Houdini 20.5 Nodes Dynamics nodes

Multi Field Visualization dynamics node

Unified visualization of multiple fields.

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Since 12.0

The Multi Field Visualization DOP visualizes multiple field data. The resulting visualization can both combine and ramp fields to gain a quick preview of rendering behavior.

Parameters

Show Guide Geometry

Controls if the geometry should be visualized at all.

Color

The color to use in visualization. The iso surface or smoke field will be colored with this color.

Visualization Mode

Two dimensional volumes can be visualized as a height field rather than as a smoke.

Bounding Box

Draws a bounding box encompassing the field.

Bounding Box Hash

Adds hash marks along the axes leaving the origin of the bounding box marking the divisions between each voxel. The hash marks are drawn larger for every tenth and every hundredth.

Minimum, Maximum

This is the range of the density volume that will be remapped into the 0..1 range. It also acts as the default range for all the other volumes unless the override is specified.

Density Scale

Fixed multiplier to the density field to control how opaque the volume is. If you are using a larger scene scale, you may need a smaller density scale.

Note

Fog density is density per unit, and is independent of the resolution. So the same sized box, at 100 or 10 divisions, should be the same opacity. This means very small boxes will become transparent, especially if HDR rendering isn’t on. You can enable HDR rendering on the Effects tab of the Display Options dialog.

Shadow Scale

An additional multiplier on the Density Field, applied after the density scale, when the volume is used for lighting. This is the equivalent of multiplying the shadow intensity of all the lights by this value.

Max Vis Res

By default volumes are restricted to a maximum of 128 voxels on each side. This ensures reasonably fast shading times for lighting and avoids running into texture memory problems. This parameter lets you override this, either to make a lower res volume for faster previsualization, or to allow the volume to render with full resolution.

Field

The name of the field to use for this operation.

If this is a color field (diffuse, emission color), then if a scalar field is specified it is treated as a monochromatic field. If it it is a vector field, they are tied to the red, green, and blue channels.

Range

Each field can have its own mapping range. The volume will be linearly remapped from this range into the 0..1 range.

Mode

Controls the use of the ramp. If set to No Ramp, the volume’s values are used unclamped and unaffected by the ramp. Clamped Ramp will clamp the volume’s values to the 0..1 range and then apply the ramp. Periodic Ramp will take the modulus of the volume’s values with 1 and send that to the ramp, which can be useful to create checkerboard or striped effect to better see large ranges of values.

Emission color also has the Physical Blackbody option that maps the values in the Emission Color Field using the blackbody radiation spectrum. This mode produces results similar to the Physical (Black-Body) Color Mode on the Pyro Shader VOP.

Temperature Scale

Scale applied to values in the Emission Color Field before mapping them to color using the blackbody spectrum.

Temperature at 0 (K)

This parameter sets the temperature corresponding to a value of 0.0 in the Emission Color Field. This value is in Kelvin.

Temperature at 1 (K)

This parameter sets the temperature corresponding to a value of 1.0 in the Emission Color Field. This value is in Kelvin.

Adaptation

Manipulates the low end of the generated intensity.

Burn

Manipulates the high end of the generated intensity.

Ramp

The volume’s values, after converting by the range specification, are looked up in the ramp to get the final value. If it is a color ramp then there is one volume bound. That volume’s value is looked up to get the color. If two or three volumes are bound, each volume in turn is looked up to get the red, green, and blue values independently.

Outputs

First Input

This optional input can be used to control which simulation objects are modified by this node. Any objects connected through this input and which match the Group parameter field will be modified.

If this input is not connected, this node can be used in conjunction with an Apply Data node, or can be used as an input to another data node.

All Other Inputs

If this node has more input connectors, other data nodes can be attached to act as modifiers for the data created by this node.

The specific types of subdata that are meaningful vary from node to node. Click an input connector to see a list of available data nodes that can be meaningfully attached.

Outputs

First Output

The operation of this output depends on what inputs are connected to this node. If an object stream is input to this node, the output is also an object stream containing the same objects as the input (but with the data from this node attached).

If no object stream is connected to this node, the output is a data output. This data output can be connected to an Apply Data DOP, or connected directly to a data input of another data node, to attach the data from this node to an object or another piece of data.

Locals

channelname

This DOP node defines a local variable for each channel and parameter on the Data Options page, with the same name as the channel. So for example, the node may have channels for Position (positionx, positiony, positionz) and a parameter for an object name (objectname).

Then there will also be local variables with the names positionx, positiony, positionz, and objectname. These variables will evaluate to the previous value for that parameter.

This previous value is always stored as part of the data attached to the object being processed. This is essentially a shortcut for a dopfield expression like:

dopfield($DOPNET, $OBJID, dataName, "Options", 0, channelname)

If the data does not already exist, then a value of zero or an empty string will be returned.

DATACT

This value is the simulation time (see variable ST) at which the current data was created. This value may not be the same as the current simulation time if this node is modifying existing data, rather than creating new data.

