BTW, I found your video, because a paid tutorial that included instancing seemed unnecessarily complicated... and in comparison to your (much more streamlined) methodology, the other tutorial is indeed too complex. Thanks again!
what about the pack and instances on copy to points are the output on that not similar with the result of instance? edit: I tried only the copy to points with pack instances the result are similar with instancer.
You can do that if you use heightfield scatter. If you are doing it with a normal scatter you can put a fuse node after the points and set it it to 1 as 1m and set the output options in fuse to "Least Point Number". This works quite well.
thanks a lot! What is the difference between packed in copy to points and the instance method? As copy to points (packed) is way less involved but i tried with large numbers and H becomes unresponsive
Hi, I think they are more or less the same but packed primitives are more like a "houdini thing". Hmm maybe it is caused by some recalculation that is further upstream. This way houdini needs to recalculate the graph every frame. By any chance is there a green time icon next to copy to points?
@@Houdini123 Thanks for the reply. It was a cached vellum grain simulation with 12m points. Which was totally fine in viewport but with copy to points packed prims (with 0 visibility in viewport) it was freezing houdini. So yes it was animated but cached. Do you think this is supposed to happen?
@@MotionPunk I dont have a lot of experience with simulations. But I think if you tried to copy to points to a vellum simulation with 12M pts each frame that it could have been a problem. I am not sure but a better way should be copy to static points, crate packed primitives, and then use their center point for simulation, and update only their transformation. I believe that should be a lot quicker.
@@Houdini123 thank you very much. Yes maybe that's an approach! So copy them in the beginning and then use an attribute copy and copy the P? something like this ? i havent opened H in a long time as well. I think your instances method would be the best as I discussed it with others but doesnt hurt to try multiple things.
Attribute copy will only copy the position not the rotation. Packed primitives are a little bit tricky. They have their own attributes for transformation. I recommend using transform pieces. That should do the trick. But basically the approach that you said. Instances, depends on what you need. They can be a pain too for certain things. Also you can watch this amazing tutorial for free to learn a ton of things - www.cgcircuit.com/tutorial/disintegration-effect-i
Hi, I did a test in houdini19, I feel like the instance is not much different from the pack and instance in copy to points, when I set the grid to 500x500
Any difference when creating instances at obj level vs sop level? Also...pack and instance seems much more convenient so why bother with the instancing route..
Hmm. Didn't tested it. But I guess it will not be a huge difference. But that's the thing. In Houdini you have always a dozen options how to do something. So use whatever suits you best for given situation. Pack and instance is great. But sometimes it might cooperate with youe renderer or game engine. So it is good to know how to make instances.
simple solution is less points or manual delete. Also you can try fuse sop on your input points and carefully increasing the threshold. A more advanced solution is scatter in height fields. It has and option to not scatter points in a certain radius. ua-cam.com/video/Busz8ttfhrs/v-deo.html
Came here looking to learn how to randomize color of instances ;( 26:08 : "in mantra you can also randomize the shaders... I'm not sure how to do it but I think you can, so you maybe can look into that as well..." damn...
You can even imagine how my poor computer suffer doing a forest with just copy nodes, instances save my life great tutorial man.
They really are a lifesaver! Happy you enjoyed the tutorial.
Doesn't the copy node have a packed instance option?
Simply way much informative and useful than paid tutorials. Thank you.
Amazing tutorial, just straight to the point, not over complicating things with VEX or anything else. Thank you!
Thank you so much for making this in-depth tutorial 👍 This is exactly what I was looking for. like the extra tips low poly and bounding box. Cheers
A super tutorial. Just what I needed.
Thank you for this. Extremely useful!
Thanks for this. Very direct and to the point. Very useful.
BTW, I found your video, because a paid tutorial that included instancing seemed unnecessarily complicated... and in comparison to your (much more streamlined) methodology, the other tutorial is indeed too complex. Thanks again!
Thank you, I am happy it helped! And yes there some Houdinists love it the complicated way, I prefer the easiest way possible :)
Thank you so much for this tutorial , there are very less tuts like these , less scripting and optimized way to do work.
thanks man! I learned a thing or two! keep going!
thanks so much! huge help. I was able to adapt this to heightfield scatter no problem.
great demonstration, thank you very much
Thank you! now I can see the big difference
thank you for making this great vedio
Thank You very much!
