ZENV

• houdini hda tools focused on procedural modeling environments .
• open source work in progress , many thanks to sidefx and other libraries and tutorials .

DOWNLOAD | INSTALL NOTES | HDA TOOL LIST | ALL | WEBSITE

INSTALL

• DOWNLOAD , extract zip to any local path
• Copy zenv.json to ( C:/Users/USER/Documents/houdini18.5/packages/ ) matching local user and houdini version
• Edit zenv.json file text line to match local path to zenv folder
• Alternatively may copy the included houdini.env to ( C:/Users/USER/Documents/houdini18.5/ ) editing to match local path of zenv folder
• Install reccomended houdini libraries

HDA TOOLS LIST

jump to category :

CREATE		PLANTS		ITEM		PATH
LAYOUT		MODIFY		REMOVAL		CHARACTER
UV		QA		TEXTURE		VFX
CAM		MESH		LINES
COLOR	_________	MATERIAL	_________	NORMALS	_________

hip/00_ALL_HDA/00_ALL_HDA.hip

click names below for tool example :

CREATE

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	z GEN BRICKMAIN 01	stone brick variation generator , creates set of low and hipoly for baking
	z GEN STAIRWAY	creates stairway made of bricks , optional guideline and collision avoidance
	z GEN STONE BRICK CIRCLE	creates a circular brick section by even voronoi fracturing extruding toward center . applies noise and bevel to resemble stone
	z CURL LINES THEN PLACE SPIRALS	creates curllines on the surface of mesh then copies spirals to the geometry with collision detection
	z GEN CIRCLES RADIATE PATTERN	creates circular patterns inspired by Seigaiha . scatter circles , then radiate those circles outward while avoiding intersection by order or generation .
	z HELIX ALONG CURVE	creates multiple spiraling helix curves around input guide line
	z GEN ROCK THIRDS	creates a rock stylized by lot subdivision rule of thirds , setup for PDG
	z DIFFUSION REACTION TUBES	fill mesh with intestine brain like tubes based on simulated diffusion chemical reaction
	z CURL LINES LOOP	creates lines curling on input mesh surface using curlnoise loop
	z DRIP GRUNGE	drips grunge under overhangs , longer when near more drip neighboors
	z GEN REVOLVE BASIC	creates revolved mesh path deformed to backbone curve , input profile and backbone curves
	z WIRE OVERLAPING OFFSET	creates wires from input curves rayed to ground collision offset near neighboor wires
	z GEN PILLAR	generate pillar - holding multiple brick generators and circle brick generators assembled to create a full pillar .
	z GEN ROCK 4m	creates a simple rock , with fractured surfacing
	z GEN TUBES FINDPATHS FROM CURVE	creates tubes that find a path to not intersect other tubes following along the length of a guide curve
	z GEN CRACK BRANCHING	creates branching crack mesh used for booleaning other meshes
	z GEN GIZMO	axis gizmo for debug
	z GLASS BOOLEAN	input mesh with irregular shaped holes , creates an intersection plane cut to fit , adds inset with vertex color falloff from edge for shader
	z GEN LATTICE GRIDMESH	creates a box of grids with interior points ideal for use as a lattice deformer
	z GEN HEXA STRUCTURE	creates a hexagon support structure based on input mesh
	z GEN RUNES	creates rune like symbols

PLANTS

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	z PLANTS HELIX ROOTS	create winding intertwined roots from a guide line .
	z PLANTS VINES W LEAVES	creates vines conforming to surface of object guided by line with iterative collision avoidance on vine and leaves
	z PLANTS MOSS HANGING	creates hanging placements of moss mesh
	z PLANTS VINES GUIDED	creates a vine tube using a wandering path finder guided variably by a curve or direction vector
	z PLANTS TREE PATHFIND	creates tree using shortest path curves scattered connected around collision objects and self
	z PLANTS FUNGI	creates a fungus mushroom mesh
	z PLANTS LEAF	creates a hipoly leaf mesh
	z PLANTS BARK	creates bark pieces for tree
	z PLANTS BARK PLACER	layout bark on mesh surface guided by curves , smooth aligned , used with tree
	z PLANTS PETAL FORM	creates petal from curve backbone and multiple warped elipse curves defining the shape changes over the length of the backbone
	z PLANTS SCATTER LEDGE	places hanging plants aligned along edges of input mesh with collision checks

ITEM

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	z ITEM ABILITY ICON	creates variety of icon of ability in TOPS by wedgenum
	z ITEM RING	creates ring item variants , helix , diffusion tubes , rock gemstones , in TOPS by wedgenum
	z ITEM RING FROM IMAGE	creates a projected 3d ring from isometric image , setup for TOPs processing folder of images to 3d relit renders
	z ITEM SWORD	creates sword item variants
	z ITEM SWORD FROM IMAGE	creates a sword mesh from image , traces , orients , thickens by skeleton , uvs projected , baked to vertex colors
	z ITEM HELM	creates variety of helm items in TOPS by wedgenum
	z ITEM HELM FROM IMAGE	projects a helm mesh from image
	z ITEM POTION	creates potion item variants in TOPS by wedgenum
	z ITEM POTION FROM IMAGE	revolves a potion mesh from image
	z ITEM BOW	creates bow item variants
	z ITEM STAFF	creates staff item variants

