Hi,

1) When I install Houdini, the installer is asking me to install Unreal, Unity or Maya plugins. Once done, if I want to re-install a plugin or add one to a DCC I didn't do the first time, I need to install Houdini again.

2) If I install Houdini Engine using the installer, I don't get the choice to install the plugins for DCCs. But inside the install folder of HE, there is many files about that DCCs. For example: ..\Houdini Engine 16.5.268\engine\unreal.

What is the interaction between Houdini, Houdini Engine and the plugins???

I'm asking because I want some of our artist to use the Maya plugin and Houdini Engine. I don't want them to install Houdini at all. Actually, I would like them to not even install Houdini Engine but just have it deployed with their other tools. The Licence Admin could be installed silently.

Am I making myself clear enough? Also…

Why is Houdini asking to install plugins in a separate dialog. Could it be in the list with Main Application, Comercial Server, etc???

Could we have standalone installer for Maya, Unity and Unreal plugins?

How can I setup an artist Maya environment to enable Maya Houdini Engine pluging with Houdini Engine and not having him to install Houdini.

Clarification of these would be greatly helpful.

Christian

EDIT: After checking with the devs and running through the setup, step 5 isn't needed. As long as you set your MAYA_MODULE_PATH as suggested below then Maya will pickup the correct module file depending on the version of Maya being opened.

Hi Christian,

The answer can be found in a couple of different places so I'll try and summarize the setup here. But I would suggest reading through:
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hengine3.0/_h_a_p_i__integration.html#HAPI_Integration_EngineInVersionControl [www.sidefx.com]
and
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/maya16.0/_maya__install.html [www.sidefx.com]

If you are running Windows you can use the command line installer to only install the required files for Houdini Engine from the Houdini installer exe. The Houdini Engine installer will eventually be deprecated for this method.

1. On every artist's machine you would need to run the following command. This will install the necessary files to communicate with the license server. It takes up about 250Mb on the users machine.

2. Set the license server. You could probably put this line and the previous one in a bat file to make it easier for artists to install.

3. Install Houdini Engine to a shared location. This is a subset of the full Houdini installation. Note the /EngineMaya=Yes - change this to any other plugins you need. ( /EngineUnreal=Yes /EngineUnity=Yes /EngineMaya=Yes )

4. Set your MAYA_MODULE_PATH environment variable. This is the most flexible method of setting this up. Double check if the folder is called engine or Houdini Engine; I forget.

5. The installer by default sets an absolute path inside the module description file. I would suggest changing it to a relative path if your shared location is a perforce depot or similar setup that would cause the path to change based on the user. Open up \\shared_location\HoudiniInstall\16.0.705\engine\maya\maya2017\houdiniEngine-maya2017.mod
and change the PATH to a relative path. You would need to do this for each version.
PATH+:=../HoudiniInstall/16.0.705/bin

And that should be it, I think. I might have something wrong on the module file section so please let me know if it works or not.

Mike

Hi Mike,

This is great and worked perfectly

Many thx for this explanation!

C

That's fantastic! And did you change the PATH to a relative value?

awesome, I got it