Fast quad remesher with mirroring and guiding for non-CAD geometry: BETAThe list of new features and improvements is indeed impressive, but I'm somewhat disappointed that this particular feature has been announced as BETA. I remember that it was already supposed to arrive in 19.5, but was rescheduled to 20.0.
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Houdini Lounge » Houdini 20 Sneak Peek Full Feature List
- ajz3d
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Technical Discussion » Can the Floating gnomon be scaled bigger?
- ajz3d
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And then one day, when it finally reaches one pixel in size, we will read in the changelog that floating gnomon was effectively removed because nobody was using it.
Technical Discussion » What is Volume Visualization node for?
- ajz3d
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litoteMay I draw your attention to the fact that you're most likely replying to a bot?
Thanks for confirming that. Whoever wrote the Houdini manual should be made redundant.
This isn't the first one spamming ChatGPT answers on this forum.
Houdini Lounge » Introducing the Artist Directory [beta]
- ajz3d
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Interesting addition to the forums. Would it be difficult to enhance it with a field offering a multiple choice of countries that we are willing to work in (move to)?
Edited by ajz3d - Oct. 15, 2023 17:25:29
Technical Discussion » Can the Floating gnomon be scaled bigger?
- ajz3d
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Okay, so I'm on 19.5.752 now, and the floating gnomon is just as tiny as it was before version 19.5.731. That's with 2560x1440 and "Global UI Scale" set to 1.2, which I'm comfortable with. Is there some hidden setting for this gnomon that I'm not aware of?
Edit: Added corpus delicti.
Edit: Added corpus delicti.
Edited by ajz3d - Oct. 15, 2023 14:38:38
Houdini Lounge » Curve duplication in Curve node
- ajz3d
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I don't think so, but you can duplicate the Curve node, merge the duplicate with the original and then pipe them both to another Curve SOP. This will effectively duplicate the curve and you will be able to edit both curves with that additional node.
Technical Discussion » Are references in Visualize Attribute SOP possible?
- ajz3d
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Why is it not possible to use references in any of the parameters from the "Visualizer" tab of the Visualize Attribute SOP? RMB context menu offers only two options: "Revert to Previous Value" and "Revert to Defaults". Entering the reference manually via
chf
/chi
, etc. is interpreted as plain text instead of an expression. What's so special about those parameters that referencing anything from them is impossible? Is there a workaround for that?
Houdini Lounge » Linux or Windows
- ajz3d
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I like
Usually I'm on Debian Testing, which has newer package versions than Stable, but recently I decided to stay with the latter for a bit. At this point the newest
Version 525.x is sufficient [www.sidefx.com] to run Houdini, so there might be a different culprit of your problem. Maybe try running Houdini from shell and see what it complains about.
apt
package manager, so my choice had to be a distribution from Debian family. I tried a couple of Debian based distributions, like Mint (LMDE) or Ubuntu, but because there was always something I didn't like, I ultimately decided to settle down with their mother --- Debian itself. Mostly because of DFSG [www.debian.org], point releases, the fact that it's purely community-driven, has a large software base and also a large user base (if you also count in its child distributions) so it's always easy to find help. Also, the fact that Debian's former project leader Bruce Perens worked for Pixar brings in some additional spice to the mix. Usually I'm on Debian Testing, which has newer package versions than Stable, but recently I decided to stay with the latter for a bit. At this point the newest
nvidia-driver
versions for Debian are [tracker.debian.org]:- 525.125.06-1-deb12u1 for Stable (used by MX Linux),
- 525.125.06-2 for Testing and Sid (a.k.a. Unstable),
- 530.41.03-3 for Experimental.
Version 525.x is sufficient [www.sidefx.com] to run Houdini, so there might be a different culprit of your problem. Maybe try running Houdini from shell and see what it complains about.
Technical Discussion » Selection UDIM
- ajz3d
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SideFX Labs has "Labs UDIM Tile Number" tool, which assigns UDIM attribute to each primitive based on a tile it is located in. You can then use this attribute to separate geometry or for any other purpose.
