Daily Updates (23th July 2013)

Report Day 12 : 23 July 2013

Naming Conventions
Following naming convention is essential as we do not get confused if we have complicated models and lots of lights in one scene. When we name the nodes, it easier to spot which light we need to adjust etc.
Naming Convention for lights : lgt_use_type_description_number
example : lgt_key_area_atiqah_face_001
I can also apply this technique when naming other nodes.
Sometimes when we are handling complex scenes, the network view might get a bit confusing and messy even with netboxes

However, there is another way we could access all the nodes, and this information will definitely benefit me in the future when I start working.

We could put all our nodes into one folder in the bundle list and we could easily access our nodes just like network view. 

The eye icon enable us to switch on and off the visibility (visibility flag (blue))
The mouse icon is used to select nodes (How many selected)
The box icon the template flag and it is used for geometry
The pipe looking icon is a bypassed flag, bypassing a node will prevent any ROPS from rendering.
The X icon is to the hide the nodes completely
Rendering lights
Another neat trick, I learn is that without turning off all the lights that I do not want to render, I could just actually called all the lights I want to render in a bundle.

In this case, if I want to render bundle BarnLights, I could go to my mantra node, and under candidate lights I could type @BarnLights

Light Linker

The light linker works like any other softwares, it just link lights with geometry

Render Scheduler
Render Scheduler allows me to pause my render. It also shows active and the elapsed time that it rendering. I can prioritize the ones I want to render to render first by pausing other renders.        

This is very useful and other softwares I know of are not able to pause a frame render.

Render Scheduler
Render Scheduler allows me to pause my render. It also shows active and the elapsed time that it rendering. I can prioritize the ones I want to render to render first by pausing other renders.        

This is very useful and other softwares I know of are not able to pause a frame render.

I can also change the parameter by calling the name of the parameter

eg) light_type and I am able to change the light type.

1,2,3,4,5,6 Command Script
- H script
-  They are used when houdini launch
Some command use
opcf - change directory
opadd - add a node
opparm - change a parameter

I could the textport and call my geo as well by using the commands above

There is a whole list of commands I can go through.http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini12.5/commands/
Lesson 2 - Material Gallery

v  Create  a digital assets that is already built for to create shaders

v  Create own surface material by going into VOPS network

v  Mantra Surface Shader

v  Building a vop network using surface shader builder

Material tester Digital Assest
After creating a simple scene with a grid, teapot, camera and light, we can now select all and create a subnet.

Under the subnet, add an operator path so that we could test the material on the teapot.
Copy parameter and paste relative reference at the material tab of the teapot which is inside the subnet, so everytime I add a new material, the teapot would get updated as it is using the same parameter.

Material Gallery
After we are happy with our custom made shader, I can create that shader as a .gal and put it at the material palette so that I can reuse it again.
Right click on the material, and click save to gallery.

Digital Asset instead of Gallery
If you want to save the shader as a digital assest, right click on the shader and save it as a digital assest.

Different VOP Models

v  Mantra Surface Shader

General, flexible material including subsurface scattering, environment maps, refractions, and displacement.

v  Surface Model

fully featured model of surface shading. It supports diffuse, specular, and refractive components and computes direct lighting (from light sources) and indirect lighting (lighting bouncing off other objects in the scene)

A render that is not white as it already has built in shader.

v  Material Shader Builder

container for other shader types, letting you “package up” combinations of lower-level shaders (such as surface shaders and displacement shaders) with individual settings into a new “look” you can assign as a single unit.

It is constant white as there are no lighting or surface model
Different between Color Mix and Mix

Color Mix works with RGB colors and mix works with grayscale and luminance. Color Map however, uses uv.
It is not difficult to use material surface shader as we could add multiple patterns color and textures.