Hi everyone,

I'd like to share a small but useful tool I've built for Houdini: an automatic thumbnail generator that creates a PNG preview of your scene every time you save your .hip file.

🔧 What it does:

On save, it captures a viewport screenshot and saves it as
YourScene_thumbnail.png next to your .hip file.

It works with any Houdini project — no setup required.

Perfect for visual version tracking, asset libraries, or Perforce integration.

🛠 How to install:

Just drop the script into your scripts/456.py (or add to an existing one).

Detailed steps are included in the attached README.

This was created as part of a workflow that integrates Houdini with P4One (Perforce GUI), where visual thumbnails for .hip or .fbx files are missing — but it's generally useful even without Perforce.

Let me know if you have any suggestions, questions, or ideas for improvements!

Cheers,
Pavel Dostal

Without testing this, might it be better to have this in a HOUDINI_PATH/scripts/afterscenesave.py script instead of 456.py?
https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/hom/locations.html#run-scripts-before-and-or-after-saving-the-scene-hip-file [www.sidefx.com]

Pavel Dostal
Hi everyone,

I'd like to share a small but useful tool I've built for Houdini: an automatic thumbnail generator that creates a PNG preview of your scene every time you save your .hip file.

🔧 What it does:

On save, it captures a viewport screenshot and saves it as
YourScene_thumbnail.png next to your .hip file.

It works with any Houdini project — no setup required.

Perfect for visual version tracking, asset libraries, or Perforce integration.

🛠 How to install:

Just drop the script into your scripts/456.py (or add to an existing one).

Detailed steps are included in the attached README.

This was created as part of a workflow that integrates Houdini with P4One (Perforce GUI), where visual thumbnails for .hip or .fbx files are missing — but it's generally useful even without Perforce.

Let me know if you have any suggestions, questions, or ideas for improvements!

Cheers,
Pavel Dostal

Hello! This tool is great. Thank you for sharing.
Can I disable the pop-up that shows up whenever I save?