WIP - Linked Subnets [Houdini Utility]

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Hey,

this is my work in progress for "Linked Subnets"
It is a solution for a problem that I get sometimes during a production.
There are cases where I want update an existing setup and add / update the same setup at different locations.
There are possible solutions using HDAs but most of the time the setups are very specific to the current shot and I don't want to create HDAs just for that.
Compiling and invoking is another solution but many important nodes are not compilable.
And finally the option to manually copy the nodes or write specific python scripts to recreate the nodes in certain locations.
Linked subnets are supposed to make this a lot easier by allowing to copy the nodes and parameters to other linked subnet instances.

Linked Subnets are generated with a random UUID. Any nodes with the same UUID are connected and from anyone of them you are able to push the contents and parameters to the other linked subnets.

There are options on a node to ignore incoming updates and also on the pushing node you are able to change what is copied to the other nodes.
Edited by kilianlbaur - Sept. 2, 2021 15:37:29

Attachments:
leo_linked_subnet.gif (1.3 MB)

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Hey,

I've updated the HDA with a couple of things.
  • The Parameters are now layed out more nicely.
  • Also added a new button to remove spare parameters from the HDA.
  • The copying of parameters has been reworked completely to now allow for more options (e.g. only overriding default values to keep individual changes that are kept even after pushing new changes).
  • Overall cleanup of the back-end code.
  • Added F1 docs.

Now I am only missing a couple of things
  • Testing on a Python 2 build
  • Demo Scene and Render
  • Demo Video

Attachments:
leo_lsn_new_parameters.jpg (74.3 KB)

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This looks awesome ! Great Job
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Thanks Ziboo

As a small update. I've ironed out some minor bugs and was working on a test scene.
In this case I took some spheres and converted them into apples with controls over their color and variation name for scattering.

I also used the linked subnets to layout the cases including their highres, proxies and source points for an rbd sim.

This is rendered using Redshift and the scene will be part of my submission if someone wants to take a look
Edited by kilianlbaur - Sept. 25, 2021 12:01:05

Attachments:
apple_linked_subnet.jpg (515.4 KB)
linked_subnet_render_v002.v001.jpg (597.0 KB)

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