Understanding DOPs

[nullobject79]

Hey all!

 

I've been digging into Houdini the last few months and really loving it, but I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around DOPs as a whole, specifically how information from nodes relate to each other. I understand the SOPs context pretty well and how to use to Geometry Spreadsheet to help visualize how the data is moving but I don't understand how it's even remotely helpful in the DOPs context. I know DOPs is about building relationships and not so much about the linear movement of data like in SOPs, but it still seems super cryptic so I have a hard time figuring out how to do much of anything beyond the most basic things in DOPs.

 

So I'd appreciate if someone would explain:

1. A broad overview of the logic behind building sims in DOPs

2. How the Geometry Spreadsheet should be used in the DOPs context to understand what is happening in the simulation

 

Thanks!

[mestela]

I had/still have that problem, been writing notes as I go: http://www.tokeru.com/cgwiki/index.php?title=HoudiniDops

[nullobject79]

Woah! That's a fantastic resource! Thanks for that!

[fathom]

they really ought to make dops look a different from sops so people don't expect them to be the same.  it took me ages to get my head around how things work and even now i'm only kind of vaguely aware of the intricacies.  i'm always having to go back to old networks or example files to know where to plug in different things.