Hi folks, a sad newbie here; I had what I thought was a successful cached file. The node says, "cached", but the folder is empty; clearly, my setup is wrong, but I am having trouble, trouble shooting this. If I upload my file here , is it possible to get some direction? if that is not appropriate, can someone, please suggest what to do? I'm very bummed, and may go back to airbrushing ; ( ( anyone remember airbrushing, LOL), than you in advance, Craig

Put up a screenshot with your file cache node selected.

first off set up the project file (so everything gets saved into that project so everything is organized)

the all I do is name the cache node before going into it that way the name is auto placed but you can still change this inside the node, under the advanced tab, should show where it is getting saved.
for something not animated uncheck the simulation box set the "frame range" to "single frame" and near the top untick "time dependent cache" then press save to disk under the caching tab

remember if you move/rename the file outside of Houdini, it will no longer have the same file path to be able to find it, and you will then have to manually set the new file path.

also don't forget to join the nodes you want saving to the file cache node or it will have nothing to save.

Hi, and thank you so much for all of your help. Yes, I followed all advice. I was able to successfully cache and save. Thanks! I do have a couple of additional questions though: I am not clear on "constructed" and "explicit" formats, can someone please provided an explanation for me? also, I am searching in vain for a clear tutorial on applying Material X, or Arnold ( cant successfully install RS for H20, it may not be available for this version) to particles. Mark Fincher has some great tutorials for applying Material X to geo , but in my materials tree, the particles are points; I resaved my cache file as a begeo file, but it still doesn't work. I'd love nothing more than to be able to get this to work, or perhaps the best way to apply any material to a cached particle file for render. . Thank you in advance, CRaig
PS-one more thing , sorry. When I want to render an animation, or still, which network do I keep open, so I can see what is being rendered out, ? "object network" , I presume? maybe a dumb question, rather, which nodes have the blue flag ticked, is it my null/OUT node,? or the file cache node? thanks to all for your sage advice, Craig