rdg Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 (edited) Hello, as one of my first projects to learn this software I have chosen to port my genericHouse-maxScript to houdini. This is also inspired by the Procedural City, Learning - Stamp Thread [1]. I used a addSOP to generate the points and polygons. Grouped the points, converted them to primitives and colored them. Then I created a Digital Asset: rdg_genericHosue_default[2] Now there are many questions/TODOs: * Prefers Houdini tris or quads? Should I connect the points to quads for the walls? * I should add a better scaling algorithm to allow houses wider and higher than 1. Also minimum values could be handy, to prevent zero-scaled houses. * Spare Parameters: Is it possible to change their range? I only manged to change them by removing all uses, polygons and points. Just deleting them caused Houdini to crash. * Would it be practical to add some translation inside the DA, or is this better handled outside? * I need to apply UVW to get a better shading, I'd like some flat shading. * I want to add the other two house types : hipped and half-hipped roof. It looks like I can also develop some shaders. I am very exited! Maybe I can soon post into the Procedural City thread. [1] http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=3156 [2] ** note this a a apprentiece otl! Edited January 24, 2007 by rdg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LEO-oo- Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 Nice start! Hope to see more soon! * Prefers Houdini tris or quads? Should I connect the points to quads for the walls? Use quads! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andz Posted January 24, 2007 Share Posted January 24, 2007 as one of my first projects to learn this software I have chosen to port my genericHouse-maxScript to houdini. This is also inspired by the Procedural City, Learning - Stamp Thread [1]. I've uploaded my procedural city file to the 42 nodes contest, you can take a look at it to gather some ideas. Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted January 24, 2007 Author Share Posted January 24, 2007 no otls just the geo-networks with spare parameters to controll the roof. this is a screencapture, I haven't read the chapter about rendering with mantra and the global illumination illuminates just one half of the scene ... @Andz: I will take a look at your approach. Maybe I should write down my intention or I moght get lost in your city Georg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 * Prefers Houdini tris or quads? Should I connect the points to quads for the walls? Whichever one is easier for you? * Spare Parameters: Is it possible to change their range? I only manged to change them by removing all uses, polygons and points. Just deleting them caused Houdini to crash. It might be better for you to start converting to an HDA sooner than later. Then you can add in all those ranges. * Would it be practical to add some translation inside the DA, or is this better handled outside? I vote for inside. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted February 14, 2007 Author Share Posted February 14, 2007 (edited) Hope to see more soon! Good things will take time ... I spend a lot time watching tutorials and reading the book. And I wouldn't spoil the party by writing off Andz city ... Now I started the houses again with the new *knowledge* I reduced the number of needed SOPs ... mainly through understanding the Group SOP and using -> if(hasprim("roof", "../group_roof", $PR), 0, 255) <- to colorize the roof. But lost the shader stuff somewhere ... can't assign any SOP at the moment, but this is sure some temporary weirdness of confusion. And I understand why I don't have to use spare parameters ... Georg Edited February 14, 2007 by rdg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted February 14, 2007 Author Share Posted February 14, 2007 (edited) I got the shader stuff working again ... (Houdini told me that there are several shader having the same name ... but I cannot find them ) Took me a long time to read the primitive colors in a shader and due to my insufficient lighting skills the white parts of the house seemed somewhat dark compared to the red roof (I know that color 0..1) But now I have a shader that brightens the non-roof-parts ... shadernetwork.jpg **edit might be better to add an attribute based on groups to see what parts need do be multiplied, instead of comparing color values ... **edit Georg Edited February 14, 2007 by rdg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted February 20, 2007 Author Share Posted February 20, 2007 (edited) F1 seems to be the hardest key - |: It's sad, it's so sad. It's sad :| I managed to get a basic GI rendering. [it is still dull ... ] But I got bored by the houses, too ... for now. So I came up with a new task. As I wanted to do this with 3dsmax today .... http://proforma.preset.de/tai-chi-hou-dini/colorcube/ No it is not just the color cube. I want to have all these colored boxes falling to the floor. It took a while to see where I have to put the delete group and that I don't need no delete nor cookie ... Georg Edited February 20, 2007 by rdg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted February 20, 2007 Share Posted February 20, 2007 for fun you can use the bounds option on the group SOP to make your delete group...then animate that bound object... