How to Shade with point clouds in Houdini 10

This tutorial offers a look at using point clouds in shading, and the pcopen, pciterate, and pcimport nodes in VOPs. It also gives a further example of a POP network. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.

A point cloud is just a collection of points with their associated attributes (position, normal etc) which is usually recorded in a file. Nodes in VOPs allow you to access points near to a chosen position, and examine their attributes.

This first part establishes the basics of the scene and sets up the POP network.

The project file is available from sites.google.com/site/pqhoudinitutorial/