March 17, 2020 — No Comments

egRedshiftTools released

Hey there,

today I released egRedshiftTools. So what is this about? They are simply convenience tools for Redshift Renderer (www.redshift3d.com) for usage with SideFx Houdini. These tools are free and open source under MIT License. Find the Features first. Thoughts below. Scroll to the bottom for links.

Features include:

Sometimes I need to apply a Material to multiple Objects. Simple as that:

Apply multiple Materials with a shelf tool, the fast way

This also applies OpenGL Shaders to the Textures which are linked to the Redshift Material itself.

OpenGL Shaders and created Materials in action

But the OpenGL Shaders also can be applied manually, for your existing Materials. Since this script calls just python, you do not need to worry about your Redshift-Version (as opposed to an encapsulated HDA).

Apply OpenGL Shaders manually

Set OpenGL Textures for an entire Material via Shelf or Right Click Menus. OpenGL Textures can also be used for a variance of channels. The channels can be selected via right-click menus. The support channels are at the moment: Diffuse, Roughness, Specular, Emission, Normal. The other channels are not supported by Redshift at the moment.

You can also apply Textures - this needs to be done manually for Viewport Performance Reasons

This is not realized as an HDA on purpose to be able to remove Attribute at any point. So of course OpenGL Attributes can be removed as well. e.g. if your viewport gets sluggish.

Clear OpenGL Shaders from an Object/Material

I often create multiple cameras within a scene, and want to render a view or many of them. To set the all up by hand is boring. So there also is script to create a Take for each selected Camera.

Create Takes from selected Cameras

You can also set the current Viewport Camera as the Rendercam, which might come in handy some time.

Set Viewport Cam to ROP

Additional Thoughts

All of this features and even some more a available on my Github. For free and Open Source! Just hit me up on Github or Twitter (links below) with any questions/feedback or bugs you discover. Or even if you just want to stop by and have a nice chat. Since we are all home at the moment anyways...

Some features of this tools you may know from other tools as well, but I wanted to build them myself for several reasons. First of all I always wanted to build a proper tool like this. Secondly I also was missing some features from the other solutions where I also had to get several tools to combine them. Those are really great (!) tools, don´t get me wrong. And a third point would be to exercise and get used to the Houdini Python API. So why not build them myself? As i mentioned already this code is open source. So rip it apart, use it for your own tools, or learn from it. Feel free to do as you wish.

There also a few HDAs and a Texture Converter which I will mention in another post. Stay tuned, stay safe!

Links

Scripts on Github: https://github.com/eglaubauf/egRedshiftTools

Me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eglaubauf

Published by elmar in Uncategorized
Tags: houdini, pipeline, redshift, scripting, tools, vfx

September 18, 2019 — Comments are off for this post.

Houdini Library egLib rereleased

I just rereleased my own Houdini-Library which consists of some python scripts as well as Houdini HDAs which may be useful from time to time. I´ll maybe break down some of this tools in the near future on this site. Heres the ReleaseNotes on the Readme from Github for now:

Features:

Provided Scripts

This library provides a set of Scripts:

  • autofocus.py - does as it says
  • connectPoints.py - connects polyPoints
  • flipBook.py - makes a Flipbook from the current camera without croppin/scaling
  • hide.py - toggles hide afrom selected nodes from viewport
  • IN.py - Green Null with handy rename panel provided; appends to selected node (SOP), shortcut recommended
  • incrSave.py - save with date, name, version - iterates version(if necessary also date) on each save
  • makePlanarX.py - Flattens pointSelection in World X
  • makePlanarY.py - Flattens pointSelection in World Y
  • makePlanarZ.py - Flattens pointSelection in World Z
  • makeQCam.py - make a cam with QFrustum and QRig - needs qLib
  • measure.py - make a measure node from selected objects - if non selected create nulls instead
  • merge.py - merge selected with merge node (SOP) - Shortcut highly recommended (M works fine)
  • multiImporter.py - import multiple files (.bgeo, .abc, .fbx,...) into OBJ - Creates a OBJ_node with names for each selected file
  • out.py - Black Null with handy rename panel provided; appends to selected node (SOP); shortcut recommended
  • replaceString.py - search ALL nodes in the scene for all string-parms and replace a string if found
  • resetTrans.py - reset Transforms to zero (Components selectable) - OBJ
  • trajectory.py - create a visible trajectory for the selected object (OBJ) - needs Qlib installed
  • align.py - matches transform of 2 nodes in OBJ

Provided HDAs

  • PolyCapFix - Fixes Holes
  • VolumeDisplacement.hdalc - Does VolumeDisplacement
  • VoronoiTransform.hdalc - Breaks things and Transforms Pieces
  • AtomArray.hdalc - As it says
  • compressvdb.hdalc - save space with vdbs
  • compressvolume.hdalc - save space with vdbs
  • DeleteOutsidePieces.hdalc - delete pieces which are not on the inside
  • DigitalGrowth2D.hdalc - Line-Growth Solver
  • EdgeDisplacement.hdalc - EdgeDisplacement (PolyEdges)
  • LineGlow.hdalc - Shader
  • MacBethMantra.hdalc - a MacBethChart for Mantra
  • MoGraph_Shader - MoGraphStuff as known from other tools
  • MoGraph_Step - MoGraphStuff as known from other tools
  • MoGraph_Target - MoGraphStuff as known from other tools
  • Mograph_Displace.hda - MoGraphStuff as known from other tools
  • Mograph_Plain.hda - MoGraphStuff as known from other tools
  • Mograph_Random.hda - MoGraphStuff as known from other tools

additional Infos

  • Toolbar provided
  • Icons may follow
  • Tested on 17.5.360
  • If you find any bugs, have suggestions or anything else please contact me via Twitter or per Mail
  • please check out my other Repos as well - they might be handy to you

Published by elmar in Uncategorized
Tags: assets, hda, houdini, release, scripting, tools, vfx

September 12, 2019 — Comments are off for this post.

