(This has already been posted on odForce: Still, I would like to get some ideas from here as well. Hope this is ok.)

Hi,
I have been playing around with setting up a simple production environment for Houdini. I have been working in various environments myself (school, companies etc.) but never had time to explore the scripts, settings and the actual environment required for a healthy Houdini based pipe-line.

I have to admit, a question like that has a very broad range of answers.

But I would like to ask for your ideas anyway. I am familiar with the initial scripts run when you fire-up Houdini, also things like customizing the “Right Mouse Button” etc. There is already a nice wiki about it as many of you might already know: CustomizingHoudini

So what are your critical tips for an efficient pipe-line / environment, things like $PROJECT $SHOT $SCRIPTS, things included in the 123, 456 and any start up script etc?

Thanks and Happy New Year!, Merry Christmas!

Hey Symbolic,

one thing i've recently started doing is moving away from 123.py and cmd and pythonrc.py.
a nice replacement is a script that gets run from pythonrc that find file along the python path and exec's them. where i work we made it a little elaborate but thats because it's the same as our maya startup system. this is working quite well and you can implement startup script for departments, script that need to run in a specific order. all kind of general and bespoke setups per show.

one thing to note is that because the pythonrc is run before the GUI is open anything you try to do to the gui will not actually be handled. for example. we have a script that sources all the .func files and updated the entries in the expression functions menu. but this will not work properly if run from the pythonrc but will work from 123.

it's a wide subject but hopefully this was useful.

Greetings,

Lars

Perhaps, it will helpful for you:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=21298 [sidefx.com]

Hi, a quick update. I spent some time researching about how env. variables have an influence on the way Houdini work. And it was very helpful. I realised the strength of writing wrapper scripts in order to set up the vital variables, also the meaning of a default Houdini folder structure. This post has been very helpful.

Thanks.