instancing geometry in htoa

[saberjlassi]

Hello,
What's the easiest way to instance geometry using htoa?

Thanks
Saber

[varomix]

Hi here's the docs for instancing https://support.solidangle.com/display/A5AFHUG/Instancing

[kerrmotiondesign]

Hey Saber,

First off - love your work man!

I had the same question regarding HtoA and my main takeaway is that point instancing is of course the way to go, but isnt quite supported for custom objects.

If you have points publishing out of a geo node, you can use arnold's point instancing at the object level for sphere/disc/quad. If your goal is a custom object, you have to route the points into the instance object and use the instance string attribute to define what objects to use per point, this however seems to be much slower to load than in C4dtoA and MtoA.

I'd be happy to see an option for custom instance in the arnold parameters, perhaps a fourth option (sphere, disc, quad, custom). In this case 'custom' could look for some kind of attribute that would serve as an instance ID.

Hope this helps! Maybe a dev will take a peek and chime in.

[frederic.servant]

The instance string attribute is a standard Houdini way to instance different OBJs. Note that you can also use the instancefile string attribute to point to .ass files to instance.

[frederic.servant]

Can you elaborate on the ID instance attribute? What would this ID represent?