Setting up variations - Houdini

Let's open the AtomsRobot.ma scene and unhide the RobotSkin2 group.

Now open the render setup window. You'll notice the scene already contains various render layers defining the agent type variations.

By activating each render layer you'll see how each one contains a different geometry combinations of your scene geometry. 

You can create other render layers for defining more combinations. Their names will become the variation names.
Please keep in mind the variation builder does not support render or material overrides, if you are planning to modify the material for a geometry on a render layer you should duplicate it and modify the new material.

If you are planning to add a LOD to a variation, please create a new variation layer and label it so that the name starts with the variation name followed by a double underscore ("__") and the LOD name.

Variation Builder

Once you are happy with your set up, please open the variation builder from the menu: Atoms > Variations > Variation Builder .

Then do the following:

• type "atomsRobot" in the Agent Type field.
• select the destination json file by typing its path or selecting it with a browser.
• Browse to the skeleton definition file that you can find in the Atoms Crowd data folder.
• Select the Hips joint under the robotSkeleton group and click the Refresh button.
• Check "Simple material conversion"
• Check "Bake Textures"

Leave everything else as it is and click on the Run button.
Your variations files will be be exported.

Variation Randomizer

Now open a new scene and initialize it. Then from the menu select  Atoms > Variations > Import Variation Json and browse to the json file you just exported.

Then do the following:

• create a new agent group
• add a grid layout and set the size (10, 1, 10) and space (200, 0, 200)
• add a variation module
• set the display type for your agent group to "variations"
• rewind the simulation. At this point you should see a grid of agents in bind pose
• open the variation randomizer: Atoms > Variations > Variation Randomizer
• select the atomsRobot item from the list on the left and press on the middle arrow button. 
• press the Run button and close the Variation Randomizer window.
• rewind the simulation and activate the hardware texturing (if disabled).

All your agents should have a variation now.

To double check which variation got applied to an agent, please select the variations module from the agent group UI in the Attribute Editor and open the override dialog for the "variation" field.