Is there a way to assign default materials to objects?

[magneto]

Hi,

I am very new to Houdini, only know how to navigate the viewport I am an expert in Max, so if there are people using both and can give Max like examples, I would appreciate it alot.

My goal is to learn this app from inside out.

Anyway I was wondering if there is a way to assign a different material to newly created scene objects.

This might actually be solved by a different method, as even though I am asking about default materials, I just want to customize how new scenes looks before I work with it.

So essentially I want my own lighting and default material for new objects that has this kind of look:

In Max, you create a maxstart scene in the scene folder and Max loads it when you create a new scene.

Is this possible, too much work, or against the spirit of Houdini?

Thanks in advance.

[Erik_JE]

This was already answered on the SESI forums.

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&p=108556&sid=486e45eac6fa000bd9469f3a984ed84e

Read up on environment variables for houdini.

For shading in the viewport you are limited to the opengl parameters unless you write your own glsl shader and use. Which I think maybe is out of your scope. You can see the available opengl parameters by viewing the OpenGl tab of the Mantra Surface material.

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini11.1/hom/independent contains more info on 456.py which you can use to add your default light rig to all new scenes. The look of the viewport is affected by what lights you have enabled.

[magneto]

This was already answered on the SESI forums.

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&p=108556&sid=486e45eac6fa000bd9469f3a984ed84e

Read up on environment variables for houdini.

For shading in the viewport you are limited to the opengl parameters unless you write your own glsl shader and use. Which I think maybe is out of your scope. You can see the available opengl parameters by viewing the OpenGl tab of the Mantra Surface material.

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini11.1/hom/independent contains more info on 456.py which you can use to add your default light rig to all new scenes. The look of the viewport is affected by what lights you have enabled.

Thanks, yeah I asked it there but I couldn't get a reply on the followup, that's why I wanted to ask here. Not sure which site is more active, I might actually post here instead of 2 places.

I wrote some HLSL shaders before using fx composer, but never a GLSL one. Can you write one inside Houdini? I know it has shader networks but not sure what kinds of shaders it supports.

I will look into the things you mentioned.

Thanks again.

Edited October 4, 2011 by magneto

[edward]

I wrote some HLSL shaders before using fx composer, but never a GLSL one. Can you write one inside Houdini? I know it has shader networks but not sure what kinds of shaders it supports.

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini11.1/shade/opengl

[magneto]

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini11.1/shade/opengl

Thanks man, appreciate it. Btw is there a centralized library for Houdini assets as in shaders, SOPs, POPs, etc. Would be immensely helpful, but I feel they are all over which I will need to track down.

[pclaes]

In regards to that centralized library, you might want to have a look at the Exchange.

It's on the sidefx website under the "community" drop down menu -> exchange

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=8

[magneto]

In regards to that centralized library, you might want to have a look at the Exchange.

It's on the sidefx website under the "community" drop down menu -> exchange

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=8

Thanks, wow it looks awesome. Downloading now.

[eyevex]

Thanks, wow it looks awesome. Downloading now.

by convention you can also use a file called defaultscene.cmd that is source from 123.cmd and other places to set up default lights etc...

[magneto]

by convention you can also use a file called defaultscene.cmd that is source from 123.cmd and other places to set up default lights etc...

Thanks, where should I place this defaultscene.cmd?

[eyevex]

Thanks, where should I place this defaultscene.cmd?

convention is to pretty much mimic the $HH structure in either your $HSITE location, $HOME/houdini.xx.x, etc... so for consistancy I would put it in similarly in the same dir as the 123.cmd for easy sourcing -- currently I think in $HH/scripts.

most of the files in $HH can have various points of overide in the path and a good way to experiment is to mimic the structure in your $HOME/houdini.xx.x and then copy a file from the intallation dir and start editing it. If you are unsure what Im talking of... $HFS in the intall dir hfsxxx.xx and $HH is /houdini from there. You can use the variable to jump around via window-->shell from inside the app, cmdline tools on win, or sourcing houdini_setup on *nix and then cd $HH or cd $HFS etc...

[magneto]

convention is to pretty much mimic the $HH structure in either your $HSITE location, $HOME/houdini.xx.x, etc... so for consistancy I would put it in similarly in the same dir as the 123.cmd for easy sourcing -- currently I think in $HH/scripts.

most of the files in $HH can have various points of overide in the path and a good way to experiment is to mimic the structure in your $HOME/houdini.xx.x and then copy a file from the intallation dir and start editing it. If you are unsure what Im talking of... $HFS in the intall dir hfsxxx.xx and $HH is /houdini from there. You can use the variable to jump around via window-->shell from inside the app, cmdline tools on win, or sourcing houdini_setup on *nix and then cd $HH or cd $HFS etc...

Thanks yeah I still need to learn about the env variables