SideFX Houdini 3D procedural modeling software is by far one of the most deep and complex programs I have used in 3D. This post kicks off the start of my journey into uncovering Houdini without a degree and wallets with holes.
The way I have always learned is by teaching, so I will teach myself on this section of the site and offer my notes to others traveling down this same event horizon.
See I say “Event Horizon” because once you are standing at the edge of full on Houdini power, you will not be able to escape the gravity that IS SideFX Houdini.
We all have reasons to take on new learning challenges, Houdini PDG is a brand new technology released by SideFX that allows another layer of abstraction when creating procedural assets in Houdini. This post will naively try and outline what I think this tech is and does.
Table of Contents
TOPs Node Graph
TOP Network
The TOPs network is what makes time travel possible, actually no the network is the PDG dependency graph.
TOP networks are available in TOP and SOP networks and also inside Geometry nodes.
The TOP Network is the Object level version of TOPs, where as the SOP network is the Object surfacing network.
Wedge Node
The Wedge TOP node “Creates work items with varying attribute values.”
Local Scheduler
The Local Scheduler TOP node “Schedules work items on the local machine.”
- required
- event manager
- chain together nodes and pass them down
- managing the node processing and passing data when complete
- setup working directory, defaults to $HIP