The Game Development Toolset is a collection of high level tools designed to speed up games related workflows in Houdini. There are a growing list of tools that range from UVing to generating Motion Vectors from simulations. These tools are not tied to the regular Houdini development cycle and become available the moment they are ready for testing.

To keep up to date on the latest tools, please click on the Subscribe Button for this thread. This way we can send you an email any time we announce a new tool.

To learn more about these tools, you can visit the GameDev Tools Overview [www.sidefx.com].

NOTE: When we post a new tool there will be a thread opened in the Houdini for Realtime [www.sidefx.com] forum. You will be able to add comments and suggestions in that location.

Mike Lyndon
Senior Technical Artist
SideFX

6 July 2018
New Tools
Niagara Utilities - The Houdini Niagara plugin is now available in UE4 4.20 preview 3. A collection of HDA's have been added to create and export data to be used with the plugin. You can find more info at the dedicated Niagara thread [www.sidefx.com]. These are still in beta so any feedback is welcome.
Added:

• Niagara Impacts
  
• Niagara Interpolate
  
• Niagara RBD Split
  
• Niagara ROP
  

RBD Workflow - We're looking at ways to improve the workflow of crafting a rigid body simulation. This is still WIP. Check out the video here - GameDev RBD Workflow Tools [vimeo.com]
Added:

• RBD Fracture
  
• RBD Director
  
• RBD Solver
  
• Simple RBD
  

Marmoset ROP - You can now send your geometry and textures to Marmoset's Toolbag viewer. We'll be providing more info soon.
Added:

• Marmoset ROP
  

Updates

• Added a colour parameter to the UE4 shader code for soft export of Vertex Animation Textures.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a small bug on Axis Align tool where the Max Z value wasn't being respected.
  
• Emptied GameBaker High ObjMerge path. Wont throw any absolute path errors anymore when embedding.
  

20 July 2018
It's been a relatively quiet fortnight with most of the team travelling.
Updates

• UE4 4.20 has been released which includes the Houdini Niagara data interface. There are a couple of changes related to local space or world space emitters that didn't make it in. We'll add more details on the Niagara thread [www.sidefx.com].
  
• The Surface Offset parm has been added back to the Physics Painter.
  

Bug Fixes

• Packed normals for the soft export option of the vertex animation texture tool was calculated incorrectly. This has been fixed.
  
• Motion Vector ROP: Export node path only accepts geo container paths now. This fixes an issue if the user sets the path to a SOP node inside a geometry container, leading to the rendered image being black.
  

7 August 2018
New Tools
Marmoset Toolbag ROP - This tool allows for rendering geometry and shaders from Houdini to the .mview format. You can find more info at the dedicated Marmoset Toolbag ROP [www.sidefx.com] thread.
QuickMat 2.0 - Now with multiple material support, including the ability to create custom material names. Existing setups will still use the previous version of the node.

Updates

• We've added analytics to the GameDev nodes. As the toolset grows we want to focus on the tools that matter to you. This is one way for us to make better decisions. For more info on anonymous usage, including how to disable it, please see https://www.sidefx.com/legal/houdini-anonymous-usage-statistics [www.sidefx.com]
  
• Impostor ROP can now create octahedral impostors. Video coming soon.
  
• Refactored Destruction Cleanup. Improved overall performance.
  
• Vertex Animation Textures : Fluids - If the input mesh is made up of separated primitives the polyreduce would generate cracks in the geo. There's a new toggle for fluid export to fix this.
  There's also new logic to calculate the texture size which should be more accurate.
  
• Vertex Animation Textures - Sprites now export Alpha.
  
• Adding UV Attribute to the AutoUV SOP and Merge Small Islands SOP.
  
• Hooking up Color Parameter to the Edge Group to Curve SOP.
  

Bug Fixes

• Impostor ROP now works with relative paths.
  
• When installing the game dev tools, some of the dialogs didn’t use Houdini's Qt theme and inherit the system default.
  
• Fixing issue where the RBD to FBX tool wouldn't export modifications.
  
• Fixed Games Baker P Channel output. Returned grey normalized 0-1 UV space instead of actual world position.
  
• Changed PivotPainter to support correct up orientation for both per-object & hierarchical basis generation.
  
• Animation Impostors - Fixed an issue where the camera was rendering the wrong file path.
  
• Animation Impostors - Camera bounds are now fixed taking the entire animation into account.
  

19 August 2018
New Tools
Color Adjustment SOP - Control brightness, contrast, and saturation of Cd.
Color Blend SOP - Blend Cd from 2 inputs.
Color Gradient SOP - Output Cd gradient based on axis.
Sine Wave SOP - Drive P with a sine wave.

