Hi All,
I'm an ops support for a post house, we've recently come on board with houdini so i am tasked with repurposing our pipeline. I develop on a macbook pro and have been trying to do some online tuts for python and houdini. I am coming unstuck when i try to import wxwidgets into my shelf tool. I know what the problem is with this method, namely the mac is a total mix of 64bit/32bit. This is great for most things but as i can't get a successfully compiling 64bit wxwidgets install i'm running into problems.

Actual error is telling me it can't find the right architecture module.

So my questions are:
1. do i ignore wxwidgets(is there a houdini gui toolkit i should know about? I would like to stick with wxwidgets as we run about 4 different Os's and it is ubiquitous over them all apart from the apple 64bit issue)

2. Has someone successfully got wxPython, wxOSX, wxMac or wxCocoa to compile 64bit and use it?
(i should point out i've been searching the respective lists, i know wxMac and wxCocoa are being ‘merged’ into wxOsx but the latest posting i can find from the dev responsible seem to highlight the fact that this particular aspect of wxwidgets is a total mess due to apple deciding not to upgrade carbon to 64bit)

3. Is there a technical reference on what houdini terminal is actually doing when it provides a wrapper for the system python?

4. Is there a workaround? Have i missed some obvious documentation on this issue?

I would love to run my dev environment from one place and I can't really install 64bit ubuntu on my macbook as i'm already triple booting with baselight so can't add a partition without breaking my windows boot.

Regards
Chris Ord

captainhaha
I would love to run my dev environment from one place and I can't really install 64bit ubuntu on my macbook as i'm already triple booting with baselight so can't add a partition without breaking my windows boot.

Regards
Chris Ord

Hi Chris,

I don't have answers for questions 1-4 but on running 64-bit Ubuntu in your macbook (which I assume is a Core2 Duo processor), why don't you try using VMWare Fusion (http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/ [vmware.com]) or Parallels Desktop (http://www.parallels.com/ [parallels.com])? Both products will run 64-bit Ubuntu as a Virtual Machine (VM) within Leopard.

I have been using VMWare Fusion to do my dev work in 64-bit Ubuntu without having to reboot. Houdini runs fine within the Linux VMs including Windows VMs. You may have to force Houdini to use software OpenGL in certain cases.

Cheers,
tk

tkngs thnx for the reply.

I'm thinking i will have to go that way as well, unfortunately i'm trying to build cross platform for mac(shake) and linux and integrate our toolchain with qube on both platforms as well. i think in the interim i will have go with this unless another option is forthcoming especially as you say performance is not really an issue.
Not only is space on my drive becoming a factor but i would like to find a ‘solution’ rather than a ‘fix’ *sigh*

Just out of interest do you know why you have to force software opengl?

Cheers
Chris

There is no way to force software opengl on Linux, it's only available on Windows. Take this post with a grain of salt though since I'm NOT on OSX.

For wxWidgets, yes, the situation is pretty much as you've discovered. Basically, you need to wait until a 64-bit Cocoa version of wxPython is available. I haven't looked into whether PyQT or PyQT4 is available for 64-bit Python on OSX. You might want to look into that.

There's the hou.ui module, but that provides just very primitive common functions.

For #3, if it's like on Windows, then it's similar to starting a shell with source houdini_setup run for you to set up a bunch of environment variables.

If you run a VM, then I don't think it matters how you are currently partioning your hard drive?

The other question is what type of UI tools are you porting? If it just needs to run HOM commands, maybe that can be simulated with a pipe opened to hython?

Thanks Edward, for the clarification on the ability to force software OpenGL for Houdini in Windows only. That is what I had to do for my Windows VMs quite some time ago but I think we do not have to do that now.

Chris: for VMs (be it Parallels or VMWare Fusion), they are nicely ‘packaged’ into a directory which can be run off an external USB disk so you are not constrained by your local drive's space. You can boot up an existing Windows bootcamp partition through Fusion (not sure about Parallels) within OS X.

For 64-bit Carbon on OS X, I remembered reading somewhere that Apple will be dropping support for 64-bit Carbon GUI if you need that feature. (Found the story: see http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/6 [arstechnica.com]) Sorry to sound bad but let's see what else we can help find on the Net.

Cheers,
tk

thnx tkings and edward for the replis/clarification, i wasn't aware that you could run the vm off of a usb stick. I think i will have to go that route for now.

To clarify things slightly I am building a shot-building/pipeline for maya,shake & houdini to integrate into our Qube render manager with usual stuff like auto flipbooking, wiki updating etc.
I can do this in python on either OS itself no problems using wxwidgets etc so i can continue working on that in the OS. My final objective is to have these things as modules or shelf tools from within the applications though mainly to eliminate any possibility of human error and take all the ‘boring’ stuff away from the animators/compers.

My background is Operational support and software library/testing and maintainence so i thought it would be nice to learn some 3d for once rather than just build all the enablers. Eventually i will have to find a mac solution but guess for now i can live with the VM solution.

Once again thankyou for your time
regards
chris

Oops, sorry I meant wait for a 64-bit Cocoa version of wxPython. ops:

If you are building integration for a render manager, then the right way to do it is to build a custom output driver (ROP) houdini digital asset (HDA). In Houdini, output is accomplished by means of nodes called ROPs. You create these nodes in your scene file and then to perform the export, you click on the Render button on these nodes. The advantage of such a system is that you can connect them together to form dependency graphs. This way, you can have several things exported in exact order.

Through Houdini's GUI, you can your own nodes (or digital assets) that you can reuse in your pipeline. Check out this section on the docs if you haven't already:
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini9.5/assets/ [sidefx.com]