Houdini to Vray

[Metzger]

Using the command line utility, we aren't having much luck getting motion blur to export.

Is there some sort of magic trick I need to know for bgeo to vrmesh?

[vlado]

You need .geo, not .bgeo files; and they must contain vertex velocity information.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Aneurisma]

Using the command line utility, we aren't having much luck getting motion blur to export.

Is there some sort of magic trick I need to know for bgeo to vrmesh?

Hey!! Where can I find more info on this workflow (houdini to vray)?

Thanks a million!

[Metzger]

Yeah, I meant to say .geo. Thanks Vlado!!!!! Woohoo!!

Aneurisma: There is a plytovrmesh.exe tool to convert .geo exports from Houdini into a proxy that can be loaded into maya. Once you write out a .geo sequence with velocity, you can go to the Vray Menu, import proxy in Maya.

[alainfx]

Hello !

I have an Houdini scene that I can't convert to vrmesh (ply2vrmesh).
I tried all 4 formats :
-bgeo
-bgeo.gz
-geo
-geo.gz


I get this :
Error writing file: Wrong .ply format

Or this :
Error reading file: [VUtils::GeoInterface::readFile] Error reading .geo file at line 9990: Unsupported number of polygon vertices


I have sent the 4 files (in a zip) to vraymaya@chaosgroup.com

Thanks.

PS : it is houdini-11.1.67-win64 demo version, but it seems the export should work (geo ASCII version contains "PGEOMETRY V5")

[vlado]

Thanks, we'll try them out, but for this error:

Error reading file: [VUtils::GeoInterface::readFile] Error reading .geo file at line 9990: Unsupported number of polygon vertices

it could be that you have polygons with more than 4 vertices. Currently ply2vrmesh can deal only with triangles and quadrangles.

Best regards,
Vlado

[alainfx]

Yes, inspecting the ascii geo file indicates we have polygons with more than 4 vertices.
We will try a Divide node in Houdini to get triangles and quads.
Thanks.

[alainfx]

After dividing the geometry (3 or 4 vertices maximum) it now works all right.
Thanks !

[ultrasonic]

This is heavily Off-Topic but i read LOTS of posts that are about the houdini to maya workflow...would it make sense to ask if wee will ever see a native vray integration inside houdini? I know some guys tried this already but i don't know if they ever succeeded...

just curious....
Oli

[vlado]

There were some discussions about this at one point, but it's a lot of work; due to the procedural nature of Houdini, render data may come in a variety of ways. We've had a similar (unpleasant) experience with ICE in Softimage, where if you set it up in one way, you get a certain result, but if you click a little option somewhere, you get something completely different that requires a different translation method altogether. If there is enough interest though, we will certainly look into it.

Also, it depends on what people are going to use V-Ray for in Houdini... from my understanding, a complete scene is rarely set up entirely in Houdini (would it make sense to bring e.g. in character animation there?) and it's usually bits and pieces of a scene that ultimately end up somewhere else.

Best regards,
Vlado

[alainfx]

Is there any plan to support the .geo.gz format ?
It's a gzip version of the .geo format, that Houdini provides when you want to use less disk space and load faster.
Thanks.

[vlado]

Isn't .bgeo better than that, being binary and all?

Best regards,
Vlado

[alainfx]

Isn't .bgeo better than that, being binary and all?

Well, if I remember correctly, we were told to use .geo (and not .bgeo) in order to get Motion Blur.

[vlado]

Hm, that should be working fine now in the latest builds at least on the V-Ray side. I'm not sure about Houdini - I don't think it matters if you use .geo or .bgeo

Best regards,
Vlado

[ultrasonic]

There were some discussions about this at one point, but it's a lot of work;

Also, it depends on what people are going to use V-Ray for in Houdini... from my understanding, a complete scene is rarely set up entirely in Houdini (would it make sense to bring e.g. in character animation there?) and it's usually bits and pieces of a scene that ultimately end up somewhere else.

Best regards,
Vlado

I totally understand and i think it is the right way to go NOT to build vray4houdini....i was just curious...u are absolutly right with "a scene that ultimately end up somewhere else"

I also feel more comfortable having maya as a shading and lighting environment...it is better for quick hacks

cheers
Oli
P.S.: i am really looking forward to testing the ply2vrmesh again...i always had issues converting way back in april...