Hi,


I'm thinking about purchasing an Indie licence to use HE for Unity, but the lack of documentation and support make me doubt.

I was wondering if HE for Unity would have a documentation page like Unreal has ? (http://www.sidefx.com/docs/unreal)

And what is the state of HE in Unity ?
Can it does what Unreal do ?
Is it more limited ?

It's really hard to find information about the future of HE for Unity…

Currently, the documentation that can help you get started is here: http://www.sidefx.com/products/houdini-engine/unity-plug-in/ [www.sidefx.com]

Admittedly there is a lack of documentation in regards to usage such as the Unreal one. This will be addressed in the near future though.

As for the state of the Unity plugin, I can tell you that it will be getting a very well deserved update with lots of improvements in the very near future. It will have similar (more or less) features as the Unreal plugin. It is currently being actively developed though not in a state for public release yet.

If you have specific questions about the plugin, please post here.

Hi,

Thanks for the answer.

For questions, I just have a few right now:

- How can I know which nodes is available in Houdini Engine ?

Can I use heightfield ? particles ? …

- Do you plan to release a documentation regarding best practices for having best performance with digital assets ?
Gametutor use a layering system in the “Wall” tutorial. You can also just create on big subnet.
Is it best to have one Geo or multiple ?
Stuff like that

The current plugin supports most SOP nodes that output polygonal geometry. It doesn't currently support volumes or particles, though a future release will support heightfields (converting to Unity terrain). Also supported is the Curve SOP which can be brought in or created newly in Unity, then edited as in Houdini. Materials and textures are also imported. You can also send input data (geometry) and attributes (uv, N, Cd) back into Houdini. This ties in with painting attributes as well, which is supported.

For the upcoming update, we will have more documentation and tutorials, as well as a supported feature list. For best performance of how to structure your geometry, it really depends on the use case. Some objects are better packaged up whole and instanced (eg. rocks, static geo), while others should be in chunks for various reasons including better collision/physics performance, rendering, and flexibility for dynamic effects/changes. You'll have to play around to see what works, but the good news is that you're using Houdini so it shouldn't be hard to try various methods and test performance.

Hi,

Thanks for the answer.
Some few other questions:

1. Will Houdini Engine support runtime one day ? soon ?
   
2. Will you support Instanced Indirect for instancing geometry on points for maximum performance ?
   
3. Does every user of Unity needs Houdini installed on their machine ?
   

Thanks

Ziboo
Will Houdini Engine support runtime one day ? soon ?

1. One day runtime support might be possible. But not soon. As you can imagine, there are licensing issues to sort out besides just the technical.

Ziboo
Will you support Instanced Indirect for instancing geometry on points for maximum performance ?

2. We'll have packed primitive and object instancing support (see this page http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hengine/_h_a_p_i__instancing.html). With object instancing, you can specify either Houdini object nodes or existing Unity gameobjects in the project.

Ziboo
Does every user of Unity needs Houdini installed on their machine ?

3. Depends. As long as the user is not manipulating the parameters of an HDA in Unity, there is no reason to have Houdini installed. They can work with the output gameobject data. If they do need to modify the parameters to generate different output, then yes, they will need to have it installed or access to it via network. Baking outputs allows you to strip away the Houdini Engine components and completely eliminate the need for it, so that is a way to ensure that they don't try to modify parameters. The updated version of the plugin will allow you to update previously baked out prefabs and existing baked out gameobjects (non-prefabs) so that you can have a workflow where the HDA and its outputs can be completely separate, but able to be re-linked when need to update. And this update can happen without being destructive to other components that you added (within reason).

Thank you for the detail answer

seelanv
If they do need to modify the parameters to generate different output, then yes, they will need to have it installed or access to it via network

Does that mean that a studio can only have 1 Houdini Engine licence on a remote computer that every Unity User will hook via network ? Doing so they can modify parameters in Unity ?

Sorry I tried to find detail information on that but couldn't find it…

Ziboo
Thank you for the detail answer

seelanv
If they do need to modify the parameters to generate different output, then yes, they will need to have it installed or access to it via network

Does that mean that a studio can only have 1 Houdini Engine licence on a remote computer that every Unity User will hook via network ? Doing so they can modify parameters in Unity ?

Sorry I tried to find detail information on that but couldn't find it…

Technically it is possible, but please follow up with your licensing/sales contact to make sure your usage falls within your licensing agreement.