Hi Everyone,

I've been developing some tools primarily aimed at improving workflows in an efficient manner. ODTools for Houdini is an ever growing collection of tools/HDAs that I have been working and improving on for a while in the shadows, spreading via word of mouth, but I feel its time to let people know about them officially.

Some of the highlights of the tools are as follows (there's currently about 70 tools and more being added all the time, so I am just listing some of them and you can look up a full list on the product page: OD Tools for Houdini [origamidigital.com]:

- Drag and Drop support Video Overview [vimeo.com] (older video, much improved now but shows the basics)
- Obj to Lops - provides a quick way to get obj level nodes into Solaris. Either via sop/scene import or by creating .usd files and linking those on the fly. Just select/multiselect your nodes and let it go.
- Snippet Manager Video Overview [vimeo.com] - A simple way to manage your wrangles and other data.
- Asset Library Manager - Manage Your Texture/Object/HDA/Node Libraries, automatic thumbnail creation, etc
- TheGrove 3D Import - allows you to quickly import trees generated by the Blender plugin
- Octane QuickSetup / Quick Material. Video Overview 1 [vimeo.com] Video Overview 2 [vimeo.com] - a very fast and efficient way to work with octane.
- Viewport Material Picker Video Overview [vimeo.com] - Lets you click on anything in the viewport, and opens up a floating window to the underlying material.
- Project Selector Video Overview [vimeo.com] - A very simple pipeline tool to help people get organized, especially when you work together remotely with others.
- Light Placer Video Overview [vimeo.com] - allows you to quickly create lights based on reflection/diffuse angle on an object in the viewport
- Lots of tools, dealing with Materials, their setup, their conversion (Octane, Redshift, 3Delight, Renderman, VRay and Arnold) supported, some of them highlighted here six additions [vimeo.com]
- Reference Manager - gives you a reference to all external files, lets you localize them and update.

And many more, please refer to the product page. As I am updating, I'll post more videos here.

One of the use cases for common issues solved by these tools can be found here:

Object Library to HDA - Part 1 [vimeo.com]
Object Library to HDA - Part 2 [vimeo.com]
Object Library to HDA - Part 3 [vimeo.com]

Lastly, Thanks to all the SideFX people, their support team, their developers, the SideFX Labs team, their incredibly quick bug fixes and just, for creating the most awesome package I have used in my career.
Also a continued thanks to all the customers supporting ODTools for Houdini, making suggestions, coming up with sometimes crazy stuff but always being awesome.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy!
Oliver

I can vouch for ODTools. I discovered them via the LightWave forums because I have the LW tools wishlisted (pandemic sale perhaps?) and bought ODTools for Houdini because I’ve grown to embrace Houdini now over other software.

Keep up the great work, Oliver!

I made this video showing the ODtools Light placer working with 3Delight viewport rendering, sorry for the terrible quality. I don't normally make videos but this was too good a combination of things not to tell people about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyaJt6I0-7s&t=16s [www.youtube.com]

I think OD Houdini Shelf Tools is very useful, but I found a problem, some nodes such as ODFX_SubstancePainter will make houdini become limited commercial session mode , the original hip format is saved as hiplc. is there a solution?

iisgy
I think OD Houdini Shelf Tools is very useful, but I found a problem, some nodes such as ODFX_SubstancePainter will make houdini become limited commercial session mode , the original hip format is saved as hiplc. is there a solution?

that was fixed last night... if you could re-download, it should be fixed.

For some reason, I dont post many updates here. Partially, because I update the tools all the time and dont want to flood the thread/forum. But I feel this might warrant a post. I am in the process of adding a megascans mode to the asset library, which should make it much easier and faster working with megascans. Enjoy !

https://vimeo.com/566250836 [vimeo.com]

Is the megascans mode now added to the library? Will be buying for this feature, as well as the material converter.

it is... there's a few more things I want to do, but yes, its added already.

is it possible to bring in Redshift materials into OD tools?

you can convert materials into redshift (or any other renderer), or, if you have made rs materials via the library, you can bring them in as well. Not sure if thats what you meant

You can get more information from the documentation here: https://odtools.notion.site/Convert-Material-efddea47edc84af4a9471399d2586789 [odtools.notion.site]

oliver7
you can convert materials into redshift (or any other renderer), or, if you have made rs materials via the library, you can bring them in as well. Not sure if thats what you meant

You can get more information from the documentation here: https://odtools.notion.site/Convert-Material-efddea47edc84af4a9471399d2586789 [odtools.notion.site]

I am coming from Cinema and have redshift materials that I made in Cinema that I would like to use in H. Can H bring in Lib files? I am new to Houdini and just picked up your shelf tools.

i dont think so... you could probably try to bring them in via rs proxies though.

oliver7
i dont think so... you could probably try to bring them in via rs proxies though.

ok, thanks for the reply!!

Figured it was about time I would post another update.

There have probably been 30-40 builds since the last version I posted about here, so it will be impossible to list all the additions and changes. This particular update focuses on two new convenience features, however, make sure you check some of the other videos showing a lot of the recent developments.

Mostly, thanks to all customers for their continued suggestions & reports, which help shape the product to such a broad range of use cases that is in today.

https://twitter.com/origamivfx/status/1522228817640624128 [twitter.com]

Big Update 4.69 to ODTools. One of the new things is a new tool that helps creating collision shapes for agents & kinefx quickly and painlessly. Thomas did a cool little tutorial showcasing the feature.

Twitter Post [twitter.com]

Below are the list of tools:

OD Houdini Shelftools

LYNX

qLib

AELib

Hi @oliver7,
I'm about to buy your excellent plugin and I have one question :
Do your convert material can convert regular material from OBJ (mat or shop) to usd material in Solaris? and then in solaris convert from Redshift to Karma or Arnold or even make a collect with all renderer listed..?
sorry for the long question


Thank you

WowNems
Hi @oliver7,
I'm about to buy your excellent plugin and I have one question :
Do your convert material can convert regular material from OBJ (mat or shop) to usd material in Solaris? and then in solaris convert from Redshift to Karma or Arnold or even make a collect with all renderer listed..?
sorry for the long question


Thank you

Hey @WowNems,

It converts any principled material, so no matter whether you bring in an obj with the labs obj importer, import an fbx or create one yourself. It can convert them to redshift (normal and usd vopnet)/octane/renderman/vray/arnold, materialx or an usd preview material. it will NOT convert from a 3rd party renderer to another 3rd party renderer.

Hope that answers the question.
Oliver

Thank you Oliver7
I have just baught it

I just bought the OD tools plug in, but now when I try to load the octane IPR i just get a black screen...any idea why, it was working with a manual Octane set up.