Just because Apprentice users aren't entitled to support from Side Effects doesn't mean you shouldn't post about valid bugs that you find. While Side Effects may not respond to your post, its still important that you post your bug. This way other users can workaround the problem, (and SESI fix it).

How do I know if what I'm experiencing is a bug?
This can be tricky. What some people may consider a bug, others may consider a feature. That's why if you are getting unexpected results its important to do a little research first. First thing do is read the help docs to see if the behavior you are experiencing is expected or not. If that doesn't turn up anything search the forums here or at od. It might be one of those “undocumented features”. Also, if you aren't running the latest version of Houdini you should try and download a more recent version. Its is quite possible that the bug has been fixed. Also, Houdini should never crash. So if Houdini is crashing, then its a bug, (with Houdini or with your video drivers). If its your video card causing the crash then Houdini probably won't be able to save out a backup hip file. (This is one way to know if the crash is Houdini or Video Card related.) While SESI can't fix video card driver issues, it is helpful for other users to see if people are experiencing problems with drivers. If it is Houdini that is causing the crash, try to reproduce the crash before posting. Odds are if Houdini has crashed it will dump out a hip file and a crashlog file to $TEMP. If you are having trouble reproducing the crash, but the crash is happening fairly frequently you should post roughly what you are doing when Houdini crashes along with the crash log. A crash log will look something like this.

$TEMP/crashlog_$USERNAME
Crash report from jim; FUSE Version 8.1.635
Traceback from Tue Jul 11 15:56:34 2006
Caught signal 11
UT_StackTrace::doTracebackIntoBuffer(UT_WorkBuffer&, UTsignalHandlerArg*, char c
onst*) (??:0)
UT_StackTrace::doTraceback(UTsignalHandlerArg, char const*) (??:0)
AP_Interface::coredumpHandler(UTsignalHandlerArg) (??:0)
UT_Signal::processSignal(int, siginfo*, void*) (??:0)
UI_MenuButton::endSelect(UI_Event*) (??:0)
UI_MenuButton::endSelect(UI_Event*) (??:0)
FUI_Toolbar::handleKeyboardEvent(UI_Event*) (??:0)
fuiKeyhitFeel::hitKeyboard(UI_Event*) (??:0)
UI_Queue::processNextEvent() (??:0)
UI_Queue::drain() (??:0)
UI_Queue::eventLoop() (??:0)
main (??:0)

I'm pretty sure I found a bug, now what?
Posting something like, “Omg! Houdini isn't giving me teh results I want when I wire the Box SOP into the Subdivide SOP! Its broken!”, won't get anything fixed. Be descriptive and provide step by step instructions if possible. A hip file that reproduces the problem is even better. When posting, please don't be hostile, the only thing that will result in is you being ignored.

I posted and no one said anything! You guys suck!
Don't take it personally. Posting replies to every post is time consuming and often we might not have anything to add to your post. But the fact that your post is in the forums and other users can read it is a good thing. Consider it good karma.

As an example, I'm going to post about an actual problem that I've run into. You don't have post tons and tons of images and files, but you do need to post enough that someone who has no experience with your problem can read your post and understand roughly what your problem is and how to reproduce it.


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Possible Bug
Houdini: 8.1.635 (Major.Minor.Build)
Distribution Build: Linux i686 gcc3.4, Windows i686, etc

I'm getting some strange results with reflectlight() when using the optional “angle” argument.

I'm using a straight reflectlight() call using P and normalize(N) for the direction. And I get the following results. (See image comments for settings.)

Some more sample images.

One more example image and a hip file.