how to learn the vex network?

[jack5302003]

i am a fresh man . i learnd houdini 2 months, but i only learnd the pop and sop and a little rop. but i want to learn the vex builder. could you tell me how to learn the vex builder. if you give me some examples i will thank you ! (sorry, my ennglish so terrible )

waitting for you . guys

[JDenker]

first of all build yourself a vex desktop which makes life a lbit easier working in VEX.

i did a little tutorial how to set up one.. i cannot access the rapidshare link, because i am at the university right now and we are a little bit limited here with the nternet access . (only odf and sesi page works)

since i am home i will add it here.

VEX... in my opinion is... a little bit confusing at the beginning.. i come from XSI and i now the rendertree quite well.

its both nodebased but so diffrerent from each other. in houdini you have to create almost every parameter slash node yourself

e.g.

go into shops..

throw in a vop vex surface shop.. dive into and then you will see the inputs it has

Cf is for color e.g

press tab and throw in a lighting model.. conncet it to Cf and then mmb on the input of lmodel at the lighting mode nodel to create a parameter. rename the parameter name lmodel to something else like mylmodel or whatever... because, ifi you have a lot of nodes in there who are sharing a same name.. it will crash on you like crazy.

so... now when you collapse it to a material with shift + c and promoted the parameters.. then the user have the coice between different lighting models... lambert, phong, etc....

thats just an easy example..

also take a look at the mixers and converters (float to vector, etc..) they are pretty important and very powerful

i know... its not a big intro but i hope it helped a little bit..

take a look at rdg's thread 'a shader each day' i guess you gonna learn something from it. give yourself some challenges and deadlines!

also try extract contents at some shaders.. then you can see how they are build and get your head around. i can sent you some shaders i did if you are like so you can rip them apart and ask questions after it..!

as i said i post the tutorial since im home... (its now 6:06AM).

cheers

-J

[old school]

3d buzz does a good job in the Effects Tornado video series. Check out the Tornado: Basic Shaders video where he builds a vop network.

cmiVFX has a two part series on building VOPs which should give you more than enough to start building shaders with vex/vops.

http://www.cmivfx.com/product_houdini_vex1.asp

Edited May 30, 2008 by old school

[jack5302003]

hi guys, really thank you .JDenKer, old school,really thank you !

In fact , i am doing my final project with my friend in school. we want to creat a tank , then cannonball from the tank to break the target on the far hill.

then we want to make the target broken step by step with slow shot. then the hill will be attacked . the rock fly everwhere. there are two important points

to us. target borken and rock fly ererwhere. there is any smoke and dust . i have a problem to ask you. if i make the smoke visual effect with the

default smoke material. is it can make better result ?

hi JDenKer, your words make me clearly to vop . really thanks. could you send me some example about vex by you wrote ?

my email is jack_2006214@yahoo.com.cn . please really thank you!

[JDenker]

yea sure. i will sent you some to your email.

cheers

-J

[jack5302003]

thanks guys. i am waitting for you !