Container Project

[thinkinmonkey]

Hi all,

after some doubts, I've decided to use Houdini for my portfolio and main project: Container!

Well, it has not to do only about containers and how to use Houdini to customize everyone of them, but there will be also some character, but it's too early to advance all.

Anyway, this is the first render of containers' placeholder:

The scene is composed by simple boxes that will be replaced with the hires container, the red is for simple hatchs, while the green are are for windowed hatchs. They are copied randomly on grids, randomly turned of 180° (if you don't see hatches, it's because they are on the opposite side) and randomly shifted by user controlled values.

The waving side parts are quite ready, while hatches and other little things have been modelled in Blender, so the scene will be ready soon.

The containers will be also customized in shading like different colors, randomized dirty and scratches, various labels on them and so on.

Now, I need some advice, because yesterday, after modeling and unwrapping the "frame" of the container

that has 19532 triangles, I imported it in Houdini, than I had weird reaction from Houdini showing and hiding the containers' frames, then it stopped to work and said there wasn't enough memory for cooking, then it crashed!

So I learned soon that an heavy scene, in Houdini terms, isn't just a lot of polygons, but a a lot of polygons that must be cooked by nodes! And I suppose there are solutions to render complex scenes like mine. Is it right?

So, the only solution, I think it's right for me, is to output every container processed by nodes in obj format or some other format Houdini likes, then reimport them to be rendered, but they will be displayed as simple boxes, so they will be called only in rendertime. I think also to divide the scene in "blocks" to speed up render time.

So, I'd like to know if that solution is a good solution or there are better that are normally used in studios.

Any C&C are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

[edward]

For the memory usage, try setting the SOP caching cull level up to something like 3 (Preferences > Objects and Geometry)

[thinkinmonkey]

For the memory usage, try setting the SOP caching cull level up to something like 3 (Preferences > Objects and Geometry)

Hi Edward, thanks for your suggestion: I try it, but it crashes!

So I'm sure I've to adopt alternative solutions and see the whole scene only in render time or, better, in post!

[thinkinmonkey]

First render test, just to have a look to the base container with logo. Simple VEX shader.

[thinkinmonkey]

I made a little excercise for my project: creating soldering between objects, but I see the results are a bit expensive if multiplied by thousand of containers.

So, instead of deleting the hip, I'm here to share it and to receive feedback if something could be improved.

Thanks in advance.

saldatura.hipnc

[thinkinmonkey]

Little update!

Using some python example, I've made a personal node to load a list of RGB colors from a txt file, adding also random variation on them based on HSV user input.

Colors are taken from real photos to have a better match.

Here's result:

[fxrod]

Have you thought of instancing instead of copying the actual geometry into your scene? (If that's not what you're already doing). You could still stamp randomness (colors, texture maps, shape, etc). The beauty is, the hi-res geometry won't crash your scene and can also render faster.

Check out this Mantra Instancing. link on odForce.

[thinkinmonkey]

Have you thought of instancing instead of copying the actual geometry into your scene? (If that's not what you're already doing). You could still stamp randomness (colors, texture maps, shape, etc). The beauty is, the hi-res geometry won't crash your scene and can also render faster.

Check out this Mantra Instancing. link on odForce.

Thanks fxrod, I'll try it, because my previous solutions were too complex to manage.

I suppose it's quite different from the trick of display/render flag, right? I mean, display flag checked for lowres container version (=simple box), render flag for hires version.

[fxrod]

That's one way to go about it. You don't want to bog down your scene by displaying hi-res stuff. Display Flag - lo res. Render Flag - hi res

Make sure that whatever attributes you're manipulating are on both resolutions so that what you see is an accurate approximation to what'll be rendered.

On another note, many facilities use a delayed read procedural to load hi-res geometry off of disk at rendertime, versus bloating the ifd with so much geometry. I believe there's a SHOP for this...

[thinkinmonkey]

Fxrod, really thanks.

After a search, this is what I need: Mantra Delayed Load Shader

I have to finish the shading of container, because I need a final version of container to work on.

After I'll use the Delayed Load Shader to load previously cooked and different version of containers attaching them material with different attributes (color, dust, scratches,...)

[thinkinmonkey]

Ok, it's been a lot from last time, now with a bit update.

This is the scene I want to render for my portfolio:

Just this night I've finished the street generator, but without final elements, just rough ones and with simple colors for test purpose.

For the moment enjoy this video on youtube:

C&C are welcome. Sorry for my bad english! It was very late...