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Golaem opens Houdini and Unreal bridges

Bela Beier
03.08.2026
Autodesk has published Golaem’s Houdini and Unreal cache bridges under Apache 2.0, with procedural loading, Layout edits and no geometry bake.
A Golaem crowd simulation fills a 3D software viewport, with dozens of small human figures scattered across pale geometric platforms. Dark interface panels, toolbars, and asset thumbnails frame the scene, while soft gray lighting and long shadows create a clean, technical workspace.


For those who don’t know the tool: Golaem authors and edits crowd simulations in Maya within Autodesk’s Media & Entertainment Collection. Its bridges load caches in Houdini, Unreal Engine and USD render pipelines for downstream layout and rendering, without moving crowd authoring out of Maya.

Houdini and Unreal code goes public

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Autodesk/GolaemForHoudini/refs/heads/main/houdiniCapture.jpg

Autodesk has published Golaem for Houdini and Golaem for Unreal Engine as public source repositories under the Apache License 2.0. The open-source code includes build files and instructions for local compilation. The Unreal main branch currently identifies the plug-in as version 9.3.3. Its sample project targets Unreal Engine 5.4 in Win64. The repository currently has no packaged GitHub release.

Cache loading, not crowd authoring

The Houdini plug-in uses procedural geometry generation to animate geometry from Golaem simulation caches. The Unreal bridge reads, lays out and renders the same cache data. Both retain geometry and shading variation plus Golaem Layout edits without baking crowd geometry into the destination scene. Crowd creation remains in Maya.

USD was already open

Golaem for USD predates the two new repositories. Its plug-in code has been open source since Golaem 7.2.3, dated 28 February 2020. The plug-in uses USD Dynamic Payloads to generate crowd scene data procedurally in compatible applications.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Autodesk/GolaemForUSD/main/usdCapture.jpg

The same repository includes GolaemHydra, a generative procedural that emits Hydra prims directly instead of first generating USD prims. It has been tested with Storm and RenderMan XPU. The Golaem 9.3.2 tag is dated 17 June 2026. Updates dated June and July 2026 add Houdini 21 support, correct time offsets and address bounding-box crashes.

Building still means building

The Houdini build requires CMake 3.13 or newer, the Houdini SDK, the FBX SDK and a Golaem installation containing its devkit. The source tag must match the installed Maya plug-in version. The Unreal project also needs an installed Golaem version, Visual Studio project generation and 64-bit Windows. Studios still own compilation, regression testing and deployment.

Access and price

The bridge code uses Apache 2.0, while crowd authoring still depends on Golaem for Maya. Golaem remains exclusive to Autodesk’s Media & Entertainment Collection. US pricing is $345 per month or $2,790 per year.

Test before production

Test matching tags, host SDKs, cache versions, Layout edits, render delegates, motion blur and packaging on representative VFX shots before production use. A public repository helps. It does not replace a qualified build matrix.


https://www.cgchannel.com/2026/08/autodesk-open-sources-golaem-for-houdini-and-unreal-engine/
https://help.autodesk.com/view/GOLM/ENU/?guid=glm_golaem-932-20260722
https://github.com/Autodesk/GolaemForUSD
https://github.com/Autodesk/GolaemForHoudini
https://github.com/Autodesk/GolaemForUnreal

Bela Beier Author