egMatLib - A Material Library for Houdini

A Material Library for Houdini Mantra, Redshift and Arnold

Features:

• Lightweight (Houdini-native) storing and loading of node networks
• Save Redshift Material Builders, Principled Shaders, Mantra Materialbuilders and Arnold Materialbuilders
  • Inside this nodes all objects are supported
• Favorites
• Adding and removing of categories
• Searchable tags (use t: as a modifier ) and material-names
• Open database (.json)
• Material Preview
• open HDAs for Redshift and Mantra for custom preview-images
• Deletion of entries from the database (deletes also from disk)
• Edit multiple materials at the same time via the Details-Pane
• Easy adjustable custom preview and rendersize
• ACES 1.2 support (Redshift Native, Mantra & Arnold need $OCIO)
• Right Click Menus for adding materials quickly from the network pane
• Importing to current network location (pwd()/matnet)
• Double Click or right click for importing Materials into the scene
• Easy installation with packages (see below)

Compatibility

• Tested on 19.5.334 on Ubuntu 22.04
• Houdini Indie only (open HDAs for rebuild if desired)
• Tested with Redshift 3.0.59
• Other builds might work
• Python 2 support
• Python 3 support

Installation

• Download or Clone this repository and unzip
• Copy the provided MatLib.json to your houdini19.0/packages folder
• Edit the line /home/elmar/MatLib to the location of your downloaded folder, e.g.: G:/Git/MatLib
• Start Houdini

Usage

• Open Pane (MatLib)
• On first usage the pane will prompt you for a directory:
  • Choose a safe directory --> this is where all your data will be stored
  • You also can change this directory later from Library/Preferences
• Use buttons for import/export from library
• Right Click on Redshift Material Builder, Principled Shader or Material Builder to store a material
• Double Click on a Material in MatLib-Pane to import
• Use the table view to the right for edit of currently seleted material
• Search Function also can search tags with t:yoursearchstring

Additional

• You can move the directory by hand on disk if you need to
• Do not (!) edit the .json file by hand if not needed
  • you have been warned ;)

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to Rich Nosworthy for providing the ShaderBall-Setup - https://www.richnosworthy.tv

Contact & License

• Found a bug? please open an issue