Freezing operators?

[MG]

I have this scene and it's full of active operators. My question is if it's possible to freeze operators? (Like in XSI [ * freeze operators * ], or Maya [ * freeze construction history * ] )

Thanks in advance!

[DaJuice]

Do you mean, make one or more operators inactive?

If so, you can do that by pressing the little bypass button on the op tile (looks like an arrow pointing down).

Hope that helps.

Peace!

[MG]

Thanks a lot for your input! I'm afraid though that I allready know how to make them inactive. I meant freezing, which is more like "merging" operators. (I would have an idea to bypass it, but it would be easier if I could just "freeze" the operators).

[stevenong]

I think you're thinking in terms of other packages. You don't freeze SOPs in Houdini, you lock them.

Select the last SOP you want Houdini to process till then click on the Lock icon, it will turn yellow. Basically, Houdini cooks all the SOPs before & stores all the computed data/info into it.

Here's the best thing: If you want to change something before the locked SOP, you just unlock the SOP, make your changes & then lock it again. That's Houdini for ya! :D

However, if you really you want to get rid of all the SOPs before a selected SOP, you can do it in the viewport. Make sure you're in Edit Operation mode instead of View only mode. Viewer Controls button(Down Arrow at top left of viewport) -> Edit Current Operation. Or hit 'Enter' in the viewport.

Now, navigate to the selected SOP in the viewport or turn on the SOP's Display(blue) flag before going to the viewport. Right-Mouse-Hold in the Viewport on the geometry to get the pop-up.

From the pop-up, select 'Delete History'. You'll notice all the SOP before the selected will be deleted & it will also be locked. Be careful with this though, you can't get the deleted SOPs back after you save.

The 'Delete History' will be the equivalent of XSI's "Freeze Modelling Relation' or Maya's "Freeze Construction History".

Then again, why would you want to do that in Houdini?

If you find there are too many SOPs to manage, Right-Mouse-Hold on the selected SOP & select 'Hide Inputs'. Voila! A nice neat network pane.

There are other ways to manage the SOP network but I'll leave that till the next time.

[MG]

Thanks Steveong! Now you say, I forgot all about the locking!

Also, those arguments you gave me are quite good and I thought about them... And I could indeed bypass it all and sub-network certain operators.

I guess I was just looking if I could do what I was used to in other packages aswell. (Since I am relatively new with Houdini).

Anyways, thanks again for your help and sharp arguments!

[danteA]

Another way to manage long SOP chains is to select the SOPs you want to hide in the network editor and then hit shift+C which collapses them all into a subnet. After that, you can simply lock the subnet.

[Rafal]

Right click on tile you what freeze and save geometry. And after put file SOP it cut history like freeze in xsi(you cannot freeze each of op).

[danteA]

(you cannot freeze each of op).

If what you mean by "freeze" is to "not cook", then "lock"'ing an operator does exactly that. On the tile in the network editor, there's a button that looks like a lock if you zoom in really close. Once you click it, it turns yellow. Thereafter, nothing up the chain will cook, thereby effectively freezing the geometry in that operator, even if you delete all the operators above it (although this is NOT recommented).

[Jason]

When I think of "freezing", I think of the old Softimage "Freeze Transformations" thing. I wrote a script a while ago that attempted to freeze transformations (set them to zeros, and one's for the scales) by pusing the current tranformation into the PreTransform. I made one for houdini 4.x which appended an xform SOP at the end of each SOP chain too and reset the object transform.

I haven't had the opportunity or permission to complete or release this script - but it's a pretty handy thing to have around. (This is just for your information - feel free to write a script like this!)

Cheers,

J.

[Marc]

says the jet lagged tapir.

long live the king tapir!