Houdini 20.5 What’s new What’s new in Houdini 20.5

What’s new Houdini Engine, APIs, & Plug-ins

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Unreal plug-in

  • Added support for animation assets:

    • Animation sequences can now be imported as Motion clips in Houdini, and Motion clips can be exported as Animation Sequences in Unreal.

  • Skeletal Mesh and KineFX support and improvements:

    • Skeletal mesh input/output is no longer considered beta.

    • Skeletal Mesh now follows Apex’s packed character format.

    • Baking, LODs, socket, colliders, and multiple materials are now supported.

    • Added support to skeleton assignment using the unreal_skeleton attribute.

  • Node Sync is now fully featured:

    • Every type of inputs and outputs are now supported.

    • Added a Live Sync option that automatically updates data modified in either Houdini or Unreal.

    • Improved UI, added send andfetch options.

    • Added the option to update and replace the current selection.

    • World actors can now be sent and fetched:

  • New Houdini Engine for Unreal content examples contains showrooms that demonstrate features within the plugin. Each showroom has a small example to help you quickly understand a topic either through educational information or a simple action walkthrough.

  • Added support for Shared Memory Buffer sessions.

  • Added support for multiple (threaded) Houdini engine sessions.

  • Improved BGEO import compatibility:

    • added support for Data Tables, Skeletal Meshes, Geometry Collections, and Animation Sequences.

    • also applies to the PDG Asset Link and Node Sync.

  • Parameter now support Horizontal Join to Next and Label Visibility.

  • Ramp parameters UI improvements, the ramp editor can now be opened in an external window.

  • Button strip parameters now fully supported.

  • Added support for better control of landscape edit/paint layers export.

  • Added support for baking of data layers.

  • Added the option to group baked components, this lets you control if baking should produce a single/multiple actor(s).

  • Added new unit tests to improve stability of releases.

  • Added support for listing Generic property attributes using the Houdini.DumpGenericAttribute command.

  • Updates to Public API.

  • Various oprtimizations to increase the plugin’s reactivity and reduce cook times.

  • macOS support for Unreal Engine 5.3 and 5.4.

HAPI

  • New Houdini Engine Sample application for Python provides studios with a scripting-based reference for writing Houdini Engine integrations, similar to the C++ implementation. You can download it on Github

  • Added HAPI functions for querying the number and the IDs of Message Nodes that have been set in the Type Properties of a node.

  • Added HAPI functions for querying the number of presets and their names in a preset IDX file.

  • Added asynchronous versions of all of the attribute getters and setters.

  • The HAPI_IsSessionValid method will now ping HARS to check if the server is still alive when using an out-of-process session.

  • Added HAPI_GetNodeCookResultLength and HAPI_GetNodeCookResult methods.

  • HARS will now properly terminate when a CTRL + C command is issued.

  • Add options for specifying a range or a list of TCP port numbers for the subconnections to use in HAPI_CreateThriftSocketSession.

  • Added Performance Monitor support to HAPI. The Performance Monitor records the time spent in HAPI functions and stores it in active profiles. The Performance Monitor displays HAPI time statistics in the statistics viewer.

  • Added HAPI_StartPerformanceMonitorProfile and HAPI_StopPerformanceMonitorProfile functions for starting a Performance Monitor profile and stopping a profile respectively in a Houdini Engine session. The HAPI_StopPerformanceMonitor function additionally saves the profile to disk so that it can be loaded and viewed in the Performance Monitor panel in Houdini.

  • Added a new shared memory session type that uses shared memory to communicate between the plugin client and HARS, which can result in a performance gain over socket or named pipe sessions.

Maya plug-in

  • Support for Maya 2025.

3Ds Max plug-in

  • Added support for multi selection inputs. Multiple selections (objects) can now be used as a single input to a subnetwork or parameter input on an HDA, which is done by having the plugin automatically merge the geometries together on the Houdini side. Each input has a hemax_input_node_name prim attribute that specifies the name of the 3ds Max node, which can be used to split the geometries if required.

  • Added support for shared memory Houdini Engine SessionSync sessions.

  • Added support for 3ds Max 2025.

glTF

  • Can now export custom textures.

What’s new in Houdini 20.5