i have the image sequence directory paths (1st image from every folder) as a primitive string attribute and i pass that attribute to the material node to override base color texture.

But houdini doesnt recognise a sequence.

if i load manually one of the images it works and converts the 001 to $F3 etc but when i pass it as a string it doesnt do that.

img001.jpg —-> img$F3.jpg

So i tried to pass the string attribute already containing the expression $F3 and still doesnt work.

its like houdini doesnt recognise the expression.(?)

Any tips?

attachment 1 is with the appropriate expression $F3 or $F4 inside the string attribute—-images are not displayed or rendered

attachment 2 is just the first image path of the sequence—-which houdini doesnt convert to $F3 but the images are displayed and rendered

$F4 or $F3 etc don't mean anything in a file path. These are expressions that are substituted with the formatted frame number in a parameter expression. When they are string literals as attribute values, there's no context for evaluation, so the literal ‘$F4’ is going to the shader parameter and not the evaluated path containing the current frame number.

In stead of ‘$F3’, use a format string such as %03d in your file path. Then you can format it using the sprintf() vex function to insert the current frame number using an attribute wrangle.

e.g.
s@basecolor_texture = sprintf(“/textures/foo.%04d.rat”, @Frame);