What's the difference bet SOP solver and Geometry Wrangle?

[catchyid]

Hi,

Inside a DOP network, I can create either SOP Solver or Geometry Wrangler. Couple questions:

a ) Why SOP solver does not have "previous" input the same way it has in when it gets created in SOP level

b ) Seems to me like a Geometry wrangler is just a subset of SOP Solver, i.e. inside the SOP Solver you can still wrangle and change points/primitives attributes? So is just a redundant node OR does it do something special?

[toadstorm]

You're confusing the "Solver SOP" with the "SOP Solver."

The Solver SOP is the node with the "previous" input that you get in SOPs. The SOP Solver is a DOP that allows you to fetch information from the SOPs timeline during a DOP simulation (normally, a DOP simulation creates data from SOPs at the first frame of simulation, then simulates without further input from the SOP timeline).

The Geometry Wrangle is just allowing you to modify the Geometry subdata in your simulation using VEX. In many cases when you are modifying Geometry subdata, this wrangle will work just fine, but if you need to merge in other SOP data from elsewhere (maybe doing point cloud lookups or something) or you're editing some other kind of subdata such as impacts or constraints, you'll have a much easier time using a SOP Solver.

[catchyid]

Thanks Henry