Houdini 20.5 Nodes Geometry nodes

Agent Metadata geometry node

Adds custom data to an agent definition.

On this page
Since 19.0

The agent definition’s metadata can be used to store additional custom data in the agent definition, which is shared between instances of agent primitives. This can be a more efficient alternative to creating attributes that have the same value for each agent instance.

The metadata is stored as a dictionary, which has the same behavior as dictionary attributes and VEX dictionaries. The dictionary’s keys are always strings, and the values can be strings, numbers, arrays, or a (nested) dictionary.

The metadata dictionary can be inspected with the agentmetadata primitive intrinsic, and queried with the agentmetadata VEX function or hou.AgentMetadata.

Parameters

Group

The agents to modify.

Pre-Process

Removes or renames existing keys in the metadata dictionary.

Remove Keys

Removes any keys from the dictionary which match this pattern.

Rename Keys

Renames keys in the dictionary using one or more search/replace patterns. The standard pattern renaming syntax from the replace_match function is used. For example, if From is *_to_* and To is *-*, a key named ab_to_cd will become ab-cd.

From

The string pattern to rename.

To

The replacement pattern for the string.

Import Attribute Values

Creates key/value pairs from other attributes on the geometry.

Merge Dictionaries

Inserts all of the key/value pairs from any dictionary attribute which matches this pattern. For a point or primitive attribute, the attribute value is evaluated using the first agent primitive in the Group for each unique agent definition.

Delete Merged Attributes

If enabled, deletes the attributes matched by the Merge Dictionaries pattern after importing their values into the dictionary.

Import Attributes

Creates a key/value pair from the name and value of each attribute which matches this pattern. Any dictionary attributes matched by the Merge Dictionaries pattern are skipped. For a point or primitive attribute, the attribute value is evaluated using the first agent primitive in the Group for each unique agent definition. This can be useful for procedurally creating metadata, or to create metadata items with complex value types (e.g. arrays or dictionaries) that are easier to construct with nodes such as Attribute Wrangle.

Delete Imported Attributes

If enabled, deletes the attributes matched by the Import Attributes pattern after importing their values into the dictionary.

Set Values

Number of Entries

Specifies the number of key/value pairs to add or edit in the metadata dictionary. This option can be useful for adding metadata items with simple data types, such as strings or integers.

Enable

Toggles whether the key/value pair is created.

Key

The string key to insert or modify the value for.

Type

The data type of the dictionary value. To create values with complex data types (such as matrices, arrays, or dictionaries), the Import Attributes option can be used.

Value

The value to insert into the dictionary for the Key.

Inputs

Agents

Agent primitive(s) to modify.

Outputs

Agents

The modified agent primitives.

See also

Geometry nodes