Are there any suggestions on “best practices” when managing these variables? I find it confusing how Houdini resolves version info in a different way for each one… HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR must have a __HVER__ string, and HSITE resolves the version implicitely.
However, the HOUDINI_PATH variable seems to override both, which means I have to include them in HOUDINI_PATH… yet, how do I include them? It seems if I single-quote them within HOUDINI_PATH as they are, ‘hconfig -ap’ will show me that HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR is getting resolved correctly but HSITE is not. HFS is correctly resolved.
If set HOUDINI_PATH, should I unset HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR and HSITE?
HOUDINI_PATH when expanded is equal to: <HIP>:<HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR>:<HSITE>/houdini<houdini_version>:<HSITE>:<HFS>/houdini
Simply referencing those variables in HOUDINI_PATH doesn't seem to work, but this does. Running hconfig -ap seems to confirm it: Directories searched (in order) are: 1) “.” 2) “$HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR” 3) “$HSITE/houdini15.5” 4) “$HSITE” 5) “$HFS/houdini”
I'm not sure why you need to set HOUDINI_PATH? If you need to, then use “&” (as documented in the hconfig -ap output) to use include the default HOUDINI_PATH. That way, you're only adding to it, not replacing.
My last problem was actually caused by a Python script inadvertently setting Houdini environment variables… second message holds, everything seems to work.
Setting HOUDINI_PATH is necessary when including 3rd party Houdini tools such as Arnold, no?
I have other collections of OTLs, VEX libs and scripts which are grouped together and are not needed for every project… I assume that adding or removing the root path to those tools to HOUDINI_PATH would be the best way to optionally include them.
