Houdini to 3dsMax RBD Exporter

Blur Studio Tool

Overview

This tool was developed during my Pipeline internship at Blur Studio (Summer 2017). FX Artists needed to expedite their iterative workflow with RBD destructions, which involved caching high-poly geometry from Houdini to be imported into 3dsMax. As a result, caching only point transform data and then importing that data on the Max side onto a single frame of high-poly geometry was much more efficient.

Although this sort of workflow is already built-in within Houdini, a Houdini-Max counterpart was needed.

Breakdown

The tool is 2 part: first the point transform data is exported from Houdini in JSON format via an HDA implemented in Python. The second part is on the Max side, where a simple PyQt UI allows the artist to import the JSON file, specify the frame range the data is imported for, and the high-poly pieces present in the scene are then transformed. Point data is linked to the individual piece objects in Max through a Houdini attribute that corresponds to a Max UV attribute.

Video coming soon