Adipa Wijayathilaka
boarnoah
About Me
EXPERTISE
Hobbyist
INDUSTRY
Gamedev
Houdini Skills
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Recent Forum Posts
Houdini Engine for Unreal - Version 2 Jan. 13, 2021, 5:31 p.m.
Prefacing this with the disclaimer that I use Houdini and UE4 as a hobbyist, so the requested capability might not be as useful as it sounds in more complex pipelines.
Context:
UE has some interesting things going on at present with landscape edit layers as well as Epic’s landmass plugin (as seen with the new water system in 4.26).
Landmass reads in the height data and can output changes to the landscape as a layer in a non destructive way.
RFE:
Ability to export height-fields as a layer to landscapes.
Ideally I would like to be able to have this workflow.
1. Define the base massing model / blockout of the landscape within UE’s landscape tools. I could also use landmass tools (such as the 4.26 Water system or my own custom designs) onto this landscape.
2. Import the landscape into Houdini as a heightfield (this is already possible) and apply erosion.
3. Export the eroded terrain as a layer onto an existing landscape within UE (so for example in this case as a new layer onto the input landscape).
Current issues:
Currently the only reasonable ways to continue with applying manual changes to the landscape is to unhook it from Houdini (by cooking it as a base mesh).
The Houdini integration isn’t built with back and forth changes to the landscape in mind so its not safe to apply manual changes (or automated processes within UE via Landmass) onto this terrain as it could be lost when rebuilding the HDA.
Other advantages of this RFE:
The key advantage is being able to apply an erosion HDA into a terrain that is defined in UE.
Another would be that you could theoretically apply multiple terrain HDAs onto a single landscape.
For example I could apply a secondary HDA to raise/lower areas of the landscape for foliage or roads and bring these results into UE as a layer.
As it is a layer I can go back and forth non destructively without having to worry about losing manually painted terrain details on another layer.
It would also be possible to create an HDA at the end of my pipeline to generate layer infos for landscape material and foliage purposes.
Since this happens at the very end it would correctly identify slopes and other features on the terrain that might have been manually painted on top of the original eroded terrain.
==
I'm curious to know other people's thoughts on a feature like this. With my brief examination of the plugin I did not see anything that is a significant blocker in making something like this possible.
Context:
UE has some interesting things going on at present with landscape edit layers as well as Epic’s landmass plugin (as seen with the new water system in 4.26).
Landmass reads in the height data and can output changes to the landscape as a layer in a non destructive way.
RFE:
Ability to export height-fields as a layer to landscapes.
Ideally I would like to be able to have this workflow.
1. Define the base massing model / blockout of the landscape within UE’s landscape tools. I could also use landmass tools (such as the 4.26 Water system or my own custom designs) onto this landscape.
2. Import the landscape into Houdini as a heightfield (this is already possible) and apply erosion.
3. Export the eroded terrain as a layer onto an existing landscape within UE (so for example in this case as a new layer onto the input landscape).
Current issues:
Currently the only reasonable ways to continue with applying manual changes to the landscape is to unhook it from Houdini (by cooking it as a base mesh).
The Houdini integration isn’t built with back and forth changes to the landscape in mind so its not safe to apply manual changes (or automated processes within UE via Landmass) onto this terrain as it could be lost when rebuilding the HDA.
Other advantages of this RFE:
The key advantage is being able to apply an erosion HDA into a terrain that is defined in UE.
Another would be that you could theoretically apply multiple terrain HDAs onto a single landscape.
For example I could apply a secondary HDA to raise/lower areas of the landscape for foliage or roads and bring these results into UE as a layer.
As it is a layer I can go back and forth non destructively without having to worry about losing manually painted terrain details on another layer.
It would also be possible to create an HDA at the end of my pipeline to generate layer infos for landscape material and foliage purposes.
Since this happens at the very end it would correctly identify slopes and other features on the terrain that might have been manually painted on top of the original eroded terrain.
==
I'm curious to know other people's thoughts on a feature like this. With my brief examination of the plugin I did not see anything that is a significant blocker in making something like this possible.
Gamepad Camera - Activation issues June 11, 2020, 9:25 p.m.
Hey folks, trying to get the Gamepad Camera tool working. For testing purposes I just have a box and the gamepad camera placed on scene (the camera was placed from the tool shelf, I've set the controller source to the correct device).
For this I tested both directly with a known working joystick connected to the computer (it was detected as a controller source in gamepad camera). I also tested by using X360CE to emulate a controller using the joystick.
However, even when in Scene View is set to use Camera 1 (the only camera in the scene - gamepad) I cannot seem to move the camera or it's direction. Wondering if I missed a setting somewhere, or does Houdini need to be configured in some additional ways to use this camera?
For this I tested both directly with a known working joystick connected to the computer (it was detected as a controller source in gamepad camera). I also tested by using X360CE to emulate a controller using the joystick.
However, even when in Scene View is set to use Camera 1 (the only camera in the scene - gamepad) I cannot seem to move the camera or it's direction. Wondering if I missed a setting somewhere, or does Houdini need to be configured in some additional ways to use this camera?