|
Houdini Engine for Unreal
|
|
Houdini Engine for Unreal
|
In order to use the plugin, a Houdini Engine session needs to be created. Creating that session will load the necessary Houdini libraries and plug-ins, and setup Houdini Engine according to various preferences and environment variables.
The Session can be configured in the Unreal Project Settings window, under the Houdini Engine page of the Plugins section.
Remote sessions allow you to separate the Houdini Engine process from Unreal. When using TCP Socket or Named Pipe or domain socket , the session will be created by default on the local machine, but it is also possible to host the Houdini Engine session on another machine.
However, when using a remote session, it is important to know the location of the assets both on the client and the server side. The assets should be located on the same path for both of them. If the server can't find the matching .hda file at the same location as the client, then the client will try to send a memory copy of the asset to the server. This allows you to still use .hda files without worrying about their server location, but will not work with expanded HDAs as they can't be copied to memory.
TCP Socket sessions were added when the thin client was introduced in Houdini Engine. In short, thin client allows the main Houdini Engine processing to happen in a separate process, outside of the Unreal process. For socket sessions, a TCP socket is used to communicate between the Unreal process and the Houdini Engine process.
The TCP socket session supports auto-starting the Houdini Engine server. When the plug-in initializes, the Houdini Engine server will be automatically started, and a TCP connection created.
The Houdini Engine server can also be manually started with a listening socket. Then, the socket port and host is entered into the plug-in.
Version 2 also lets you decide to choose "None" for the session type. Selecting this will prevent the plug-in from creating a Houdini-Engine session.
This can be useful if you want to prevent some users of the engine from creating or modifying Houdini Assets, which would require a Houdini Engine license.
Named pipe sessions were also added when thin client was introduced in Houdini Engine. In short, thin client allows the main Houdini Engine processing to happen in a separate process, outside of the Unreal process. For named pipe sessions, a named pipe is used to communicate between the Unreal process and the Houdini Engine process. This is the recommended method when using thin client in the same local machine as the host server.
The named pipe session also supports auto-starting the Houdini Engine server. When the plug-in initializes, the Houdini Engine server will be automatically started, and a named pipe automatically chosen.
The Houdini Engine server can also be manually started with a known named pipe. Then, the named pipe information is entered into the plug-in.
version 2 of the plugin allows you to use Session Sync, which is an improved version of the Houdini Engine Debugger that was available in previous versions.
Session Sync runs a "normal" (GUI) version of Houdini instead of using a headless version of Houdini.
When using Session Sync, you'll be able to see the nodes be created, and updated in Houdini in realtime as you use the plug-in in Unreal. The plug-in will also check for modifications that were made on the Houdini side, and update their unreal counterparts in real time.
Session Sync also has options that let you synchronize the Houdini and Unreal viewports.
See Debugging with Session Sync for more information regarding Session Sync and information regarding debugging assets with the plug-in.
1.8.6 
