polyextrude question

[deecue]

Was wondering if there was a way to do multiple poly extrudes within one polyextrude operator. It gets kind of nasty in your network when you have 10 of the operators in a row. I figured that if you can do it with an edit, you should be able to do it with a polyextrude.

am i missing something simple here?

thanks,

dave

[hoknamahn]

With an Edit SOP you don't create new geometry, but with PolyExtrude SOP create.

[anakin78z]

sadly no, you can't. The only thing you can do is add more divisions by dragging your middle mouse button in the viewport.

... I have often gone back and modified parameters on my polyextrudes, but maybe it's not a bad idea to ask sesi for an 'edit sop' equivalent of polyextrude. Why don't you suggest it over at the sesi forum?

-Jens

[hoknamahn]

SESI doing right things. If they do PolyExtrude with multiple extrudes in one SOP they will violate a procedural workflow. Imho.

[Shannon]

But, to have the option would be better. And polyextrude, like edit sop, is one of those sops commonly used 5, 6 times in a row.

[deecue]

I agree with Shannon. I don't think it would destroy the nature of houdini's procedural methods. i.e. you can do multiple edits within one sop. can you make every edit a different sop. sure you can. but the option is there and thats what makes it so great. it gives the user complete creative control which IMHO makes the software procedural in the area of human engineering.

another alternative to this that would be nice and could be used for a lot of things would be something on the lines of the sub-network sop. but more like the way you can pre-comp compositions if you've ever used After Effects. Almost like being able to select a group of sops and pre-network them. They would all disappear and become one node (still mainting your target/source connections). Then you would be able to enter that node (much like you enter an obj in to the sop level) and go in to the sub-network and keep all your polyextrudes or whatever the case may be. that way your network doesn't get too clogged. I have never used the sub-network sop so maybe that is the point of it. but at a quick glance while writing this up, it only seems to just have 4 inputs that doesn't seem like it would clean up your network all that much. i dunno.. maybe people have had experience with the sub-network sop and would like to share...?

that just my opinion.

thanks,

dave

[anakin78z]

yep, that's pretty much what a subnet is in houdini. In my experience, 4 inputs is usually more than enough. Try subnets real quick by selecting a bunch of nodes, ctrl-right clicking in the window and selecting 'collapse selected into subnet'.

-jz

[deecue]

well damn, how do you like them apples...

i had seen the subnet sop before but never investigated it.. i think you may have just completely changed my ways of working..that is awesome.

thank you so much anakin78z

[hoknamahn]

No, no, no. Think different. Much better to "add" "procedural workflow on/off" button. It will be like a "Delete history" in realtime.

[Shannon]

When I'm polymodeling with the basic toolset, I simply maximize the viewport.

Magically, all the sops dissapear and I now have infinite redo's and tweaks as I need them.

So, my "model without history" button is already there.

It doesn't seem to slow down my system any to have 4-5 thousand hidden sops.

And when I'm done, I reopen the network pane, see all those tiles and feel like i've done alot of work. Then I collpase them into a subnet.

I still agree however, that such a commonly used sop as polyextrude should have the option.

[MatrixNAN]

why not just lock the node you want to keep and then select the one immedately behind it right click and select "select all inputs" then delete them. Thats basically your delete history.

Cheers,

Nate Nesler

[meshsmooth]

Views on Polly-extrude

I am fairly new to Houdini and have come from max so I am full of my expectations from Max

[brucegregory]

If at some point in the modeling process you felt that the model was complete and perfect up to that point, you could simply convert it to a polygonal model, in essence freezing it at that state, use soft and hard edit tools to finalise the shape, and begin your additional polyextrudes from that finalized basis shape. This way you would preserve all of your procedural work up to the point of the conversion, have the converted model, and all of the procedural network intact for all polyextrudes after that. Do this as many times as you wish, collapsing each proceedural chain down into a subnet as needed. I think.

Greg Smith