Updates

• Marmoset ROP - Improved how fast exporting happens for TGA and PNG textures. Added tint and flip normal Y.
  
• Fixed the sample scene for the simple baker.
  
• OSM Import - Added latitude and longitude point attribute.
  
• Vertex Animation Textures - New demo scene for fluid export.
  

Bug Fixes

• Marmoset ROP - Fixed a bug where some textures would not properly get exported in Marmoset ROP.
  
• Fixed a bug on cages for simple baker and games baker.
  
• Vertex Animation Textures - There was an issue if the number of input polygons was less than the target polycount, the data in the textures would be misaligned.
  

3 September 2018
New Tools

• Reality Capture Plugin (Open Beta) - Check out the tutorial page [www.sidefx.com] to get setup and you can join the conversation here [www.sidefx.com].
  
• Detail Mesh - Allows for projecting a tileable mesh onto a projection surface. Example would be a tiling brick mesh used to add detail to a blockout of a building. (Comes with demoscene) https://80.lv/articles/how-to-develop-effective-software-tools/ [80.lv] More details in this thread [www.sidefx.com]
  
• Group by Color - Allows you to generate a group based on a chosen color and a fuzziness threshold.
  
• Group Attribute Borders - Allows you to generate a group based on UV borders or any other attribute borders.
  

Updates

• Lens Shaders Tutorial - If you want to learn more about lens shaders, we have a tutorial [www.sidefx.com] for that. We use them for the impostor ROP.
  
• Game Development Updating can now be disabled in pipelines by using the GAMEDEVTOOLSET_NOINSTALL_MESSAGE environment variable. The updater will display the given string as an error message for example: “The GameDev Toolset is disabled in our pipeline, please message John@company if you'd like it installed”. This allows for studios to provide a central distribution for the tools that can't be overridden by the artists.
  
• Changed defaults on SineWave SOP.
  
• Added Gamma parameter on Color Adjustment SOP.
  
• Removing the updater.shelf from the toolset so the built-in Houdini one is always respected
  

Bug Fixes

• Small fix on QuickMat where the metallic property wasn't hooked up.
  
• Fix on Group By Attribute SOP to handle material attributes properly.
  
• Fix on RBD To FBX where it wouldn't respect the start/end times and always look at the play bar for the range.
  
• Fixed Impostor Demoscene error which would appear when opening the hipfile
  
• Fixed VoxelMesh HDA scaling issue. Scaling now matches input geo.
  

12 October 2018
New Tools

• Sweep Geometry SOP - Allows you to sweep a piece of geo through a curve, similar to a path deform or curve brush.
  
• MapBox SOP - Allows for downloading satellite color, elevation and OSM data that is lined up. (We’ll release a tutorial soon. Promise.)
  
• Flowmap Visualize - This is a wrapper around a GLSL shader to preview your flowmaps in the viewport.
  
• Turntable SOP - Option to rotate around the centre and defaults to rotate clockwise.
  

Updates

• RBD to FBX added support for custom scale attribute. User can now override the scale of each packed primitive with a specified point attribute. (eg. pscale) This means the user no longer needs to do transform matrix multiplications themselves.
  
• RBD to FBX is now more robust. The tool will now filter out any non-packed geometry preventing errors on export. The tool will now also create a name attribute if it is missing on the geo, which also prevents that error from happening again. Also added the functionality to have the tool create a new name attribute as override. (User specifies prefix on UI)
  
• Added Detail Mesh material support. Tool will now properly handle materials assigned to the mesh texture. Also added the option to override the seam material used. Tool will now also automatically adjust tiles that are bigger than a size of 1 on X and Z axis. (Still required to have 1:1 ratio)
  
• Added Export of Quad with matching UVs for Octahedron Impostor.
  
• Updating OSM Buildings to handle footprints that have been projected onto sloped terrains
  
• Flowmap Obstacle 2.0 - Completely redesigned for speed.
  
• Flowmap 2.0 - Added different initialization methods, including a new slope method which will follow the direction of your mesh
  
• RBD Fracture preserves attributes - RBD Fracture will now add N only if N doesn't already exist.
  Absolute and relative path now works for inside material.
  Removed transfer of attributes when packing geo.
  Removed nodes that unnecessarily effected N.
  
• Updating RBD portion of the VAT to regenerate the orient attribute in case we have animated data present.
  
• Disc Mesh Generator - changed how uvs are generated. UVs were being generated using arc length spline. Changed the method to use curveu and a wrangle for backward compatibility.
  
• Changing the Flow map obstacle to make the influence a bit more natural by changing the way the 2 opposing velocities are combines.
  
