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This CHOP reads in channel and audio files for use by CHOPs.
Valid Formats
The types of files that can be read into chops include:
.chan
Raw ascii channel files; a row of numbers per frame.
.bchan
Raw PRISMS/Houdini binary channel files.
.clip .bclip
Houdini native CHOP clip files.
.bclipnc
Houdini native non-commercial CHOP clip files.
.chn .bchn
Houdini channel segment files.
.aif .aiff .au .sf .snd .wav .mp3
Audio files.
The same files can be output from the menu on the CHOP tile by selecting Save Data Channels. For a complete listing of all valid formats for CHOPs, see the Formats section.
Other Input Devices
For Midi files (.mid or .midi), see the MIDI In CHOP. Some other input devices, (e.g. Puppetworks) can be read with the Pipe In CHOP.
Users can extend the file formats that are read/written by the File chop through the chop io and CLIPio files in $HFS/houdini. Use the clchan and clchn programs as examples of the input/output needed.
Parameters
File
Channel File
The name of the file to load. The button beside the string field brings up a file browser.
Reload File
Reload the channel file to react to external changes to it.
Name Options
Allows you to change the way the channels are named.
Use Names In File
Uses the channel names stored in the file. If the format does not support names (ie. sound files), then chan0, chan1, chan2, etc. is used.
Use New Names
The channel names are manually specified by the name parameter below.
Use Filename
The filename, minus the extension and path, is used. If more than 1 channel is in the file, the channels will be numbered to keep the names unique.
Name
The new name(s) of the file’s channels.
Rate Options
Allows you to change the sample rate of the file.
No Change
Use the file’s sample rate.
Override
Change the file’s sample rate to a new rate.
Resample
Change the file’s sample rate to a new rate and keep the time range constant.
Sample Rate
The new sample rate to use if Override or Resample is selected.
Extend Left
The extend condition before the channel’s beginning.
Extend Right
The extend condition after the channel’s ending.
Default Value
The value of the default value extend condition.
Common
Some of these parameters may not be available on all CHOP nodes.
Scope
To determine which channels get affected, some CHOPs have a scope string. Patterns can be used in the scope, for example *
(match all), and ?
(match single character).
The following are examples of possible channel name matching options:
chan2
Matches a single channel name.
chan3 tx ty tz
Matches four channel names, separated by spaces.
chan*
Matches each channel that starts with chan
.
*foot*
Matches each channel that has foot
in it.
t?
The ?
matches a single character. t?
matches two-character channels starting with t.
r[xyz]
Matches channels rx
, ry
and rz
.
blend[3-7:2]
Matches number ranges giving blend3
, blend5
, and blend7
.
blend[2-3,5,13]
Matches channels blend2
, blend3
, blend5
, blend13
.
t[xyz]
[xyz]
matches three characters, giving channels tx
, ty
and tz
.
Sample Rate Match
The Sample Rate Match Options handle cases where multiple input CHOPs’ sample rates are different.
Resample At First Input’s Rate
Use rate of first input to resample others.
Resample At Maximum Rate
Resample to highest sample rate.
Resample At Minimum Rate
Resample to the lowest sample rate.
Error if Rates Differ
Does not accept conflicting sample rates.
Units
The units for which time parameters are specified.
For example, you can specify the amount of time a lag should last for in seconds (default), frames (at the Houdini FPS), or samples (in the CHOP’s sample rate).
Note
When you change the Units parameter, it does not convert the existing parameters to the new units.
Time Slice
Time Slicing is a feature which boosts cooking performance and reduces memory usage. Traditionally, CHOPs calculate the channel over its entire frame range. If the channel does need to be evaluated every frame, then cooking the entire range of the channel is unnecessary. It is more efficient to calculate only the fraction of the channel that is needed. This fraction is known as a Time Slice.
Unload
Causes the memory consumed by a CHOP to be released after it is cooked and the data passed to the next CHOP.
Export Prefix
The Export prefix is prepended to CHOP channel names to determine where to export to.
For example, if the CHOP channel was named geo1:tx
, and the prefix was /obj
, the channel would be exported to /obj/geo1/tx
.
Note
You can leave the Export Prefix blank, but then your CHOP track names need to be absolute paths, such as obj:geo1:tx
.
Graph Color
Every CHOP has this option. Each CHOP gets a default color assigned for display in the Graph port, but you can override the color in the Common page under Graph Color. There are 36 RGB color combinations in the Palette.
Graph Color Step
When the graph displays the animation curves and a CHOP has two or more channels, this defines the difference in color from one channel to the next, giving a rainbow spectrum of colors.
Examples
The following examples include this node.
CopyAnimation Example for Copy channel node
See also |