Edited by ajz3d - Oct. 13, 2023 08:18:44
Technical Discussion » FBX export with instances? How?
- ajz3d
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"ROP glTF Output" supports instancing right from the SOP level (via packed primitives). Import in Unity can be accomplished with one of the available glTF import plugins.
Edited by ajz3d - Oct. 12, 2023 19:29:50
Houdini Lounge » Linux or Windows
- ajz3d
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Desktop Environment
There are many desktop environments (DE) for GNU/Linux, so you're not limited to GNOME, which personally I avoid due to strange decisions that its developers have undertaken. I recommend XFCE, which I find the most reasonable of all DEs. You can also ditch desktop environment completely and just use one of the many extremely lightweight window managers, but these require some degree of manual configuration and existing GNU/Linux knowledge to tailor them to one's liking. But once they're set up, they shine.
Fractional Scaling
Fractional scaling is not a trivial feature [mail.gnome.org] to implement and therefore there still might be some problems with it. To get it working flawlessly is one of the priorities of the GNU/Linux community, so things can only get better in this department. And until they do, I suggest reading HiDPI section [wiki.archlinux.org] of the ArchWiki, which should help you to configure your desktop with HiDPI monitors in mind.
Image Viewers for 32-bit HDR Images
Image viewers like
24 GB of VRAM available in RTX 4090 which you own will allow you to store slightly above two dozens (29) of 8192x4096 floating point OpenEXR pictures directly in VRAM. Once VRAM fills up, the program will again need to pull the data from storage memory. I don't think it's different on Windows, so I understand that "dozens of 8k textures of 150 MB HDRI" was a hyperbole.
There are probably plenty of other fast image viewers with HDR and EXR support for GNU/Linux. Gnome Viewer you speak of is unsuitable for any production work. Treat it more like a basic image viewer for home use, but even for this purpose I find other programs much better (like
OpenEXR
You're mentioning that OpenEXR is not available "by default". What "default"? Perhaps you mean the default state of the system right after installation? This depends on how you install the system and which part of the installation you consider to be that point. Personally, I treat manual installation of additional packages after the installer finishes its job to also be a part of the installation process. Anyway, the reason of absence of OpenEXR support in standard type of GNU/Linux installation is simple: very few people outside our niche have a need for this format.
On GNU/Linux OpenEXR is available through
Programs installed from other sources than the main repository might come bundled with their own "local" OpenEXR library version, or will have this library listed as a requirement that needs to be satisfied manually by the user. The latter is usually the case when you need to compile software from source (in which case a dev version of the
Performance
On performance. I have the opposite experience. Any machine I have installed GNU/Linux on got a significant perceivable overall boost in performance and resource allocation. There were even times when it felt like I had bought a brand-new computer. So you can imagine why I have never looked back on Windows. Computing power and I/O operations are always utilized for the task I want them to be utilized for. There is no "background noise" like you have on Windows, where your system is constantly doing something and you can't tell what it actually does. Here you always know what task your resources are used on at any given moment. I'd say, you can almost feel that they're not wasted on some bull crap.
In my experience, performance in Houdini is better than it was on Windows. I didn't do any benchmarks, but I could feel the difference. Everything is snappy, so no complaints. Occasionally there are some minor problems related to some aspects of Qt interface, but I think they will be resolved once Houdini moves to a newer Qt version.
But, you need to be aware of one thing. In case of GNU/Linux --- hardware matters. And what I mean by this is that you need to be very careful of what you buy. You need to make sure that components of your system are supported by the Linux kernel, or at least have proprietary firmware binary blobs available in your distribution's repositories. While Linux kernel supports most hardware out-of-the-box, you may occasionally stumble upon something that works only partially or doesn't work at all. This is especially the case with obscure products. If you consider your system sluggish, you may have a missing driver, or are you can be using a libre driver that wasn't fully reverse-engineered yet. Or your GNU/Linux installation is misconfigured in some way. You may want to verify all this. Check system logs for information about missing firmware or for any other errors and warnings.
