Hi!

So I'm super green when it comes to Houdini and I have a project file that I'm trying to sort of reverse engineer if you will. It's a finished project of a ship sailing on the ocean.

I'm not the one who created the project and I don't have the cache files, so I'm running into a bunch of errors. I've tried to save out the cache files, but the only one I've manged to save successfully is the sails.

Is there a certain order I need to save the caches in? Like I said, I'm really new to this, but I need to get this to work, so I'm hopeful someone can lend a hand.

If anyone has the time to take a look at the project I'd really appreciate it, here's the link to a zip file with the hipnc https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GE8zwRL7cvx_0Kdxe_JUZMkYcT2f7wRk/view?usp=sharing [drive.google.com]

Can I ask who gave you the project file? maybe if it was a teacher/friend/co-worker they'd be willing to show you how it works. If it was a tutorial file you got off of a website/video/etc try revisiting the video. However, caches won't load the data they generate unless load from disk is turned on. If this is turned on while the cache is saving out, and you are playing back your simulation you may run into an error where only half of the simulation loads correctly.

Make sure your file caches are saving out all under different file names so they are not overriding each other. It can be a bit frustrating to realize that you've been saving over the same cache over and over again.

Hope this helps!

This problem is a good illustration of the power of the Houdini approach. Find the root(s) of the network. Set the display flag on that node and work your way down the network until you find a node that won't cook - i.e. gives an error. Likely you will find path to a directory that does not exist on your machine. An easy fix just change it or create it. You might find an input is missing - if that is something cached by a different file you are likely screwed. You might discover a execution dependency order in the file, and have to recook in the right order.

It's a program - debug it by single stepping through it!