Hi there,
Relative Houdini newbie here so be kind!

I'm trying to set up my environment so I can have site and user configurations sitting on top of the default houdini install. In particular, a custom menu using MainMenuCommon.xml in my studio houdini config path.

If I set my HOUDINI_PATH as follows (in my Shotgun app_launch hook):

houdini_path = zstudio_configs/houdini/15.5
os.environ = houdini_path + os.pathsep + ‘&’

when I open Houdini via the shotgun launcher, Shotgun fails to initialise, and using hconfig -ap my Houdini_path looks like :

“Zdev/users/joe.bloggs/repos/hvhoudini/15.5;&Zdev/users/joe.bloggs/repos/hvhoudini/15.5;&”

if I don't set the HOUDINI_PATH, then when I launch Houdini and run hconfig -ap, the Houdini_path is :

HOUDINI_PATH := “cusers/joe.bloggs/appdata/local/temp/tk-houdinivsmfzt;Zdev/release/shotgun/studio/install/app_store/tk-houdini/v1.0.10/startup;&Zdev/users/joe.bloggs/repos/hvhoudini/15.5;&”

With this config, I DO get Shotgun, but I don't get the menus I've defined in Zdev/users/joe.bloggs/repos/hvhoudini/15.5/MainMenuCommon.xml

Some observations.
- In the first test, the Houdini path has two copies of the path + ‘&’ path that I only defined once in my app_launch hook.
- In the second test, there is an unusual space after the HOUDINI_PATH when running hconfig.

I think I am approaching this the correct way, and my feeling is that there might be a bug with the Shotgun engine where it appends the Shotgun paths to any existing paths in HOUDINI_PATH. I will post a ticket with SG as well as this post to see if they can see where the problem lies.

Does anyone have any experience getting a studio HOUDINI_PATH to work alongside Shotgun?
Can anyone see what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for your help.
Patrick

Problem solved.
It appears the Shotgun implementation actually sets its own HOUDINI_PATH variable prior to executing the app_launch hook.
Appending my studio houdini config path to HOUDINI_PATH rather than simply setting the variable has solved the problem.

I'm still feeling that I shouldn't be doing things this way and that I should be able to edit my ui menus using a path on HSITE rather than HOUDINI_PATH. Can anyone clarify that for me?