Jonathan Gardner

jonathangardner

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SideFX Staff
Since Mar 2020

Recent Forum Posts

where do i find the tool to set a parentspace on ALexa? Jan. 13, 2025, 9:45 a.m.

pbinga
Sorry, very new to houdini here.

I want to set ALexa's head to be in a world orientation and not follow the rotations of the body below. I dont see any toggle in the rig, so i assume there is a tool for it or a hotkey somewhere. Can anyone advise?

Hi!

The best way to do this in Houdini 20.5 would be to add a locator to the scene, copy the animation from the head over to the locator, and then constrain the head to the locator.

To copy the head's animation over to the locator, I'd recommend setting up an animation layer with a transient constraint from the head to the locator.

We'll have a more convenient way to do this in the next release but hopefully this method will help you for now!

APEX Script: how to debug? July 15, 2024, 9:51 a.m.

Hey Kodra,

In H20.5 there isn't a good way to print debug messages from an APEX graph (or from APEX Script) but we're aware of this gap and we're working on a Logcallback for APEX that could be used to log messages, warnings, and errors as well as throw custom error messages to our nodes which invoke APEX graphs.

Once the design of it is finalized, we'll add printing support to APEX Script.

APEX Graph Library Updates - Houdini 20.0.618 Feb. 14, 2024, 3:15 p.m.

In Houdini 20.0.618, we’re updating the APEX graph library to alter callbacks which worked with APEX graphs as geometry.
These callbacks were part of an old workflow that was never properly supported so we hope that these changes will open up new options for you without impacting your existing graphs.
Some of them were replaced with similar callbacks that work directly with APEX graphs while others were removed.

Here is the full list of altered callbacks:

Replaced:
The following callbacks had their signatures altered so that they could work directly on ApexGraphHandle types rather than on the geometric representation of those graphs.
Due to this change, these callbacks should be easier to work with going forward.
  • graph::Layout
  • graph::AddSubnet
  • graph::PackSubnet
  • graph::RewireOutputs

Renamed:
graph::AddSubnetNew was renamed to graph::SetSubnetContents.
This name change better represents what the callback does.
graph::AddSubnetNew has been aliased to graph::SetSubnetContents so this will not affect existing graphs.

Removed:
The following callbacks were removed from APEX:
  • graph::MergeFromDisk - This callback existed prior to the implementation of subnets in APEX as a method of setting up an executable graph. However, it no longer works with the design of APEX and the idea that these graphs should simply be execution engines with results determined entirely by their inputs.
  • graph::ProcessParms - Although this callback had a signature, internally it was a no-op.
  • graph::InvokeCompiled - The graph input to this callback could only be set by the graph output of graph::ProcessParms. Since that output would always be empty, this was also a no-op.
  • graph::SetTags - graph::UpdateNodeTags is the graph equivalent of this callback.
  • graph::SetParms - graph::UpdateNodeParms is the graph equivalent of this callback.