Version 2.0.16 - Houdini 19.5.534

Update 16 of the Houdini Engine for Unreal Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.5.534 / HAPI 5.0.6.

Source and binaries are included for:

UE4.27, UE5.0, and UE5.1 on Windows.
UE4.27, UE5.0 and UE5.1 on Mac OS 11.
UE5.1 for Apple Silicon

Changes:

• Added a new export option to inputs: "Export Material Parameters".
  When disabled, the plugin will not be sending each material parameter found in the input object's materials as attributes.
  This can help drastically reduce cook times when sending big meshes, with materials that have a lot of exposed parameters.

• Data Table Input: enum values are now sent as strings, not ints.

• Added support for all types of image packing (RGB, BGR, RGBA, ABGR, etc..) when creating textures from Houdini.
  This fixes a crash when trying to create a texture that wasn't packed as RGBA.

• (UE5) Fixed regression that caused Foliage Types to be instantiated as meshes if the "unreal_foliage" attribute wasn't set.

• (UE5) Fixed incorrect instances transforms when using Foliage (either by instancing FoliageTypes or by using the unreal_foliage attribute).

• (UE5) Fixed regression that prevented ProxyComponents from being properly cleared.

• Fixed an issue when baking Static Mesh (created from packed "one instance instancers").
  It caused the first mesh to be baked multiple times, and the others to be ignored.

• Fixed potential crashes when loading a new map.

• Fixed potential ensure failures/crashes with the PDG Asset Link when baking to Actors.

• Fixed regression that caused an infinite cook loop when using splines in world inputs.

• Fixed a double transform issue when "import input as reference" is enabled.

• Fixed a regression that caused the plugin to not automatically refine meshes when saving the level on World Partition World.

• Fixed a regression that broke the "Proxy refinement by timer" option.

• Fixed an issue that prevented Data Tables with only one row to be sent to Houdini.

• Fixed world inputs ignoring changes in scale value on Spline Components.

• merged PR#221 from @yuhe00: Fix compilation error when building for Android platform with clang 14.0.

• merged PR#230 from @fullike: Fix baking fails if OutputComponents has no elements.

Version 2.0.15 - Houdini 19.5.493

Update 15 of the Houdini Engine for Unreal Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.5.493/ HAPI 5.0.5.

Source and binaries are included for:

• UE4.27, UE5.0, and UE5.1 on Windows.
• UE4.26, UE4.27 and UE5.0 on Mac OS 11.

Changes:

• Added support for UE5.1.
  Both UE5.0 and UE5.1 use the same source code/branch.

• Added support for outputting Data Tables assets.
  See the documentation for more information.

• Added a "Prefer Nanite Fallback Mesh" option to Geometry Inputs / NodeSync.
  If checked, the plugin will use the fallback mesh (proxy) for any Nanite mesh sent to Houdini.

• World inputs now add the "unreal_level_path" and "unreal_actor_path" when sending their input objects as references.

• Added support for Foliage in World Partition worlds.

• Added support for specifying the material slot when using the unreal_material attribute with point instancers (unreal_instance).
  You can specify the material slot to override by adding its slot number to the attribute name: unreal_materialX.

• When importing meshes to Houdini, we now prefix the unreal_material attribute string with the material slot index if the mesh uses more than one material. This prevents the plugin from merging material slots that use the same material, or the plugin reordering material slots.

• Imported material parameters now also add their material slot number to the attribute name (unreal_material_X_PARAM_NAM).
  This prevents overwriting values when separate materials use a material parameter with the same name.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed crash when actors are renamed.
• Added support for streaming landscape proxies in levels with world partition enabled.
• Fixed landscapes not being shared when importing landscape tiles in World Partition Levels.
• Fixed crash when importing foliage into World Partition levels.
• Fixed an issue that would cause build failures on some Linux platforms.
• Fixed Houdini-generated materials remaining in the temp directory when baking their corresponding meshes.
• Fixed shared landscape import into Unreal when using streaming proxy names.
• Fixed issues when rebuilding assets that use other HoudiniAssetComponent in World Inputs.
  Issues would happen either when rebuilding the assets with the input OR the asset selected in the input.
• Fixed the Houdini Asset Component returning incorrect bounds. This caused issues when framing ('F') the HAC.
• Fixed a bug that would cause incorrect material assignments for high poly mesh inputs.
• Added support for multiple foliage actors for World Partition.
• Added Support for multiple components on output objects. This is needed to properly support foliage instancing in UE5.
• Fixed a crash in Unreal 5.1 when creating landscapes.
• Fixed all foliage types being removed when an HDA is added.
• Fixed an issue where loading normal maps.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the plugin to add empty mesh sections to output meshes.
• Fixed stale instancer output data not being properly cleaned up upon cooking.
  This issue could cause level data to bloat unnecessarily.