• VAT: Updated parameter names to work in Houdini 17. Some parameter names lost their connection when the HDA was run in Houdini 17. This have been resolved.
  

Bug Fixes

• VAT Fluids: Updated colour export to use correct point count. The colour export logic didn't match how normals or position were being calculated in the copnet. This has been resolved.
  
• Games Baker - If the uv cage object path is invalid the resulting textures have artifacts.
  Changed the expression that completes the path in the bake texture ROP so that if the user hasn't added a uv cage object, the path is left blank.
  
• Fixed Gameres normals for generated lowpoly. (baking mode) Bake will not use hard edges anymore.
  
• Fix for handling OSM data that doesn’t include map level size information.
  
• Fixed Error in the lod_create demoscene due to changes in the RBD>FBX tool.
  
• Octahedron Impostor Full-Sphere bugfix. Corners points on atlas had minor rotation offset. Now perfectly aligned.
  
• Fixed name bug in RBD>FBX where it would fail when you had both point and prim name attribute.
  
• Bugfix on OSM Buildings and OSM Import where building parts weren't loading properly.
  
• Individual light channels were returning black for texture sheets ROP. An incorrect colour operation was negating the light channel renders causing the packed comp to return black images for Y_Point_Down_Direct, etc. This has been fixed.
  
• Fixed Skinningconverter trying to delete the file node inside geometry container. Would break in H17.
  

09 Nov 2018
New Tools

• Adding UV Transfer SOP and UV Fuse SOPs
  
• Adding OSM Filter Node
  

Updates

• Changed how override of number LODs in LOD Hierarchy works. Tool no longer requires user to manually set number of LODs for export to get the number of LODs to be the number of inputs.
  
• Made detail mesh more robust. It will convert the tile mesh to polygons before trying to project it.
  
• Added Alpha to MotionVector shader in viewport.
  
• Adding Reality Capture Plugin to the GameDev Tools. Minor Updates to Mapbox, Readding missing parameters on AO node and adding switch to enable merging small islands on gameres node
  
• PhysicsPainter added volumetric brush feature
  
• Changing some defaults on Measure Curvature and Color Gradient, and reworking Calculate Occlusion with better logic
  
• Animation Impostor Improvements
  
• Added concave support for Static Input Mesh. (Resolves issues with very uneven terrains producing useless collision meshes) Also added support for Convex Decomposition in H17 PhysicsPainter HDA and example hip
  
• Adding some better error handling for cleaning up meshes before sending data into Zbrush
  
• Removing hard coded file1 deletions
  
• Resaving VoxelMesh for 17
  
• patching up gameres node
  
• Adding new UVAutoSeam to AutoUV SOP
  
• adding GoZ to the shelf
  
• VAT: Updated parameter names to work in Houdini 17.
  

Bug Fixes

• Games Baker - Fixed long time gamma issue for greyscale maps such as Roughness, Metallic etc Simple Baker - Swapped old material assignment logic with Quickmaterial. Will now be a more accurate representation of pre-bake. This also fixed the flipped normal Y in viewport bug LOD Create - Above fixes benefit tool overall. LOD after material consolidation looks more like LOD0 now.
  
• Fixed LOD Create Permission err0r when using the tool to extract source textures checked into perforce. (Files being read only)
  
• Simple Baker solved Cage issue. Also fixed resolution parm
  
• Fixed no cage issue for custom export channels in Games Baker
  
• Mesh tiler fixed post solve attribute cleanup. Will not delete any user attributes such as Cd anymore. Also updated demoscene to include a color example.
  
• Fixed render issue in H17 LODCreate. Added LOD Debug option.
  
• Fixing unit test issues with Calculate Occlusion node, and some cleanup of the Mapbox node
  
• Fixed bug in QuickMat. Multiple materials supported again.
  
• Fix GoZ for Houdini 17
  
• Texture Sheets: fixed flip green attribute name
  
• Fixed turntable tool. Rotate around Origin toggle was not hooked up to logic.
  
• Fixing cage bug in Simple Baker
  
• Fixing several broken commands on the shelf
  
• fixing principled shader warnings on osm buildings node
  

23 Nov 2018
New Tools

• Adding Path Deform tool, that works like a more traditional path deformer as opposed to the Sweep Geometry Tool
  
• Created a new Normal Manager in COPs that allows you to flip, fit and swizzle your normals all day long.
  
• Adding Terrain Layer Import and Terrain Layer Export. These tools allow you to easily import and export a terrain from and to UE4. The export tool can be used to “edit in place” a previously existing landscape by saving all layers to disk and reimporting them.
  
• Group UV Borders is a SOP designed to simplify the process of grouping UV Boders.
  

Updates

• RBD Director now works with the rbd_material_fracture node.
  