Excellent video!
what about the pack and instances on copy to points are the output on that not similar with the result of instance?
edit: I tried only the copy to points with pack instances the result are similar with instancer.
super helpful!
This is really awesome tut. But if I want to have a define space between the objects. For example, 1meter between each tree ?
You can do that if you use heightfield scatter. If you are doing it with a normal scatter you can put a fuse node after the points and set it it to 1 as 1m and set the output options in fuse to "Least Point Number". This works quite well.
hey, do you know how to export instances in alembic? i have exporting and dont show up in another dcc
thanks a lot! What is the difference between packed in copy to points and the instance method? As copy to points (packed) is way less involved but i tried with large numbers and H becomes unresponsive
Hi, I think they are more or less the same but packed primitives are more like a "houdini thing". Hmm maybe it is caused by some recalculation that is further upstream. This way houdini needs to recalculate the graph every frame. By any chance is there a green time icon next to copy to points?
@@Houdini123 Thanks for the reply. It was a cached vellum grain simulation with 12m points. Which was totally fine in viewport but with copy to points packed prims (with 0 visibility in viewport) it was freezing houdini. So yes it was animated but cached. Do you think this is supposed to happen?
@@MotionPunk I dont have a lot of experience with simulations. But I think if you tried to copy to points to a vellum simulation with 12M pts each frame that it could have been a problem. I am not sure but a better way should be copy to static points, crate packed primitives, and then use their center point for simulation, and update only their transformation. I believe that should be a lot quicker.
@@Houdini123 thank you very much. Yes maybe that's an approach! So copy them in the beginning and then use an attribute copy and copy the P? something like this ? i havent opened H in a long time as well. I think your instances method would be the best as I discussed it with others but doesnt hurt to try multiple things.
Attribute copy will only copy the position not the rotation. Packed primitives are a little bit tricky. They have their own attributes for transformation. I recommend using transform pieces. That should do the trick. But basically the approach that you said.
Instances, depends on what you need. They can be a pain too for certain things.
Also you can watch this amazing tutorial for free to learn a ton of things - www.cgcircuit.com/tutorial/disintegration-effect-i
Hi, I did a test in houdini19, I feel like the instance is not much different from the pack and instance in copy to points, when I set the grid to 500x500
that's great! so no unnecessary hustle with instance nodes needed. 👍
What if you check 'pack and instance' on the copy to points node would it still be slower than the instance node?
Hello! Very interesting video, by the way, is there a way to instance object by Cd attribute if I take points from attribfrommap?
Hi Alessandro. Yep I think you can. I don't see a problem in that.
Any difference when creating instances at obj level vs sop level? Also...pack and instance seems much more convenient so why bother with the instancing route..
Hmm. Didn't tested it. But I guess it will not be a huge difference. But that's the thing. In Houdini you have always a dozen options how to do something. So use whatever suits you best for given situation. Pack and instance is great. But sometimes it might cooperate with youe renderer or game engine. So it is good to know how to make instances.
how would you then export those instances to render in a different software?
Simplest (costs money) is using Redshift Proxies. I transfer them from Houdini to Maya. Doesn't work with volumes though (AFAIK)
Thanks for the tutorial. I am running into a problem when I scale the trees big it intersects with each other. How to avoid them? Thank you
simple solution is less points or manual delete. Also you can try fuse sop on your input points and carefully increasing the threshold. A more advanced solution is scatter in height fields. It has and option to not scatter points in a certain radius. ua-cam.com/video/Busz8ttfhrs/v-deo.html
@@Houdini123 Thank you!
Came here looking to learn how to randomize color of instances ;(
26:08 : "in mantra you can also randomize the shaders... I'm not sure how to do it but I think you can, so you maybe can look into that as well..."
damn...
Look for "Material Stylesheets" ;)
👍👍👍
you need to speak faster. Its making me fall asleep.
lol would love to if I could. Put the video on 1.5 x speed. That is a watchable speed :)
nice