Houdini Basics - Exporting to FBX - Tips and Tricks

[@BrynBit]

Nice video! I wanted to say "thanks" for taking the time to share the keyboard shortcuts. It's one of those things that can help people save so much time and often people teaching forget to share it for one reason or another.

[@hengshi]

How can I embed textures in FBX when exporting? I have textures assigned in the labs Quick Material node but the exported fbx does have material but no texture.

[@CinematographyDatabase]

Thanks for this one, I was trying to get the collision mesh into UE4 today through FBX and I kept trying to merge it, which is the UE4+HDA way. I didn’t realize that each Geo Node is a mesh.

[@aliengalaxy6096]

I made a topo transfer, I have that node and with the new geometry, when I export FBX in the same way I got error message in Maya

[@AlyonaSterkhova]

Hello, please tell why file - export - filmbox FBX doesn"t work? Not even highlighted for interraction?

[@carlosrivadulla8903]

if u select all geo nodes and go Assets > New Digital Asset From Selection is the same?

[@superochoo]

is this doable with the free versions of Houdini?

[@morphtek]

we need you to talk to guys that work on gamedev tools /labs to create a node that does this : when you plug in multiple geo nodes into it ,it can export all as separate objects files , also something of an import aswell ,ive seen theres a multi file import but it seems to work with fbx only

[@hotsauce7124]

Do you have a video teaching how to export a Houdini simulation as FBX and Alembic?

[@YuuJer]

how do you round trip an FBX with animation to unreal?

[@kalibrador]

Well I have been struggling with exporting to GLB format. I know you can export static meshes but can you get a deforming mesh to export as GLB? or is there a workflow involving Blender or something similar to achieve the result?

[@mephistonight2958]

Excellent video. Totally solved the exact issue I was having. Thank you!

[@IndiePixel3D]

Awesome! Yeah it's a little hidden and not very well talked about topic. Glad you liked it!:)

[@Monamagulakda]

why hda file in unity urp project get pink color.

[@0aux]

Will this allow me to put my geo into another file houdini file? if not, how do I do this because I can't figure out a way

[@IndiePixel3D]

Yeah you can import an fbx into houdini...you can also import a bgeo file using a rop_geometry_output node...or you can use the file->merge option to merge two hip files together.

[@evening8990]

great stuff, really helped quickly

[@YuuJer]

thanks for the vid! how would you export instances out of houdini with FBX but retain the instance info for it?

[@IndiePixel3D]

You mean keep each object separated rather than combined?

[@YuuJer]

@@IndiePixel3D like if you export a couple instanced boxes as FBX out of maya with 'preserve instances' importing that into unreal will import only 1 box, but have the other instanced boxes just copied around

[@IndiePixel3D]

@@YuuJer ah ok, I dont believe the fbx exporter in houdini supports the fbx instancing yet. At least I haven't seen anything about it in the docs or from side fx. That being said, you could export out your point clouds and instance the box onto the points in unreal, using either HEngine or writing some c++ or blueprint. That's what I do, created some tools that read point clouds from json files and instance uobjects onto those points.

[@YuuJer]

@@IndiePixel3D ooh that makes sense. thanks! while you're here, can I suggest a future video on how to round trip an animated FBX in and out of houdini?

[@philippaps44]

How would you export these as separate fbx files in an automatic way? if you had to do this for 100 items with different names - that's where i am right now

[@IndiePixel3D]

It can be done with some python...pdg is another way. If you go the python route, you would create a for loop. For each iteration run a python node to set the filename and path on a rop fbx node, then use the python to press the export button on the fbx node.

[@philippaps44]

@@IndiePixel3D took the pdg way in the end! Python is probably a simpler method.i will try that when I get the time. It weird there are no default options for this kind of thing though. Seems pretty standard

[@roberthexter3285]

@Indie-Pixel@@philippaps44 I'm attempting to go down the pdg root as it appears to make more sense from an infrastructure perspective for bulk processing, however.. I have 100's of assets, I process each one, I am splitting up(LODS), processing each in some manner and then need to export them out again, in a single fbx as previously they came in. I seem to be struggling to get them back into a single fbx, if I merge they aren't separate mesh objects, if I pump them into a subnet and export them out via pdg fbx export I get only one of the entities in the subnet not all of them. I cant find anywhere to select or tell it to export the entire contents of the subnet. This seems like bread and butter stuff that should be quite a bit easier than it is. Any Ideas?

