I'm agree with you maztec about the custum system, in our studio we use a highly customized debian system, but this is only possible if you've and sysadmin dedicated to maintein the systems.
I understand john, if you don't have a person dedicated to maintein systems you need some support from another company so in thios cases is better to use a standar system.
The important in our systems the package that provides the libdb that uses houdini is: libdb1-compat.
This is for debian sarge/testing, the version of the library is 2.1.3-7.
Is a package for backward compatibility with glibc 2.0/2.1
I hope this helps

Thanks Antoine, the Trail SOP works like i expects, i make a mistake when i supose that a linear segment is equal to constant velocity, sorry about my maths mistake, this is only true in some cases, when the relation between frames and space is always the same.

I have a simple SOP network that has a circle, then a transform and for the end a trail SOP, the transform is animated in the tx channel, it has two keyframes, one in the beggining and the other in the end frame. The animation curve is linear, so i supose that the velocity is constant.
But in the trail SOP i use Compiute velocity and the rest of the parameters in their default values, if a use a spreadshet to see the velocity atribute along the animation i can see that for the first 76 frames the velocity is constant, 1.75, but from this frame the velocity isn't constant, if the animation curve that govern the animated chnnel is linear the velocity must be constant, or no??
Please some clues
Thanks

Hi all.
I'm trying to make a ‘fog sea’ with particles, i need to fill a great enviroment . Now i have an average of 80.000 particles in scene per frame.
I found some troubbles.
1-Can houdini make perform parallel in a dual box when cookin a POP net??
By default it can't, i think this would be very important to save time.
2-If i am in POP it needs to cook, then i go to SOP to change the shader, and at least i go to OBJ to see the final scene, in every step houdini needs to recook all the particles, even if i use CHANGES in the cook options, i don't understand why too many recooks.
3-If i am dealing with a large scene in what way can i optimize the workflow?
Baking particles with a Geometry ROP is one option, but if you are changing the animation of the particles this method doesn?Lt work. The cache option kills your memory for large heavy scenes. Any other options????

Thanks

Hi all.
In the last two mounths i'm having problems with the houdini mailing list:
sidefx-houdini-list@sidefx.com

I receive the messages but i can`t send any mail to the list, i send the mail and it simply doesn?Lt appear in the list.

Is anybody having the same problem???

Thanks

Yes i'm agree with you john but i'm getting some troubbles with the renderman configuration under linux.
In past posts we discussed how to integrate renderman in houdini, with the OTL and using the -L in the rmands all works…with version 6.0.286, but two months ago we've installed 6.0.340, and our olds otl for the shaders doesn't work properly, you can crete a new SHOP with the otl, but the parameter pane appears blank , i've posted some messages in this forum and in the mailing list, but not get any answer.
How do you integrate your shaders under houdini?? (specially with 6.0.340)
I've used the old method and it works! but when i try to render with prman appears a black picture(with mantra appears fine, so lights are right), the rib appears to be right, it should be any stupid config troubble, you get this troubbles when you begun to use houdini with renderman???

Thanks for your advices.

Responding craig you can generate z-buffer image from renderman in alias depth format that can be loaded into shake, now you can composite with Z-Buffer.
Thanks to dajuice, now i can use the fog cop, but can't still generate z-buffers, if i generate a plane with Pz it shows the same results if that i generate a z-image, all white. Generating z-images can be useful because i can save it in a tif image an use later in other application, for compositing.

So i can make a Z-image from houdini in tif format???
I think i can use the -Z or -z parameters and in the output format use tiff, sgi or similar???
The problem is that the Fog COP suposes that the input image have Z channel, so if i have the z info in other file i need to copy this info to the z-channel in the original image to get an image with z-channel, no?
I can do that with halo??
With the Z-images generated in houdini .pic format, the problem is that when i see it in mplay, the z-channels appears only white(all the pixels have the value 1), have anibody suffered the same problem???

Hi all
I'm trying to make a fog effect using the Fog COP.
It seems that it need a z-depth image in the input two to compute the fog, more concretely the doc says that a point or depth plane is requiered.
For the depth plane i'm trying to render a z-depth image, in the doc i've read that using the argument -z or -Z with mantra it renders a z-image, but i get a white image when i look-up in the z channel of the rendered image.
The scene is well because i can render it normally in rgba channels.
Anibody knows what could be problem???, i need a z-image for the Fog COP?? or the terms point and z planes are refered to any other thing???
Thanks

Hi all, i'm tourning from version 6.0.286 to 6.0.340, all works fine but my
otl library for my renderman shaders that i used with 6.0.286 don't work properly under 6.0.340.
I can install the otl library but when i create a new SHOP using ne of my shaders in the parameters pane the parameter dialog for the shaders appears blank, i can load the SHOP but the parameters disappears.
I use to make the otl the next command line
rmands -p -g 8 -L OPlibRMan.otl *.slo

Any clue???
Thanks

Houdini is not tested for RH 9
Use a RH 7.X distribution, or a distribution with the same libc version, like debian woody.
Your problem is the libc version.