Copy to Farm – Houdini Version

Yesterday I released my Copy to Farm Script for Maya. Today there is the Houdini one. and it´s quite a beauty as well.

For the moment it is Windows and Houdini 17.5 (probably older versions as well) only, but I´ll put together versions Blender soo. But it may take a while since i don´t know Blenders API yet. A Linux Version will also follow at some point, but at the moment it has low priority as my environment is Windows only at the moment. See a full list of features below.

The Script (including some simple installation instructions) can be found on Github!

Features

  • Copy Files to different Location (Links included)
  • List all Linked files
  • Only copy newer files
  • Copy all Files)
  • Copy Files from any Location (also from outside the $HIP-Folder) to new Project Directory (Rebuilds FolderStructure Below the new Project Location)
  • works with Houdini 17.5.360 ( and older possibly as well but untested)
  • OS-Exceptions are handled
  • Windows only (at the Moment)

Resources:

https://github.com/eglaubauf/Maya_CopyToFarm

FastCopy class provided by Dmytro on Stackoverflow

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22078621/python-how-to-copy-files-fast

Published by elmar in Uncategorized
Tags: 3d, houdini, pipeline, scripting, vfx

September 11, 2019 — Comments are off for this post.

Copy to Farm Script

I just released a new script on Github. And it´s quite a handy one. Essentially it copies file from one directory to another, but what´s quite neat about it, is that i als relinks files from outside the current projects directory after copying it into the target directory. So it basically collects all dependencies, imports references (if you want to), and sets the project to the target directory. And it opens the new file in one go if you want to as well. And everything with a high performance python copy algorithm by the User Dmytro on stackoverflow i found. Thank you Dmytro!

For the moment it is Windows and Maya 2019 (probably older versions as well) only, but I´ll put together versions for Houdini and Blender soonish. A Linux Version will follow at some point, but at the moment it has low priority as my environment is Windows only at the moment. See a full list of features below.

The Script can be found on Github!

Features

  • Copy Files to different Location (Links included)
  • Import all References (and create a backup from it)
  • List all Linked files
  • Only copy newer files
  • Copy all Files
  • Open New File in one Step (also sets the Workspace to this new Location)
  • Copy Files from any Location to new Project Directory (Rebuilds FolderStructure Below the new Project Location)
  • works with Maya 2019 and newer (2018 and older possibly as well but untested)
  • OS-Exceptions are handled
  • Windows only (at the Moment)

Resources:

https://github.com/eglaubauf/Maya_CopyToFarm

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22078621/python-how-to-copy-files-fast

Published by elmar in Uncategorized
Tags: 3d, maya, pipeline, scripting, vfx

August 4, 2019 — Comments are off for this post.

Expanded Animation – The Book

During my work at the University of Applied Sciences I had the possibility to design a book. And I am very happy to say that it worked out quite well. Since it isn´t a small one either with about 250 Pages the challenge to do the layout and design was quite a hard one. Me experience in Adobe´s InDesign wasn´t also that great, but I got that covered now. So what´s the book about? Essentially it covers the last 8 years of Ars Electronica and the Symposium 'Expanded Animation' which is part of it. Expanded Animation tries to cover and expand the boundaries of Animation on a regular basis and invites to talks, presentation and discussions during the Ars Electronica Festival every year. And to sum it up the writers wanted to have a bundled set of a selection of works which has been awarded or discussed during the last 10 years as well as some theoretical and practical approaches in form of texts.

So the layout had to be quite flexibel as the form of content varied quite heavily. Typefaces already had been decided by Ars Electronica as they used Klavika as part of their corporate identity. So have a look on this few pictures over here, which i will update to a better quality as soon as my holidays are over and I have access to a professional photostudio again.

In the meantime you can check out Ars Electronica, Expanded Animation or buy the book on Amazon:

www.expandedanimation.com
https://ars.electronica.art
Amazon (no affilitation or whatsoever)

Published by elmar in Uncategorized
Tags: 2d, book, design, graphic design
Featured Image

August 3, 2019 — Comments are off for this post.

Starting a Blog

Hello friend,

since i have a new portfolio now i will be sharing some knowledge of mine. From now on I will share my findings, infos, tipps & tricks and suggestions on this blog on a fairly regular basis. I will cover such topics as open source software in 3D content creation, procedural modelling and animation techniques, different rendering solutions as well as some hopefully useful scripts and Houdini HDAs. And I of course will share links on terms i use (like Houdini HDAs for example: What are HDAs?). I also provide a small library on my, own which is kind of hard to use and install at the moment, but i will keep this updated and notify via this blog and social media as soon as it is ready to go.

Published by elmar in Uncategorized
Tags: blog, introduction