• Vertex Animation Texture ROP has been updated for UE4 4.21. General material cleanup. Speed is now a multiplier. A value of 1 is equivalent to 24 fps (Houdini's default).
  
• Attempting to fix the Mapbox SOP on Linux and Mac
  
• Reality Capture Plugin Updated to new SDK. New expiration date set to much longer period. RC Extract Cameras has gained the ability of extracting the camera orientations as well as up, side, forward attributes.
  
• Multi File now has a toggle that can be switched to output the source location of the imported file. Also fixed some UI parameter names.
  
• Games Baker and Simple Baker now have a toggle that allows the basecolor channel to be output in linear space as opposed to 2.2 gamma. This is useful when for example baking vertex color to a diffuse map which will be used in something like a flowmap shader.
  
• Physics Painter now has a “Quick Add” parameter that allows you to either drag & drop a new object into the paint objects multiparm, or add multiple objects at once using the operator list picker. This is based on functionality created for a tool in MOPs.
  
• Gave VolumeTexture a UI makeover, and added the option to invert output values. This means it now supports both distance and fog VDB input.
  
• Flowmap Guide Now has a new “Guide Sample Count” parameter, which allows the user to control the sample quality, therefore allowing a higher quality output.
  
• Gave Physics Painter Heightfield suppport. Tool will now allow you to plug in either mesh, heightfield or both as primary tool input. Also refactored network a bit to simplify maintenance.
  
• modifying UV Transfer tool to use a more accurate transfer method in order to improve transfer quality
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed triangulation problems on Terrain Mesh ROP in H17 when using adaptive subdivision. Was caused by a change in a vex function.
  
• Volume Textures - solved mosaic atlas resolution bug.
  
• Games Baker now uses a unique name per machine for generating temp baking files. It also saves the temp file to $temp instead of target dir. This should allow for renderfarms being able to write to the same destination folder.
  
• Simple Baker fixed baking sample not being hooked up to logic correctly.
  

11 Dec 2018
Updates

• Path Deform Updating Twist logic and reverting back the transfer changes as they break the ends
  
• Path Deform Making the sweep divisions relative to the size of the input mesh
  
• Updating transfer logic on Path Deform tool for smoother results, and adding tooltip for 3rd input
  
• Terrain Layer Export now has automatic flopping of layer exports depending on where it is used. (Houdini vs Unreal). Heightmap is now exported by default, even when number of layer export is set to 0. Also changed how the prefix works. Things like underscores are now created by the user instead of forced by the exporting process.
  
• Adding .tif to the list of viable images for the Reality Capture Plugin.
  
• Mapbox node now doesn't flash an empty window on refresh
  
• Path Deform Reworked the inner works significantly to provide a more stable solution when working with multiple objects.
  
• Cleaning up PolyDeform attributes
  
• LOD Create now has an updated UI to control which mode you want to preview LODs with. It also allows you do disable the visualizer. The tool will now also properly display how many tri a custom mesh has. Also fixed some minor bugs such as relative vs absolute paths.
  
• Added Clip Ends parameter to Path Deform tool
  
• LOD Create now allows you to specify a custom prefix for the LOD submeshes instead of the default “mesh”_LOD. Also exposed the linear colorspace toggle for the shader consolidation.
  
• Improved Pivot Painter hierarchical pivot generation algorithm. It should now be more robust with oddly shaped leaves. This does come with a slight regression in performance. Also added the ability to mask motion in hierarchical mode through the Cd attribute.
  
• Added Axis and Scale to Curve Length parameters to the Path Deform tool as well as fixed an issue where animated objects wouldn't playback their animations
  
• Exposing a parameter on the UV Transfer node to control how aggressively to weld border points back into the mesh
  
• Games Baker and Simple Baker now give a warning when using a frame range render, but no $F can be found in the output file path.
  
• Updating Mapbox SOP to work on Mac and Linux.
  
• Vertex Animation Texture ROP has been updated for UE4 4.21. General material cleanup. Speed is now a multiplier. A value of 1 is equivalent to 24 fps (Houdini's default).
  
• Removing Normal Manager in COPs because of duplicate functionality.
  

Bug Fixes

• Volume Texture now uses a correct frame length to render volume slices when using higher number of slices. Also added demo scene.
  
• Mapbox SOP Rotated Maps by 90 degrees so they look correct in Top View, Downloaded data was at the wrong zoom level, Snapping to terrain would fail on scaled data, colors now match the mapbox window
  
• Delete Small Parts set to perimeter mode now is properly hooked up
  
• Straighten is more precise on its normal calculations
  
• Games Baker failed on mac due to an incorrect temp path. This also fixes an issue with the Simple Baker failing.
  