Lastly, looking for answers is not a wasted time, because you always learn something in the process. Besides, on GNU/Linux you can solve problems relatively quickly by reading the logs and looking for an answer, while Windows gives very vague information on what the culprit of the issue may be. I always found Windows extremely user unfriendly in this regard.
Linux Console
Terminal, or Linux console to be precise, is one of the main reasons I switched to GNU/Linux. It's so overpowered that it literally turns the whole operating system into one giant IDE, which raises productivity of any task --- from simple home use, to programming, CGI and science. Windows can't compare to it by any stretch of imagination. And never will, even with WSL.
Distributions and Software Availability
Speaking from my own experience, it doesn't matter much what kind of distro you choose. The only thing that matters is if it comes with library versions matching requirements of the (ahem) proprietary software you wish to use, or if paid support addresses issues only on selected GNU/Linux distributions.
Regarding
By the way, I think you're misunderstanding the word "freedom" used in the "free software" context. Freedom is about "user freedom", not freedom of choice (although in some way it's the result of having user freedom). Please read https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html [www.gnu.org] and watch at least several lectures by Richard M. Stallman to understand what "free software" actually stands for.
The example of Adobe or Maxon's Cinema 4D misses the point. It's not the free software community that is to blame for the lack of GNU/Linux versions of Adobe's and Maxon's proprietary programs, but those corporations themselves. Free software community can do nothing about it. If you wish Adobe software to be ported to GNU/Linux, you can join the discussion on their corporate community forum, but your voice is guaranteed to be ignored.
Fortunately Substance Painter and Designer still do have GNU/Linux versions and that's all I care for when it comes to their products. Their other software has either good to excellent replacements, which are free or proprietary programs, like GIMP/Krita, Inkscape, Darktable, Fusion, DaVinci Resolve, 3D Coat, etc. or can be run in Wine (like ZBrush).
Dual Booting
Regarding dual booting, I think it's counterproductive and relatively unsafe, but that's my own subjective opinion. There are probably as many people who are satisfied with their dual boot setup, as there are those cursing it after having their bootloader botched by a Windows update.
In dual boot setups data exchange can be solved by sharing a disk partition formatted to file system readable by both operating systems, though Windows support of different file systems is extremely narrow. I believe
I'm a person who believes that jumping into deep water brings more incentive to learn how to swim than gradually walking into the sea. Metaphorically speaking. We humans almost always choose the path of least resistance, so dual booting might be a temptation to default to Windows if even the slightest problem with GNU/Linux occurs. I think the best way of learning GNU/Linux is to run it for some time on a frequently used separate computer, like a home laptop. This gives plenty of time to familiarize oneself with operating system's intricacies, learn how to look for help, and how to solve common problems.
If you absolutely require some software that is available only for Windows, then running Windows in a Virtual Machine, like
Summa Summarum
What makes me use GNU/Linux? Before I made a switch, I've been testing GNU/Linux for about a year on a pair of laptops I used for home tasks and entertainment, but also to test out programs that I use in my work. The list below contains several of my observations which turned into main reasons for me to migrate to this operating system.
After spending a year with GNU/Linux on my laptops, I knew my way around enough to solve most problems that may occur. So I installed Debian on an external HDD plugged into my workstation, in order to see if there would be no problems with the hardware. After an uneventful month, during which I barely used Windows, I fully migrated and never looked back ever since. Now all my computers and computers of my closest family are running it.
So this was my rationale, plus advice on how to do the switch pretty much painlessly. Note that if you have never had any prior contact with GNU/Linux, the switch will not be an overnight process, so some time investment is required, It helps a lot if you have a friend who knows his way around this operating system.
Oh boy, that was a lot of text to type. Maybe you'll find it useful, maybe not, but there you go.
There are many desktop environments (DE) for GNU/Linux, so you're not limited to GNOME, which personally I avoid due to strange decisions that its developers have undertaken. I recommend XFCE, which I find the most reasonable of all DEs. You can also ditch desktop environment completely and just use one of the many extremely lightweight window managers, but these require some degree of manual configuration and existing GNU/Linux knowledge to tailor them to one's liking. But once they're set up, they shine.
