Hi all.

I have had good success “talking” to houdini through a c#(mono) socket.
It would seem that it is much faster, than using hcommand or hython.


when i send hscript through the socket, there is no problem.
but when I send python command as :

<?xml version='1.0'?><python_statements>print “hello world”</python_statements>


i have a problem :

I can manipulate houdini, but I can not seem to return values back down the socket. The values are however printed in the houdini python terminal
This is not the case with hscript, which works fine.

I would like to get vertex info (position,color,uv)

I know how to do the with python, but as I have mention, I am not getting the return values through the socket

My problem can have two solutions (preferably both) :

1. How do I query vertex attributes using hscript ?
2. How do I make houdini python send outputs through the socket.

I a still learning this stuff, so there are still gaps in my knowledge .

I would really appreciate some pointers on this.

PS : I am on Mac

also it would be great if someone could share knowledge on accessing hou modules from python and other languages such as maya,xsi etc

I do not remember exactly what the code is, but you can add a python folder to your interpreter via the sys module (sys.append I believe) I have been able to import maya.standalone inside of houdini in that fashion

I would like to reframe this question as it seems to have gone a little off-topic.

The purpose of my enquiry is to enable Houdini RPC in .NET applications through a network socket.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.sockets.socket.aspx [msdn.microsoft.com]

one thing that would really help for now is :

How do I query geometry properties(points/polys/etc) in hscript ?

Hey Rom, I apologize. To answer your second question, you can query attributes on a mesh with the following commands:

point() for point attributes,
prim() for primitive (poly) attributes
vertex() for vertex attributes

For example, point(“../yournode”, $PR, “Cd”, 0) would query the red channel of point $PR


I am not sure about your first question though.

mmm, I am aware of the python hou.geomerty.point/prim/vertex

Is there an hscript equivalent ?

If not a least I know.

The commands in my previous message are actually hscript

grayOlorin
..

For example, point(“../yournode”, $PR, “Cd”, 0) would query the red channel of point $PR


..

$PR .. stands for primitives . for points you better use $PT instead .


=P

Oops! Sorry you are right, $PT is tge variable for that example

awesome, awesome,
thanx guys

I'll have a crack at this tomorrow and give you some feedback.

…

mmmf, I'm not sure what I am doing wrong here.

In the textport :


point(“../box1”, $PT “Cd”, 0)

I get
Unknown command : point


are you sure this is hscript ?

It really should be able to work in the textport, remember I need to send this command from a external application.

In the list of hcommands in the docs, there is no command named point, prim or vert

what am I missing here ?

It would seem that point/prim/vert are expression functions that cannot be executed via RPC

ok I have figured it out

echo `point(“/obj/box/box1”,0,P,0)`

ie back tick the function

This will serve me ok, but I would really like to use python

I do not remember exactly what the code is, but you can add a python folder to your interpreter via the sys module (sys.append I believe) I have been able to import maya.standalone inside of houdini in that fashion