• Fixed issue in Reality Capture where the textures weren't being generated
  
• Fixing UV Transfer tool, some internal fuse nodes were also deleting degenerate points which is not always desired in all cases
  
• Fixing Typo on VDB Textures on the shelf
  
• PhysicsPainter now keeps attributes that the high resolution mesh contains.
  
• Fixed resolution dropdown menu breaking output resolution for Games Baker. This bug caused manually entered resolutions to be discarded after using the dropdown once.
  

21 Jan 2019 - Release 1.112
New Tools

• Added GameDev Group Curve Corners. It allows you to very easily group the inside and outside points of a curve based on their concavity.
  
• Adding GameDev Calculate Slope. This tool functions similarly to Calculate Occlusion and Measure Curvature, but instead outputs the slope of polygons based on mesh normals.
  

Updates

• Added ability to filter what gets exported, and in what order based on a multiparm in CSV Exporter
  
• Path Deform speed improvements and fixed a small bug with the position transfer
  
• Calculate Occlusion now has cone angle and ray bias exposed under the new advanced menu. This should allow you to get more accurate results with complex objects.
  
• Removing the Fire Preset shelf item from being called in the network editor
  
• OSM Importer now has the option for handling closed curves properly
  
• Path Deform SOP is now faster, and added a toggle for the option of collapsing vs clipping the ends
  
• Changing Path Deformer Clip to be a squash based on user feedback
  
• Removing Normal Manager in COPs because of duplicate functionality.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed 1 unit height offset in Terrain Layer Export and Terrain Layer Import. New is a “host” parameter on the export node, which should be set automatically by the HDA.. But worth checking to be sure. This is required to do automatic flopping of the landscape based on where the HDA is used.
  
• Calculate Occlusion SOP - Maximum Ray Distance fixed
  
• UVs are now properly maintained on Path Deform SOP
  
• Fire Preset fixed an issue where the preset system was changing other instances in the scene
  
• UV Transfer now properly respects the uv set name on the target mesh
  
• Fixing CSV Exporter so it works properly with relative paths
  

01 Mar 2019
New Tools

• Curve Branches can be used to generate simple branching structures, like trees, cracks and lightning. It can also be chained together and works recursively.
  
• Straight Skeleton 2D generates the internal skeleton for a 2d shape, useful for roads, fonts and many other things. Internally it's doing a PolyExpand2D but isolating the created internal spine and cleaning up the ends.
  
• Spiral SOP tool lets you create Spirals and Helices with ease!
  
• New PBR Shader with support for inputing custom tangent values as well as a simplified interface for game developers and improved lighting calculations.
  
• Min Max Average tool has been added, which simplifies the task of promoting attributes in order to get the min/max values of an attribute.
  
• Added the MatCap Shader to the toolset. The MatCap shader is an extremely fast shader that renders the model based on an input spherical lighting image.
  
• Added AliceVision, which is an open source Photogrammetry Framework. Follow the forum discussion [www.sidefx.com]
  

Updates

• Added option to smooth the volume on the VoxelMesh SOP.
  
• Added option to fit values between 0-1 on the Measure Curvature SOP.
  
• Edge Group To Curve SOP now transfers all attributes from the original mesh onto the curve.
  
• Adding optional 3rd input to the Color Blend SOP which can be used as a mask to control the blend.
  
• First pass at Vertex Animation Texture shaders for Unity's scriptable render pipeline.
  
• Added function to gamedevutils to remove specified directory and contents.
  
• The Quickmat node now ships with a callback function allowing for force updating all attached materials
  
• Vertex Animation Texture export now has an option under the advanced tab to write out the bbox values to a text file.
  
• Fixed PivotPainter mesh normal bug on Per Object basis.
  
• Layer Export now allows for tiled exports just like HF_Output.
  
• Adding relations support for OSM Import when the relation defines a building.
  
• Multi File now has a “Reload All” button, which will reload all files listed in the multiparm. Useful for updating data in Houdini if the source has changed.
  
• Vertex Animation Textures soft method can now lerp between frames for buttery smooth slow-mo. Be warned, the shader can be expensive.
  
• Mapbox SOP now can read an environment variable called MAPBOX_API in order to not require the key to be saved with the file. As well as flipped the offsets XY to properly mean X - East West Y - North South
  
• Updating Mapbox SOP in order for the heightfield materials to work properly when merged.
  
• Small update to Mapbox adding a callback to the offset parameter so the user doesn't have to press refresh.
  
• Make Loop SOP now handles VDB.
  
• Houdini External Editor tool is now language set agnostic.
  
• Fixing small artifact on Path Deform tool where the twist could cause some undesired flattening.
  
