Krishna Bala

Mardini 2026. All the best to everyone.
Day 01 Plant
Fern plant at fiddlehead. Tried my best to replicate reference image.

Here's how I fixed this issue.

Create folder to store your houdini pref. For example "C:\HOUDINI\houdini_prefs"
Create another folder in "C:\HOUDINI\houdini_prefs" and name it "houdini__HVER__"

Click Windows button
Type "en"
Select "Edit the system environment variables"
"System Properties" window will pop-up

Click "Environment Variables"
"Environment Variables" window will pop-up

Click "New" in the top pane to create a new user variable (NOT system variable)
"Edit user variable" window will pop-up

Enter HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR in Variable Name
Enter "C:\HOUDINI\houdini_prefs\houdini__HVER__" in Variable Value (Please note its imperative to have houdini__HVER__ folder)
Click "OK" in the "Edit user variable" pop-up

Click "OK" in "Environment Variables" pop-up

Click "OK" in "System Properties" pop-up

Place your existing houdini21.0 (if any) preference folder inside of "C:\HOUDINI\houdini_prefs" (NOT inside houdini__HVER__)

Restart computer

Launch Houdini

Final day - Underwater