Houdini CHOP Talk: Keyboard In

I'll show you how to use your computer's keyboard as an input to create impulses to drive various types of animation. I'm just showing very basic examples to demonstrate how to get started in CHOPs... the method is more important than the examples I created.
0:00 Intro and a look at the three set ups we'll make
2:30 Keyboard In intro / Box Height
4:07 Troubleshooting / Intercept Mode / Scroll Lock
6:00 Channel References on easy mode
7:00 Match CHOP to remap range
8:00 Record CHOP
10:00 Channel Processing / Lag CHOP
11:20 Renaming Channels
12:30 Pop Velocity and Color set up
14:00 Keyboard In with two keys / channels
16:00 Channel assignments
17:20 Pig Head set up
22:30 Closing thoughts

[@WhatIFound]

Sorry for the loud keyboard clicks... I used my relatively new mechanical keyboard, didn't realize how loud it was until I'd already finished the recording. Maybe it's appropriate for using the keyboard in chop.

[@mattestela]

Great tutorial! The other way you can turn on intercept mode is at the bottom of the main edit menu.

[@WhatIFound]

Great tip! Navigating to the onscreen keyboard is a pain.

[@Chrisonander]

Hey there, thanks for exploring chops with so much clarity. No matter what I do I can't get houdini to enter intercept mode. Any further ideas? There isn't much info online about it

[@MrZzm88]

Thank you for this tutorial, it’s hard to find record node examples on the internet

[@PawelGrzelak]

Fantastic, straight to the point tut.

[@DMCvsKILLER]

Awesome!! Thanks so much for demystifying chops!

[@Ch405G4m1nG]

this is next level

[@aki_gong6271]

Great found! Can't wait to watch the whole playlist actually and keep learning. I've using Houdini for a while, mainly for VFX and look dev, and currently looking into using it more for audio reactive visuals and video art, and also checking touchDesigner for that matter too, in order to understand which one can cover my needs better. Thanks for sharing :)

[@WhatIFound]

Awesome! Glad you're finding it interesting. If you're getting used to CHOPs in Houdini, Touchdesigner will feel very familiar. But it's like CHOPs on steroids, very fun to play, very responsive. The dev who created CHOPs in Houdini left years back and started Derivative, maker of TD, so it's interesting to dig into that history a little. There's a lot of shared logic there. Fun to play in both pools for sure.

[@aki_gong6271]

@@WhatIFound looking forward to it actually! Thanks ;)

[@gold_kult6690]

This is awesome! 🤟🏻

[@aboldmule]

Great tutorial, thanks for sharing. Subscribed already.

[@antoineiim31]

Great video ! Thanks you for this :)

[@hydeman75]

SO coool ! thanks to give chops some love :)

[@TheDanielConsole]

great video! much more intuitive than using vex for animations

[@TheMiszla]

Wait, does this mean that, theoretically, you could make a game in Houdini?

[@zephyr707]

you mention you have been playing with touchdesigner at the beginning of the vid, do you have another channel with touchdesigner content?

[@WhatIFound]

I don't. If I ever add any beginner Touchdesigner videos, it would be on this channel, but a Touchdesigner playlist.

[@monnnimo]

hey there, thank you for your very helpful content! I'm trying to map notes from a midi keyboard (piano), it creates a channel "n" for each note. is there any way i can rename or merge all the "note" channels into one and send them all to the same parameter? (i tried writting "n*" in the rename "from" parameter, but it only applies to the first "n" channel.

[@WhatIFound]

If you drop a math CHOP after your midi in and set the combine channels mode to add that should do what you're looking for. If not, experiment with some of the other chops from the "combine" category.

[@monnnimo]

@@WhatIFound this totally works, thank you for the tip!! :)