’ global variable (frame count for animating all the tubes)
- compute scaling steps using my ‘scaleDuration’ global variable (individual tube animation duration)
- add to ‘playPoint’ global variable (animation of tubes is now spread around this point in time)
- clamp result between 0 and 1 (my code here is probably inefficient)
It works like a charm! The global variables allowed me to very easily time the animation. HScript is suitably fast = real-time viewport playback for all those tubes.
Questions:
(1) Would you do this using SOP Vex? If so, how?
(2) Would you use an Attribute Wrangle? If so, how?
(3) Any other clever / efficient way to solve this?
irregular Mantra frame render times Dec. 1, 2016, 5:30 a.m.
Hi everyone!
Before I ask my question, I suppose a short intro is in order…
I've been using Houdini Indie for a couple of weeks (thanks SideFX for Indie – really!). I picked it up fairly quickly once I “got” a few paradigms. Houdini is really a pleasure to use! I jumped right in and after an hour or so started doing commercial production on some simple 3D logo project. I had used Project Messiah Studio and Lightwave 3D before that (and several modelling apps). My current workflow also includes Syntheyes which plays very nice with Houdini. A recent project includes a truck model of about 5 million polygons and Houdini just shines! I've been doing commercial 3D animation since I got a copy of Imagine 3D for my Commodore Amiga from a stiffy disc on a graphics magazine cover. Since then I have worked as linear and non-linear video editor, VFX artist, coder, web developer, sysadmin, film producer, director, screenplay writer, and more recently enjoying the privilege of setting up a full service production studio with my wife and kids who are all amazingly creative! At this point you may think me a fossil but I'm still only 17 at heart with an able 47 year old body.
I'm really looking forward to learning much from you guys and perhaps also help others!
I currently work on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, Intel 2600K @ 3.4GHz, SSD, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GTX660. I hope to soon upgrade to a GTX1070 with Octane Render for Houdini.
Here's my question: When rendering a scene where the composition is very similar (nearly identical) from frame to frame, I find Mantra's render times quite irregular.
This scene is a tanker truck on a floor with raytraced shadows and PBR rendering on all available processors with the camera just slightly changing position between frames.
Here's a few recent Frame Wall Clock Times obtained from Alf Progress on the Houdini Console:
6:43 min
6:05 min
4:51 min
5:41 min
6:23 min
5:53 min
6:27 min
4:32 min
6:17 min
6:43 min
5:55 min
7:03 min
4:08 min
6:30 min
Is this normal behavior? That's quite some fluctuation of over 2 minutes per frame between extremes. System RAM usage maxes out at 10GB of 16GB during this render. I don't do much else at the same time, except typing this post, print a document, and email.
Looking forward to your replies!
Before I ask my question, I suppose a short intro is in order…
I've been using Houdini Indie for a couple of weeks (thanks SideFX for Indie – really!). I picked it up fairly quickly once I “got” a few paradigms. Houdini is really a pleasure to use! I jumped right in and after an hour or so started doing commercial production on some simple 3D logo project. I had used Project Messiah Studio and Lightwave 3D before that (and several modelling apps). My current workflow also includes Syntheyes which plays very nice with Houdini. A recent project includes a truck model of about 5 million polygons and Houdini just shines! I've been doing commercial 3D animation since I got a copy of Imagine 3D for my Commodore Amiga from a stiffy disc on a graphics magazine cover. Since then I have worked as linear and non-linear video editor, VFX artist, coder, web developer, sysadmin, film producer, director, screenplay writer, and more recently enjoying the privilege of setting up a full service production studio with my wife and kids who are all amazingly creative! At this point you may think me a fossil but I'm still only 17 at heart with an able 47 year old body.
I'm really looking forward to learning much from you guys and perhaps also help others!
I currently work on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, Intel 2600K @ 3.4GHz, SSD, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GTX660. I hope to soon upgrade to a GTX1070 with Octane Render for Houdini.
Here's my question: When rendering a scene where the composition is very similar (nearly identical) from frame to frame, I find Mantra's render times quite irregular.
This scene is a tanker truck on a floor with raytraced shadows and PBR rendering on all available processors with the camera just slightly changing position between frames.
Here's a few recent Frame Wall Clock Times obtained from Alf Progress on the Houdini Console:
6:43 min
6:05 min
4:51 min
5:41 min
6:23 min
5:53 min
6:27 min
4:32 min
6:17 min
6:43 min
5:55 min
7:03 min
4:08 min
6:30 min
Is this normal behavior? That's quite some fluctuation of over 2 minutes per frame between extremes. System RAM usage maxes out at 10GB of 16GB during this render. I don't do much else at the same time, except typing this post, print a document, and email.
Looking forward to your replies!