CYLON RAIDER from Battlestar Galactica

[blackchicken]

Hello guys

I started to modeling raider from BSG, I like that serial and becouse one day I' ll be ready to compleately change my primary 3d soft from maya to houdini, first thing must be modelling. becouse I'm wery heavy hardsurface modeller hihn, I must try some cool model in houdini. Everybody told me that houdini's modeling is the weakest part of incredible houdini world. So I must know that. After few hours of standart poly modeling in houdini I must say that it is not too bad as I thought. Some little things could be better, but this is first model and I must find my way how to efeciently use houdinis poly tools. I have some small questions.

1, One little thing, It is possible set, change some defaults settings for some tools. For example 99% use of extrude I choose AVERANGE POSITIONS , if I forget for that, then I must use fuse but I could make some mistake with some points and it could be paintful. Will be cool have this options to be set as default.

2, Look at the graph of wing, and thats not all. It is possible colapse this nodes, becouse I dont need this history, its for nothing. Tell houdini, merge all informations into the points and delete history. And leave only mirror and some history whis is useful and editable. Or houdini needs every node of history.

3,Is there some video for basic rigging? Im little confusing what I must do in geometry level and what in object level. In maya. Have main group RAIDER, inside all curves as controls and groups with geometry, RAIDER_G, ROCKET_G_01,ROCKET_G_02,ROCKET_G_03 which is constrained ready for animations to be independent, curve MAIN_CTRL which moves with everithing. So I need some controls for rockets. On MAIN_CTRL there is some parameters, open doors for rockets, push down rocket holder where is 3 locators on which is parented 3 rockets. All is set drive key in maya for specific groups with specific pivots.

In houdini, as I found, rocket must be object alone, in object level for later animation. In object level must be MAin_CTRL, curve which move with everithing, 6 locators 3-3 for rocket holders, and 6 rockets. In geometry level, for example doors for rockets, it is possible to be in together with main model and opening doors and push out rocket holder driven by transform nodes whis is conected with MAIN_CTRL in object level? I dont understand what must be in object and what in geometry level.

4, How I manage my network view, it is posible create some null object, name it RAIDER_G for example, and this will be visible in main object level? Go inside and there will be all my objects, rockets, parenting connections atc... something like digital asset. But very simly. In maya i prefer clean scene. In outliner everithing grouped, clean, ready for animators which adds own help objects, some dynamic collision object atc and at the end of project whole scene is like digital dumping ground hih.

sorry for this stupit beginner questions but it is important for me to understand how to manage houdini. Thanks a lot. BC

[sibarrick]

1, One little thing, It is possible set, change some defaults settings for some tools. For example 99% use of extrude I choose AVERANGE POSITIONS , if I forget for that, then I must use fuse but I could make some mistake with some points and it could be paintful. Will be cool have this options to be set as default.

2, Look at the graph of wing, and thats not all. It is possible colapse this nodes, becouse I dont need this history, its for nothing. Tell houdini, merge all informations into the points and delete history. And leave only mirror and some history whis is useful and editable. Or houdini needs every node of history.

3,Is there some video for basic rigging? Im little confusing what I must do in geometry level and what in object level. In maya. Have main group RAIDER, inside all curves as controls and groups with geometry, RAIDER_G, ROCKET_G_01,ROCKET_G_02,ROCKET_G_03 which is constrained ready for animations to be independent, curve MAIN_CTRL which moves with everithing. So I need some controls for rockets. On MAIN_CTRL there is some parameters, open doors for rockets, push down rocket holder where is 3 locators on which is parented 3 rockets. All is set drive key in maya for specific groups with specific pivots.

In houdini, as I found, rocket must be object alone, in object level for later animation. In object level must be MAin_CTRL, curve which move with everithing, 6 locators 3-3 for rocket holders, and 6 rockets. In geometry level, for example doors for rockets, it is possible to be in together with main model and opening doors and push out rocket holder driven by transform nodes whis is conected with MAIN_CTRL in object level? I dont understand what must be in object and what in geometry level.

4, How I manage my network view, it is posible create some null object, name it RAIDER_G for example, and this will be visible in main object level? Go inside and there will be all my objects, rockets, parenting connections atc... something like digital asset. But very simly. In maya i prefer clean scene. In outliner everithing grouped, clean, ready for animators which adds own help objects, some dynamic collision object atc and at the end of project whole scene is like digital dumping ground hih.

sorry for this stupit beginner questions but it is important for me to understand how to manage houdini. Thanks a lot. BC

1. Use the little gear icon on any node and you can set perminant or temporary defaults for the node type.

2. To collaspe the history you can do a number of things. You can select all the nodes and use shift + "c" to put them in a subnet, or you can put them in a network box, add a null afterwards and just lock it using the second from left flag on the node. Or better still use a file sop to cache it to disk and read it back in (in H9 you can now do that all in the one sop). You can delete the other nodes if you like but once you have locked a node or written the geometry out they won;t cook so its often a good idea to just leave them in the file for reference.

3. Not sure - have you checked all the videos on the sidefx site? Learning roadmap

4. Just put everything in a subnet. Use shift + "c" again to make one with everything in it.

[blackchicken]

hello houdini guys

so I finish my first houdini model. I thing it is first houdini model born on the Czech republic land :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: Hope you like it, nothing special, first touch hih. I attach whole scene with textures, so you could use my model for some test atc.....

I have some questions:

1, I dont know if it is my comuter, but when I go inside model and go there or there in another tree it takes sooo much time, something aroun 5-10 s which is too much, Im maya user and maya is f***** fast

2, When I start render in Mplay it takes long time to runHscript, and then open Mplay and render, this time is for translate scene atc no? But it takes almost 20s

3, Is there something like maya batch render? So use mantra on background with small priority and still work in houdini

thanks a lot.

P.S.: turntable animation will be soon

http://bccompany.eu/houdini/raider_scene.zip

______________________

[mangi]

hi there

I opened your hip, yes it will begin to cook everything every time you open it.

What I did was lock the final nodes in your trees, and it will open really quick now.

here take a look at the hip okay

and maybe your computer is slow because I get the render out quick

good luck and don't compare to maya this is houdini ??????

mangi

raider_final_lock.hipnc