Version 2.0.18 - Houdini 19.5.640

Update 18 of the Houdini Engine for Unreal Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.5.640 / HAPI 5.0.7.

Source and binaries are included for:
UE4.27, UE5.1, and UE5.2 on Windows. and Mac OS.

Changes:

• Added support for Unreal Engine 5.2

• Various updates to the source code and includes to fix compile issues when building the plugin with no-pch/non-unity builds of UE5.2.

• Added the ability to set a custom $HOME directory in the plugin settings.
  It is then used by HAPI, but also Houdini/Session Sync when using the "Open In" commands.
  This is helpful when having HE under source control, as it allows custom nodes to be detected properly.

• Tags can now be modified via generic attributes on any type of actors, not just Landscapes.
  When modifying tags on actors, it is possible to modify the component tags by naming the attribute "unreal_uproperty_ComponentTagsXXXX".

• Inputs now have a "rebuild" button next to the input type combobox, that allows you to force update/resend the input's objects.

• Handles now display their name and type on the editor viewport.

• Added support for Data Layers in Unreal 5.2 and later.

• Added support for Material instances in landscapes.

• Improved removal of existing foliage when baking. Only the instances baked by Houdini will be removed.

• Fixed wrong transform being set for landscapes when using the old input system.

• Fixed an issue where cooked landscapes would be deleted correctly.

• Update Landscape imported in Unreal to work better with World Partitioned Levels.
  Support for World Composition removed in Unreal 5 versions of the plugin.

• Stopped foliage removal dirtying all Instanced Foliage Actors in a scene

• Fixed an issue World Partition Landscapes would be offset if partially loaded in Unreal.

• Fixed incorrect material assignment when using instancers.

• It is now possible to use/mix both material override attributes (unreal_materialX)
  and material instance attributes (unreal_material_instanceX) with instancers.

• Fixed Houdini Asset Component properites not serializing correctly.

• Fixed bug that caused incorrect vertex colors/alpha on imported Static Meshes.

• Fixed bug that caused incorrect vertex colors overrides on Static Mesh Components.

• Fixed an issue that caused mesh socket scale to be ignored when attachingActors.
  We now force the relative scale of the attached Actors to the scaledefined on the sockets.

• Fixed potential crash with Toggle parameters and the PDG asset link.

• Fixed an issue when importing BP as reference:
  We were only importing the BP's component as reference, not the BP itself.

• Ported attribute transfer optimizations from Unreal 5.0 to Unreal 4.26 & 4.27

• Fixed default object path parameters on OBJ HDA (lookatpath, lookupobjpath..) arent incorrectly considered as inputs anymore.

• Fixed crash when using the new input system with UE5.2.

• Fixed incorrect drawing of tabs parameters in UE5.

• Fixed unnecessary error logs with input and parameter detail, physical materials.

• Fixed unnecessary invalid session error logs when fetching license type beforestarting the session.

• Fixed issues that caused transform handles to not handle rotations properly.

• Fixed an issue that caused incorrect values being used when manually enteringscale/rotation for handles in the details panel.

• Fixed generated material instances not always being properly baked for instancers.

• Removed the "Update Input Landscape" feature as it was non longer needed/used.
  Please use Landscape Edit Layers instead.

• Fixed a regression that caused a crash when using geometry inputs.

Version 2.0.17 - Houdini 19.5.569

Update 17 of the Houdini Engine for Unreal Plugin.

The plugin is now linked to Houdini 19.5.569 / HAPI 5.0.7.

Source and binaries are included for:
UE4.27, UE5.0, and UE5.1 on Windows. and Mac OS 11.

--- UE5.2 preview 1 binaries of the plugin for windows are also available for convenience ---
--- The plugin hasn't been thoroughly tested on UE5.2 preview 1, use at your own risk ---

Changes:

• Added missing support for Data Table output with PDG. (merged PR#235 on behalf of @ethan-tqa)

• "Replace Previous Bake" will now remove foliage instances when the Foliage Type is specified for an instancer when baking.

• Fixed crash when trying to repopulate foliage UI.

• Fixed an issue where foliage would remain in Unreal after deleting an HDA output.

• Fixed a bug that caused materials to be ignored on point instancers.

• The Material Slot wasn't properly appended to mesh materials ([X]Material) when not importing the materials parameters.

• Fixed potential crashes when using HoudiniAsset in BP.

• Fixed an issue when using foliage in commandlets.

• Removed unnecessary cook call with Houdini curves.

• Fixed an issue where cooked landscapes in UE5 are not deleted when the HDA is recooked

• Fixed an issue that caused landscape inputs to trigger unnecessary checkouts when reading landscape data.

• Optimized string transfer to Houdini from Unreal.
  This significantly improves cooking times thanks to a much faster data transfer.

• Fixed build errors with UE5.2 preview 1.
  The plugin's source code can now be built with UE5.2 preview1.

Version 2.0.16 - Houdini 19.5.534

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Version 2.0.10 - Houdini 19.0.622

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

Version 2.0.9 - Houdini 19.0.561

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.