Is Houdini Engine unsupported on iOS?

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Hi there,

I was having some troubles getting Houdini Engine to work when my platform is set to iOS. I keep getting HoudiniErrorUnsupportedPlatform' was thrown.

Am i doing something wrong, I was sure I'd seen some iOS demos showing live Digital Assets…

I'm on Unity3d 5.0.0f4
Installed Houdini Version: 14.0.291
Mac OSX 10.10.3

Thanks,
Pete
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Houdini Engine is not supported on iOS. It is actually not supported as an in-game shipped middleware on any platform. For Unity, only Windows and Mac OSX are support and only in-editor as a level building tool.

That said, you should not be getting any errors unless you programmatically call certain functions in C# yourself during gameplay. Are you doing that or are these exceptions just being thrown on their own?
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I get the error when I try to add a digital asset to my scene if the project platform is set to iOS.

This demo shows digital assets Houdini assets that appear to be live on iOS -
Houdini AR
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2693&Itemid=391 [sidefx.com]
Houdini AR demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YNEitfCpME [youtube.com]

So I'm a little confused on the workflow.

Thanks,
Pete
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from the link:
“This app uses 3D Smart Assets created in Houdini which were then loaded into the Houdini Engine inside Unity. The assets were then baked out and compiled into the Houdini AR app.”

so not live - just baked out assets….
Michael Goldfarb | www.odforce.net
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SideFX
www.sidefx.com
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Our VR app was just a glimps of what could be possible. But we're not there yet.

And the reason you get the error while on the iOS platform is that no Houdini Engine call can run on that platform and instantiating and asset requires some Houdini Engine calls. Existing assets in the scene will just be disabled.

If you wish, you can work on the Mac OSX platform (or Windows) while you want to place and manipulate Houdini assets and then switch back to the iOS platform for all other game dev work. All your Houdini assets will maintain their changes between these platform transitions - you just can't manipulate or place new assets while on the iOS platform.
Edited by - May 8, 2015 16:49:06
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Ahh Damn!
Well I guess it's probably a big ask getting that running on a mobile.
It would be nice if you didn't have to switch platforms though.
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so, will this switching platform business work on any unsupported platform?

I'm gearing up to start wii-U development. It would definitely be nice to have Houdini support.

Nintendo makes it's own build of Unity specifically for compiling on the Wii-U hardware. I'm not sure if i will be able to just switch back and forth between Wii-U and Windows development at will.


12++
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Yeah switching platforms for my project takes quite a while and I'm sure there are larger projects out there.

If the live assets don't work in these builds it would be nice if there was some other way to deal with it, maybe Unity could throw an error if you try and build with live assets or something like that.
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+1 for not having to arbitrarily switch platforms, seems like a silly workaround.

Can confirm that switching to Windows allows loading of OTLs.
Grant Miller
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Ingenuity Studios
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+1 for not having to arbitrarily switch platforms, seems like a silly workaround.

Can confirm that switching to Windows allows loading of OTLs.
Grant Miller
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Ingenuity Studios
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Yeah I'm really hoping they get that happening in the next major version.
I stopped using it because switching back and forth is a bit of a pain when your project gets big.
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We hear you. Can't promise anything but the priority for this feature has been notched up a bit.
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Thanks, that's great!
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Hey,

Just wondering, has there been any development on this?
I'd love to be able to have engine running in an app but even if the assets were not live on the device it'd be really handy to be able to use engine to create assets and levels and such.

Thanks
Pete
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count me in whats the current state of the plugin?
is the unity thrift integration on the way?
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Hello,

so it´s been quite some time since the last post here. But I am still interested. Does someone has any information how this guy did manage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YNEitfCpME [www.youtube.com]

There is, unfortunately, no information online, tutorial or anything.

Thanks!
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I would love yo use Houdini Engine, however, all my games are currently on iOS and Android. I would assume that a lot of game developers are using Unity to develop there games across multiple platforms— not just Windows/Mac. Is this a technical (middleware) limitation? Will there ever be support or is it just a pipe dream? The original post is from 2015

Even if I was just working on a game for Win/Mac, I wouldn't use Houdini Engine. Only because if I ever wanted to port the game, in the future to mobile. I couldn't.

Thanks!
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If you are using the plugin in Editor only, then it will work on any build target platform that Unity supports (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, etc).

If you wanting to use the plugin at runtime (i.e. after building and deploying on target hardware such as an iPhone/Android), then this isn't currently possible.
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seelan
If you are using the plugin in Editor only, then it will work on any build target platform that Unity supports (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, etc).

If you wanting to use the plugin at runtime (i.e. after building and deploying on target hardware such as an iPhone/Android), then this isn't currently possible.


Perfect, thank you!
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Hey,

I just wondered if seelan could clarify this last point. Does this mean that if I wrote a C# script that modified various parameters of a HDA to create an animation, for example, that I wouldn't be able to use this in an iOS application?

Cheers!
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