Hi ,

Many people coming from other 3D packages are frustrated when they discover basic elements missing in Houdini .

- No way to export anything (obj , fbx , collada) unless you feel the pain of writing “buggy” scripts .

- No way to use “ready to use” shaders from mental ray or Renderman , otherwise you should spend hours to write shaders that already exist elsewhere and can be modified easily . getting Prman or mental ray working in Houdini=computers lessons .

- Limited types of lights .

In conclusion this soft is still for a limited circle of C++ users , and i don't see efforts made to open it for designers . We are now in the 21th century.

Regards

Hi,

It's true you can't export fbx or collada but .obj has been available since Prisms which is the predecessor to Houdini. You don't have to write scripts to export anything because that's what the Geometry ROP is for. Or you can RMB on the final SOP & select Save Geometry…. Please show us the “buggy” scripts and we'll help to debug it.

I can't comment on mental ray as I don't remember the last time I used it and haven't used it with Houdini. However, here's a link [forum.lamrug.org]that might help to get you started. I remember there's another link but can't seem to find it.

As for Renderman shaders, there is rmands which will take .slo files & create operator type definition files (.otl) which you can then install into Houdini.

What other kind of lights are you looking for? We might be able to provide more information on how to get what you're looking for.

Welcome to the forum!

Cheers!
steven

u_ayad
Hi ,

Many people coming from other 3D packages are frustrated when they discover basic elements missing in Houdini .

do you have a node based deveolpment environment in any other package that lets you develop things -without- being a coder?

u_ayad
- No way to export anything (obj , fbx , collada) unless you feel the pain of writing “buggy” scripts .

as Steven already stated.. you can export geometry in several ways…

u_ayad
- No way to use “ready to use” shaders from mental ray or Renderman , otherwise you should spend hours to write shaders that already exist elsewhere and can be modified easily . getting Prman or mental ray working in Houdini=computers lessons .

I've been testing Mentalray with Houdini during last year… and ther're some lack of “usability”.. but it can be done and is straightforward … and you can use your MentalRay (outofthebox or custom coded) within houdini with no big problems… there're few really annoying things as well.. which made me drop the idea of using it in a -short term project-, with no time to properly build a pipeline for it.
but again.. it can be done.. less easly than with PrMan, but still possible.

u_ayad
- Limited types of lights .

well.. I'm not a guru of illumination but.. i dont see the point here.

u_ayad
In conclusion this soft is still for a limited circle of C++ users , and i don't see efforts made to open it for designers . We are now in the 21th century.

Regards

take a look at VOP networks, of any kind, then tell me if you need to be a C++ coder…

to use Maya you -need- to be a Mel hacker… to use XSI you -need- to be a Jscript or VB Hacker… so again.. where's the difference?… the difference is that in Houdini.. you dont need to be an hacker.. you just need to place nodes and you're on your way for everything…

cheers

u_ayad
- No way to export anything (obj , fbx , collada) unless you feel the pain of writing “buggy” scripts.

You can easily export obj geometry, static or as sequences. You can't export collada or fbx, that's true. As a workaround you can use the free RealFlow export plugins to export to the RealFlow scene format and then import that in your package of choice.

No way to use “ready to use” shaders from mental ray or Renderman , otherwise you should spend hours to write shaders that already exist elsewhere and can be modified easily . getting Prman or mental ray working in Houdini=computers lessons .

I suspect your experience with Houdini is limited, since at least getting ready-made RenderMan shaders into Houdini is pretty simple and documented.

Limited types of lights .

Houdini has all the light types available in other packages, and also offers the posiblity of instancing light shaders on geometry points. I agree that the built-in Light Object features are pretty much spartan, but again, regarding light *types*, just read the docs and you'll see they are all there.

In conclusion this soft is still for a limited circle of C++ users , and i don't see efforts made to open it for designers . We are now in the 21th century.

That's quite a bold statement to make, and again it's quite untrue (at least the C++ part). Let's let people with much more experience with Houdini draw the “conclusions”, if there's actually any conclusion to be drawn at all.
I consider this kind of categoric “statements” and “evaluations” made without real experience with the software pretty much useless. There's no point in stating again obvious and well-known faults of the software, which are pointed numerous times on the forums and there is also no point in criticizing the software if you didn't spend the time to at least get familiar with it at a basic level.

Hi ,

First i want to thank everybody who reply to this topic . My purpose is not to compare houdini to other packages . Even if i'm a newbie i found it very structural and well done . Procedural work is more clear and easy . However i found in the latest other packages (MAYA , XSI) a bunch of shaders ready to use and after years of work i have never wrote a single mel or vb script in those packages .

For renderman i had to read a plim.pdf posted on this forum and could'nt fire up the renderer just to see it working , before writing or modifying any shader. And i found many other tutorials each using its own procedure to connect Prman to houdini . What i was expecting is a plugin without all that bunch of work .

For light i will check that .