Version 2.0.14 - Houdini 19.5.435

Update 14 of the Houdini Engine for Unreal Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.5.435 / HAPI 5.0.1.

Source and binaries are included for UE4.26, UE4.27, and UE5.0, for both Windows and Mac OS 11.

Changes:

• Added forward compatibility for UE5.1 to the 5.0 plugin source code.
  The 5.0 plugin source code can be used to build the plugin with UE5.1.

• Fixed invisible colliders (collision_geoXXX groups) being ignored by MeshProxies if no visible/rendered mesh was present in the output.
  The ProxyMesh output UI will indicate if colliders were found (even if they are unused by Houdini Mesh Proxies).

• Fixed an issue that caused Houdini-generated materials to appear white due to the emissive color.

• Added support for the "emissive intensity" material parameter on Houdini Materials.

• Improved positioning of the generated material nodes.

• Added proper type conversions when using a data table as geometry input for Houdini assets.
  Numeric types, vectors, rotators, transforms, and colors are now converted into a corresponding Houdini number or tuple.
  Previously, all DataTable values were imported as string attributes.

• Houdini Indie: Fixed a bug that caused the Input/Param/Handle UI to be displayed with only the Indie license warning even if no Inputs/Parms/Handles were present in the HDA.

• Fixed a bug that caused the output details UI to show the previously refined StaticMesh after the HDA was recooked, and a new ProxyMesh was used instead. The output UI was displaying a "Bake" button instead of a "Refine" button, and pressing that Bake button would actually Bake the previous SM instead of refining and baking the newly generated proxy mesh.
  The output UI now properly displays the proxy mesh and refine button after cooking a previously baked HDA.

Version 2.0.13 - Houdini 19.5.403

Update 13 of the Houdini Engine for Unreal Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.5.403 / HAPI 5.0.1.

Source and binaries are included for UE4.26, UE4.27, and UE5.0, for both Windows and Mac OS 11.

Changes:

• Added forward compatibility for UE5.1 to the 5.0 plugin.
  The 5.0 plugin source code can now be used to build the plugin with the preview builds of UE5.1.
  Please note that the plugin binaries for this release are compiled to work with UE5.0 and won't work with 5.1. The plugin needs to be compiled manually from the source code to work with 5.1.

• Fixed incorrect offset being used when converting landscapes to heightfields.
  This generally caused a "half-size" offset to Heightfields in Houdini.

• Fixed incorrect size being used when creating HF input nodes on non-square landscapes.

• Merged PR#204 on behalf of @dearamy: Fix bug landscape transform offset not taking care of rotation.

• NodeSync now uses labels instead of names when sending Actors, this allows nodes to have a more user-friendly name in Houdini rather than a generic "StaticMeshActor42" when possible.

• Fixed data offset/tearing when sending or reading large and non-square landscapes/heightfields.

• Landscape: Fixed a bug that prevented modifying paint layers on an edit Layer

• Fixed the HDA Help not displaying when clicking on the "Asset Help" button.

• Added support for Asset Help URL:
  If an HDA has a valid help URL (http/https/file), then the plugin will open that URL instead of displaying it in a window when clicking on the "Asset Help" button.

Version 2.0.12 - Houdini 19.5.368

Update 12 of the Houdini Engine for Unreal Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.5.368 / HAPI 5.0.1.

Source and binaries are included for UE4.26, UE4.27, and UE5.0.
Mac OS 11 Binaries are now also available for download!

Changes:

• Fixed endless cooking loop when using WorldInputs.
• Added the installation info window in the main "Houdini Engine" menu.

