How to import a Houdini Heightfield as an Unreal Engine Landscape (on both UE5 & UE4)

In this video, I'm going to show you how to properly import a Houdini Heightfield into Unreal Engine. Here we won't use the Houdini Engine & rely on the usual Unreal Landscape workflow.
* Get Source: Files: / 65370495
* Get OpenLand: bit.ly/unreal-openland
* Houdini Terrain Tutorial: www.sidefx.com/community-main...
* Unreal Engine Terrain Size Guide: docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en...
* Join Our Discord: / discord
0:00 Intro
0:50 Why Houdini?
1:20 Our Workflow
1:45 Export the HeightMap
6:10 Import the HeightMap into Unreal Engine
7:38 Export flow-maps/splat-maps
9:18 Outro

[@jared9407]

Thank you for your help, this was really insightful. more tutorials on this stuff would be awesome! Looking forward to the next video!

[@sonofbryce]

Thank you for this succinct tutorial. Very helpful

[@istealpixel7371]

Thank you. I've been thinking about whether to try Houdini for a while now. If you ever have time for a detailed beginner tutorial, (creating landscapes in Houdini, texturing with all the maps) I would be happy :-)

[@AnandNanchahal]

How do you export the texture if created the overall look for the heightfield using COPs and then heighfield quickshade?

[@MAJmufin]

yo, update on the pricing at 1:04 . For students anywhere you can now get the student license for €/$75 for a year that can export the HDA's and such as compared to the current free version. You do need to show your student card i believe tho.

[@zregister]

How did you add the footprints in the sand?

[@valentina.ferran]

.r16 does not work. Is there a way I can hire you to export a height map I can use in UE5?

[@021shaw]

the .r16 extention on the rop render output shows as a corrupt .RAR type in my windows10, UE5.3 dont recognize it!

[@inskribe_]

great video, everytime I try to ROP_file output I get a cook error in sop_import node

[@LovelyBigga]

.r16 does not work for me..... .png works fine though any way to make it work

[@onhas]

Where is the secound part, where you use the slope texture from Houdini in Open Land?

[@stepanshnder1850]

Wow!! Does this mean it can work with standard unreal brushes???

[@DaMoustacheMan]

Hey,
Did you use a plugin for the landscape material or did you make it yourself ?

[@GDi4K]

It's OpenLand & I make it.
See: www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/openland-grass-customizable-game-ready-grass-system

[@stepanshnder1850]

How does it work with world composition???

[@jcdentonunatco]

thats what I was wondering too. But I'm guessing you can divide your houdini export textures into tiles, and then import them one at a time in unreal as individual landscape sections. Havn't tried it myself yet

[@DaMoustacheMan]

Where did you get the terrain from ?

[@GDi4K]

It was created from software called Houdini. Check the video.

[@DaMoustacheMan]

@@GDi4K you did the import SOP. I didnt understand that part. Where did you make the imported files ?

[@DavidB-rx3km]

Are you exporting a terrain out to Unreal or importing into Houdini??

[@GDi4K]

Importing into Unreal

[@peter486]

this product is simple to expensive i think and the 502 texture pixel limet makes it pointless to "test"

[@nikitakurbatov2541]

Why not just to import this landscape as HDA?
I believe it's easier to set masks for a landscape as layers inside the Houdini package, so you don't need to export splatmaps or heightmaps separetaly to create a landscape.
Your method has right to excist, but it has no difference from such software export methods like Gaea or World Machine.

[@pubudu781]

ohh nice, btw why won't use Houdini engine instead ? it gives almost everything inside Houdini to unreal.

[@GDi4K]

The question is then we need to have Houdini Engine installed. I have some clients, who just need terrains based on their requirements. With this setup, I can simply provide them these files(or the UE project) & they don't need to use the Houdini Engine.

[@pubudu781]

@@GDi4K ohh i see, make sense. however I personally prefer to work with Houdini engine it comes in really handy when setting up scattering and flowmaps later. however i really like the direction you taking with Houdini, would love to see more stuff in future.

[@GDi4K]

@@pubudu781 Oh yes. It's pretty. I am keep to play with the new Houdini tools for UE5.

[@ademelahel8061]

@@GDi4K Hey ! Thanks for your work :)
I'm wondering if you got any idea if it's possible to use your plugin with a landscape created with an HDA ? I tried with others method and it was not working, you may be my last hope.
Did you sucess to do it on a HDA created landscape @Azkatieal Zalakanear ?

[@GDi4K]

@@ademelahel8061 I didn't go through that direction. Will give it a go.