We've been working a little while with implementing Houdini Engine as part of our pipeline with level designers and artists. While the Houdini side of things is usually smooth sailing, we're still somewhat undecided on good workflow and pipeline practices when using engine in Unity, and especially as it relates to version control.
I wanted to ask if you have any best practices, guidelines or advice on how you implement it in your Unity production pipelines? What are your experience with using it in a team?
For example:
- What strategies have you found most effective for managing Houdini Engine assets, and how do you structure folders, naming conventions and such?
- How do you handle scene file size bloat or serialization in regards to version control?
- How do you handle merging conflicts changes in Houdini assets or Unity scenes?
- To what degree do you create and manage prefabs for different types of assets?
- Which version control do you prefer in projects that feature Houdini Engine assets heavily?
- To what degree do the different artist disciplines in your team use Houdini Engine tools, and what are their experiences with it so far?
- What is your strategy and frequency in terms of engine plugin updates?
- Any other pain points, pitfalls or similar you'd recommend being careful with?
Any tips, experiences and advice would be most appreciated, and especially in terms of version control. I'm beginning to think git may not be the best options for subsequent projects, but that may be what we're stuck with for now
(For context, we're currently working on a project that will often use simple input geometries to create level terrain/environment which can sometimes be quite large assets, several simple asset creation tools, and some typical engine assets like stairs, walls and the like, which we'd like to keep editable as longs as possible in the development cycle. In other words not particularly vfx heavy, but a lot of asset and level generation tools in the current project, but hopefully more vfx in later projects.)
Best,
Marcus
