HOUDINI - Deforming geo using a gray map

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This is a very basic trick but can be very helpful sometimes. Using a grayscale map to change point position on geometry. Just like a displacement do at render time. We are going to use both VOP and a wrangle node.

[@MrGhjg]

Lovely tut

[@Terranimator]

Glad you like it!

[@MarquePierreSondergaard]

Clear and informative.

[@Iknoursiingh]

Keep them coming... Really helpfull tuts ..

[@JimiMoso]

Very nice tutorial. Can you do tutorial about mechanical rigging please?

[@renight0343]

Thank you so much!

[@pixelfound]

Wow!

[@carlherner9458]

cool! Im a houdini beginner and I was wondering how I could offset the displacement map? If there was a way to add offset to the texture coordinates I could for example use $F to have it continuously morph, so how would I add offset?:)

[@litote9]

So to remove the greyscale from render, you would uncheck Use Point Color presumably in the shader? Using a Principled Shader-Displacement texture is much easier.

[@Terranimator]

Hi, Presque vu. to delete the color, there are may ways to do it, you can even put a "clean" node after the wrangle and delete the Cd attribute.about the displacement. Yes if you want just to have a surface displacing at render time I would definitely use displacemente on the shader. but let's say you want on top of the deformed geo scatter some points or obj. those would not follow the displacemet on render time. This is just a differente technique that you can use when fits the need. Definantily not a replacemento to the shader displacement. Thanks

[@hrivis]

Thanks

[@Terranimator]

Thanks! glad you liked.

[@MatthiasTTV]

Very nice, but I have one question (I'm a beginner to Houdini). Let's say I wanted to keep the base of the grid flat and just raise the "surface". Is there an easy way to do that? I tried extruding so that I have a second "layer" and applying the wrangle to the top face only, but it still distorts the part underneath.

[@planebreach]

This seems to be working only from planes. Is there a way to apply this to non-planar meshes ?
nvm it works using the first method.

[@edh615]

I Can't do it even converting vdb to poly

[@Terranimator]

Hello SnowballWar, Yes there are couple of ways, on of them is multiply the displacement value, what in this case is the value from the gray map to the surface normal. This way it will get the direction of the surface normal.
as a simple vex expression will look like this @P += @Cd*@N; let me know it this helped.

[@felipemarceu3232]

Hi Mr. Let me ask you if you don`t mind, i`m trying to create a terrain, using the heightmap and after apply a material like megascans, i wanna config a tileable material from a texture and apply a realtime displacement on the converted heightmap to see in viewport and the other effects follow the geometry, this is possible? Thanks!

[@Terranimator]

Fala Felipe Blz!? I have never try this approach, but reading your idea, seems to be a could idea. Since 2 month had passed since you posted it, I will ask you if have you tried it. let me know! inte

[@felipemarceu3232]

@@Terranimator eae rapa! Olha.. eu consegui fazer, vou te passar o artigo q fiz..se quiser ver como resolvi..abraço! 80.lv/articles/generating-a-procedural-red-rock-canyon-in-houdini/

[@user-zz5fp8eo9c]

I would like to ask if I can repeat that map when the UV is not moving

[@Terranimator]

You are asking if you can tile the map? yes Should be just fine!. Take care

[@risnandarmultimedia5296]

when i load the image its only showing greyscale vertical lines.. any ideas why?