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Overview ¶
This pane lets you manage USD components (props) in an asset gallery. The pane displays the contents of the asset gallery. You can tag and filter the visible assets, and drag them from the gallery into the Layout node's working set to use them to populate the USD scene.
The asset library is a database pointing to files on disk, such as the component USD file containing the model, and a thumbnail file. (In future versions of Houdini there may be a more flexible system that will allow Houdini’s asset browsing interface to integrate with asset management systems.)
Importing assets ¶
To... | Do this |
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Import a single asset |
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Import assets in a directory tree |
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import assets in a directory tree as part of a TOP network |
See the USD Add Assets to Gallery TOP. The TOP node also looks for directories matching the asset directory structure below. |
Note
Currently Houdini does not check whether an asset on disk is already in the database. If you try to import the same directory twice (to pick up changes), you will get duplicate assets.
Asset directory structure ¶
Currently, when importing assets Houdini looks for a directory matching the structure created by the component builder tool. For example:
assets/ book/ book.usdc thumbnail.jpg lamp/ lamp.usdc thumbnail.jpg teapot/ teapot.usd thumbnail.jpg variants/ teapot_fancy.usd teapot_fancy_thumbnail.jpg teapot_green.usd teapot_green_thumbnail.jpg
Houdini looks for the following structure:
-
Look for a directory, with a
.usd
(or.usdc
or.usda
) file with the same base name as the directory inside. -
If there is a
thumbnail.jpg
orthumbnail.png
file in the directory, use it as the asset thumbnail. -
If a list of variant set names was provided when importing the directory, the primary asset file will be added as multiple entries in the gallery, with each gallery entry specifying a specific combination of variant choices.
-
If no list of variant set names was provided, and the directory has a
variants
subdirectory, import any USD files inside as variants of the primary asset.If for a given
‹variant›.usd
file in thevariants
subdirectory there is also a‹variant›_thumbnail.jpg
or‹variant›_thumbnail.png
file, use that as the variant asset’s
(Future versions of Houdini may make asset import for flexible, and/or integrated with asset management systems. Future versions of Houdini may also make managing variants in the asset gallery smarter than importing them as completely separate assets.)
Managing assets ¶
To... | Do this |
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Remove an asset |
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Switch to a different asset library database |
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Organizing, filtering, and searching assets ¶
Toolbar ¶
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Add asset |
Open a dialog to import a single USD asset. See importing assets above. |
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Add asset directory |
Choose a directory of assets to import. See importing assets above. |
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Edit Asset |
Edit the file paths for the selected asset. |
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Edit Metadata |
Edit the label and tags for the selected asset(s). |
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Choose asset gallery |
Choose a different gallery database. |
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Show Only Starred |
Filter the snapshots so only starred snapshots are visible. |
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Show Only Non-Auto |
Filter the snapshots so auto snapshots are hidden. |
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Search box |
Type to filter by label text and/or tags. |
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Show/Hide More Filters |
Opens a sidebar in the strip area with additional options for filtering. |