Fractional Scaling
Fractional scaling is not a trivial feature [mail.gnome.org] to implement and therefore there still might be some problems with it. To get it working flawlessly is one of the priorities of the GNU/Linux community, so things can only get better in this department. And until they do, I suggest reading HiDPI section [wiki.archlinux.org] of the ArchWiki, which should help you to configure your desktop with HiDPI monitors in mind.
Image Viewers for 32-bit HDR Images
Image viewers like
tev
and HDRView
, for instance, allow for rapid scrolling through sets of 32-bit floating point images. Of course images are preloaded into VRAM first, so a fast SSD and vast amount of VRAM is required. Otherwise, you risk slow disk read times or choking up memory of the graphics card.24 GB of VRAM available in RTX 4090 which you own will allow you to store slightly above two dozens (29) of 8192x4096 floating point OpenEXR pictures directly in VRAM. Once VRAM fills up, the program will again need to pull the data from storage memory. I don't think it's different on Windows, so I understand that "dozens of 8k textures of 150 MB HDRI" was a hyperbole.
There are probably plenty of other fast image viewers with HDR and EXR support for GNU/Linux. Gnome Viewer you speak of is unsuitable for any production work. Treat it more like a basic image viewer for home use, but even for this purpose I find other programs much better (like
feh
to name one). However, neither Gnome Viewer nor feh
support OpenEXR format at this point of time. Which reminds me to make appropriate feature requests.OpenEXR
You're mentioning that OpenEXR is not available "by default". What "default"? Perhaps you mean the default state of the system right after installation? This depends on how you install the system and which part of the installation you consider to be that point. Personally, I treat manual installation of additional packages after the installer finishes its job to also be a part of the installation process. Anyway, the reason of absence of OpenEXR support in standard type of GNU/Linux installation is simple: very few people outside our niche have a need for this format.
On GNU/Linux OpenEXR is available through
libopenexr
package, at least on Debian. In other distributions the library might have the same or it may vary slightly. Usually, when you have at least one program supporting OpenEXR installed on your system using your distro's package manager, appropriate dependencies are pulled as well (in this case libopenexr
). If there are no such programs, dependencies become redundant and will be scheduled for on-demand removal.Programs installed from other sources than the main repository might come bundled with their own "local" OpenEXR library version, or will have this library listed as a requirement that needs to be satisfied manually by the user. The latter is usually the case when you need to compile software from source (in which case a dev version of the
libopenexr
package might be required). Some external programs may use proprietary OpenEXR libraries. Avoid them.Performance
On performance. I have the opposite experience. Any machine I have installed GNU/Linux on got a significant perceivable overall boost in performance and resource allocation. There were even times when it felt like I had bought a brand-new computer. So you can imagine why I have never looked back on Windows. Computing power and I/O operations are always utilized for the task I want them to be utilized for. There is no "background noise" like you have on Windows, where your system is constantly doing something and you can't tell what it actually does. Here you always know what task your resources are used on at any given moment. I'd say, you can almost feel that they're not wasted on some bull crap.
In my experience, performance in Houdini is better than it was on Windows. I didn't do any benchmarks, but I could feel the difference. Everything is snappy, so no complaints. Occasionally there are some minor problems related to some aspects of Qt interface, but I think they will be resolved once Houdini moves to a newer Qt version.
But, you need to be aware of one thing. In case of GNU/Linux --- hardware matters. And what I mean by this is that you need to be very careful of what you buy. You need to make sure that components of your system are supported by the Linux kernel, or at least have proprietary firmware binary blobs available in your distribution's repositories. While Linux kernel supports most hardware out-of-the-box, you may occasionally stumble upon something that works only partially or doesn't work at all. This is especially the case with obscure products. If you consider your system sluggish, you may have a missing driver, or are you can be using a libre driver that wasn't fully reverse-engineered yet. Or your GNU/Linux installation is misconfigured in some way. You may want to verify all this. Check system logs for information about missing firmware or for any other errors and warnings.
