Houdini Solaris Megascans USD Asset Builder (MaterialX) + Karma Lookdev HDA's

Introduction

This product consist on two HDA's for building and visualizing Megascans Asset as USD in Solaris Houdini with Karma and MaterialX.

It is only compatible with Houdini 20 and later. (Houdini 20.5 and later is recommended). Indie HDA's Only.

1. PB Megascans USD Builder

Build a Megascans asset simply by selecting the folder that contains the textures and variants of the asset.

You can set the asset name, specify if the asset includes a proxy, normalize the size (maximum size is 1 meter), set the geometry and material save paths for the USD, and define the geometry and proxy paths to determine how they will be read in the scene graph. All of these parameters can be adjusted without needing to rebuild the asset.

After pressing the "Build" button, a window will open with all the available options for the selected Megascans asset. In this window, you can choose the LOD for both the geometry and proxy, the geometry format, texture resolution, and texture format.

Once selected, you can choose to build either the geometry and material together or just one of them. This is particularly useful because the HDA allows the user to modify both the geometry and material after they are generated. For example, if you've modified the material but want to update the geometry with a proxy or different LOD, you can do so without overriding the material.

By entering the HDA (Double click on it), you will see three open nodes: PB_megascans_variants (Geometry Subnet), materiallibrary1 (Material Library), and material_assign (Subnet where material assignment is done). You can jump inside the material library to modify the material or for create new material variants.

Inside the material_assign subnet you can add as many material variants as you want.

2. Lookdev for Karma

Lookdev the Megascans asset in Karma render. Rotate the asset, offset it, change light exposure and launch an automatic render by just one click.This tool is asset-agnostic and can be used to lookdev any asset in Solaris, not limited to Megascans.

HDRIs included with these tools are from Poly Haven.

Please note, this product is in beta, meaning it is still under development and testing. You may encounter bugs, incomplete features, and performance issues.