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted February 24, 2007 Author Share Posted February 24, 2007 ...then animate that bound object... For now I used an fileSOP to import a model and voil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted February 25, 2007 Author Share Posted February 25, 2007 I came back to the animated groups: http://www.preset.de/taichihoudini/colorcube/ I combined two animated groups. Is there another way to combine multiple groups - I used merge ... I need to take a second look at those particles. I guees I need them if I want to shrink and grow the swatches if they enter a group ... But I am not sure if I understood this right. Georg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andz Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 All examples look really fun to do. Congratulations! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LEO-oo- Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 Klasse Georg! Nice Job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted February 27, 2007 Author Share Posted February 27, 2007 (edited) Like an Elefefant in a Color Cube I *rigged* my elefant. I used mergeSOP to seperate the animation form the colorcube. ** edit: Network I start to feel comfortable with larger networks and the possibility to branch various versions. ** edit: Georg Edited February 27, 2007 by rdg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andz Posted February 27, 2007 Share Posted February 27, 2007 Like an Elefefant in a Color CubeI *rigged* my elefant. I used mergeSOP to seperate the animation form the colorcube. ** edit: Network I start to feel comfortable with larger networks and the possibility to branch various versions. ** edit: Georg Man, evey time I look at the stuff you do on your page with maxscript, I can imagine how happy you must be trying out Houdini. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted February 28, 2007 Author Share Posted February 28, 2007 "You just can't get enough of that lovey dovey stuff" U2 - Discoteque Andz, you can't imagine. I dived into particles yesterday. http://www.preset.de/2007/0228/colorcube-001/ Again there are more questions than answers in those POPs. I copy boxes onto my particle system. In this version the copySOP gets the BBX/Y/ values to color the boxes from the particle system. I fixed this to get the colors from the source grid to the particles and stamping Cd to the boxes. Now the core of the cube got the right colors. I also figured out that merge is not a good idea if I just want to merge groups Particles showed me the way. Georg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted March 5, 2007 Author Share Posted March 5, 2007 Color Cube Peeling (cont.) "And yes, Houdini is a puzzle, but a puzzle where every piece can fit anywhere.." [1] In this case I needed a hammer to make the pieces fit. While rendering I realised that there is attribTransferPOP and I don't need to recreate the Attributes via expressions like: point("/obj/model/out", $PT, "insphere", 0). I used SOP groups [via attribCreate] to define which particles get a velocity of [0, 0, 0] and hence aren't affected by the interactPOP. I think I need to get to know events and such. Abdul-Kareem and Ben also pointed out that maybe my max background mislead me to use particles in this case. At least this is my interpretation. This is also my first COP network. Georg [1] Abdul-Kareem Abo-Namous, Side Effects Mail List, Thu, March 1, 2007 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted March 12, 2007 Author Share Posted March 12, 2007 (edited) Last week I spend a lot time with my multifoldingcubesetup. Gary Yost is said to have said: "If it looks right is is right." and he is referring to the visual output. In an molecular environment like Houdini I'd like to take the "layer of generation aka the network" in consideration. There a many ways to the ROP - or is it Ifd? I start to see different ways to reach a goal, and find myself rebuilding the same setup over and over again choosing different methods. I asked Ratman how to approach this and he said I should choose the easiest way. If you take Houdini as a 'mathematical/logical API' the eastiest ways would also be the viual most attracting/beautiful way/prove. And I scripted a "houdini2max pointcache" and regretted it almost instantaneously. It allows you to transfer animated objects to max/maya. I watched the l-system dvd this weekend and my head exploded. I knew l-systems before, but this dvd showed me some interesting combinations of nodes. Georg Edited March 12, 2007 by rdg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andz Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 The point cache looks sweet. Does it work in the Apprentice version? About the DVD, I can't wait to get it. I love l-sys. *is there any one who's seen it and that would be interested in reseling? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdg Posted March 19, 2007 Author Share Posted March 19, 2007 I wanted to label all the color cubes. I was looking for a procedural way. The shader is compositing the labels with prerendered images (0-255 for r, g and . This is slow - it would be better to prerender the label per cube. I also tried to mimic the look of the vray wirematerial by shading only specified portions of s and t. Georg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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