I'm interested in the ETA on support for the HE. I'm building a pipeline around it, but all my new machines are M1's and if I can't run HE in Unity I'm in a bit of a bind.

Hello,

The HE plugins will be one of the last components to be ported to the macOS Apple Silicon (AS) architecture since the plugins are dependent on the host applications supporting Apple Silicon as well. Unreal, for example, doesn't have a native AS build so we are blocked on that front for now. But from a quick Google search, it looks like Unity has a AS tech preview, which is good. I can't really give an ETA but Unity would be the first HE plugin we would port given the current state of the host applications.

In the meantime, if you are ok with working in the x86_64 Unity editor, then you should be able to use the x86_64 HE Unity plugin even on M1 machines. The main x86_64 Houdini macOS build (and HE plugins) can run on M1; it would just perform generally slower (to varying degrees depending on the workload type) compared to the arm64 Houdini macOS build.

Cheers,
Rob

rvinluan
it looks like Unity has a AS tech preview, which is good. I can't really give an ETA but Unity would be the first HE plugin we would port given the current state of the host applications.

It's a bit more more than tech preview! Unity 2021 with support for Apple Silicon was released last October, even the LTS version which came out this month has M1 support.

Unity are a loooooong way ahead of Unreal here.

Thanks for that update Rob

Any updates on this matter considering advancements on UE/Unity side ?

Hello,

Native Apple Silicon support will arrive in Unreal Engine 5.1 so you can expect the native Houdini Engine Unreal plugin to be released some time shortly after UE 5.1 releases. I don't believe I saw Epic announce a release date for UE 5.1 but I would wager it would be some time (maybe first half?) next year.

Release of a native Houdini Engine Unity plugin is possible since native Apple Silicon support already exists as of Unity 2021.2+. Unfortunately, I can't give an ETA for the native Houdini Engine Unity plugin but expect it to be much sooner than the Unreal plugin.

Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but you could try running the Intel (x86_64) version of the Houdini Engine plugins in the Intel builds of the Unity/Unreal editors, but then configure the x86_64 plugins to work with the Apple Silicon arm64 build of Houdini. The plugins are mostly thin clients that connect to a separate, background Houdini process, which does the actual engine work. That separate Houdini process doesn't need to match the architecture of the editor application.

For example, for Unreal, you can install the Houdini Engine Unreal x86_64 plugin and then also a full Houdini arm64 distro. Then in the Unreal Editor, you can configure the Houdini Engine plugin settings to load Houdini from the arm64 distro. You may just have to do a bit of sidestepping with the Houdini installs so that they don't stomp on each other (i.e. install x86_64 Houdini and Unreal plugin, copy Unreal plugin into /Users/Shared/Epic Games/UE_X.Y/Engine/Plugins/Runtime, uninstall or move aside the x86_64 Houdini distro and then install the arm64 Houdini distro).

Of course if you are using the Apple Silicon build of the Unity editor, then you are still out of luck. But I figured I'd mention the x86_64/arm64 workflow in case it helps anyone.

Cheers,
Rob

Soooo, 5.1 dropped, any news or maybe easy to use workarounds ?

Thanks in advance

vsamusenko
Soooo, 5.1 dropped, any news or maybe easy to use workarounds ?

Thanks in advance

Yup. There are plans to release an Apple Silicon (M1) version of the Houdini Engine Unreal plugin. Once the Houdini Engine Unreal 5.1 plugin is released, then we will release the M1 version shortly after. I can't say when exactly that will happen but I can say that we are working on it.

Cheers,
Rob

rvinluan

vsamusenko
Soooo, 5.1 dropped, any news or maybe easy to use workarounds ?

Thanks in advance

Yup. There are plans to release an Apple Silicon (M1) version of the Houdini Engine Unreal plugin. Once the Houdini Engine Unreal 5.1 plugin is released, then we will release the M1 version shortly after. I can't say when exactly that will happen but I can say that we are working on it.

Cheers,
Rob

Nothing short of excited! Thanks a lot!