Yes, but i want to install it for all the users, if there is another, easier, way to install the new OTL, please tell me.

Thanks everybody for this help, i could put my shaders into houdini 6 !
I've used the new metod is more flexible, although the use of old and new style could be useful.
For the new style i follow the advices from the forum and use rmands -L to make an otl file:
rmands -p -g 10 -L OPRmanlib.otl *.slo
I've put this otl file in $HFS/houdini/otls directory and add a line to the liboptions file, now i can't remember the name of this file but it is located in $HFS/houdini and describes the paths for the otl's libs files, add a line for the otl and the work is done
Maybe if i have enough time i make a little howto for this theme.
Thanks again

Thanks, i'll check the videos
Any updated documentation about rmands??

Hi again.
I have tried the old way, and it works fine.
Now i'm creating new OTL's for the RMan dialogs.
I've generated my OTL file with:
rmands -L OPlibRM.otl *.slo
This is command correct???
I put the new OTL OPlibRM.otl in $HFS/houdini/otls, reboot houdini but in the SHOP's generators don't appear any of my shaders
Is there any documentation about OTL's, how to create, install and use???

Thanks

Thanks for all the info, so at the moment there are 3 ways to integrate RMan shadesr into haoudini:
-The old, shaders only in the object parameters.
-In cluding shaders in the SHOP.
-Usin the new OTL's.
I think that the easiest way is the last, is OTL's well documented??
A great error in houdini's doc is that it only explains the old way, it must be updated.
A place where i can find documentation about how to make my own SHOP's and OTL's??? I think if i can make my own SHOP's and OTL's i can integrate perfectly ours shaders.
Thanks, i'll be back with my results

Hi all
I'm integrating houdini6 - linux and renderman, now i can render with houdini, but i don't have dialogs for my own shaders.
For the dialogs i've looked in the help and a few tutorials and i tried the next:
I have my shaders for example in: /usr/local/lib/shaders/surface, /usr/local/lib/shaders/displacement,
/usr/local/lib/shaders/light and /usr/local/lib/shaders/volumetric
I tried to generate the dialogs for example for surface shaders:
rmands -d /home/pablo/houdini6/config/Scripts /usr/local/lib/shaders/surface/*.slo
With this i get a file, with the same name of the shader but without the .slo extension, for every shader. These files are the dialogs.
In the manual is said that this command generates for example a RMshader.ds (depending of the shader type), where all the dialogs are concatenated. For me it couldn't generates this file, instead it generates a dialog for every shader in the shader derectory(these files doesn't have any extension), don't save it in my config/Scripts directory.
This is the first problem.

With this dialogs generated i tried to move it to my $HOME/houdini6/config/Scripts and to $HFS/houdini/config/Scripts, reboot houdini but there aren't any dialog for my shaders, only for the standars.
I tried to concatenate the generated dialogs to the RMshader.ds file in $HFS/houdini/config/Scripts too, but the result is the same.

The third problem is that there isn't any help for the rmands commands, the manual doesn't explain the different parameters and their functionality, only a brief exlanation about the -p and -d parameters.
I tried the -c option too,with the command listed above, but i get the next error:
Invalid file extension for -c
must be either .slo, .vma or .via

So my questions are: how can i generate my dialogs correctly?, where i must put this dialogs in order that houdini can use them?, what are the differents parameters and options that rmands support?

Thanks

Thanks Edward, i've tried it but it doesn't work.
I've made my own resources file in my $HOME/houdini6/confg/, then i sustitute for example:
DefaulFont System
by
DefaultFont Helvetica
reboot houdini but it didn't work, i change the font size too, but the same results
Any more clues, or i'm making any mistake???
Thanks

Hi all.
I want to change the default font type of the ui, as like as the size.
Now i change the font using the HOUDINI_UISCALE glob var, it's works but i like to change the font type if it posible, using any houdini's fonts.
I'm using houdini 6 under linux
Thanks