So i just got email, saw one video and got me thinking is this plugin and houdini faster than creating with blueprint and 3dsmax? How is this work basically? I mean it looks cool but what difference does it make? Anoyone knows about pros and cons about this? I heard houdini has this kind of plugin in Unity. Is anyone tried this in unity?
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2756&Itemid=381
As you’ve asked how it works, I’ll answer that first. It takes an object that’s created in Houdini and by exposing certain parameters, it allows for procedural changes. As shown in the video, this could be used to make a table longer or remove / change the position of chairs, among other things. There’s many more uses, of course. Though, this is very game / project specific, for sure.
Is this faster than using another 3D application (Maya, Max, Blender) and Unreal Engine 4’s Blueprint system? It isn’t, for me. But I think that ultimately comes down to what you want to accomplish and how comfortable you are with your given toolset.
To me, there’s no reason to add yet another program to my pipeline. There’s already ways to accomplish this and more. However, if you already use Houdini and this is of interest to you? I can see how it might be more enticing.
Hope that helps a bit, fella.
I thought so. I just started houdini. They really need to add some information, workflow about this. There is almost no information about this.
Thank you btw 
One of the uses could be to create a terrain generation tool with support for many types of terrain creation techniques (which could be easily mixed) => . On top of it you could use Houdini dynamic engine to properly simulate rocks other things etc. Create assets and add fracturing for them (really good looking fracturing, not some shitt*y one), then automatically process those fractures and generate proper texture blends etc.
Another plus is that you can have the same tool for UE4/Unity/Maya and get exactly the same output in each. You create terrain tool, load it to each of those apps and work with exactly the same parameters. You update the asset, and it gets updated in all those three at once.
Example of a more procedural pipeline (Substance + Houdini) =>
wow thank you
It’s great to find this thread, thanks for the discussion! Here’s a few more videos about Unreal and Houdini, let me know if you have any questions, either by PM or in this thread.
Houdini at GDC2015 | In-game FX
It was announced that Houdini 15 has this plugin to UE4 , both 4.9 and 4.10, I installed houdini , but the plugin does not work. There is a video instruction released few days ago, followed it step by step, but I cant see the plugin and it doesnt work
If anyone here’s from sidefx and is worried about the takeup of this plugin, I want to say i think it’s brilliant - I just don’t have time to learn it right now. I think most programmers will love the procedural way houdini works so i’m sure things will get pretty busy on that front soon.