Houdini plugin - Extensions

The plug-in is able to translate particle systems defined by the RealFlow particle importer (rf_particle_import node), meshes defined by the RealFlow mesh importer (rf_mesh_import node), RealFlow RenderKit mesher (rf_flowmesher node) or Houdini’s standard particle system (particle node) to the Maxwell scene using extensions. Houdini’s fur asset is also translated using the Maxwell hair extension.

Maxwell particle, mesh and hair objects have some special parameters which can be set in Houdini via detail or point geometry attributes. The following sections describe these parameters.

RealFlow particles

The following extra attributes can be defined with the RealFlow particle import node:

Name	Class	Type	Description
mb_factor	Detail	float	Multiplier for the particles motion blur value.
radius_factor	Detail	float	Multiplier for the original radius value of each particle.
per_particle	Detail	integer	Generates more particles from the original ones.
extra_dispersion	Detail	float	Distributes the newly generated particles with this dispersion value around the original particle.
extra_deformation	Detail	float	Specifies the generation method of the particles.

Houdini particles

The following extra attributes can be defined with a standard Houdini particle system:

Name	Class	Type	Description
lod	Detail	float	Level of detail value of the particle system in percentage (0 - 100).
mb_factor	Detail	float	Multiplier for the particles motion blur value.
radius_factor	Detail	float	Multiplier for the original radius value of each particle.
per_particle	Detail	integer	Generates more particles from the original ones.
extra_dispersion	Detail	float	Distributes the newly generated particles with this dispersion value around the original particle.
extra_deformation	Detail	float	Specifies the generation method of the particles.

RealFlow meshes

The following extra attributes can be defined with the RealFlow mesh importer:

Name	Class	Type	Description
mb_factor	Detail	float	Multiplier for the original motion blur value.
smooth_normals	Detail	integer (0\|1)	The mesh looks smooth regarding certain angle when enabled.
smooth_angle	Detail	float	Defines the angle below which the normals are interpolated, resulting on a smooth look.

RFRK mesher

The plug-in is compatible with RFRK mesher v2.2 (or above), no extra attributes can be specified.

Fur

The following extra attributes can be defined with the fur asset:

Name	Class	Type	Description
radius	Point	float	Radius of the hair points.
mb	Point	float	Motion blur factor of the hair points.
color	Point	vector	Color of the hair points.

Grass

The MaxwellGrass parameters are defined by a custom object node called Maxwell Grass. It requires a geometry object which is the source of the grass. The geometry can have the following extra attributes defined:

Name	Class	Type	Description
triangle_with_blades	Primitive	integer	Optional array to define which triangles of the modified mesh will have blades.