ZibraVDB Free Edition Now Available For Houdini Users

Zibra AI's ZibraVDB, introduced last year, is a new solution for compressing volumetric data in the OpenVDB format. It was designed to overcome the limitations of traditional real-time rendering methods, which often struggle with massive data requirements, long rendering times, and quality loss due to compression.

ZibraVDB allows users to compress VDB files in Houdini or EmberGen and efficiently decompress and render them in real-time within Unreal Engine 5. Last week, Zibra AI announced that ZibraVDB is now integrated directly into Houdini for all users, including those on the free version, and offers a seamless drag-and-drop workflow between Houdini and Unreal Engine.

The cannon fire demo above was created by Magnus Larsson in Houdini and brought into Unreal Engine with ZibraVDB for compression and rendering. With this technology, alongside existing RBD workflows like VAT or Alembic, you can simulate destruction and smoke together and bring them directly into game engines for virtual production and in-game cinematics.

Here are some key updates from this new version:

• Linux support (compliant with VFX Reference Platform CY2025)
• Decompression no longer requires a license
• Plugin Management window for easier license management
• Removed limit on maximum voxel count (previous limit: 536 870 912)
• The original frame range of compressed sequences is now stored in output files
• Improved performance
• Improved error handling for compression, decompression, and licensing
• This update requires you to download a new version of the core library

For more details, check out the release notes and try the free edition of ZibraVDB for Unreal Engine 5.

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