INSTANCE VARIATIONS | UNITY

Learn how to create a standalone Houdini Digital Asset containing multiple Houdini object (OBJ) nodes inside.

In Houdini

1. Install and instantiate the Instancing_ObjectInstancingByAttribute_Finished.hda example in Houdini.
2. Go inside the Instancing_ObjectInstancingByAttribute1 > instance1 node in the network editor.
3. You should have attribcreate2 node selected.
4. In the Scene View pane, go to the Geometry Spreadsheet tab.
5. At the top of the Geometry Spreadsheet window, beside the Group field, click the Points button.
6. You'll see the instance string attribute with paths to objects being instanced and you should see that two different kinds of starfish are being instanced.
   

In Unity

1. Import the provided HoudiniCacti.unitypackage.
2. Go to Houdini Engine > Load Houdini Asset... and find your Instancing_ObjectInstancingByAttribute_Finished.hda asset.
3. You should see your starfish army in the Scene view.
4. In the Inspector pane, find the Houdini Instancer Manager (Script) component.
5. You'll see an entry for instance1. This is the same instance1 Instance OBJ node in the asset.
6. Under instance1, you'll see two GameObject fields: one for the blue_starfish, and another for the yellow_starfish.
7. Drag over the HoudiniCactus1 prefab into the blue_starfish GameObject field to replace the blue starfish with a cactus.
8. Drag over the HoudiniCactus2 prefab into the yellow_starfish field.
9. You can also add more variations on the Unity side to any Houdini-instanced object. Just click the + (plus) button beside the yellow_starfish field to add a variation.
10. Drag over the HoudiniCactus3 prefab into the second variation of the yellow_starfish - the GameObject field that says None (GameObject).
11. Admire the field of cacti.