Lastly, looking for answers is not a wasted time, because you always learn something in the process. Besides, on GNU/Linux you can solve problems relatively quickly by reading the logs and looking for an answer, while Windows gives very vague information on what the culprit of the issue may be. I always found Windows extremely user unfriendly in this regard.
Linux Console
Terminal, or Linux console to be precise, is one of the main reasons I switched to GNU/Linux. It's so overpowered that it literally turns the whole operating system into one giant IDE, which raises productivity of any task --- from simple home use, to programming, CGI and science. Windows can't compare to it by any stretch of imagination. And never will, even with WSL.
Distributions and Software Availability
Speaking from my own experience, it doesn't matter much what kind of distro you choose. The only thing that matters is if it comes with library versions matching requirements of the (ahem) proprietary software you wish to use, or if paid support addresses issues only on selected GNU/Linux distributions.
Regarding
alien
, so far it never failed me, but of course I always did the opposite conversions (rpm
to deb
), so I can't tell much about your particular case.By the way, I think you're misunderstanding the word "freedom" used in the "free software" context. Freedom is about "user freedom", not freedom of choice (although in some way it's the result of having user freedom). Please read https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html [www.gnu.org] and watch at least several lectures by Richard M. Stallman to understand what "free software" actually stands for.
The example of Adobe or Maxon's Cinema 4D misses the point. It's not the free software community that is to blame for the lack of GNU/Linux versions of Adobe's and Maxon's proprietary programs, but those corporations themselves. Free software community can do nothing about it. If you wish Adobe software to be ported to GNU/Linux, you can join the discussion on their corporate community forum, but your voice is guaranteed to be ignored.
Fortunately Substance Painter and Designer still do have GNU/Linux versions and that's all I care for when it comes to their products. Their other software has either good to excellent replacements, which are free or proprietary programs, like GIMP/Krita, Inkscape, Darktable, Fusion, DaVinci Resolve, 3D Coat, etc. or can be run in Wine (like ZBrush).
Dual Booting
Regarding dual booting, I think it's counterproductive and relatively unsafe, but that's my own subjective opinion. There are probably as many people who are satisfied with their dual boot setup, as there are those cursing it after having their bootloader botched by a Windows update.
In dual boot setups data exchange can be solved by sharing a disk partition formatted to file system readable by both operating systems, though Windows support of different file systems is extremely narrow. I believe
ext4
is supported by WSL, so this could be the optimal choice because of its reliability and resistance to fragmentation.I'm a person who believes that jumping into deep water brings more incentive to learn how to swim than gradually walking into the sea. Metaphorically speaking. We humans almost always choose the path of least resistance, so dual booting might be a temptation to default to Windows if even the slightest problem with GNU/Linux occurs. I think the best way of learning GNU/Linux is to run it for some time on a frequently used separate computer, like a home laptop. This gives plenty of time to familiarize oneself with operating system's intricacies, learn how to look for help, and how to solve common problems.
If you absolutely require some software that is available only for Windows, then running Windows in a Virtual Machine, like
qemu
, with a dedicated video card in passthrough mode might be more convenient and is definitely safer that using a dual boot configuration. The performance should be identical to running Windows outside the VM, although this setup is more costly, because it requires a second GPU.Summa Summarum
What makes me use GNU/Linux? Before I made a switch, I've been testing GNU/Linux for about a year on a pair of laptops I used for home tasks and entertainment, but also to test out programs that I use in my work. The list below contains several of my observations which turned into main reasons for me to migrate to this operating system.
- Richard Matthew Stallman.
- Free (libre) operating system.
- Huge software base, comprised predominantly of libre programs (or on some distributions, like Trisquel or Parabola, even exclusively).
- No spyware, adware, advertisements, backdoors, or any other anti-features. And if they are spotted, they can be cut out from the source code either by you or the community.
- Privacy friendly.
- Not owned by corporations. They do fund kernel development to a large degree, but because of the GNU GPL 2.0 license that the kernel uses, it can be forked into a new project if things start to go in the wrong direction.
- Much better resource allocation than Windows, which translates directly into better overall performance.
- Software repositories maintained by trustworthy people.
