Material & Other Nice Things
by Robert Ledoux · in Artist Corner · 10/08/2009 (5:29 am) · 6 replies
I think I'm starting to understand...
1) Everytime we want to deal with Materials, do we always have to trow in a DTS_Material thing?
2) And what about the Material Palette in Houdini; can we use this at all?
3) Is there other dark rules like that I should know about?
4) What's the difference between Material & Texture?
I found a lot of working examples in here: http://localhost:48626/nodes/out/torque
PS: I always have this error when trying to add tags
'Material,Texture' has not only alphabetic and digit characters
1) Everytime we want to deal with Materials, do we always have to trow in a DTS_Material thing?
2) And what about the Material Palette in Houdini; can we use this at all?
3) Is there other dark rules like that I should know about?
4) What's the difference between Material & Texture?
I found a lot of working examples in here: http://localhost:48626/nodes/out/torque
PS: I always have this error when trying to add tags
'Material,Texture' has not only alphabetic and digit characters
About the author
Started to learn programming on an Apple II. Wrote my 1st game on a C64 in ML. Learned C on an Amiga. Many many moons later: Torque
#2
Material & Texture just seems the same to me (well almost). They both sound like they can be wrapped around an object to give it color and character.
Let say I have a ping pong ball and a golf ball, they look kind of the same but one is heavy with bumps.
What would give the golf ball its heaviness, color and bumps (or transparency for others)?
Furthermore, once done, would all this be transferable via DTS all setup for Torque?
I know it’s a lot but I’ve been searching so much for the last months. And now Houdini, the last of the tools I think I will need.
I am now trying to create a DTS_Material gallery but I don’t quite know what I am doing :)
Another thing I don’t get is those subnet and Shopnet (or SHOP Network?). When I Load an example from Help for Torque, they’re all over but no explanation. I’ve searched the whole Net and couldn’t find a thing on it. So I don’t know when or where to use those.
Well, thank you very much for your attention. Hope you can help again.
OK for the texture. I found this:www.webreference.com/3d/glossary/texture.html
10/10/2009 (8:06 am)
Thanks for the help Peter. Material & Texture just seems the same to me (well almost). They both sound like they can be wrapped around an object to give it color and character.
Let say I have a ping pong ball and a golf ball, they look kind of the same but one is heavy with bumps.
What would give the golf ball its heaviness, color and bumps (or transparency for others)?
Furthermore, once done, would all this be transferable via DTS all setup for Torque?
I know it’s a lot but I’ve been searching so much for the last months. And now Houdini, the last of the tools I think I will need.
I am now trying to create a DTS_Material gallery but I don’t quite know what I am doing :)
Another thing I don’t get is those subnet and Shopnet (or SHOP Network?). When I Load an example from Help for Torque, they’re all over but no explanation. I’ve searched the whole Net and couldn’t find a thing on it. So I don’t know when or where to use those.
Well, thank you very much for your attention. Hope you can help again.
OK for the texture. I found this:www.webreference.com/3d/glossary/texture.html
#3
DTS files are more restrictive. You can only apply a texture to the color, reflectance, or detail map (a higher frequency repeated texture for close ups), and you can't really control things like glossiness. The material parameters that can be output to DTS from houdini are defined in DTS_Material, and nothing more. If you look in the help for DTS_Material you can see the kinds of things you can set, but it's not much. There are more material properties you can set in Torque, but they aren't in the DTS file. For example, in TGEA, you create a materials file that has the extra information in it.
The subnets in houdini are just organizational tools. They also define the context which will provide the set of operators you can use. For example, a SHOP subnet contains SHOPs. You start with a basic set of them (/obj, /shop, etc) in your hip file, but you can create them whenever you want. The examples use them so that they don't clutter your scene, and since most of the examples are actually digital assets (special subnets that act like operators). Have you looked at the 3dbuzz houdini fundamentals videos? They cover things like subnets and digital assets.
