Houdini Resources

Updated on June 26  2024


Houdini Particles in Dynamics

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.