Houdini 20.0 Nodes Geometry nodes

Labs LOD Create 2.0 geometry node

The LOD Create SOP allows for easy LOD generation.

The LOD Create SOP allows for easy LOD generation. The tool is a one node pipeline consisting of all the other tools in the toolset such as baking, polyreduction, geometry cleanup, uvs and more. The output of this tool is an FBX containing Level of Details that can be used in other DCCs or Game Engines.

Parameters

Processing

Generate LODs

Bake textures and meshes to disk.

Decimation Settings

Visualizer

Enable text label in viewport to display current LOD and polygon count.

Debug All LOD

Display all LOD levels side by side.

LOD Viewing Mode

Choose to select the viewed LOD with the LOD slider, or based on distance to a camera, or don’t display.

Camera

Camera to use to select which LOD level to display.

LOD

Slider to select what LOD level to display.

Preset

This menu is driven by a JSON file containing preset values for LOD settings. These presets can be modified in the Extra Files section of this HDA.

Consolidate Shader At

This controls at which LOD level all attached shaders get consolidated into a single material.

Last LOD is Impostor

Enables/Disables the use of an impostor for the last LOD.

Remove Insides

This enables the automatic removal of inside faces.

Preserve Quads

This enables / disables the preservation of quads during polyreduction.

Equalize Lengths

This controls the equalization of edge lengths during polyreduction.

Recalculate Normals

Enables/Disables the recalculation of vertex normals after polyreduction.

Cusp Angle

When Recalculate Normals is on, this sets the desired cusping angle.

Weighting Method

The weighting method for recalculating the vertex normals.

Attribute

An optional attribute used for polyreducing based on attribute values.

Weight

This drives the polyreduction based on attribute values as a scalar.

Mode

How the size is determined

Threshold

Pieces with the Area or Perimeter smallest than this will be removed

Delete Non Selected

Invert the operation UV Attribute: UV attribute to operate on

Initial Fuse Dist

There is a built in intial Fuse Node to ensure good island connectivity, this is the distance threshold for that operation.

Cutoff

Size threshold of the islands that will be merged back into larger pieces

Flattening Method

Method for reflattening the islands based on the new seams

Iterations

Attempts at merging the islands together. Higher values produce smoother results

Optimize UV Border

Attempts to remove triangles that are sticking to the side of the UV island. May cause small islands to reappear

LOD Settings

LODs

This sets the number of LODs in the multiparm, which allows you to specify LOD settings on a per entry basis.

Custom Mesh

This allows you to specify a custom piece of geometry to swap this LOD for.

Percent Triangles

The desired target percentage of triangles from the original mesh.

Threshold Distance

The threshold distance at which this LOD starts.

Shader Consolidation

Correct Area Proportions

Enabling this will correct the area proportions of the UV shells compared to the geometry it belongs to.

Axis-Align

This will try to axis align your UV shells as best as possible.

Padding

Controls the padding between UV shells.

Orientations

Drives the number of possible orientation iterations during the UV layout solve.

Use MikkT Tangent Space

Enables/Disables the use of MikkT tangent space normals during the baking.

Output basecolor in Linear Space

Allows for the baking of the basecolor textures in linear space instead of gamma 2.2.

Tangent Normal Flip Y

Flips the Y axis of the normalmap.

Cage Mesh

Optional cage mesh. Must have the same topology and UVs as the UV Object. Typically a dupicate of UV Object whose vertices are slightly pushed outward. Used to determine the projection direction.

Border Padding

Additional pixels at the border of each UV island

Baking Samples

Number of Samples used for raytraced shading

Ray Bias

Determine how much to offset the rays from the surface of the object along the normal vector.

Ray Distance

Maximum Distance to trace for nearby surfaces. -1 means infinite distance.

Vertex Color

Sets the map name used for Vertex Color.

Roughness Map

Sets the map name used for Roughness Map.

Metallic Map

Sets the map name used for Metallic Map.

Normal Map

Sets the map name used for Normal Map.

Ambient Occlusion

Sets the map name used for Ambient Occlusion Map.

Opacity Map

Sets the map name used for Opacity Map.

Custom Channels

This multiparm allows you to add any additional maps you'd like to bake based on attribute names.

Impostor Settings

Render in One Image

When this toggle is enabled, all frames of the impostor texture are generated with a lens shader instead of on a per frame basis.

Impostor Type

This allows you to set the impostor type that has to be generated.

Sprite Resolution

This sets the sprite resolution. (Ex: If you have 8×8 frames at 128×128 pixels, this means a combined 1024×1024 pixel texture)

XY Frames

Sets the number of XY frames that need to be generated for the impostor texture.

Atlas Resolution

When Impostor Type is set to Octahedron, this controls the overall impostor texture resolution.

Octahedron Zoom

This controls the camera zoom amount for the Octahedron impostor camera lens.

Animation Frames

When Impostor Type is set to Animation, this controls how many frames you want to encode in the impostor.

Export Settings

Export in ASCII Format

This controls if the FBX should be exported in Binary or ASCII format.

FBX SDK Version

Allows you to override the FBX SDK used for export. Typically the default value is the best.

LOD Group Name

This allows you to override the container name for the generated LOD Hierarchy.

LOD Mesh Name Prefix

This allows you to override the Mesh name prefix for the LOD levels.

Output

This specifies the location of the FBX that gets exported.

Export Source Textures

When this toggle is enabled, any embedded textures or procedural materials attached will get exported to disk aswell.

Resolution

This sets the resolution of the exported textures.

Pre Multiply

This controls if the basecolor/beauty map alpha channel should be premultiplied.

Beauty Map

Enables/Disables the generation of the Beauty Atlas for the impostor.

Beauty Atlas

This specifies where the Beauty Atlas should be saved to.

Base Color Map

Enables/Disables the generation of the Base Color Atlas for the impostor.

Base Color Atlas

This specifies where the Base Color Atlas should be saved to.

Normals Map

Enables/Disables the generation of the Normal Atlas for the impostor.

Normals Atlas

This specifies where the Normal Atlas should be saved to.

Geometry nodes