Cable Generator for HoudiniÂ
This is the cable generator that can generate simple cable with a curve node. The purpose of the cable generator is to make cables for environment art. It does not have to be super complicated because there are a lot of cables going around the environment and players are not going to be closed to the mesh.
For this one, I have to make a UV system to snap them on the grid and parameter for how smooth and big are cables going to be. It also has a vertex color on it, but I decide not to use vertex color because it costs a lot in UE4 and the differences is barely visible.
This is a creating mesh part. Generating simple Mesh is an easy part because the only thing that needs to be considered is how to make a skin based on circle node. Sweep spawns the circles on the point and sweep allows to create a cable skin through output -> skin output. Subdivide and the re-sample part are the parts that defines how smooth are cables going to be. I put the smooth controllers on null17 node. Houdini education version somehow doesn't allow me to create sub-network ;(
UV part was tricky because one primitive keeps connecting to the end and the start primitive. I had to disconnect the primitive from others, reUVing, and put it on the top. The UV system can decide how many cable textures are going to be in there, The last primitive is still buggy, but it is barely noticeable.
In Unreal Engine, I used TenLayerBlend node to create a material parameter. Red channel is for energe light, Green for Metal, Blue for Plastic, and Alpha for two titanium textures. I made two titanium textures from substance designer.
This is the final version of how cables are like. With the cable generator and RGBA mask, you can generate various cables fast.