I am trying to install arnold in Houdini 19.5.805.


I am getting the error in the Houdini console popup when Houdini starts, "Cannot determine preloaded icons for shelf: <hou.Shelf 'arnold'>"



I added the following lines in my Houdini env file to configure houdini

{
"enable": true,
"env": [
{
"HTOA_DIR": "C:\Users\myusername\htoa\htoa-6.2.5.2_r2dd89ed_houdini-19.5.805"
},
{
"HOUDINI_DSO_ERROR": "2"
},
{
"HOUDINI_PATH": "$HTOA_DIR"
},
{
"PATH": "$HTOA_DIR/scripts/bin"
}
]
}



I tried another method of adding following lines to my houdini env file, (and removing the ones mentioned about), but I get the same problem.



# htoa config start
PATH = "$PATH;C:/Users/myusername/htoa/htoa-6.2.5.2_r2dd89ed_houdini-19.5.805/htoa-6.2.5.2_r2dd89ed_houdini-${HOUDINI_VERSION}/scripts/bin"
HOUDINI_PATH = "C:/Users/myusername/htoa/htoa-6.2.5.2_r2dd89ed_houdini-19.5.805/htoa-6.2.5.2_r2dd89ed_houdini-${HOUDINI_VERSION};&"
# htoa config end

This is the .json I use to load Arnold, works fine:

{
"env": [
{
"PATH": "<path_to_arnold>/htoa-6.2.5.0_r82d49d1_houdini-20.0.547/scripts/bin"
}
],
"path": "<path_to_arnold>/htoa-6.2.5.0_r82d49d1_houdini-20.0.547"
}

Still getting this error. I removed the lines from the env file and edited yours with the relevant paths.




My json is

{
"env": [
{
"PATH": "C:\Users\myusername\htoa\htoa-6.2.5.2_r2dd89ed_houdini-19.5.805\htoa-6.2.5.2_r2dd89ed_houdini-19.5.805\scripts\bin"
}
],
"path": "C:\Users\myusername\htoa\htoa-6.2.5.2_r2dd89ed_houdini-19.5.805"
}

Hmm, that should definitely work! Did you check to make sure you've got a Houdini build that Arnold supports?

Yes. I'm using 19.5.805, the exact version that the setup is for. The setup filename is htoa-6.2.5.2_r2dd89ed_houdini-19.5.805_windows.exe

Do you have any other renderers loaded, RenderMan, Redshift...? Sometimes those can cause conflicts.

I don't have any other renderers installed at the moment. I had redshift but then I removed its json and removed its entries from the env file as well.

I'm out of ideas then! Only other thing I thought of is checking the console/terminal for any warnings or errors. Other than that, may be time to contact Arnold support.

Thanks a lot for your prompt responses. Really appreciate. I'll post my queries on Autodesk forums also.

Hello,

I didn't install HtoA before, but there's a couple of things that would help if you check them in your situation :

1. Does the specified path exist at all ? in some places you are writing "htoa-6.2.5.2_r2dd89ed_houdini-19.5.805" two times in the same file path, and in other places one time. Maybe they do exist but it got me confused a bit.

2. Does the the specified path has the expected folders that look like "otls", "soho", "dso", "toolbar" etc... ? Just like ones that you can find under your HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR.

3. In lots of situations, Houdini doesn't like back slash "\" in file path as it could escape some characters, so always use forward slash "/" in package file.

Hope this helps.

Postponed troubleshooting this issue for a while as nothing seemed to help. Tried installing the newer version yesterday. The issue got fixed. However, I am using Redshift now and now Arnold is interfering with the loading.

I modified the env file removing all arnold related lines and by adding the line HOUDINI_DISABLE_PLUGIN_LOAD = Arnold but I am getting this popup at startup. How can I remove this popup?

I think that's because the shelf tab is still there but it's empty. If you delete the Arnold tab does that fix it?

Epic epic epic! That did it! Thank you so much !!