• Adding an offset parameter to the Mapbox SOP in order to get neighboring tiles.
  
• Fixing editable node issue in RBD to FBX Demo Scene.
  

Bug Fixes

• Small update to the Path Deform Sop to fix an issue that happens when the geometry is parallel to the UV projection
  
• CSV Exporter will now create the specified save directory if it does not exist yet.
  
• Vertex Animation Textures fluid method now handles exporting colours correctly.
  
• RBD Director visualise active no longer changes the downstream simulation.
  
• Strength Attribute on Normal From Grayscale COP now properly modulates the strength.
  
• Fixed warning on OSM Buildings SOP about a missing dependency.
  

29 Mar 2019
New Tools

• Added Building Generator Utility which allows for easy preparation of modules, handplaced overrides and volumetric overrides for the Building Generator.
  
• Added Building Generator to the toolset. Great for generating buildings from either manual blockouts or OSM data.
  
• Cable Generator can generate drooping cables from a curve input. Every other point on the curve will drive the sagging of the cables and there are several other functionalities like built in detangling
  
• Added the new maps baker. It is an order of magnitude faster than the previous implemenation. It supports most things the Games/Simple baker does, with the exception of baking procedural shaders created in Mat. Works best together with GameDev Quickmat (Principledshader)
  
• Repair takes a group or selection and deletes the selected faces and fills in the hole with some options for remeshing the patch and projecting it back onto the original geometry
  
• TRACE PSD is a modification on the Trace SOP to use a PSD Layer as the input, with some extra features layered in
  
• Mesh Slice combines multibounding box and box clip to split up your mesh in several chunks. Useful for slicing up large models for parallel processing
  
• Multi Bounding Box generates a bounding box grid. Useful for generating several bounds to be fed into photogrammetry software or other SOPs that require bounds as inputs
  
• Snow Buildup SOP scatters spheres on up faces fo the input model and voxelizes them together
  
• Edge Color SOP is used to add some basic edge discoloration to objects based on Convexity or Concavity
  
• Dirt Skirt SOP builds a piece of transitional geometry between 2 objects, like a rock and the ground beneath it
  
• Curve Sweep is a wrapper around the Sweep Node which adds UVs, default sweep shapes and thickness curves
  
• Spread SOP lines up merged meshes so you can easily have them side by side
  
• Dissolve Flat Edges removes leftover edges from booleans and other operations that leave coplanar edges behind
  
• Curve Branches can be used to generate simple branching structures, like trees, cracks and lightning. It can also be chained together and works recursively
  
• Straigh Skeleton 2D generates the internal skeleton for a 2d shape, useful for roads, fonts and many other things. Internally it's doing a PolyExpand2D but isolating the created internal spine and cleaning up the ends
  

Updates

• Improved Skinning Converter bone capturing position process. This should now allow for the capturing of more granular details
  
• Curve Sweep SOP now accepts an up vector attribute.
  
• Modified the tension parameter in the Cable Generator in order to allow for better separation of the wires. Also improved the sweep logic in order to prevent twisting
  
• Making the Curve Sweep UVs respect the pscale attribute
  
• Box Clip now takes an optional secondary input for deriving its clip box from some object's bounds
  
• Changing the pscale attribute to be multiplicative in the Curve Sweep
  
• Protecting the EDGE DIST attribute on the Straight Skeleton 2D
  
• Changed to a simpler noise function in the Curve Branches node
  
• Added sorting capabilities to the Align and Distribute node
  
• Removed normalization step from FlowMap To Color in order to allow for speed controls to be passed as a magnitude of the vector
  
• Dirt Skirt has several new options. NOTE: THE INPUTS HAVE CHANGED ORDER so it's more intuitive. Also added options to keep original meshes and toggle vertex color.
  
• Renaming Spread to Align and Distribute based on early user feedback
  
• Measure Curvature Range Scale parameter behaves more like an Intensity slider nows.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixing GoZ nodes so they don't try to install themselves when Zbrush isn't installed
  
• Fixing a couple of issues with the boolean against original in Snow Buildup
  
• Fixing syntax error on Group by Attribute
  
• Some modes in the Color Blend SOP weren't taking the third input as an option
  

12 Apr 2019
New Tools

• Added a glsl toon shader based on the GuiltyGears GDC 2015 talk.
  

Updates

• AV Initialize will no longer throw an error after changing save location of scene.
  
• Updated AliceVision plugin to 2.1.0. THIS REQUIRES UPDATED BINARIES!! The plugin now also supports Linux. To see a full changelog, visit the tutorial page.
  
• Vertex Animation Texture ROP outputs a json file to store material properties
  
• Volume Texture ROP preset dropdown has been updated to match UE4's expected texture input.
  