- Software installation done with package manager, instead of by downloading some random binaries from the Internet and wishing for the best.
- Uninstalled software is truly uninstalled (ergo: there remains no residue in the form of files).
- Plenty of small programs that "do one thing well" which can be piped together to do complex things.
- Linux console.
- Modularity, customizability.
- If configured properly, stable and secure to the point of boredom.
- Mostly POSIX-compliant.
- Filesystem Hierarchy Standard and XDG Base Directory Specification which clearly define where each file should go. On Windows, it's a mess.
- Configuration based on text files instead of on a central registry. So called "dotfiles" are great.
- Supports a plethora of robust file systems.
- Uses reliable open standards pretty much for everything.
- Easy, robust and quick upgrade system.
- Thanks to detailed logs it's very easy to solve problems when they occur.
- Great documentation for pretty much every program, available through man-pages.
- The whole operating system can be easily moved to another computer. Impossible on Windows.
- Fantastic and knowledgeable community always open to questions and serving with good advice.
After spending a year with GNU/Linux on my laptops, I knew my way around enough to solve most problems that may occur. So I installed Debian on an external HDD plugged into my workstation, in order to see if there would be no problems with the hardware. After an uneventful month, during which I barely used Windows, I fully migrated and never looked back ever since. Now all my computers and computers of my closest family are running it.
So this was my rationale, plus advice on how to do the switch pretty much painlessly. Note that if you have never had any prior contact with GNU/Linux, the switch will not be an overnight process, so some time investment is required, It helps a lot if you have a friend who knows his way around this operating system.
Oh boy, that was a lot of text to type. Maybe you'll find it useful, maybe not, but there you go.
Houdini Lounge » Meaning of this subscript number in the geo spreadsheet?
- ajz3d
- 477 posts
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Houdini Lounge » Orbolt - dead or alive?
- ajz3d
- 477 posts
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Paul GriswoldJust tested and it's working on my end. Perhaps you're using very restrictive browser settings or a configuration which blocks some parts of the site? Or maybe Orbolt content is not associated with Orbolt in browser settings?
I am unable to log in to Orbolt from within Houdini anymore.
Why not integrate an asset store into the launcherI have to disagree with this idea. Not everyone uses the launcher.
Edited by ajz3d - Sept. 18, 2023 14:30:19
Houdini Lounge » Houdini 20
- ajz3d
- 477 posts
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oldteapot7Be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.
I WANT AI IN HOUDINI ALL OVER PLACE NOW!
Edited by ajz3d - Sept. 8, 2023 14:50:51
Technical Discussion » Can the Floating gnomon be scaled bigger?
- ajz3d
- 477 posts
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Technical Discussion » Weird behaviour on boolean and polyextrude SOPs
- ajz3d
- 477 posts
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Use Sweep SOP instead of PolyExtrude and resample the curve before feeding it into backbone curve input.
Also, you don't need to use boolean at all. Create a cross-section shape with curves (or however you like), convert it to polygons, and feed it into the second input of the Sweep SOP.
Also, you don't need to use boolean at all. Create a cross-section shape with curves (or however you like), convert it to polygons, and feed it into the second input of the Sweep SOP.
Technical Discussion » Programmatically Create SOP Import Node using Selected Node
- ajz3d
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You don't need to switch to stage context. You can just create an operator there using
If you wish to use relative paths instead of absolute in the
createNode()
method.def create_sop_import_lop(): """Creates SOP Import node from the first node in selection.""" selection = hou.selectedNodes() if len(selection) == 0: hou.ui.setStatusMessage( 'Nothing was selected', severity=hou.severityType.Warning ) return selected_node = selection[0] lop_node = hou.node('/stage').createNode('sopimport') lop_node.parm('soppath').set(selected_node.path()) create_sop_import_lop()
If you wish to use relative paths instead of absolute in the
soppath
parameter, look up hou.Node.relativePathTo()
method.
Edited by ajz3d - Sept. 1, 2023 15:54:07
Houdini Lounge » Any luck finding a fix for the SystemD service REHL9 ?
- ajz3d
- 477 posts
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Was the service enabled? If not, maybe something went wrong during installation and you need to do it manually?