10/12/2009 (7:27 pm)
In the world of houdini, Material only deals with renderable properties, so the heaviness of the golf ball would not be represented by a Material. The glossiness of the golf ball (versus the matte of the ping pong ball surface), the bumps, and any decals or dirt would be in the Material. Any of those things could be controlled with an image, and the image is called a Texture.DTS files are more restrictive. You can only apply a texture to the color, reflectance, or detail map (a higher frequency repeated texture for close ups), and you can't really control things like glossiness. The material parameters that can be output to DTS from houdini are defined in DTS_Material, and nothing more. If you look in the help for DTS_Material you can see the kinds of things you can set, but it's not much. There are more material properties you can set in Torque, but they aren't in the DTS file. For example, in TGEA, you create a materials file that has the extra information in it.
The subnets in houdini are just organizational tools. They also define the context which will provide the set of operators you can use. For example, a SHOP subnet contains SHOPs. You start with a basic set of them (/obj, /shop, etc) in your hip file, but you can create them whenever you want. The examples use them so that they don't clutter your scene, and since most of the examples are actually digital assets (special subnets that act like operators). Have you looked at the 3dbuzz houdini fundamentals videos? They cover things like subnets and digital assets.
#4
I was wondering if I should take the per month deal for a little while. Not right now though, there's a lot to go trough just for now thanks to you.
I've seen other training sites but this one looks like the best. What's your view?
I can now see light at the end of the tunnel :)
Thanks a lot Peter!
10/14/2009 (7:44 am)
Guess what? I was registered at 3D Buzz but never thought there was free training. What a discovery! I can't believe I missed that, and I've looked around... I was wondering if I should take the per month deal for a little while. Not right now though, there's a lot to go trough just for now thanks to you.
I've seen other training sites but this one looks like the best. What's your view?
I can now see light at the end of the tunnel :)
Thanks a lot Peter!
#5
10/15/2009 (12:16 am)
The 3dbuzz free training is great, but I'm biased since that was one of the ways I learned originally. Back then I don't think there was any other video training available. There are also some videos on the sidefx site that are free, but most of those are more advanced. In case you haven't seen it yet, here is a list of various training products at the sidefx site: www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=122&... 
#6
08/10/2010 (11:53 pm)
Hey, Robert, it is a lot to get used to. Houdini has a lot of features you don't find in other 3D packages. Another terminology you might hear concerning materials in a good number of 3D applications is "procedural material", meaning that it is not represented by an actual image file, but simulated mathmaticly. None of the 3D tools I've worked with have ever exported their procedural materials out as part of the model file... that I can remember. 
Torque Owner Peter Stuart
1 - The torque exporter only understands DTS_Material materials so yes you'll need one if you want to setup the material section of the dts file.
2 - You can use the Material Palette for your own DTS_Material materials. The stock contents of the palette include shaders for Mantra, mentralray, and RenderMan, which you can't use for dts files, since they aren't DTS_Material materials. To add your own, create a new gallery by right clicking on a material and selecting "save to gallery", and add the gallery to the palette with the folder button in upper left corner of the palette. You can also drag materials into the tree view of the palette to add to a gallery. Some of your DTS_Materials might have multiple nodes connected (i.e. for reflection map). You can collapse all of the nodes that are part of the material into one material using the "create subnet from selected" option and then use the subnet for the material.
3 - Be sure to make the assignment at the geometry level using the Material SOP. For some reason the material assignment at the object level doesn't work.
4 - I'm not sure I understand the question... Material is simply a Houdini grouping mechanism for putting together various shaders and attributes (properties) that together define how an object is rendered. DTS_Material is just a simple container for the various parameters that can be set in the dts file for defining the appearance of the object. It ties into the Houdini material system so that you work with it the same way you would work with regular Houdini materials, and so the texture shows up in the viewport. The texture is just a file on disk that is used by the shaders to adjust color based on the texture coordinates.
PS - Is this a forum submission problem?
Hope this helps...