PATH

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	z PATH BASE	creates a PATH floor section and collision , this is the base for all path snapmap variants
	z PATH LEDGE	creates environment mesh for isometric snapmap pieces , used with PATH_BASE
	z PATH DIRECTIONS	cycle thru 90 degree rotations and mirrored variations . used with PATH toolset
	z PATH LEDGE CAVE STALAG	creates modular PATH cave for use with snapmap
	z PATH LEDGE DIFFUSION	creates modular PATH diffusion reaction for use with snapmap
	z PATH LEDGE FOREST	creates modular PATH forest for use with snapmap
	z PATH LEDGE POOLS	creates modular PATH pools for use with snapmap
	z PATH REVIEW	layout path based meshes to review their connections
	z PATH 2SPLINE COLLISION	input two curves defining the border of a path , creates floor geo and collision for gameplay
	z PATH ISO EXTRUDE	isometric camera angle extrude , for use with PATH to avoid camera blocking geo

LAYOUT

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	z COPY TO POINTS BY PIECENUM INTERSECTIONCHECK	copy variants by piecenum attribute with collision checks
	z COPY MESH ALONG CURVE DEFORM	pipe / wire curvedeform for houdini engine . copies input mesh without stretching along a curve , adds cuts for smoother bending , projects normals outward from curve
	z COPY TO EVENLY DISTRIBUTED GRID	copy by piecenum to dynamic evenly spaced grid - useful when baking and review
	z TILEABLE	copies input to each of the nearby quadrants preview tiling ( 4m default )
	z TRANSFORM ITERATE COLLISION CHECK	iteratively move pieces towards nearest goal while avoid itersection with collision ( simplified gravity / attraction sop )

MODIFY

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	z VORONI FRACTURE GRADIENT OFFSET	voronoi fractures then offsets clusters by multiple world space gradients . useful for rock and cliff forms .
	z DEFORM BY AXIS	bounding box ramp deformation , by multiple axis ramps
	z NOISE DISPLACE MASKED	3d noise ramp creates a mask remaping the displacement of mesh by a second 3d noise .
	z MESH CHIP CRACK	boolean subtract chipping and crack meshes onto the surface based on curvature and fitting projected crack meshes
	z MESH WRAP DEFORM BY UV	deform mesh to another mesh by using the flattened UVs , useful to wrap a pattern around another
	z MESH SURFACE SIMPLE REMESH	ray projects a grid unto the input geo and remeshes then reduces , helpful for fixing chaotic geo and non manifold errors .
	z PLANARIZE MULTIPLE SURFACES	input mesh surface is segmented by avg n and flattened from multiple directions . useful to randomly planarize from different angles for rock meshes
	z CONFORM INTERSECTING LERP	conform around a given colllision object if has intersection
	z STAMP FOREACH PIECE	randomized boolean of one mesh on to the surface of variants . useful for cutting designs into bricks
	z SPLIT CLIP CREVISE	separate the input into two outputs with an indent along the separation , useful separating environment shell into terraced layers
	z CUT INTERSECT DARKEN	darken a surface from the intersections of other objects , with option to boolean those cuts in
	z DEFORM BY HELIX	deform the input mesh by a helix fit to the object bounds
	z MESH SUBTRACT COLLAPSE END	simple boolean subtract with option to collapse . useful for quick edits in ue4
	z MESH SLICER SAVE	separates large meshes into grided sections and exports them to fbx , options for specific area exports , and compatible with houdini engine .

REMOVAL

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	z REMOVE PIECES BY VOLUME	for each connected element , remove if doesnt match min or max measured volume , also has options of perimeter or other measurements
	z KEEP ONLY LARGEST CONNECTED ELEMENT	removes smaller detached objects
	z KEEP BIGGER OF TWO	takes two inputs and ouputs only one ( bigger or smaller )
	z KEEP ONLY FIRST LAST PRIMS	carve for prim lines after segments split
	z REMOVE THIN MESH	removes prims based on thickness measurement , then can fill in holes , useful for removing thin slivers

