Deborah R. Fowler
Particles Tips and Troubleshooting
Posted: 2013
Updated: Mar 8 2024
Rendering
Besides the behavior of a particles system,
rendering is key to getting the effect you want. By default,
Houdini Mantra renders particles as spheres and the size can be
manipulated using pscale. In Redshift, you can get much
the same behavior by using a checkbox (see Redshift
Particles). Be sure to put the material on the object
container.
Rather than copying onto the points you can
still use instancing see http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini19.5/dopparticles/instancing
See also Tips and Tricks for specific
examples and more information about rendering.
Tips for Particles
TIP: Gaps? Turn up substeps
TIP: Use age to ramp color or opacity. Can also apply an attribute noise.
TIP: You can view details of your particles in the particle import node, or you can view it in the dop by right clicking on the node and selecting Spreadsheet and then Geometry (there are other ways to access as well, but this can be handy. To narrow the amount of data, select View - hide all attributes, then turn on the attributes you are interested in.
TIP: Pop Color does work, however when you are rendering particles with no lights added, the default headlights are on and they will appear to be white. Put some lights in your scene (I suggest sky/sun) and you will see the color.
TIP: In order to render instanced geometry, you must append an Instance SOP after the DOP import node inside the renderable object.
TIP: Beware of reflections when rendering particles.