New features:

• Node Sync (beta):
  Node Sync lets you easily send/fetch data to/from Houdini without an HDA when using Session Sync.
  You can simply right-click on an asset in the Content Browser or an Actor in the world, and select "Send to Houdini" to have the selected object sent and translated in the Houdini session.
  Similarly, you can use the Node Sync panel (accessible via the Houdini Engine menu) to fetch data from a Houdini path.

• New Reference counted input system (beta)
  The plugin now uses a new referenced counted input system that reproduces the unreal hierarchy in the Houdini Engine session. This system is faster and lighter than the previous input system as it prevents duplication of data when an asset (ie, a Static Mesh) is used multiple times in HDA inputs (multiple actors that use the same mesh).
  This feature is still in beta, and is disabled by default, but can be activated in the plugin settings.

• Skeletal Mesh Input/Output (beta)
  The 19.5 plugin has the ability to send/create Skeletal Meshes to/from Kine FX.
  This feature relies on the use of two HDAs: UnrealToKineFX (input) and KineFXToUnreal (output) that can be found in the plugin's Content/NodeSync folder.
  These two HDAs are just used to split/merge the Unreal data to/from a KineFX rest geometry and Capture pose.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/sideeffects/HoudiniEngineForUnreal/commits/v2.0.12

Version 2.0.11 - Houdini 19.0.720

Update 11 of the Houdini Engine for Unreal Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.0.720 / HAPI 4.2.11.

Source and binaries are included for UE4.26, UE4.27, and UE5.0.
Mac OS Binaries are now also available for download!

As H19.0.720 is the last production build for H19.0, this will also be the last release for the 19.0 plugin.
The next release of the plugin will be for H19.5.

Upcoming bug fixes and most features will still be backported to the H19.0 plug-in and will be available in the repository.

Changes:

• Added support for setting CollisionProfileName, CastShadows, and Tags on Landscapes via generic property attributes. (respectively via "unreal_uproperty_CollisionProfileName", "unreal_uproperty_Tags", "unreal_uproperty_CastShadow") Those attributes would previously be only taken into account for mesh outputs.
• The plugin now uses sanitized paths from the AssetImportData for Houdini Assets. This fixes "source asset files not found" issues when using the plugin on a different machine than the one that originally imported the asset.
• Fixed baking issues that were caused by the plugin not properly identifying Temp objects.
• Added specific Houdini Input Objects for BP. This fixes transform issues on the BP's child components when sending them via a Geometry Input.
• Fixed transform issues when sending Instancers via inputs.
• Fixed possible crash when outputting geometry collection.
• Fixed possible crash with Skeletal Mesh input.
• Removed the Houdini Engine for Unreal option from the macOS Houdini installer. macOS users can download the engine plugin for Unreal from the Github repository.
• (UE5) Fixed a regression that caused cooked/temporary data to become invisible when in-game/PIE mode.
• Fixed incorrect rotation values when using curve inputs.
• Fixed DataTable input not being sent to Houdini if one of the Data Table's row name had invalid characters.
• Fixed the Landscape ForcedMinValue/ForcedMaxValue setting being ignored when converting Heightfields to Landscape.
• Fixed XY Position offset on Landscape.
• Fixed materials assigned to a landscape being duplicated when baking.
• (UE5) Fixed BSP/Brush input creating bad geometry in Houdini.
• Updated the Geometry Collection output UI to add a "browse to" button, as well as the number of pieces generated.

Update 10 of the Houdini Engine for Unreal Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.0.622 / HAPI 4.2.11.

Source and binaries are included for UE4.26 UE4.27 and UE5.0.

Please note that the source code now available in the Houdini19.0-5.00 branch is now for the UE5.0 release builds.

Changes

• Added support for Unreal Engine 5.0.

• Fixed crash when outputting Geometry Collections.

• "Open Session Sync" and "Open Scene in Houdini" now use unreal's working directory as their working dir instead of using the temp directory.
  This will make troubleshooting path issues with the internal session more convenient.

• Fixed bug causing session loss when using Unreal Spline Components in World Inputs.
  (when not using legacy curves)

• Fixed bug that caused World Inputs to sometimes not detect that their input object/actors had changed. This prevented the HDA from automatically updating.

• Added the "Use Legacy Curve" checkbox to world inputs.

• Improved how world inputs track/detect spline components modifications.

