Hi!

I have installed the last apprentice version 9.1.179 on my windows Xp pro SP2 patform and first thing i Know is that the software installed by himself the japanese/chinese version ????? I can't even understand how to validate the license… Is it possible to install houdini into the language I WANT ??? not a random language I can't understand…. Here"s a picture of the screen I get when I try to run the software, so maybe someone could confirm what language it is also ???

It's the English version you have, but it looks like you have a video driver problem which is mangling all the fonts. What video card / driver version are you using?

thanks for your reply,

I am using the Nvidia driver 169.21 on a BFG 7800GT… I also use the same exact driver on my 2nd computer with a 6600GT and there was no problem at all during installation… I installed houdini on that computer to see if I'll get the same problem and I had no problem to install and validate the license on that computer. I would prefer by far to install it on my main computer because this one is by far stronger to my 2nd one and that one would take age to render anything. If I look closely, it really look like oriental caracters. I don't understand how it could be related to a graphic card driver issue ? I am also wondering what font I see as I have so many installed and mainly WHY houdini is using that font by default…

It is a system issue, and unrelated to language. Twod responded so firmly because this isn't the first time we've seen it - it's related to a munged install or driver of some kind. If you happen to find any Asian user that agrees with you this is an alphabet, I'd love to hear about it.

I'm running an 8800GTX and I *was* running the same card as yours on another system and never saw that. I'm currently running 169.25 and it's fine. You might want to try upgrading the driver and see if that helps, or if you have any notion that you installed something that fiddled with fonts on your system, that might be a clue, too. It probably won't help, but also reinstall houdini, and rename $HOME/houdini9.1 too in order to get those things out of the way.

Cheers,

J.C.

I am just coming back from China, I have been there 5 weeks and just tought the caracters was really similar but as I can't read those languages, well I'm pretty sure you are right… The fact is when I came back, I reformatted my computer and installed with windows some asian languages because I have met few peoples there and I tought in a way it could be useful to install them… So I really tought the issue was related to this… I first uninstalled many languages and did re-install houdini many times also, always the same problem.

On the nvidia website, they still only have the 169.21 available for geforce 7… I am wondering where you have found your 169.25 ????

ForceWare Release 169 WHQL
Version: 169.21
Release Date: December 19, 2007
Operating System: Windows XP, Windows XP Media Center Edition
Language: U.S. English
File Size: 43.8 MB

thanks again,
Chris

Sorry, should have mentioned I'm running 64 bit vista, that might explain the difference. That's what currently comes up as the latest and greatest on their site for an 8800GTX on that platform.

It is distinctly possible that multiple languages being installed might be at the root of the problem, of course it shouldn't be. Then again, I had the gall to tell Vista I was Canadian and not American, which resulted in a default set of languages and prefs being installed without my asking which appeared to randomly reset my keyboard to some committee based ‘International English’ which promptly replaced a number of my characters (like the rarely used letter ‘e’ :roll: ) with European accented characters. Eventually I hunted it down and found out MS figured being Canuck I obviously spend my writing time constantly switching between Dutch and English(I guess) and set up a hotkey I didn't know about, which I finally hunted down and disabled. Oh sorry, rambling, still it's a nice MS story and it also goes to show that there's a way to go before even the largest OS company in the world gets their act together.

Cheers,

J.C.

LoL it's all good… I am not feeling at this time to re-format my pc with a fresh windows installation, as I did it last week and I am still in the way to install everything I need and houdini is not on the list of the softwares I am using. if there is no easy/quick fix for this problem, well I will put houdini on the side and will try it again next time I'll reformat my pc. 3 days ago, I didnt know what was houdini so it still can wait a while. I was more curious to see it in action, to see the power and the rendering time compare to others CG softwares and mainly, how user friendly is the interface…

Dunno maybe someone here have demos or project done with houdini I could watch to judge a lil bit more ?
the only reference I have is this: http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/gallery/herigstad.html [thegnomonworkshop.com]

I know chinese and though i dont know japanease and korean, i am familiar about the shape of their characters. I can assure u those are neither of them. from what i see, I guess it is corrupted display.

Check the Gallery, under Community, for images and sequences of stuff done in Houdini. Then also look under Learning for lots of video tutorials and the material in the Old School Blog.

MyraGe
Dunno maybe someone here have demos or project done with houdini I could watch to judge a lil bit more ?
the only reference I have is this: http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/gallery/herigstad.html [thegnomonworkshop.com]

Thanks to everyone, mainly to Rafal at Sidefx that FIXED my problem…



Talking further about my problem, I successfully register (validate) the license by following the same procedure then I did with my 2nd computer, as the layout was the same… After the validation, I noticed that not only the fonts were messing but also the icons… Here's few pictures:
Icons problem - image 1 [myrage187.com]
Icons problem - image 2 [myrage187.com]
Icons problem - image 3 - Close Up [myrage187.com]

When I showed those picture to Rafal at sidefx, here's the answer I got:
I just looked through your attachments of the Houdini window, and while there are no elements missing, all the icons share the same unfortunate fate as the fonts (ie, they are not rendered properly in the UI). This leads me to the conclusion that it is not the font issue, since the icons don't use fonts at all.

One thing that is common to fonts and icons is that they use texture mapping to draw themselves on the screen in Houdini. Therefore, there must be some issue with the graphics driver or some Windows setting that affects the texture mapping. Meanwhile, you could bypass the hardware OpenGL by setting an environment variable in Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Environment Variables. If you add HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE variable and set its value to 1, you may be able to get the proper UI.

Thanks again, the last sentence fixed my problem.
Icons problem - image 4 - Fixed [myrage187.com]

Wondering… Does this line could affect at all my Open_GL for the other software I am using ???

Nope.

J.C.

Why don't you downgrade your video card driver and see if it works better? Sometimes, the latest driver version might not play well. By setting the environment variable, you are not making use of your graphics card but your CPU instead.

Also, Houdini doesn't use Anti-aliasing so if you explicitly turn it on in the graphics driver, that might be a cause. The best is to set it to “Application controlled”. Just a wild guess.

Cheers!
steven

Also, Houdini doesn't use Anti-aliasing so if you explicitly turn it on in the graphics driver, that might be a cause. The best is to set it to “Application controlled”. Just a wild guess.

Houdini now warns you with a dialog box if you attempt to do that (luckily we can actually detect it).

Hi twod,

That's good to know.

Cheers!
steven