SOP

See Category:SOPs for a full list of articles related to SOPs.

Surface Operators, also known as SOPs, are operators that can generate, import, modify and combine 3D surfaces (also called geometry). The surface types are polygons, curves, NURBS surfaces, metaballs and particles.

See also: Geometry Detail, Point, Point List, Point Class, Primitive, Prims Class, Polygon, Vertex, SOP Class, SOP to DAT, Script SOP, Point Groups, Primitive Groups, Attributes.

Sweet 16 SOPs

The following 16 SOPs are commonly used, we recommend familiarizing yourself with them.

SOP	Purpose	Related SOP
Circle	Circle, sphere, torus primitives.	Sphere, Torus
Grid	Grid, box, rectangle.	Box, Rectangle
Merge	Merge and delete.	Object Merge, Delete
Copy	Copy or replicate.	Limit
Switch	Switch or blend multi-inputs.	Blend, Sequence Blend
Texture	Apply texture coordinated to points or vertices.	Material
Noise	Apply noise, twist and deform.	Twist, Deform
Transform	Transform point positions.	Script
DAT to	DAT table to SOP points.	Add
CHOP to	CHOP channel samples to SOP points.	Line
Trace	Trace a TOP image to polygons.	File In
Clip	Clip and carve.	Carve
Facet	Facet, subdivide, convert.	Subdivide, Convert
Particle	Particles.
Sweep	Sweep, skin, rails.	Skin, Rails
Sort	Sort and reorder.

Using SOPs

• 3D geometry data, processed on CPU
• FBX Import: .fbx importer, File In SOP - recommend importing geometry from more mature modelers
• FBX Export: Right-click and select Save Geometry... In the File Browser that opens, change the file type to .fbx to create a FBX file of that geometry.

See Also

Category:SOPs
Geometry Detail
Primitive
Point

An Operator Family that reads, creates and modifies 3D polygons, curves, NURBS surfaces, spheres, meatballs and other 3D surface data.

An Operator Family that manipulates text strings: multi-line text or tables. Multi-line text is often a command Script, but can be any multi-line text. Tables are rows and columns of cells, each containing a text string.

An Operator Family which operate on Channels (a series of numbers) which are used for animation, audio, mathematics, simulation, logic, UI construction, and many other applications.

An Operator Family that creates, composites and modifies images, and reads/writes images and movies to/from files and the network. TOPs run on the graphics card's GPU.

Exporting is the connection of CHOP channels to parameters of operators. The output of each exporting CHOP is one or more channels, active only while the CHOP Viewer is on. The current value of a channel can be exported to a parameter of any operator, overriding that parameter's value. See Parameter.

The 3D data held in SOPs and passed for rendering by the Geometry COMP.