Deborah R. Fowler

Houdini and Redshift Tips

Posted Dec 5 2021
Mar 7 2024

Tips and Troubleshooting:

Common issues - solutions on this page

normals - use a normal node, or ensure vertex normals is checked on in appropriate nodes
primitives are not understood by Redshift
displacement needs permission

HINT: polyextrude - ensure vertex normals is checked on
HINT: leaving redshift lights around even if disabled will interfere with the mantra render
HINT: primitive sphere will not render in redshift
HINT: primitive tube will not render in redshift you must check Add Vertex Normals for it to render properly (also for using Booleans)

HINT: displacement in redshift has to be enabled on the object in order for the shader to work

HINT: displacement in redshift can cause issues with boolean when merging objects in the same container - example coming soon (ran across this recently Sept 7, 2022, turns out I used a bump but will document)

HINT: modeling polybevel tip - similar to mantra where you can round edges in the shader under the bump, you can do the same in redshift using a round edges plugged into the bump in the shader

HINT: to use a matte object in rendering, you have to check allow matte object on the container node (Under the Matte tab on the Redshift OBJ tab)

HINT: If using Maxon Noise,

if your object is moving through the texture you will need to use a rest node. If that fails you can also opt for space "uv" rather than space "object"

From the documentation:

UV / Vertex Attribute : Uses the UV coordinates to control the location of the noise. Discontinuity will be visible in the noise along seams in the UVs.
Object : Uses the object-space coordinates that are being shaded. This option undoes the world transform to lock the coordinates to the local object space, resulting in no texture projection swimming when the object moves or is instanced.
World : Uses the world-space coordinates that are being shaded. This option will result in texture projection 'swimming' if the object moves or is instanced.

a useful chart of the noise functions as they appear https://help.maxon.net/c4d/en-us/Content/_REDSHIFT_/html/Maxon+Noise.html

HINT: Avoid negative numbers with polyextrude if using redshift combined with rounded corners

HINT: Redshift does support packed primitives - to render materials correctly you may need to go to your geometry node>Redshift OBJ>Settings>Instancing and check on "Instance SOP Level Packed Primitives." (not always necessary)

HINT: Previewing a texture in Redshift (see also Materials) animatingTexture.hiplc

HINT: Material Overrides are detailed in the Tips and Tricks render page - similar to Mantra but with textures the instructions are given - hipnc provided. Often it is as easy as popping in a RS Point Attribute in the shader (for example Cd). You can also use material overrides as you did in Mantra. With textures, the filename is not promotable but you can create an attribute at the top level of the shader and reference it in the shader. This is the technique used for texture names in the example I created.

HINT: Motion Blur should be done in render. If you do happen to put the blur vector in AOV it will then not render Motion Blur in render.

Houdini Resources

Deborah R. Fowler

Houdini and Redshift Tips