3__

pretty janky so far.

quickest way would be to model each segment. see attached. proceduralbuilding.hipnc

see attached, is there a way to have N and UP processed along with P by the finite-element solver? upvec_vs_dops.hipnc

Hava look at Afterburn for 3DSMax. Have also done similar things with curved sprites in Houdini (see avatar pic). Works great for stylized fx. Dissipating it nicely can be a bit tricky tho... Also convincing interaction with animated objects.

convert to bgeo, hose the alembic nodes, carry-on as usual...

couldn't reproduce the problem... see attached for another file using the wood texture, plus a (nasty) attempt at curved UVs. curved_uvs_from_planks.hipnc

see attached, the UVs are aligned to each plank. curving UVs for bent sections (rather than cut) is a bit trickier... uvs_from_planks.hipnc

Actually it isn't. Point/prim/edge numbers are volatile, most SOPs that create geometry won't group the newly created output, extrudes and bevels won't deal with UVs, Sops that create primitives do-so with near degenerate faces, procedurally selecting loops is a pain, procedually splitting and knitting is very difficult, many SOP operations require manual cleanup... list goes on. For destructive modeling in the viewport SOPs are pretty good however, once your muscle-memory sets-in. Definitely lacks many of the comfort features of other programs though... its just hasn't received enough attention from top modelers, who avoid it because its been neglected...

lol guilty. But end of the day I'm paid to illustrate stuff, not dick-around with naming & shit. I think the safest thing to do is never let artists handle each others hipfiles... its no different to Maya users an their mel-scripts; no matter how well written it is, other artists will be horrified and start-over.

Try keeping it simple : Bgeo-> Mantra. Many problems like this will go away.

"heads will roll"... Does that mean they finally fixed the viewports?

how to do it: Fear of deadlines... real ones. I'd suggest fully committing to using the software for your ads, resist the temptation to fall back to you normally use on the job. You'll end up cheating/hacking your way through just like with any other program. After a while you'll be throwing stuff together in no-time.

I can eat snow all day...

hava look at Hakan's rendering tests: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDJmoQZ3JPLxLanyQ-Zy6tA using Vray, but still serves as a useful indicator of real-world performance.

see attached... for polys use refine SOP to avoid stretching, for nurbs you can eyeball it with a refine SOP... there might be a more procedural way to do this. also the distortions in your screenies should only appear in the viewport, adding more revolve divs will get rid of them. to attach files, click on more options button next to 'Post' mapped_revolve.hipnc