Hey Everyone, I've been convinced to switch over to Houdini and have been using it as a core tool in my vfx specifically particle and fluid simulations. and ive recently been using UE4 as a platform for real time visuals. My question for everyone is has anyone found a working pipeline for visualizing houdini particles in UE4?

I know theres an FGA exporter for DOP networks, but that can be a little stubborn when I've started using multiple DOP networks that work together to create a specific look. and also tweeking the vector field scale and palcement in cascade can be a little frustrating to match the sim in houdini.

Any other way of exporting particles from Houdini to UE4? I am sure this would solve tons of issues and open up a lot of opportunities between the two.

Any help would be great!

andrew
andrewcheu@gmail.com

If you don't mind some experimental tools, have a look at: https://github.com/sideeffects/GameDevelopmentToolset [github.com]

these tools are really good, but once you get into a cached sim of 180k points, i just can't get that into unreal,

any idea one how to get a sim like that into unreal?

Hi guys!
Anyone has any progress with importing particles to UE4?

I'm interested in a particle pipeline too, preferably with color attributes.
Found this promising point cloud test [vimeo.com] on Luiz's Vimeo channel…

Yeah, I'm just cleaning up the tool post GDC and I'll be releasing it soon ™

Andrew,

You may also want to take a look at the PopcornFX integration as a way to pass Houdini particles through to Unreal/Unity. particles are exported from Houdini via a JSON file and the sim cache can be imported and further modified in the PopcornFX Editor.

Here's the info they sent me:

The PopcornFX Editor is available on this page : http://www.popcornfx.com/download/ [popcornfx.com] (the last available version being v1.11) –> This is free

when users want to import their effects inside UE4 or Unity they have to license the corresponding plugin(s):

- UE4 plugin is only available on the website: http://www.popcornfx.com/unreal-engine-4-plugin/ [popcornfx.com] —> This isn't free
- Unity plugin is available on unity asset store or directly on popcornfx website: http://www.popcornfx.com/unity-plugin-integration/ [popcornfx.com] —> This isn't free
Both can be added to cart at the bottom of the page

For clients willing to integrate our SDK in their engine, they can find the price list here: http://www.popcornfx.com/pricing/ [popcornfx.com]
and they have to contact us to obtain the license

In a nutshell, you can think of PopcornFX editor as the standalone authoring software (like Houdini would be)
and the “integrations” (UE4 / Unity / Inhouse) the way to playback the effects in engine (like Houdini Engine would be for HDAs)