[@hyunsulee1212]

@@IndiePixel3D hi Do you have tutorial plans for python export ? 😀

[@KuroArtArt]

I do all this but it doesnt export for some reason

[@kkc9]

Amazing! Thanks a lot!

[@anmcopico4228]

What about UV? I need to export my dynamics out to maya , no idea how export it with UV.

[@IndiePixel3D]

If you have uvs assigned to your meshes already then the rop fbx node will export them. If you dont have any uvs assigned then you can make them with the uv unwrap node, the uv layout node, the auto uv node, the uv project node, or the ivy flatten node. You can also use the side fx labs nodes to produce uvs. Once they are assigned the fbx node will export them

[@anmcopico4228]

@@IndiePixel3D Yeah , I've watched your another video and it worked for me THANKS.

[@IndiePixel3D]

@@anmcopico4228 no prob

[@anmcopico4228]

@@IndiePixel3D i have one doubt , when I'm exporting single frame (current frame option) , it exporting with uv details and i can add a material and texture also previous textures perfectly fits in Maya, but when trying with frame range (with same settings) it doesn't have any details.

[@IndiePixel3D]

@@anmcopico4228 hmmm...at what point in the graph are you adding the details? Might need to move it up or down in the network so it is retained.

[@ameet21]

how can u export object with UVW map with material?

[@IndiePixel3D]

If your mesh that you created in houdini has uvs they will be picked up by the top fbx node. To export materials you need to add a labs quick material node right before your rop node and assign a material name and textures. You can also add the attribute...shop_materialpath to your mesh and provide a path to your material and itll get picked up at export.

[@AnthonyRosbottom]

@@IndiePixel3D Does Houdini support 'per face material assignments' when it outputs the fbx? (thinking of buying Houdini Indie but haven't yet)

[@IndiePixel3D]

@@AnthonyRosbottom if you put the individual face sets into groups then you can...

[@IndiePixel3D]

Also of you use the labs material node theres a group dropdown...making it easy to assign mats to different parts of your same mesh.

[@AnthonyRosbottom]

@@IndiePixel3D Excellent! Thanks for the swift and comprehensive replies!

[@desocrate]

It took me forever to find out how to do this - My current workflow is to use Alembics as they come in as separate objects - this is going to save me a lot of pain. Why does Houdini like to export at a scale of 0.01 ? I thought it Houdini was supposed to be in meters, not centimeters ?

[@AnthonyRosbottom]

Don't know how far you got but I found out recently that alembic doesn't support materials. not sure about the scale thing but weirdly, fbxs from Maya have the same issue.

[@roberthexter3285]

@@AnthonyRosbottom Alembics as purely a lightweight data representation, they are a vertex cache file, used for nothing other than fast rendering in a lightweight manner.

[@rinetto2]

とても助かりました！

[@nictanghe98]

export as fimbox fbx is grayed out.

[@IndiePixel3D]

If you are using the apprentice version of houdini then you can only export to obj or bgeo.

[@TalkThisOut]

ty fam love ya!

[@egretfx]

Thank Yuuuu!!!

[@arakul9615]

What about RBD animation&

[@IndiePixel3D]

Ah, take a look at the Rbd to Fbx node in the side fx labs tools www.sidefx.com/tutorials/game-tools-rbd-to-fbx/

[@welsonjim8618]

exactly want I want after I search a lot on internet

[@IndiePixel3D]

Yeah, theres not a ton of info for exporting from houdini...there is the documentation, but it's a bit rough.

[@ABSD30062]

no animation

[@IndiePixel3D]

One would use Kine FX for that in Houdini