• Fixed Games Baker cage parm not being hooked up.
  
• Fixed cache bug in Maps Baker after a solution found by Bonsak. Note: This will clear all cops cache in your scene!
  
• Fixed default direction of curves plugged into Flowmap Guide. The new improved default now is the direction you draw in.
  
• Fixed Games Baker Custom Channels Multiparm.
  
• Games Baker and Simple Baker now use uuid instead of machine name for writing temp files, making it compatible with PDG.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue in Skinning Converter where bones would flip upside down if a primitive rotated around itself.
  
• Fix a bug with RBD to FBX when the user had the default language to python
  
• Games Baker custom channels multiparm is now working again. Also fixed Thickness map output.
  

26 April 2019
New Tools

• Added Viewport Measure Tool example to toolset. Note that this is meant as an example to look at, and has not been implemented in any shelf tool / node.
  
• Added Facebook 3D Image ROP at user requests.
  
• Sci Fi Panels was used in the Rebirth Quixel demo for detailing the Megastructure in that film. It can be used as is or as a starting point for your own sci fi panel tools.
  
• Lot Subdivision is designed to slice up a polygon into smaller ones until a threshold is reached. Useful for panels and city block generation.
  

Updates

• Large update to demo scenes in the hip directory.
  
• Minor internal fixes to Straight Skeleton 2D for better default behaviour.
  
• Changing defaults on Extract Borders SOP so it's more useful.
  
• Cleaned up Edge Color default parameter values.
  
• Increased the range in the threshold parameter for Delete Small Parts.
  
• Improved Cable Generator smoothing options for nicer cables.
  
• Updated Maps Baker with the following:
  - Clear out the incoming vertex color on the model (set to white) This allows you to see if you actually baked it properly.
  - If there's no second input, use the first input as the high res.
  - Add UVs if the input doesn't have any.
  - Add Normals if the input doesn't have any. (It is still HIGHLY recommended to provide your own for best results)
  
• Skinning Converter now has a static primitives group parm. This allows for automatic splitting of static vs skinned geometry in the output subnet. Only non-static primitives will get generated bones bound with them.
  
• AliceVision now separates errors and general information into separate logs, and will show the error to the user if any appears.
  
• Updated Destruction Cleanup Icon.
  
• Small changes to Dirt Skirt to handle the booleans a bit better and some better defaults.
  
• Destruction Cleanup has been rewritten and simplified. It no longer uses promiximity to batch pieces together, but uses W instead. Please note that the required inputs have changed. The tool now also allows for the preservation of any custom or default attributes.
  
• Fixed some naming issues on several nodes. (Were missing GameDev tag) Also renamed GameDev AliceVision Photogrammetry to GameDev AV Photogrammetry to match the other nodes.
  
• Mapbox node works on Mac and Linux. Changed fetching of urls with ssl.
  

Bug Fixes

• Removing unused action button from Group Expand SOP.
  
• Removing unused action button in Group Edge Loop.
  
• Fixing UVs on Curve Sweep if no pscale attribute was present.
  
• The Repair SOP now works properly on open meshes.
  
• Updated Destruction Cleanup default cusping mode. Now set to Face Area like V1. Also added ability to set cusping angle & mode for inside and outside primitive groups (if present in geo).
  
• Fixed missing chref inside Destruction Cleanup, which locked starting frame to 1.
  

10 May 2019
Updates

• Motion Vectors ROP has more accurate boundaries. Added a material function and multiplier for better accuracy.
  
• QuickMat now has a dropdown to select what kind of material you would like to instantiate. Principledshader, GameDev PBR or GameDev MatCap.
  
• Maps Baker has had a big refactor. It is now entirely based in a single copnet, which resulted in some performance increases and better customization capabilities.
  
• Adding a couple of detail attributes to the OSM Import SOP. map_length and map_height.
  
• Vertex Animation Textures brightest and darkest pixel fetch uses allPixels instead of getPixelByUV.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed baking error preventing the tool from cooking in LOD Create.
  
• Fixed warning of missing parm in GameDev PBR shader.
  
• Detail Mesh - fixed issue where the projected mesh tile would quite drastically change the tiling amount as soon as your UVs would cross into a new UV tile. It now determines the tiling amount based on the bounds from bottom right corner of your UVs, instead of from the center.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Mapbox SOP wouldn't properly handle negative coordinates.
  

24 May 2019
Updates

• Exposed UV Flattening Method to Inside Face UVs
  
• Added Surface Normal based tracing mode options for Maps Baker. User can now choose between Nearest Surface and Surface Normal. This allows for better baking between Highpoly and Lowpoly that vary a lot.
  
