This Asset allows Interactive Drawing of Random Scaled Boxes or Lots in the viewport for quick Whiteboxing. It can also be used as an interactive Decorator for a scene (placing trees, banks or anything you have in your model props)

This asset will cache the last input before drawing a new stroke. Dive inside the asset and you can control what happens to the drawn Boxes or Polygons.

Internal this asset uses the stroke SOP. A Data Parameter to store the 3D Data and a small Python Script to load the Cached Data back.

Disable Custom Cache and dive inside the target. Add the building generator to the Color IDs.

Load the file $MCITY/examples/drawBuildings.hip

Dev Note: We want to put this option of the mbBuildingLayouter.hda as a Shelf tool but unfortune it is that houdini doesnt care if we modify the PROCESS subnet within this asset. Might need to put it as an unlocked asset in the shelf so we have this as a preset.

Use mbLayouter - Draw Buildings for a preset. (TODO: This is not implemented yet)

Set the HDA to draw Rectangles. Dive inside the asset and use the mbDecorator to place Geometry onto the Drawn Rectangle

Use mbLayouter - Decorator for a preset with some fountains and general street decorations such as trashcans etc. (TODO: This is not implemented yet)

The Draw Tools come with their own custom Shelf Tools and Radial Menu to quickly change between modes and operations. This allows for a quick workflow for removing and adding operations or turning on or off Snapping functionalities.

Note: Make sure the radial Menus are installed in the Houdini Home Folder. The current houdini.env Setup does not include a radialmenu path to look at.

Tools:

• Draw Boxes can draw boxes and postprocess boolean operation and cache the output within one node and the viewport.
• Draw Rectangles will draw 2d Rectangles with Y as up.

Stroke Settings:

• I C R P X Stands for Color Codes and is for future development and identifing what post operation should happen after the process has been finished. Doubleclick the node to enter the postprocess edit mode where building generators can be added or any operations can be performed to the different color IDs.
• Random Height will add random Heights from a seed. The attribtue will be stored as zscale. Different operation can be performed such as add, multiply or set the values. An option can be enabled to change the seed parameter randomly per stroke.
• Snapping: The curve can be snapped to a grid.
• Stroke Cache: This will show all current strokes in the buffer. If autocache is on only the last stroke will be present as the others output has been cached onto a data parameter. Reset all cache will delete eveything including the cached geo. if you want to remove the last stroke disable it and draw a new stroke.

Options:

Pack Generation at end: The postprocess will be packed at the end and cached. (For Packing big post process operations to save memory on the cached data)

Enable Cache Preview when Drawing: If disabled no preview of the cached geo will be seen while drawing. only showing you the current stroke. once the poststroke happens it will bake back the cached geo. This was put in when big post process operation happen such as generating a building per drawn rectangle. somtimes houdini can lag out when previewing or showing big polygon counts in the viewport.

Dev Data:

Should not be touched. Parameters wont affect anything but are needed for the stroke tool to work in the viewport. These will later be turned invisible.