Hi there,

Constantly been upgrading my houdini tools for environment creation over the past months. 

Thanks guys for your feedbacks and patience, it helped me a lot pushing my skills to improve tools and finally dig into Python modules for HDAs.
Still a lot to learn, and for sure more things to improve but since the tools already changed so much since my first tutorial with v1.0, I think it's about time to see how things evolved ! 

Those who already bought them, AL-Tools v5 is available for free in your gumroad or artstation library.

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What's new ?

AL-MaskBuilder update :

- Map UDIM / Bug fix

- Paint Attribute Button in Attribute01 TAB

AL-TerrainExporter update :

- Simplified export of heightfield mesh and maps.

AL-AdvancedScatter update :

-Ability to paint attributes for scattering from the AttributeDistribution TAB : button "Paint Mask"

-Motion TAB to control animation cache of the scattered objects

- object to scatter : ID1 is the default geometry if "Enable Variations" is off. ID distributions is now control from red to blue / first ID to last ID.

- New node input to connect the surface to scatter. (still keeping the option to objectmerge into the tool, if input is used objectmerge is off)

- Map UDIM / bug fixing

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I did a presentation for sidefx "Houdini Hive" last May, I am showing how I made the illustration "Unexpected path", was made with the previous version of the tools but can still give some good insights about scattering :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNDdI5Lx08U&t=1108s

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AL-Tools and where to find them... Upgrades are available in :

-AL/Tools only :

https://gumroad.com/adrienlambert/#NZtu

https://adrienlambert.artstation.com/store/L3xD/sidefx-houdini-al_tools-ultimate-terrain-workflow

- AL-Tools + UltimateTerrainWorkflow project files :

https://gumroad.com/adrienlambert/#uIAbr

https://adrienlambert.artstation.com/store/Xdp1/sidefx-houdini-indie-ultimate-terrain-workflow-hiplc-file-objs-al-tools

- Tutorial / Procedural Cliff - BUNDLE VERSION (include AL-AdvancedScatter + AL-MaskBuilder)

https://gumroad.com/adrienlambert/#pYaGH

- AL-MaskBuilder available on gumroad by itself :

https://gumroad.com/adrienlambert/#AswVG

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See you soon !

Developed a workflow and a tool to  Unwrap very tricky and heavy geometries, maybe for baking or painting textures. When you got no time to clean and you have no last resort... This might just to the trick. Available on my gumroad ! 

How different is it from "Labs Auto UV" ? 

SideFX Labs AutoUV is a great free add-on that let you unfold and pack UVs on multiple UDIMs. Which works perfectly fine if your geometry got a reasonable polycount and is mostly composed of quadrilateral topology. Would advise to try this out first ! If this fails or is getting insanely slow your geometry is probably too messed up for it and using this tool/workflow may get you out of trouble... That's why I call it "UVs Last Hope !" Haha

This Houdini Indie tool is based on a workflow I am showing into my tutorial entitled "UVing millions of polygons in 5 min" on Artstation and youtube : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/k4daxl 

I am offering here more controls and an organized HDA that you can use not only in Houdini but also 3dsmax or Maya using Houdini Engine. (Free plugin with Houdini Indie !) 

Using this heavy mesh as an example to unfold  (700K Polygons) :

Visualize UVs / Tiles: 

Allows to check out the UV and tile distribution. 

TILE SPLIT / BOX BASED :

Control tile distribution based on object's bounding box divisions. Using this feature to slice the tiles by height in this example :

TILE SPLIT / VORONOI BASED :

Control tile distribution based on Voronoi pattern. Useful to get a more uniform distribution on intricate objects like this one. 

          

UV MAPPING / Fast And Messy :

This mode is a good way to test real quick the different distributions but generate a lot of small islands. Just have a simple control to limit the amount of UDIM columns

UV MAPPING / Slow and Clean :

This mode is a cleaner way to unfold UVs but takes longer to cook. (1min30 in this case) Based on UV flatten node, offers Spectral or Angle Based uv flattening. Most often get better results using Angle Based flattening. To give an example tried unfolding with Labs AutoUVs and was still cooking after 10 minutes.

          

 

CACHE GEO :

Final TAB to export or cache the geometry with UVs. A custom menu for extension (bgeo.sc, abc, obj... can add more if requested)

Once the geometry is Saved, use load geometry to load it. 

Available on my gumroad !

This tool also work with Houdini Apprentice, which is a free version of Houdini for non-commercial project. 

Hope this can be helpful.

Cheers

SideFX Houdini Hive is going live this week ! 4 days of educational Houdini presentations - I'm very excited to contribute this year for the first time. I will be breaking down a few personal projects and explain how Houdini and its procedural features helped me creating these environments. Don't be stranger and swing by the youtube live to ask your questions !

My presentation is happening tuesday / May19 at 3pm EDT (12pm PDT, 9pm GMT).

The full schedule is available here :

https://www.sidefx.com/houdini-hive/houdini-hive-worldwide/

link to the youtube live : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3QEK6fV8W4

Personaly I'm excited to see some Solaris and procedural workflows !

 Hope to see you there !

My Showreel 2020 is out. Quick heads up : the edit, camera move, lighting music might cause you some epilepsy, headaches and/or potential brain damage... just sayin. I am based in France at the moment and available for work either remotely... or remotely.