Houdini 20.5 Nodes Geometry nodes

Labs Niagara ROP geometry node

Export point caches to be used with Unreal’s Niagara particle system.

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The Niagara ROP exports static or animated point caches to a custom JSON format that can be read by the Houdini Niagara plugin for Unreal. This could be used for driving particle emitters in Niagara, or creating complex simulations in Houdini that can be run in realtime through Niagara.

Requirements

The Niagara ROP works with the latest version of the Houdini Niagara plugin for Unreal 4.25 and onwards.

To install the plugin please refer to the Houdini Niagara GitHub page.

You can find the latest information and links to sample files on the Houdini Niagara Updates forum thread.

Houdini to Niagara Workflow

Note

When importing a Houdini cache, it is important you disable the checkbox “Interpolated Spawning” on the created Houdini Niagara Emitter. Otherwise attribute values will be interpolated and not 1:1 with Houdini. This can cause unexpected results.

Parameters

General

ROP Settings

Frame Range / Time Mode

Controls whether this render node outputs the current frame (Render any frame) or the image sequence specified in the Start/End/Inc parameters (Render Frame Range).

Render Frame Range (strict) will render frames START to END when it is rendered, but will not allow frames outside this range to be rendered at all. Render Frame Range will allow outside frames to be rendered. This is used in conjunction with render dependencies. It also affects the behavior of the 'Override Frame Range' in the Render Control dialog.

Two possible cases where you'd want the strict behavior:

  • A 60 frame walk cycle written out to a geo, but part of a larger ROP net to render out a larger frame range.

  • A texture loop from 1-20.

Otherwise, you will usually set this to non-strict.

Render Current Frame

Renders a single frame, based on the value in the playbar or the frame that is requested by a connected output render node.

Render Frame Range

Renders a sequence of frames. If an output render node is connected, this range is generally ignored in favor of frames requested by the output render node.

Render Frame Range (Strict)

Renders a sequence of frames. If an output render node is connected, this range restricts its requested frames to this frame range.

Single Frame With 'time' Attribute

Renders a single frame, with the time attribute set to 0 be default. Ideal for use with point clouds that represent impact points from rbd simulations.

Start/End/Inc

Specifies the range of frames to render (start frame, end frame, and increment). All values may be floating point values. The range is inclusive.

These parameters determine the values of the local variables for the output driver.

For example, if the parameters are set to:

Start

End

Inc

10.5

12

0.5 |

…there will be 4 frames rendered (10.5, 11, 11.5, and 12), so $NRENDER will have a value of 4. $N will have the following values at each frame:

Frame

$N

10.5

1

11

2

11.5

3

12

4

Render with Take

The output driver will switch to this take before rendering and then restore the current take when rendering is done.

Tip

use chs("take") to use this value in other parameters. See the chs expression function for more information.

Output Path

The output file should be of the type, .hbsjon, .hjson or .hcsv (this format has been deprecated).

hbjson - is a binary JSON file format. Ideal for faster export and import, and smaller file sizes.

hjson - an ascii JSON file format. Ideal for debugging the results.

Attributes

Number of Renames

Rename any point attribute to match naming conventions in Unreal.

Overwrite Existing Attributes

If the specified destination attribute already exists, it is deleted and replaced by the source attribute.

Keep Attributes

A space separated list of the attributes that will be written out.

Cast Attributes

If necessary, you can cast an attribute to a type that matches the compatible types in Unreal.

Clamp Attributes That Are Outside Type Range

When an attribute is cast to a different type the value might be outside of the range of the target type. If this option is selected, the value will be clamped to the type range. If this option is not selected and an out of range value is encountered, an exception will be raised while writing out the file. Only applicable to binary format output (.hbjson)

Advanced

Export Current Frame As time == 0

Overrides the time attribute to always equal 0. Disabling this will create an age attribute for the points that is relative to the current time in the playbar.

Export Start Frame As time == 0

Off by default. If the start frame of your frame range is not 1, but rather something like 1001, turn this on to use your start frame as time == 0.

Geometry nodes