For geometry exporting , i will apreciate to have a link to that “free RealFlow export plugins” .

In conclusion your help gave me good points to start or i mean to continue.

Thanks and regards to everybody .

u_ayad
For geometry exporting , i will apreciate to have a link to that “free RealFlow export plugins” .

http://digitalcinemaarts.com/ [digitalcinemaarts.com]

However i found in the latest other packages (MAYA , XSI) a bunch of shaders ready to use

This is very true and a real problem for Houdini (the lack of production-ready built in shaders for it's own renderer, Mantra), but you were speaking about using ready made RenderMan shaders…

Hi digitallysane

Thanks for the reponse . The real flow plugin gave “a bizzare” mismatch version . It does'nt load . It looks like it's for houdini 8.1 . I have the 8.1.666 version . Is it possible to export geometry animation like OBJ sequence or other data format ?

Regards .

Hi,

Have you tried putting down a Geometry ROP? In the Output File parameter, just specify the path & filename (example: cmy_path/my_geo.$F4.obj) , enter your frame range then hit Render.

Cheers!
steven

Yes, object sequence. Look into Render Operators (ROPs). However it doesn't work in Houdini Apprentice.

Dragos

hmmmm… steven is faster

I believe it does in the latest version

HI ,

Thanks for help . Saving geometry as OBJ works fine . I can get nice nurbs objects in Maya . For animation , i will try the rops process that you guys post . I think it's should work . I don't have apprentice but the 8.1666 master . The only thing i can't make , and it drive me crazy is to fire up renderman after reading a ton of manuals , changing env variables …. , each time i applied a rman shader to an object and try to see it in the shops network , i get the message “prman fail …..” . So no way to go further .

Thanks and regards .

can you fire up PRman outside houdini from command line? type “prman” and check this first. If it doasn't work you need PRMan path in your globals. Believe me or not but this is a reason of most Houdini/PRman complaining here…

cheers,
sy.

Hi ,

Rop obj sequence export works fine , but i can't read it on Maya 8.5 . For Prman i uninstall it (when i lost hope) . I should reinstall it soon .

Thanks and Regards .

on the “spartan light topics” I certainly don't think Houdini has skimpy lighting … point instancing is huge and can be used for tons of stuff that's really hard to do in other applications.

But one thing … in Max there is a “far attenuation” so you can start and stop the light like a gradient. How does one do this in Houdini … I see the “half attenuation distance” but this still doesn't control exactely where the light stops. I was trying to use lights in particles and had a really hard time getting the distance / overlaps correct. Any ideas on what the equivalent to a attenuation distance would be?

If you write your own light shader you can do it. Not so sure you can do it any other way.

Hi guys,
I have been reading this forum for a couple of hours now and i have decided to start learning Houdini. I am impressed by the serious and elite community of Houdini however i find the community forums tad disorganized and lacking real support (from company not from users). I check other software forums regularly, and i must admit that communities like modo user community has incredible amount of learning material, not to mention huge amount of content. Houdini can and in my honest opinion must have a better organized user forum, and maybe it needs more support from its users. From what i read in these forums, i have the impression that Houdini user has the top quality knowledge on every aspect of 3D. But these forums has to use that knowledge and experience for the good of this software. I believe that will also be the foundation of version 9 of Houdini. So begins my apprenticeship

however i find the community forums tad disorganized and lacking real support (from company not from users).

:shock:

I couldn't find any other forum on which I can talk with core developers / or company founders/owners about problems/expected features/bugs etc…

Fyi, there is quite a but of information lurking in the help docs. Most nodes come with one or more example files. Pressing the local help for a node opens up the help for that node. Most have an Examples section. Study them to learn how to use the various nodes in Houdini. Note that most the nodes even have comments on them explaining what they do.

Because this is unique to Houdini, most new users don't discover this stuff for quite some time.

This forum is really my favorite. Not too many people, but very competent ones, and, as Symek said, you get very good chances of actually discussing with a developer.
It's true that other forums are much more populated, but you generally get quantity, not quality. Unfortunately, a “side effect” of Houdini becoming more and more used will be that this forum will become more like the others. There are clear signs of this already.

Dragos

I wrote this in VEX for some Max users in Houdini 7 a few years ago, and added a tonne of other stuff that Max can't do I'll see if I can dig it out and make it work for H8.2 if I can find the time

That's the good and bad thing with Houdini: It's good because you can always do what you want, somehow, it's bad because often things that are natively available in other packages aren't immediately in your face in Houdini. This is will be changing to a degree in H9, and over the next few releases.

Cheers,

Peter B

andrewlowell
But one thing … in Max there is a “far attenuation” so you can start and stop the light like a gradient. How does one do this in Houdini … I see the “half attenuation distance” but this still doesn't control exactely where the light stops. I was trying to use lights in particles and had a really hard time getting the distance / overlaps correct. Any ideas on what the equivalent to a attenuation distance would be?