Hello everyone. Im posting this up here after 2 hours of fighting against Houdini to get some shaders to run nice. Here is my problem.

I already have a compiled *.vex shader with its *.ds script. I have read the manual on how to get this files to run. However the manual is constantly refering to folders and files that dont exist on my machine, for instance

SHOPsurface or $HH/shop/surface.

I see the manual was written for version 5.0. Has the default directory structure changed since?

PLEASE , PLEASE , PLEASE someone tell me HOW to get my shaders to be loaded by Houdini.
I started with Houdini about a year ago and these kind of documentation problems (taking soooo long to figure stuf out) pushed me away from it. I WANT TO STICK WITH IT this time, but its such a nighmare when you follow the docs and things dont work.


cheers to all of you and thanks for your help

Rcortes

I assume someone has already told you about the wonder of OTLs and how you can save yourself a lot of grief by using them but you have some reason not to. If not: use OTLs. Your life will be much simpler!

use either the -l or -L param to vcc. Check out the vcc help for some info. When done, load the otl into a hip using “File/Install Operator Type Library”. You can update this and “Refresh OTLs”. Your op will show up with default formatted params…life is good. Check out the Assets tutorial for more info.

OK, assuming you need to do things the painful way…

I'll keep this short since it's a messy and detailed subject, and if you really want to do this regularly, check out my ancient “mshop” script over on odforce.net - this was designed to auto-manage all this junk.
The files/dirs you refer to must be made manually! They need to exist somewhere in your HOUDINI_PATH/shop (in the case of shaders). All instances of HOUDINI_PATH are parsed when you start houdini for these files. So, lets say, in
$HOME/houdini6.1/shop

you need to have a SHOPsurface file, containing entries like:

SuperPlas shop/surface/SuperPlas.ds -label “AXYZ/SuperPlas.ds”

and within a subdirectory called “surface”, you must have the .ds file mentioned above with all the formatting options. If you change things, you must run the command “dsreload” in the textport.

Warned you.


That's all I'll say for now - it's rather messy as mentioned. That's why we all love OTLs.

Hopefully this is useful…if you really need more info on this somewhat obsolete process let me know and I'll dig through my ol' memory cells…

Cheers,

J.C.

Once again.. you are the Man! JColdrick

I was getting a little frutrated here. Both of your suggestions worked and I will always use the OTL's , I just didnt know you could create them from vcc.

Thanks so much


rcortes