Houdini 20.5 Nodes Geometry nodes

HeightField Distort by Layer geometry node

Displaces a height field by another field.

Since 17.0

This node displaces one height field along a vector field, warping and distorting features in a controlled fashion.

Parameters

Layers

The volumes to displace, usually height or mask or height mask. Multiple volume names should be separated by spaces.

Control Layer

The name of the volume to use to drive the direction of displacement. Can be a scalar field or vector field depending on the input mode. If there is no second input, this refers to a layer in the first input.

Scale Field

The name of the volume to use to scale the displacement. This is useful for reducing or enhancing displacement in specific regions. If there is no second input, this refers to a layer in the first input. If this is left blank, the entire input will be displaced at the same rate.

Control Blur Radius

The radius with which to blur the control layer. Higher values will remove more small-scale variation, creating a less jagged output.

Displace Scale

Multiplies the scale of the displacement. Larger values mean that the displacement will be more exaggerated. If negative, reverses the direction of displacement.

Substeps

The precision with which to follow curves in the control field. If the control field is very noisy, more substeps will reduce artifacts in the output without reducing low-level detail.

Rotate Displacement

Instead of displacing along the input field, displace at an angle to it. At 0 degrees, this has no effect. +90 or -90 degrees, this is a swirl effect. Intermediate values simultaneously displace and swirl, creating a spiraling effect. When used with Swirl, changes the displacement angle relative to the swirl.

Displace By

How to use the control field to drive displacement.

Gradient of Control Layer

Interprets the control layer as a heightfield, then displaces each point along the uphill direction.

Vector Control Layer

Interprets the control layer as a vector field, and displaces each point along that vector field.

Angle, Scaled by Control Layer

Interprets the control layer as a heightfield, and displaces each point that amount in a fixed direction, specified by an angle.

Direction, Scaled by Control Layer

Interprets the control layer as a heightfield, and displaces each point that amount in a fixed direction.

Swirl

Swirls perpendicular to the direction of displacement. Effectively adds 90 degrees to the specified Rotate Displacement parameter.

Smear

Instead of moving each point along the control field, smear each point along the control field to create a controlled blur effect.

Smear Weighting

How to sample from points along the displacement curve during smearing. The value at 0 is the contribution of the input heightfield at that point. The value at 1 is the contribution of what would be the output heightfield if smear was disabled. Values in between 0 and 1 are used to calculate how points along the displacement curve should contribute to the final result.

Symmetrical Smear

Whether to do a backwards smear in addition to the forward smear, reflecting the distribution about zero to ensure symmetry. Asymmetric smear effects can be constructed by mixing together two HeightField Displace outputs that smear in different directions.

See also

Geometry nodes