Houdini 20.5 Shelf tools

Quick Shapes shelf tool

Creates different types of primitive geometry.

On this page

Overview

This tool creates primitive geometry in the Object (/obj) or Solaris (/stage) network. You can use it to create a box, tube, sphere, torus, or grid geometry. You can draw shapes onto the ground plane or off of existing visible geometry. You can turn on snapping to snap the cursor when drawing shapes. This tool is useful when you're sketching out a scene.

This tool behaves differently in LOPs. Instead of making separate LOP nodes, each shape is made inside of a SOP Create LOP. The shapes are set up as well-structured USD primitives, and the transforms are accessible in Solaris.

Note

This tool respects the Default Context Creation setting in the Objects and Geometry preferences. If you're drawing in SOPs, Create at Object Level creates the shapes in the Object network and Create in Context creates the shapes inside the current object.

To...Do this

Choose a shape

Press the number that corresponds to the shape you want to create.

  • 1 Add a box.

  • 2 Add a tube.

  • 3 Add a sphere.

  • 4 Add a torus.

  • 5 Add a grid.

Enter and exit Edit Mode

Press H to enter and exit Edit Mode.

Use Edit Mode to select and move existing shapes that you haven’t yet added as a node. Press Delete to remove any selected shapes.

Switch to centered drawing

Hold ⇧ Shift while drawing your shape. This draws the shape using the clicked point as the center of the shape instead of the corner.

Switch to square drawing

Hold ⌃ Ctrl or ⌘ while drawing your shape. The shape is drawn as a cube.

Exit the Quick Shapes tool

Press ⎋ Esc to exit the Quick Shapes tool.

Using Quick Shapes

  1. Click the Quick Shapes button on the Create tab.

  2. Select the shape to create (see the preceding table).

  3. Click and drag to draw the base of the shape.

  4. Move up and down to set the height of the shape. Click to select the height.

    Note

    This step doesn’t apply to a Grid shape.

  5. For a tube shape, move up and down to set the top radius and make a cone. Click to select the radius.

  6. Do one of the following:

    • Draw another shape.

    • Press Enter or exit out of the tool to add the shape as a node.

    • Press H to enter Edit Mode (see the preceding table).

      Note

      Once you add the shape as a node, you can’t adjust it using the Quick Shapes’s Edit Mode.

See also

Shelf tools

Using the shelf

  • Customize the shelf

    How to change the look of the shelf, change and rearrange its contents, and create your own shelf tools.

Technical