Ah sorry, that should be updated in the next daily build.

Hi,

Are you checking the 16.5 branch?
https://github.com/sideeffects/HoudiniEngineForUnity/tree/Houdini16.5 [github.com]

The plugin should be working with production and daily builds. Let me know what errors you are getting.

Where do you not see the vertex colour? In Houdini, or in Unity through an HDA (via our plugin) or some other format?

Could you clarify further as to what you're trying to do? This sounds like a more general Houdini question that could serve better in one of the other Houdini forums.

Better support for sending attributes upstream (Unity to Houdini) is probably something we can add sometime in the near-to-distant future though.

The object merge functionality (input node) in Unity is only able to send P, uv, N, and Cd point attributes back into Houdini.

For custom attributes, the plugin only supports sending point attributes into Houdini from Unity. This can be done in Unity via “Convert To Input Asset”, then create attributes in the Point Attributes section on the asset's Inspector UI. Higher level attributes (primitives, detail) are not supported at the current time.

I am unable to reproduce this. Got a sample HDA that can reproduce the behaviour? Describe the steps you are doing that leads to the error as well.

Your null check workaround is okay for now since HoudiniHost.mySelectionTarget is just tracking the selection/deselection object.

Could have been just a graphical bug. Sometimes it's also good to test with another version of Unity.

Check the Console window in Unity for any warnings or errors on import. Dive down into the hierarchy of the generated gameobjects to see whether the mesh components were set properly, and the materials/shaders were assigned. Check to see if alpha is 0 if they do have materials. If mesh looks valid, and materials have been assigned, could be that it might have vertex colours with 0 alpha, in which case change the shader on it to one of the Standard shaders and you might see it as those shaders don't use vertex colour.

If all else fails, please attach an HDA with the issue that I can debug.

Since its changing topology, make sure you're using the vertex_fluid.shader. Also make sure your color space is set to Linear.

According to your post, I believe you followed this tutorial, but just making sure: https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/unity-shaders-for-vertex-animation-export-tools/ [www.sidefx.com]

This was a bug with point splitting for vertices over Unity's mesh indices limit. Should be fixed in Houdini 16.0.742. Turn off Split Points by Vertex Attributes and Rebuild asset to import points only, rather than vertices.

Try the MeshDecorator HDA. It is found in <Houdini installation>/engine/unity/Assets/OTLs/Samples/MeshDecorator/MeshDecorator.otl

It will allow both a mesh with points as the target surface to copy objects on to (Mesh Object in Inspector UI), as well as an input object to instantiate on those points (Instance_Object in Inspector UI).

Also, one thing you can do in the short term is to use a material attribute to specify a Unity texture instead of bringing it in via Houdini Engine. To do that, create a primitive attribute with name ‘unity_material’ and String type with value of path to your texture relative to your Assets/ or Resources/ folder.

You can duplicate the current HDA's texture that you have now in Unity, and use the path of that. This reduces any textures from being created, as its just a reference to an existing Unity texture.

Is this happening recently (after an update) or was always the case? Textures aren't shared if you bring in the same HDA multiple times, but shouldn't create new ones on rebuild or recook. After updating an HDA try a rebuild instead of creating a new one.

Note that the current version does leave the texture in the project if you delete the HDA gameobject. This is something we'll be addressing in a future version (ie. delete texture when the HDA is deleted).

Apologies for the delay.

There isn't a way to pack substance files into an HDA to be extracted into Unity. Rather what you can do instead is to set attributes on your primitives with the substance path. Then place the substance files in your Unity project at that path. This way when you bring in the HDA, it will pick up the substance files using that path.

First create a primitive attribute called ‘unity_material’ and set it as String type, and with value of the path to your substance .sbsar file in Unity relative to your Resources folder or Assets folder.

Then create another primitive attribute called ‘unity_sub_material_name’ with String type, and with value of the name of your actual substance material.
OR
You can specify the substance material index by creating a primitive attribute called ‘unity_sub_material_index’ with Integer type, and value of the index of your material.

I attached an OTL which was one of our examples. It has a drop down to choose different types of materials, including the last option which has the substance materials (via name and index). I also attached the substance file as well for you to place in Unity. Check it out to see how it was done.

Hi Bryan,

Thanks for your feedback. I do agree that the current architecture of the created GameObjects for a HDA in Unity is not ideal, nor optimal for performance. Addressing that is one of the main features that we are working on currently. The future version will produce very light-weight GameObjects, with a nearly flat hierarchy. The resulting number of GameObjects will corresponding to what is actually needed in Unity.

So please be patient and keep providing us with feedback. We are listening and improving it.

Thank you for attaching the HDAs. I was able to replicate the issue which is that the recook is slow. It seems that as the curve is modified, a recook happens for each update, in which the texture in the material on the qiang asset is refetched from Houdini each time. Obviously this is going to be slow, but considering that qiang itself does not change when modifying the curve, I am not sure why its material is being refetched. Perhaps a node in quXian_qiang requires to qiang to be recooked as well? Something to ask your colleague or whoever created the HDA.

For a quick workaround, I suggest either dropping in a temporary Unity cube or some other static mesh into the Imp Qiang input when modifying the curve. Or turn off Enable Cooking in the Cooking tab on quXian_qiang Inspector UI.

I'll look into further if this is a potential bug in the Unity plugin when I have some time.

Does the Bake not generate a mesh at all (empty geo) or is it baking out a different looking mesh? The screenshot isn't clear as to what the actual baked mesh looks like.

Are you able to attach or send me the HDA for me to debug?

Thanks.

This might be a question better suited for the general Houdini forum.

Have you imported the Curve Decorator into Houdini and checked out the graph?

In the Curve Decorator, the path node network has an Object Merge Sop that references the mesh_obj parameter on the HDA (see first screenshot).

To get the path itself, it's specified on the Object Merge Sop inside the instancer node (see second screenshot with red outline).

Try the following steps in Unity:

1. Place the CurveDecorator.otl in the Assets folder in your project.

2. Drag & drop the CurveDecorator into the scene. It should automatically create a curve, along with transform handles for each point on the curve.

3. Create a sphere or bring in your own mesh into the scene.

4. Drag & drop that sphere into the Instance_Object field on the Houdini Instancer Manager component that is part of the CurveDecorator game object. See screenshot red box.

5. Optionally, create your own curve from Houdini Engine -> Create Curve. Then place that as the reference curve on the Path Object field in the Houdini Parms component on the Curve Decorator game object. See screenshot green box.

Good suggestions on the rebuild all and auto-rebuild. Agreed on the improved workflow. This is something I'll add to our list in future updates. Thanks.