Hi.
I am a new user to Houdini, coming from a Max background of about 8 years.
I am really digging the workflow with Houdini, but I am having a couple of issues with fire.
Here is what I am doing:
ctrl-click to create a fire container,
ctrl-click to create a sphere,
move the sphere towards the bottom of the fire container,
with sphere selected, click Source from object, click the container, enter,
create a camera nad a mantra render node,
scrub ahead a few frames to cook and solve.

Now when I render, the console window pops up saying:
Unable to load texture "

Just one quotation mark, nothing else.
Secondly, it looks like poo.
When I increase the Uniform Divisions (AutoDOPNetwork->fire node), it looks like hi-res poo.
Specifically, the fire is a white blob with a thin yellow and red band.
In the MPlay window, if I adjust the Bright Shift I can get a little more color info, but it is still a blob.

I've been playing with some of the setting in the fire node and materials, but to not much avail.
I know there is not a one-click solution to anything, but I haven't been able to find much info on fire (tons of info on smoke though, which works fantastic)
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
And why does Houdini say it can't load this mystery quote-mark texture?

Oh, and in case it matters, I am running 9.5.379, 64 bit on XP.

Thanks.

create a light and use depth map shadows, any kind of fluid in houdini needs a light to look like it should be

I got confused by this some time ago. After you have setup your fire container/scene. Jump contexts from OBJ to SHOPS and look at the parameters, there is a texture map file browser. Hit the file browser and naviagte to /houdini/pic/flameramp.rat

Now you wont get the cannot load texture in the console, now play with the emission slider (lower it) and it will start to look gasoius and not “high-res poo”

Have fun!

Ragu!

Thanks, Ragu.
That took care of the missing texture warning.
I've been setting things on fire all day (mostly teapots) and I started playing about with some of the material settings, and indeed it it looking less poo-ish.
Strikes me as odd that the defaults for smoke come out so nice, but fire is blown out. No mater. I'm figuring it out.

Side note: I have *really* been digging the overall workflow.
My only complaint so far would be that the documentation can be a little…cryptic.

Also:
SHOPs flame icon gone,
was there before but not now,
but things still burn nice.