DATACF

This value is the simulation frame (see variable SF) at which the current data was created. This value may not be the same as the current simulation frame if this node is modifying existing data, rather than creating new data.

RELNAME

This value will be set only when data is being attached to a relationship (such as when Constraint Anchor DOP is connected to the second, third, of fourth inputs of a Constraint DOP).

In this case, this value is set to the name of the relationship to which the data is being attached.

RELOBJIDS

This value will be set only when data is being attached to a relationship (such as when Constraint Anchor DOP is connected to the second, third, of fourth inputs of a Constraint DOP).

In this case, this value is set to a string that is a space separated list of the object identifiers for all the Affected Objects of the relationship to which the data is being attached.

RELOBJNAMES

This value will be set only when data is being attached to a relationship (such as when Constraint Anchor DOP is connected to the second, third, of fourth inputs of a Constraint DOP).

In this case, this value is set to a string that is a space separated list of the names of all the Affected Objects of the relationship to which the data is being attached.

RELAFFOBJIDS

This value will be set only when data is being attached to a relationship (such as when Constraint Anchor DOP is connected to the second, third, of fourth inputs of a Constraint DOP).

In this case, this value is set to a string that is a space separated list of the object identifiers for all the Affector Objects of the relationship to which the data is being attached.

RELAFFOBJNAMES

This value will be set only when data is being attached to a relationship (such as when Constraint Anchor DOP is connected to the second, third, of fourth inputs of a Constraint DOP).

In this case, this value is set to a string that is a space separated list of the names of all the Affector Objects of the relationship to which the data is being attached.

ST

The simulation time for which the node is being evaluated.

Depending on the settings of the DOP Network Offset Time and Scale Time parameters, this value may not be equal to the current Houdini time represented by the variable T.

ST is guaranteed to have a value of zero at the start of a simulation, so when testing for the first timestep of a simulation, it is best to use a test like $ST == 0, rather than $T == 0 or $FF == 1.

SF

The simulation frame (or more accurately, the simulation time step number) for which the node is being evaluated.

Depending on the settings of the DOP Network parameters, this value may not be equal to the current Houdini frame number represented by the variable F. Instead, it is equal to the simulation time (ST) divided by the simulation timestep size (TIMESTEP).

TIMESTEP

The size of a simulation timestep. This value is useful for scaling values that are expressed in units per second, but are applied on each timestep.

SFPS

The inverse of the TIMESTEP value. It is the number of timesteps per second of simulation time.

SNOBJ

The number of objects in the simulation. For nodes that create objects such as the Empty Object DOP, SNOBJ increases for each object that is evaluated.

A good way to guarantee unique object names is to use an expression like object_$SNOBJ.

NOBJ

The number of objects that are evaluated by the current node during this timestep. This value is often different from SNOBJ, as many nodes do not process all the objects in a simulation.

NOBJ may return 0 if the node does not process each object sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

OBJ

The index of the specific object being processed by the node. This value always runs from zero to NOBJ-1 in a given timestep. It does not identify the current object within the simulation like OBJID or OBJNAME; it only identifies the object’s position in the current order of processing.

This value is useful for generating a random number for each object, or simply splitting the objects into two or more groups to be processed in different ways. This value is -1 if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

OBJID

The unique identifier for the object being processed. Every object is assigned an integer value that is unique among all objects in the simulation for all time. Even if an object is deleted, its identifier is never reused. This is very useful in situations where each object needs to be treated differently, for example, to produce a unique random number for each object.

This value is also the best way to look up information on an object using the dopfield expression function.

OBJID is -1 if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

ALLOBJIDS

This string contains a space-separated list of the unique object identifiers for every object being processed by the current node.

ALLOBJNAMES

This string contains a space-separated list of the names of every object being processed by the current node.

OBJCT

The simulation time (see variable ST) at which the current object was created.

To check if an object was created on the current timestep, the expression $ST == $OBJCT should always be used.

This value is zero if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

OBJCF

The simulation frame (see variable SF) at which the current object was created. It is equivalent to using the dopsttoframe expression on the OBJCT variable.

This value is zero if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

OBJNAME

A string value containing the name of the object being processed.

Object names are not guaranteed to be unique within a simulation. However, if you name your objects carefully so that they are unique, the object name can be a much easier way to identify an object than the unique object identifier, OBJID.

The object name can also be used to treat a number of similar objects (with the same name) as a virtual group. If there are 20 objects named “myobject”, specifying strcmp($OBJNAME, "myobject") == 0 in the activation field of a DOP will cause that DOP to operate on only those 20 objects.

This value is the empty string if the node does not process objects sequentially (such as the Group DOP).

DOPNET

A string value containing the full path of the current DOP network. This value is most useful in DOP subnet digital assets where you want to know the path to the DOP network that contains the node.

Note

Most dynamics nodes have local variables with the same names as the node’s parameters. For example, in a Position DOP, you could write the expression:

$tx + 0.1

…to make the object move 0.1 units along the X axis at each timestep.

See also

Dynamics nodes