• Fixed manually entered transform still being pushed to Houdini even when "Push Transform to Houdini" is disabled.

• Fixed Unreal Spline Component's closed state being incorrectly set when using world input.

• Fixed world input ignoring the "Use Legacy Curve" setting when sending unreal spline components.
  The setting was only used for (Houdini) curve inputs.

• Enabled the "Use Legacy Curve" setting by default as it helps with instabilities when inputting curves/splines.

• Fixed a bug that caused UploadTransformToHoudini to only work when CookOnTransformChange was enabled.

• Houdini Proxy Meshes are now enabled by default.

• Fixed rot/scale attributes being ignored when outputting curves to SplineComponents.

• Fixed material parameter attributes (unreal_material_parameter_*) not being created on inputs.

• (UE5) Added support for the "unreal_nanite_fallback_relative_error" and "unreal_nanite_trim_relative_error" attributes to set the corresponding nanite settings.

• (UE5) Merged PR#172 on behalf of Filoppi:
  Fixed Nanite FallbackPercentTriangles parameter being incorrectly set

Update 9 of the V2 Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.0.561 / HAPI 4.2.11.

As only version 2 of the plugin now ships with Houdini 19.0, regular updates of the version 2 plugin now resume on this repository.
The source code available on this repository for the Houdini 19.0 branches is for the daily updates of the plugin, and will likely require the daily build of Houdini.

Source and binaries are included for UE4.26 UE4.27 and UE5-preview2.

Please note that the source code now available in the Houdini19.0-5.00 branch is now for the UE5.0 preview builds.

Also, if you are using the UE5 preview binaries with the UE5 version from the Epic Launcher, please make sure to install the plugins as a project plugin, not an engine plugin (copy the plugin in your project's Plugins/Runtime folder, or create it if the folder doesn't exist).

Changes:

• Fixed issue where saving a level in World Composition mode would trigger a recook of HDAs.
• Fixed potential crashes with the custom details / UI panels.
• Fixed crash when using ButtonStrip parameters.
• Fixed issue where baking Landscapes with edit layers to sublevels can cause UE to crash.
• Fixed a bug (UE5 only) where mesh translation would crash if the mesh had a k-DOP collision primitive.
• Improved detection of newly baked levels when WorldComposition is enabled.
• Fixed crash when baking a non-edit layer landscape.
• Fixed HoudiniAssetComponent cook-on-transform-change regression.
• Fixed height offset issue with input landscapes.
• Partially loaded input landscapes will now correctly send transforms to Houdini.

Update 8 of the V2 Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.0.531 / HAPI 4.2.10.

As only version 2 of the plugin now ships with Houdini 19.0, regular updates of the version 2 plugin now resume on this repository.
The source code available on this repository for the Houdini 19.0 branches is for the daily updates of the plugin, and will likely require the daily build of Houdini.

Source and binaries included for UE4.26 UE4.27, UE5-EA2, UE5-preview1 and the more recent unreal5.0 branch.

Please note that the source code now available in the Houdini19.0-5.00 branch is now for the recent unreal5.0, not for early access 2.
UE5-Early Access 2 code/binaries are only available on this release page.

Also, if you are using the EA2 or Preview1 binaries with the UE5 version from the Epic Launcher, please make sure to install the plugins as a project plugin, not an engine plugin (copy the plugin in your project's Plugins/Runtime folder, or create it if the folder doesn't exist).

Changes:

