Vertex Animation Textures 3.0 ROP is part of the FREE and open-source toolset in Houdini called SideFXLabs. Vertex Animation Textures (VAT) is an efficient and powerful solution to recreate complex and non-traditional animations in real time. Because VAT only uses textures and shaders to achieve the visuals on the GPU, it has a much lighter performance impact on the CPU, compared to traditional skeletal mesh animations. Compared to previous versions, VAT 3.0 offers more streamlined workflows, additional advanced features, and a lot more customizability. For more information on SideFXLabs and how to get the tool visit: https://www.sidefx.com/products/sidefx-labs/.

For VAT3.0 general workflows and features not specific to this mode, visit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zOyke6
VAT3.0 Soft-Body Deformation mode can work with metal, cloth, paper, plastic, vegetation, hair, characters, crowds, etc. (Captured in Unreal Engine 5. Simulation by Jeffy Mathew Philip.)

Please refer to this example file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18dWQ-5kj-Ia99NJ5vGR1qQeUo2ur4oHt/view?usp=drive_link