Hi,

I'm wondering how the network should be setup in order to avoid evaluating the simulation when importing the network to UE4.
My simple setup contains HF->Noise->Erode->Timeshift->Tilesplit->Output and the erode node is evaluated every time when the HDA is imported into UE4. Adding a cache node between the Timeshift and the Tilesplit nodes makes no difference.

Thanks!

Hi,

Such a setup should work with the UE4 plugin, but you should look into using a filecache sop instead of a cache sop.

The cache node will indeed store the upstream geo, but this cache doesn't make it into the HDA, therefore, when imported into unreal, the cache is empty, and upstream data must be computed.

The cache node would have been helpful if your asset was HF > Noise >Erode > TimeShift > cache > Noise/distort > Tile Split > Out
Changing any erosion parameter would have recomputed the whole simulation, but changing any parameter after the cache would have saved you the erosion calculations.

Using a filecache will store this cached geo to a file, that could be read when instantiating the HDA.
You'll probably want to change the filecache's default path, as it uses $HIP.

A few things on the side, if you're using H17.0, the timeshift node is not needed anymore, as the new HF_Erode node already has one integrated, that can be activated via the “Freeze at frame” parameter.