If
systemctl enable sesinetd.service
sesinetd
service still fails to start, check the logs!tanguybcI'm not sure what you mean by that. Systemd starts on boot. If it didn't on systemd-dependent distros, many services, including important ones like udev, dbus, NetworkManager, etc. wouldn't start. In fact, I think your whole user space wouldn't bootstrap at all.
After my boot I need to start the License tools and fire up systemd from there (...)
SWestCorrectamundo. Can't agree more.
All I can say is that Debian11 (XFCE) is playing nicely with Houdini and everything else I throw at it. (...) Timeshift for system backup and custom scripts for file backups. (...) Overall I feel I'm in control and the system gets out of the way as it should. Even ZBrush play okay with the stable Wine, and it just feels too good.
SWestAlien also worked fantastically for Indie versions of Substance Painter and Designer which were released as RPMs in the good old times when Allegorithmic was still an awesome independent company.
Being able to run RenderMan using alien conversion (think it was) was also a surprise.
Edited by ajz3d - Aug. 4, 2023 18:09:53
Technical Discussion » Robot arm rig best practices
- ajz3d
- 477 posts
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SWest
(...) is it possible to do this without the Point Wrangle node? I.e. just some snippet in the shelf? Otherwise, I'll be exporting my skeleton parts as modules so eventually it does not matter that much.
Without VEX? You can create helper joints to direct joint orientation and then blast those temporaries to kingdom come afterward. I've updated the example file a while a go, in case you've missed it. It now includes a basic helper joint workflow.
I guess Rig Attribute VOP is also an option. And surely custom joint orienting can be done in many other ways, but I can't think of any at the moment.
To address the rest of your question, if you want to work with snippets to create skeleton modules, and by snippets I mean anything from pure code to whole networks, AND you don't want to use HDAs, then I'll take this opportunity to do a small self-promotion here by suggesting you to try out my Houclip [www.sidefx.com] tool. I know that you're using Debian, just like myself, so this tool might be of interest to you as it utilizes
dmenu
or rofi
as a UI, which makes it very fast to search for, add, get or delete snippets. And, its integration with Houdini, if I may call it so, is virtually seamless.There's a Node Gallery feature of Houdini, which works similarly to Houclip. But, it can store only single nodes and I find it too cumbersome to use. I guess there's a lot of room for improvement here.
Shelf tools with Python scripts generating wrangles along with their VEX code would work too. Also don't forget about node presets, but their list is not searchable, so working with them wastes a lot of time if the list is too long.
Technical Discussion » Robot arm rig best practices
- ajz3d
- 477 posts
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Apprentice license is gratis and can be installed alongside other licenses. If you don't have it installed, you're missing a lot of great example files posted here on the forum.
I'm using Orient Joints only to set root joint transform, then in a Point Wrangle I'm setting
Child-parent relationship is completely ignored in this setup.
PS. I've updated the file with an additional non-VEX setup.
swdgame
(...) I'm guessing what you mean is that, instead of using OrientJoints node to setup axis towards child, you would be using RigAttributeWrangle node to setup a straight-up axis for rotation control, and ignore pointing-to-child thing?
I'm using Orient Joints only to set root joint transform, then in a Point Wrangle I'm setting
transform
matrices of the two remaining rotator joints. Root transform can also be set here, but I found dropping Orient Joints to be faster than typing in another condition in the wrangle.Child-parent relationship is completely ignored in this setup.
#include "kinefx.h" vector dirx; vector diry; vector dirz; vector up; if(@name == "base"){ dirx = set(0, 0, 1); diry = set(1, 0, 0); dirz = set(0, 1, 0); up = dirx; 3@transform = set(dirx, diry, dirz); } if(@name == "arm_rotator"){ dirx = set(0, 0, 1); diry = set(0, -1, 0); dirz = set(1, 0, 0); up = dirx; 3@transform = set(dirx, diry, dirz); }
PS. I've updated the file with an additional non-VEX setup.
Edited by ajz3d - Aug. 4, 2023 08:06:44
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