• Added Vertex Mode for Min Max Average SOP
  
• Unity LWRP shaders have been updated for Unity 2019
  

Bug Fixes

• Vertex Animation Texture minor fix to the rigid export script
  
• Vertex Aninimation Texture rigid export was incorrectly setting BBOX MIN and MAX.
  
• Dissolve Flat Edges no longer adds an empty edge group to your geometry that is not needed.
  

08 Jul 2019
Updates

• Sweep Geometry SOP now allows the input curve to have its own N and up, giving you more flexibility in how the geometry is sweeped.
  
• SketchFab ROP now has the ability to export skeletal meshes. (Animated geometry through bones). This only works for the ROP, and has not been exposed on the sop wrapper. To make use of this feature, set the “Geo Path” parameter to the subnet containing the bones and geometry.
  
• Added Transparency (cutout) support to Marmoset Toolbag ROP. Also updated the demoscene to reflect this change.
  
• Added UDIM support to Maps Baker. Also improved the Surface Normal based tracing algorithm. Speed has also been improved for High-Resolution Quad meshes.
  
• Vertex Animation Texture soft shader for Unity 2018 uses _Time.y as default for animation.
  
• Fixed typo on Measure Curvature sop. Also renamed “Fit From 0-1” to “Fit To 0-1”, and fixed bug in the max range calculation.
  
• Fixed minor issue in Delete Small Parts. Also added the ability to directly extract the largest piece without having to play with the threshold slider. The tool now also allows you to specify custom piece attributes if desired.
  
• Fixed Maps Baker Flip Y Tangent Normalmap logic, and added option to flip the X axis too. The produced normalmap for invalid regions will now also be {0.5,0.5,1} instead of black. This should reduce any seam artifacts around UV shells.
  
• Updated Calculate Occlusion sop to match Mantra. It now also has two less parameters to tweak, and produces better results by default.
  
• Updated the AO calculation logic in Maps Baker to match Principledshader (Mantra)
  
• All baker nodes have been updated to v2.0 Mostly refactoring for better stability.
  
• AV Photogrammetry - Changed message node path to pick up ALICEVISION_PATH warning
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed case where Maps Baker would return empty normalmaps when reprojecting a map, but the highpoly didn't have normals.
  
• CSV Exporter will now grab the rendernode from a given geometry node if a user specified a geometry node instead of a sop.
  
• External Script Editor fixed error if code snippet includes multi-byte character(s) thanks to Harayoki.
  
• Texture Sheets ROP would fail if there was a mismatch in resolutions between each frame and the total sheet.
  
• Fixed PivotPainter modifying normals if they were of type vertex
  
• Removed hard coded path for custom channels in Games Baker
  
• Games Baker would fail if Base Color was toggled off when writing out textures.
  
• Fixed case where UVs would be promoted to points in PivotPainter, which would merge edges of UV shells.
  
• Updated Building Generator to solve an edge case where it would fail on import geometry from OSM.
  
• Maps Baker will now correctly output values when not hitting any geometry for the heightmap.
  
• Vertex Animation Texture rigid export was pulling data from the soft export stream.
  
• Fixed reverse blur parameters on Measure Curvature
  
• Updating the Matcap shader to work with viewport subdivision when the input mesh doesn't have normals
  
• Measure Curvature had convex and concave backwards, fixed the parameters but bumped it to version 2 to not break any scene files
  
• Fixed an issues with Mapbox not respecting negative longitudes
  
• Fixed Heightmap calculation in MapsBaker
  
• Fixed faceted look in Maps Baker for texture reprojection.
  
• Niagara ROP Cache Split button wasn't connected to the internal caching mechanism.
  

19 Jul 2019
New Tools

• Added Extract Silhouette SOP. It will extract the silhouette of the input geometry for the specified axis. Solution by user petz
  

Updates

• Added a toggle that allows the PivotPainter node to do automatic UV-Layout for lightmaps.
  
• Bumped version of Maps Baker, due to the renaming of the Bake button. (Not to break backwards compatibility) It's now “execute” like the other ROPs
  

06 Aug 2019
Updates

• Added curvature map baking to the Maps Baker. Advanced controls include Flatness Filter & Scale, in addition to other tracing properties.
  

Bug Fixes

• GameDev Bakers would fail to bake if basecolor wasn't toggled on.
  
• GameDev Toon Shader - hooked up light colour and intensity in the shader.
  
• Texture Sheet ROP renders correct frame range when changing start and end values.
  
• Motion Vectors ROP now reloads files from the temp directory before rendering the final atlas.
  
• Hooked up cusping angle controls to geometry frozen using Freeze Threshold in Destruction Cleanup