Coming from a range of other 3d applications I am currently trying to learn Houdini using the Digital-tutors tutorials. I am currently using Houdini Apprentice Free 9.5.142 and I have what I think is a real simple problem but can't find a solution as I don't know much about Houdini yet.

Using the basic_surface shader I am trying to load an external file as a colormap but when I try to Render it always says “Unable to load texture”. If I use the pictures that come with Houdini found in the $HFS/houdini/pic/ folder it renders ok but not with the files I've created myself.

For the files I have created I have tried various options like saving in different formats (tga, png, jpg, pct, picng), different resolutions all powers of 2 (256, 512, 1024) and saving the files in various folders thinking I've used a non supported character as I use swedish characters for some folder. None have worked though.

Anyone knows what might be the problem. Remember that I am totally new to Houdini so it might be a really simple solution which I just didn't know of.

Thanks

What OS are you using? It sounds like a space or backslash problem. In some setups (involving networks paths on Windows for example) Mantra could have a problem with finding textures on disk:

M:\project\texture\mytexture.rat - this may make a trouble
M:\project\texture\my texture.rat - also this one

try:
Mproject/texture/my_texture.rat


I couldn't find any rule for that though…


BTW: for textures use always RAT format. You can convert your files with COPs, Mplay, or iconvert command line tool.


hope this helps,
sy.

As you mentioned seemed to be combination of folder and filename. Got it working now.

Thanks for the tip, I'll be sure to use the .rat format from now on.

Thanks alot for the help.