Has anyone here had any luck using the back end setup so Houdini Engine connects to another server?

I found some reference pages saying that Houdini uses ports 1714, and 1715, and wanted to see if that was correct. When I try inputting those port numbers and restarting Maya 2016, it always defaults back to port 9090, and fails to initialize a Houdini Engine session. Is this a bug, or am I setting something up wrong?

Hi Kevin,

1. Ports 1714 and 1715 are used for Houdini licencing, so you most definitely don't want to use them for Houdini Engine Thin Client.
2. The port value being reset sounds like you're not hitting the Save button in the Preferences dialog. The default of 9090 is reasonable and will most likely be free.
3. The port in the plugin preferences should match the port the HARS server is started with. Our Maya plugin does not currently start the server automatically, although this feature may be added soon. You can read here about starting it from the command line: http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hengine2.0/_h_a_p_i__sessions.html#HAPI_Sessions_Thrift_Server [sidefx.com]
4. Finally, you may want to give named pipes a try because it may be easier to come up with a unique name than to find a free TCP port.

Hope this helps!