I am trying to use a large compute cluster here and I want to be able to use environement variables for paths to geometry and texture maps (since they are different on the cluster and on my local machine). When I create my .ifd files, the environment variables that I have in the parameters of my OBJ nodes get expanded. Then when I go to render them on the cluster, they aren't variables anymore and the external files aren't found.

Any ideas on how to prevent Houdini from expanding the environment variables when I write the .ifd files?

Dave

I used the prerender script to temporarily change the environment variable value. That way when it writes out the .ifd file, it hard codes the correct path. Then the postrender script changes it back.

Is there a better way?

Maybe:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_mailarchive&Itemid=212&view=IDX&exactsubject= [sidefx.com]%20non-hardened%20environment%20variables%20in%20IFDs?&perpage=20&revdate=off

Those posts seem to say the best you can do is post process the ifd file with the editor of your choice. I was just hoping to avoid that.

I read it like:

Can you protect $VARNAME with \$VARNAME…

So the clusters would get the envar and expand it locally rather than the machine writing ifds.

I'll try this tomorrow, thanks.

I am having trouble in preserve my $JOB inside the ifd because it doesn't save inside the file, is there a way to do it?

Anyone?

Changing the question a little bit, why when I use the mantra command to render an IFD it doesn't recognize my environment variables like $JOB? Is that normal? I know that because my caches with $JOB mantra can't find.