ikerr

You can eliminate/reduce flickering.

The problem is that you are using a different point cloud for each frame. This causes flickering.

To fix the problem, generate the point cloud on frame 1 and then use the same point cloud for the entire animation. This may sound strange given that the object is deforming but the point cloud doesn't store point positions – it stores parametric surface coordinates. These coordinates are re-mapped onto the surface before each frame. Houdini's SSS was specifically designed to handle deforming meshes.

To summarize:

1) Go to frame 1.
2) Set the point cloud file to “$HIP/points.pc” (note that there is no “$F”).
3) Set the point cloud mode to “Write to File”.
4) Render the first frame.
5) Change the point cloud mode to “Read from File”.
6) Render your animation.

I attached my results. Good luck!

Hi John,

I would use a random primitive attribute as an offset. To the offset, add the frame number ($F) to get the image number. In other words, we want something like this: “MyPic_($F + offset).pic”. I threw together a quick example hip file based on your own. It's messy, but hopefully is along the lines of what you're after.

Hi John,

I had a look at your file and the problem is related to ray-tracing vs. micropolygon rendering. In particular, in micropolygon mode, the parametric surface coordinate “s” being fed into your Texture VOP is always 0, so your texture map lookups occur only along the edge of your texture. To get consistent results between the ray-tracer and micropolygon renderer, enable “Shade Curves as Surfaces” on your object (Render / Dicing tab).

Also, note that you can see the results of the micropolygon render in the Render Viewer when the Render Viewer's “Preview” toggle is off.

Hope that helps.

Kind regards,
–Ian