• Set Static Mesh's Collision Trace Flag to Use Complex as Simple when assigning collision geometry.
• Fixed a bug with static mesh translation where output attributes, such as unreal_output_name, would not always be correctly processed if the mesh has LOD or collision groups.
• Fixed an issue where landscape height offset would be applied twice when sending landscape data to Houdini.
• Ensure landscape transform is updated when performing Recommit Landscape.
• Fixed Houdini Engine Session lost when sending/receiving a large amount of data (with either meshes, landscapes, textures... etc).
  These regressions were introduced in H19.0 after an update of the thrift library that HAPI uses for IPC.
• Fixed the plugin not being able to input/output large Heightfields/landscapes.
  This was caused by an update to the thrift libraries in Houdini19.0 that introduced a max buffer size for transporting data to/from the session.
  The data is now sent/received in chunks when bigger than the max buffer size.
• Merged PR#151 on behalf of Mystfit : Fixed some RHS float type mismatches against the UE5-main branch.
• Merged PR#148 on behalf of dearamy : Fix UE5 Crash when input asset is a data table.
• The plugin will now proactively check for failures when starting Houdini SessionSync instead of waiting for the timeout.
• Fixed a bug where viewing the details panel of a HoudiniAssetComponent with a PDG asset link would crash Unreal (only in UE5).
• Fixed the HE session being lost after Playing In Editor when not using Session Sync. The session is now properly restarted.
• Fixed linux build issue.
• Fixed not being able to have different "unreal_nanite_enabled" states in the same HDA. It is now possible to output both nanite and regular meshes in the same HDA. The other nanite attributes do not enable nanite, and the "unreal_nanite_enabled" attribute must now be present (and non-zero) to output a nanite mesh.
• Fixed a bug with instancing assets where assets were not always loaded from disk when not in memory.
• Only set Landscape layer NoWeightBlend option if a LayerInfo is created for the first time or if an attribute is present.
• Fixed a bug where baking landscape tiles as normal landscape actors (with the unreal_landscape_tile_actor_type attribute set to 0) to sublevels would create streaming proxies in the sublevels instead of landscape actors.

Update 7 of the V2 Plugin.
The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.0.498 / HAPI 4.2.8.

As only version 2 of the plugin now ships with Houdini 19.0, regular updates of the version 2 plugin now resume on this repository.
The source code available on this repository for the Houdini 19.0 branches is for the daily updates of the plugin, and will likely require the daily build of Houdini.

Source and binaries included for UE4.26 UE4.27, UE5-EA2, and the more recent unreal5.0 branch.

Please note that the source code now available in the Houdini19.0-5.00 branch is now for the recent unreal5.0, not for early access 2.

Changes:

• Fixed a bug where the StaticMesh translator would read point attributes from an incorrect point index.
• Fixed a bug with baking static mesh outputs where temporary complex collision meshes (the collision_geo group) would not be baked.
• Fixed a bug where the Temporary Cook Folder property on the HoudiniAssetComponent and the unreal_temp_folder attribute were not working correctly.
• Fixed a bug causing the plugin to create an extra empty Blueprint when importing BGEO files.
• Initialize collision profile on newly created static mesh components to match that of the HoudiniAssetComponent.
• Added unreal_landscape_layer_noweightblend and unreal_landscape_editlayer_subtractive attributes for landscape edit layers.
• Fixed an issue where the "Cook Output" button on the PDG Asset Link would only cook the first output instead of all outputs of the TOP network.
• Apply CollisionProfileName uproperty to generated static meshes.
• Landscape Modify Edit Layer output mode is now able to output multiple edit layers.
• Fix possible crashes during Landscape output cleanup.
• Fix issue where certain editor tools (such as Landscape Flatten tool) would constantly trigger HDA updates for landscape inputs.
• Added a new attribute, unreal_bake_actor_class, that can be used to set the class of the Actor that is spawned when baking to actors. If unreal_bake_actor_class is blank or missing, then an AActor is spawned.
• Updated the logic for UE5 GeometryCollection generation
• Added attributes unreal_gc_clustering_cluster_connection_type, unreal_gc_collisions_max_size, unreal_gc_collisions_damage_threshold, unreal_gc_collisions_collision_margin_fraction to control the new UE5 attributes
• Added attribute variants to UE5's new "size-specific data", which allows you to use an array of cluster objects rather than only a single one.
• Added geometry collection examples.
• Static mesh generation properties and mesh build settings from the HoudiniAssetComponent are now also used for static meshes generated by PDG.
• Fixed crash when HDA output node has template flag enabled.
• Fixed an issue with applying generic UProperty attributes to source models on static meshes where only the first source model's UProperties were updated. Additionally, generic attributes now only trigger updates on the corresponding UProperties if the current and new values are different.
• When PIE stops, only reconnect the Houdini session if it was previously connected.
• Added unreal_gc_cluster, which allows you to specify the cluster index for the geometry collection piece, allowing for multiple groups within one level for both input and output.
• Approximate simple box and capsule collider rotations when importing static mesh collision geometry into Unreal.