UV

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	z UV AXIS ALIGN SNAP	optimize uv location , moves uvs to zero to one space for precision in games
	z UV ALIGN WORLD	align uv islands to world axis
	z UV OVERLAP CHECK	a slow tho absolute uv overlap check , by intersection checks , separates all overlaping prims, then repacks
	z UV TEXEL DENSITY CHECK	check texel density with colorized debug , handles multiple materials with different texture resolutions by specifiying the materials name string and their rez
	z UV POLYWIRE	creates polywire with specific UVs , useful when sweep is not producing desired bends
	z UV TRIM	fits uvs into specific trim sheet area while scaling the pieces along an axis relative to their world space
	z UV LIGHTMAP	UVs creation for lightmaps , stored to uv1 with higher merge threshold

MESH

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	z VDB INTERNAL FILL	mesh to vdb to mesh , combines lower res eroded vdbs to fill in internal spaces , useful for airtight lowpoly
	z VOXEL AUTOSIZE	auto voxel resolution for target polycount , safely lowers resolution on large objects
	z EDGEGROUP BY UV AXIS	edgegroup based on axis of uvs , useful for polybeveling specific edges procedurally
	z SHRINKWRAP VORONOI CLUSTERS	similar to convex decomposition , cuts mesh into pieces via voronoi , shrinkwraps those pieces . useful for rocky shapes
	z REVERSE BY N UP	attempts to fix reversed backfacing normals on multiple sub meshes, useful for fixing exported levels with mirrored ( negative scaled ) objects
	z POLYREDUCE GRADIENT QUADS	polyreduce setup with gradient retention to keep mostly quads , with secondary reduction
	z REMESH RAY SPHERE	remesh using sphere around object , iteratively raycast and smooth to approximate shape
	z TUBE MESH BETWEEN TO CIRCLES	creates a cyllinder between 2 input circles
	z POLYBEVEL SAFE	polybevel with fix for exploding points
	z POLYEXTRUDE SAFE	polyextrude with fix for exploding points

LINES

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	z CURVE FROM TUBE	centered curve from mesh ( even if mesh has nonuniform topology )
	z CURVES FROM UV ISLANDS	for each uv island create a line curve aligned by the longest angle or specific axis . useful for generating tree branch curves from existing low poly trees
	z MASK TO LINE	creates line from image color
	z SORT BY LINEAXIS	sorts a line contigously linearly along axis , enforcing a point order on a curved line when sort by axis may skip around

COLOR

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	z COLOR MASK VERTEX	vertex color RGB mask for game shader . AO grunge , Variation , and localized gradients
	z COLOR NOISE HI	colors based on curvature ramps , grunge moss for hi poly stones and bricks
	z COLOR LINES SCRATCH VTX	cuts in elipses and applys vertex colors for stratches along an axis
	z VERTEXCOLOR CONVERT	converts standard rgb vertex color blending to multilayer vertex blending with alpha

MATERIAL

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	z UDIM CONVERT	convert single material UDIM to multiple materials , and reposition the uvs into zero to one

NORMALS

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	z NORMAL AREA WEIGHTED	normals smoothed face area weighted alternative
	z SMOOTHING FROM UVs	hard edges by uv island for baking

QA

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	z COLLISION INTERSECT CHECK	detect and show intersections with provided collision geometry . useful to avoid clipping into level geometry beyond a specific distance threshold

TEXTURE

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	z TEX SEAM BLENDER	blend and blur a texture across uv seams to fix small bake errors and make seamless , additionaly blends intersections of the meshes

VFX

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	z VFX SLASH from ANIM	creates a smoothed swipe mesh from animation for vfx , sword slashing

CAM

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	z CAM ISOMETRIC	camera with crane\boom arm setup matching isometric game settings
	z CAM PROJECTION fspy	a wrapper for fspy hda created by floodini , input fspy json creating camera matching ref image perspective then projects that image to floor plane

EXPORT

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	z EXPORT TO UNREAL	applies unreal specific parameters = material parameter conversion , point color to vtx conversion
	z EXPORT MAYA FBX	applies maya specific detail parameters = named uv channels , named color sets for vertex colors , uv1 to uv2 .

PYTHON

• HOUDINI_HDA_PLACE_ALL.py = for each hda in a folder creates hython script to place the nodes in houdini
• HOUDINI_PATH_TOPs_CREATE_SET.py = creates hython script to place TOP nodes for each PATH mesh component
• UNREAL_PATH_CREATE_SNAPMAPS.py = for each set of PATH meshes creates unreal map for each corresponding variant
• ZENV_GITHUB_DOC_GEN.py = creates readme and docs from googlesheet and existing files

RECOMMENDED LIBRARIES

• SideFXLabs https://github.com/sideeffects/SideFXLabs
• qLib https://github.com/qLab/qLib
• MLOPs https://github.com/Bismuth-Consultancy-BV/MLOPs
• AeLib https://github.com/Aeoll/Aelib
• nLib https://github.com/Njordy/nLib
• mifthtools https://github.com/mifth/mifthtools
• jhorikawa https://github.com/jhorikawa/HoudiniHowtos

CREATIVE COMMONS ZERO

free to all , creative commons CC0 , free to redistribute , attribution not required