Hello I have some trouble using the Maya plugin in win10.

I am trying to use Maya plugin for Houdini19.5.493. I followed the instrusions on installation, then I open my Maya 2020, it reports this error:

The Houdini Engine for Maya plugin could not be initialized.
The path to libHAPIL is invalid. Please double-check the value in Houdini Engine>Preference.



The HFS location I provided is C:/Program Files/Side Effects Software/Houdini19.5.493
and libHAPIL location is C:/Program Files/Side Effects Software/Houdini19.5.493/bin/libHAPIL.dll

Is the problem related to the path format? Maybe there are some more setup steps I missed? Thank you!!

How did you install Houdini and the plugin? Did you use the legacy installer, or the launcher?

Hi, thank you for your reply!

I used the launcher to install everything, Houdini 19.5.493 itself and also the plugin. I noticed that it first checks the $HFS variable in the code so I manually added the path to environment variable and it is able to load the plugin now. So somehow the paths I put in the houdini engine preference are not recogonized.

Thank you, inserting
HFS = C:/Program Files/Side Effects Software/Houdini19.5.493
in the maya .env made it work again.

Edit:
I think Sidefx changed something in the installation. Now there is a space between houdini and 19.5.493. So the path now has to look like this
HFS = C:/Program Files/Side Effects Software/Houdini 19.5.493

shen25748
Hi, thank you for your reply!

I used the launcher to install everything, Houdini 19.5.493 itself and also the plugin. I noticed that it first checks the $HFS variable in the code so I manually added the path to environment variable and it is able to load the plugin now. So somehow the paths I put in the houdini engine preference are not recogonized.

Hello could you be more specific how to modify this??

dragonyhr66

shen25748
Hi, thank you for your reply!

I used the launcher to install everything, Houdini 19.5.493 itself and also the plugin. I noticed that it first checks the $HFS variable in the code so I manually added the path to environment variable and it is able to load the plugin now. So somehow the paths I put in the houdini engine preference are not recogonized.

Hello could you be more specific how to modify this??

It's been a while, but since I just ran into the same issue, I thought I'd answer for the benefit of those who come later. You need to edit the file maya.env, which is described here: https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-8EFB1AC1-ED7D-4099-9EEE-624097872C04 [help.autodesk.com]

Mine was completely empty, so I just added the line, as described by Bobcat:
HFS = D:\Production\SideFX\Houdini 20.0.625

That's obviously the path to my Houdini install—you'd change it to wherever yours is. Once I'd made that change, Maya loaded the plug-in without complaint.