yes

looking at the nodes inside maps baker it seems they are normalized even if they are not "clamped" by the filetype. there's also a convert node in cops for all maps that converts to 16 bit for some reason. i guess it makes sense for games that 32 bit textures are overkill, but what if you want to bake out something more precise like position or normals...

i need to evaluate if i really need the HDR values or if i can accept the loss of precision, else i need to "gut" the baker or make my own.

make sure the texture compression is HDR, no srgb, nearest filtering, etc.

on the mesh, enable high precision UVs and that the generate lightmap uvs is not overriding the uvs used by the VAT

best way to do this would be with soft body deformation VAT.

in unreal try to use the debug material functions in order to see the resulting values.

another thing is that houdini and ue have different unit systems (meters vs cm) and the axes are switched (y and z). by default the labs VAT system should account for that but you can always check to see what happens if you swizzle the axes a bit.

hi, i have a VAT-like system where i need to bake out position data kinda like vector displacement.
i'm using labs maps baker and tried a custom attribute bake, but the EXR data is clamped (at least the negative values are).
i tried using the vertex color (Cd) option but same results.
from what i understand, just by using a HDR format like Exr is sufficient for the baker to output correct data (i.e: 32 bit float).
when opened in PS the file is indeed 32 bit but the negative values are not there.

looking at the data in houdini spreadsheet i see that it is correct both in terms of type of data and the values (negative values and above 1).

does anyone have any idea why this is happening? am i missing something?

there is a merge node that throws a warning something about attributes not being initialized properly but checking the data before and after the merge node i see no difference...

so the issue was that i would copy over older hdas from previous versions into the otls folder

found the faulty hda. i cannot open it, might be corrupted.
gonna leave it here if one of the devs wants to have a poke at it

i have this issue where all of a sudden i cannot create any objects in houdini viewport and get this error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "F:\Progs/Houdini20.0.625/houdini/python3.10libs\toolutils.py", line 1457, in new_func
return function(*args, **kwargs)
File "F:\Progs/Houdini20.0.625/houdini/python3.10libs\soptoolutils.py", line 950, in genericTool
node = genericSopNodeGeneratorTool(scriptargs, nodetypename, nodename,
File "F:\Progs/Houdini20.0.625/houdini/python3.10libs\soptoolutils.py", line 533, in genericSopNodeGeneratorTool
container = createSopNodeContainer(sceneviewer,
File "F:\Progs/Houdini20.0.625/houdini/python3.10libs\soptoolutils.py", line 406, in createSopNodeContainer
objecttoolutils.initEmptyGeometryObject(container)
File "F:\Progs/Houdini20.0.625/houdini/python3.10libs\objecttoolutils.py", line 393, in initEmptyGeometryObject
toolutils.removeDefaultGeometryObjectContents(objectnode)
File "F:\Progs/Houdini20.0.625/houdini/python3.10libs\toolutils.py", line 1389, in removeDefaultGeometryObjectContents
file_node.destroy()
File "F:\Progs/Houdini20.0.625/houdini/python3.10libs\houpythonportion\ui.py", line 1137, in decorator
return func(*args, **kwargs)
File "F:\Progs/Houdini20.0.625/houdini/python3.10libs\hou.py", line 16037, in destroy
return _hou.Node_destroy(self, disable_safety_checks)
hou.PermissionError: Cannot delete a node inside a locked asset

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "geometry_circle", line 10, in <module>
File "F:\Progs/Houdini20.0.625/houdini/python3.10libs\toolutils.py", line 1459, in new_func
raise hou.Error(
hou.Error: Failed to modify node or parameter because of a permission error. Possible causes include locked assets, takes, product permissions or user-specified permissions.

i understand that to get around it i can delete the houdini folder in my documents but that only lasts until i upgrade houdini again or even less.

now i am also getting errors in hengine in unreal and have no workaround or idea why it happens:
Cook Results:
Invalid argument given: Could not create node for some reason. Most like, the operator_name given has not been loaded from an otl or hda file. Please call HAPI_LoadAssetLibraryFromFile() with the file containing this operator definition.

Cook State:
Ready with Fatal Errors


hdas that worked yesterday are now useless

send help!

Edit: ive narrowed it down to the otls folder, some old hda is doing this

have you tried attrib randomize with custom discrete as distribution?

you can then expose those values in the hda

nevermind i found the issue

in 3dsmax make sure you unlink all exported objects

Hi, i have this fbx model comprised of multiple objects with proper naming convention. My issue is that in Houdini the naming is weird. In 3dsmax i set the name like "1_s_A00" but in Houdini i have whats in the attachment.

Does anyone know why this happens?

its interfering with the match function while trying to sort through the objects.

Thanks for the help Cody

it seems to work if i set the 'use as reference' option.

if not i get this error in the unreal output log:
LogHoudiniEngine: Error: Hapi failed: Invalid argument given: Invalid id. (D:\Nightly20.0CMake\dev\engine\unreal\5.3\Engine\Plugins\Runtime\HoudiniEngine\Source\HoudiniEngine\Private\HoudiniInputTranslator.cpp:1033)

maybe it helps with something, dunno

im using 20.0.653 and ue5.3

So, i was under the impression that assets like blueprints can be used as inputs for hdas so, for example do a simple scatter of unreal blueprints.

Since the change in the type of inputs for newer engine versions, there is no more 'assets' option but the documentation says it could be done with the 'world item' input. However you cannot select an item from the Content browser, only objects from the world.
if you do select a blueprint from the world, the output acts like a static mesh not as a blueprint (i.e: it gathers the static meshes from the blueprint like the merge actors functionality).

i haven't tried an object level HDA but i doubt it makes any difference.

Am i missing something or does anyone have any info on this?

this occurs with heightfields as well. can we get an official answer on this, sidefx?

EDIT: quote from sidefx "try resetting your Houdini to it's defaults by renaming your $HOME/houdini20.0 directory to houdini20.0_OLD.
When you relaunch Houdini this directory will be regenerated, with all your Houdini settings at default."

tried and it works

i just opened the toolbar button and changed texcache to glcache and now it works.

for clarity, just type in: glcache -c