Reference Create Shelf Tool window

When you drag multiple nodes to the shelf, Houdini will create a shelf item that adds copies of the dragged nodes to the current network. These options control how the nodes will be created.

Icon

Internal name, file path, or URL of the icon to use for the shelf item. Click the chooser button at the right end of the field to choose a file. Note that you can choose a file contained in a digital asset (click opdef: on the left side of the file chooser).

If you don’t supply an absolute path or URL, Houdini will look for the icon using the path in the $HOUDINI_UI_ICON_PATH environment variable.

You can use any an SVG file or any image format Houdini supports (such as PNG or .pic). The icon image should be square.

Houdini ships with a number of stock SVG icons. You can see bitmap representations of these icons in $HFS/mozilla/documents/icons/large. To specify a stock icon, use the form dirname_filename, where…

  • dirname is the directory name under $HFS/mozilla/documents/icons/large, such as OBJ, SHELF, or MISC, and

  • filename is the icon’s filename minus any extension. For example, OBJ_sticky specifies the standard icon for the Sticky object.

Houdini lets you automatically connect nodes to existing inputs and outputs by right clicking them. Since this new shelf item will create multiple nodes at once, it’s ambiguous which of the nodes should be connected to the input/output you clicked. The following pop-up menus let you choose which of the dragged nodes to use in these cases.

Input Node

If you right click a node output and choose the new shelf item from the menu (meaning you want to add the nodes to that output), this node will be connected to the output.

Output Node

If you right click a node input and choose the new shelf item from the

menu (meaning you want to add the nodes to that input), this node will be connected to the input.
Tip

You can edit additional options by right-clicking the shelf item and choosing Edit tool after you create it.