Patreon Tutorial #42 - String UserData & Randomization - Part 1 *Available Oct. 4th* (Patreon)

Hey guys! In this months tutorial I will be going over how we can leverage String Attributes using the newer String UserData node we got earlier in the year. A lot of people are unfortunately un-aware of this new node and what it can be used for.

In particular the main benefit of String attribute support is the way we can leverage it to randomize or control texture assignment, especially for mass instancing. This opens a lot of possibilities in mass texture assignment workflows, in particular within Houdini. But there is currently a bit of a trick to using it as the RS Texture input port is not currently open. (Though this will be opened up in the future.)

In this 2 part tutorial I will go over what Strings are, how we can create String attributes in Houdini, how we can use this to randomize our texture assignments on our instances and how we can control the random assignments using attributes and VEX. In the end I will show a practical usage to randomize some leaf texture assignments we created using Substance Sampler.

I will include some of the project files for people to learn from with the tutorial videos. It will be available October 4th for all Patrons. Thanks again for all the support and have a great day!