Hi, thanks for this. I'd sort of heard of volume masking but never really seen it explained - at first while watching I was thinking isn't this just combining vdbs but then it clicked - masking allows control of the falloff of volumes - the vector fields example at the end made their usefulness even clearer. Really useful to know.
Glad you found it useful. Feel free to grab the project file from patreon as well. It's up for free. There's a couple more examples I go over in a video that will be up on Thursday but are already in the project file.
Thank you for the useful tutorial. However, I don't quite understand how multiplication and add of the mask work with SDF. Let me try to explain what I mean. I know that SDF calculates the distance from the surface. And, as I understand, the surface that is represented as SDF is the visual representation of the zero values (the distance on the surface equal zero). All the other values are not visible in viewport. When we do add operation, we add a mask with values bigger than zero, thus the area of the object that falls inside of the mask gets excluded from visualization. But, let's say, if we multiply the result by another mask, now everything that is outside of the multiplied mask gets excluded and we see just what is inside of the mask. And here is the thing that I don't understand: the SDF that is outside of the mask has zero values as well as the area outside of the mask. In theory we should still see the rest of SDF because zero multiplied by zero gives us zero, which is the values on the surface of the object. Where did I go wrong in the understanding of how SDF and masking work?
I've never seen a machine used for a tutorial which was so slow to add nodes to a graph. Two to three seconds to add a node is pretty painful. I don't remember your system being that slow even in your past tutorials. Were you running a render in the background or something?
Its funny. I was just talking about this in discord. No I wasn't running anything and I dont know why it's so slow now. I have a new system now and moved to windows 11. So I'm not exactly sure what is causing it to be so slow. I haven't been able to figure it out. Any ideas on how to fix it would be appreciated or if anyone is using windows 11 and experiencing the same thing? Perhaps it's a windows 11 issue or something. Not sure
Do you use Redshift? I had some weird issues where Redshift CPU would affect every aspect of my PC with Houdini running even when I wasn't using Redshift. I had to go into the Redshift bin directory and delete the CPU dll file that is used to do CPU rendering. It doesn't affect Redshift unless you render with hybrid or CPU only but it did fix my problem. You have to do it every time you update Redshift though
Yes I use redshift. I have been told that installing a local license instead of using Sidefx as the license server will resolve the issue. I haven't tried that yet but I am going to. If that doesn't work I will certainly try your suggestion as well. Thanks for the thought!
Hi, thanks for this. I'd sort of heard of volume masking but never really seen it explained - at first while watching I was thinking isn't this just combining vdbs but then it clicked - masking allows control of the falloff of volumes - the vector fields example at the end made their usefulness even clearer. Really useful to know.
Glad you found it useful. Feel free to grab the project file from patreon as well. It's up for free. There's a couple more examples I go over in a video that will be up on Thursday but are already in the project file.
nice tip ..well is there any way to use Cd in vops as mask
Thank you for the useful tutorial. However, I don't quite understand how multiplication and add of the mask work with SDF. Let me try to explain what I mean. I know that SDF calculates the distance from the surface. And, as I understand, the surface that is represented as SDF is the visual representation of the zero values (the distance on the surface equal zero). All the other values are not visible in viewport. When we do add operation, we add a mask with values bigger than zero, thus the area of the object that falls inside of the mask gets excluded from visualization.
But, let's say, if we multiply the result by another mask, now everything that is outside of the multiplied mask gets excluded and we see just what is inside of the mask. And here is the thing that I don't understand: the SDF that is outside of the mask has zero values as well as the area outside of the mask. In theory we should still see the rest of SDF because zero multiplied by zero gives us zero, which is the values on the surface of the object.
Where did I go wrong in the understanding of how SDF and masking work?
I've never seen a machine used for a tutorial which was so slow to add nodes to a graph. Two to three seconds to add a node is pretty painful. I don't remember your system being that slow even in your past tutorials. Were you running a render in the background or something?
Its funny. I was just talking about this in discord. No I wasn't running anything and I dont know why it's so slow now. I have a new system now and moved to windows 11. So I'm not exactly sure what is causing it to be so slow. I haven't been able to figure it out. Any ideas on how to fix it would be appreciated or if anyone is using windows 11 and experiencing the same thing? Perhaps it's a windows 11 issue or something. Not sure
Do you have a Ryzen processor? Did MS fix the Windows 11 poor performance issues with Ryzen?@@InsideTheMindSpace
Do you use Redshift? I had some weird issues where Redshift CPU would affect every aspect of my PC with Houdini running even when I wasn't using Redshift. I had to go into the Redshift bin directory and delete the CPU dll file that is used to do CPU rendering. It doesn't affect Redshift unless you render with hybrid or CPU only but it did fix my problem. You have to do it every time you update Redshift though
I have a threadripper in my build. I haven't noticed any issues with performance on windows 11.
Yes I use redshift. I have been told that installing a local license instead of using Sidefx as the license server will resolve the issue. I haven't tried that yet but I am going to. If that doesn't work I will certainly try your suggestion as well. Thanks for the thought!