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HOT for Houdini 9.5.230 64bit


Korhon

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  • 1 month later...

Can you give some more detail ? And first, are you able to compile starndard HDK examples like SOP_Star.C ?

Last time I compiled for windows there was a probem with Win64 but since I don't use windows these days I'd be happy for windows experts to hunt down the problem:-) Win32 was working without problems.

-Drew

I've had difficulty compiling it through VC2005...
Edited by eloop
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The only real gotchas that I've run into the compiling the HDK samples for Win64 are:

1. MSVC 2005 does NOT install the 64-bit tools by default. You have to do a custom install during the MSVC 2005 setup and turn on installation of the 64-bit tools. Note also, last I checked, the free editions didn't include the 64-bit compiler.

2. A lot of old people assume that to setup the compiler, you run vcvars32.bat. This is NOT true, you should run "vcvarsall.bat amd64". See msdn on this. On older versions of hcustom on Windows x64 still used "cl" from the PATH which meant that if you ran vcvars32.bat, you would have been running the 32-bit compiler instead of the 64-bit one. In builds 9.5.307 or later, I fixed hcustom to hardcode the relative path to the 64-bit compiler from the MSVCDir environment. So this issue should be non-existent if you're using 9.5.307 (or later). In particular, you shouldn't need to run either of these batch files and it should work on either platform.

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I should clarify, the problem with the HOT and win64 was something to do with the HOT itself, not the HDK which seemed to working fine. It could be a problem with the blitz library, fftw or my code.

-Drew

The only real gotchas that I've run into the compiling the HDK samples for Win64 are:

1. MSVC 2005 does NOT install the 64-bit tools by default. You have to do a custom install during the MSVC 2005 setup and turn on installation of the 64-bit tools. Note also, last I checked, the free editions didn't include the 64-bit compiler.

2. A lot of old people assume that to setup the compiler, you run vcvars32.bat. This is NOT true, you should run "vcvarsall.bat amd64". See msdn on this. On older versions of hcustom on Windows x64 still used "cl" from the PATH which meant that if you ran vcvars32.bat, you would have been running the 32-bit compiler instead of the 64-bit one. In builds 9.5.307 or later, I fixed hcustom to hardcode the relative path to the 64-bit compiler from the MSVCDir environment. So this issue should be non-existent if you're using 9.5.307 (or later). In particular, you shouldn't need to run either of these batch files and it should work on either platform.

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  • 6 months later...

HDAs are really just packages of nodes with an interface...the HOT (the dso parts) are actual compiled code that are exactly like the built in operators from SESI so they are much faster etc...

PS: I find it utterly ridiculous that this very awesome tool is such a pain in the ass for so many people...frankly I'm sick of seeing posts about compiling this tool...why SESI doesn't just grab it and build it as part of Houdini is beyond me...

there should be a service like the exchange that allows people to upload the source package and SESI will compile it against a selected build(s)...if it errors out it just bounces back to the user to fix the bug and try again...

the amount of time that SESI folks spend on the forums trying to help people compile HOT is more than they would spend on compiling HOT themselves...

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I'd definitely have to agree with you. I don't know who the SESI are, but shame on them. I've just decided to say screw it, and take a stab at building something from scratch from inside Houdini or Maya. NOTHING should be this hard to get results out of, except life.

To think the only reason why I'm even using Houdini is because Renderman for Maya can't render out the Ocean Shader in Maya. I wanted a renderer close to PRman (Mantra) to do the rendering, so I decided to give this a try and it's a full fledged, bamboo under my fingernails, torturous nightmare. And to make matters worse....it might THEORETICALLY work on x64 machines :unsure: .

I was under the impression that, nowadays, anyone wanting to do anything pertaining to visual fx and 3D animation should very well be utilizing the power of a 64-bit machine. Both for stability and extended resources.

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Lets just make sure we are complaining about the right things here!

SESI (SideFX Software, btw) should definitely NOT be responsible for compiling 3rd party plugins... can anyone name one software company out there that does?? However, SESI should definitely be trying their level best at providing a stable API which would be reliable for an entire point release. This would make it that 3rd party developers can compile once for every platform they wish to (or gain the help of nice individuals out there if the code is open-source) only ONCE per point-release of Houdini. Having a compiled DSO working today which is broken on a new build week later is totally non-viable, and I know that it has bitten many potential 3rd party developers pretty hard (poor Martian Toolz). Heck, I would not personally start a commercial 3rd party plug for Houdini for exactly this reason. SESI's only way around this is strike up cooperation deals with external developers for large plugins... like their support for Garage Games' Torque exporter. Perhaps eloop should approach SESI with a similar arrangement? Although I'd think a single small DSO like this might be too small to incur that management cost.

Totally adopting HOT seems like a good idea, though. It seems easy and would be worth it, bang for the buck - no question! Even rewriting it using all-SESI functionality seems like it'd be a good task for a SESI intern.

However I'm sorry you can't get it to run! It must be completely frustrating!

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Hi Michael,

I'm the author of the HOT and I don't work for SideFX and SideFX staff don't spend time supporting the HOT, and no-one is paying me for this work. The problem I have is that currently there are 9 different OS's supported by SideFX and that it is just too many to support. To do things properly I would need a farm of machines or at least VM's setup to continuously compile and test releases with each new houdini version. Not that difficult to setup, and I actually do have access to the machines, but it will be very time consuming and that's not something my employer is going to support.

I've been slowly working away on a system that will allow me to build windows binaries that are easy to install but I don't have that much time to work on it and frankly these days I try and avoid windows as much as possible.

In general most of the problems I field with people compiling the HOT aren't actually HOT related, but simply how to compile HDK plugins.

I'm beginning to wonder if it would be better to remove the windows functionality from the HOT and dissuade people from trying to use it on that platform. In general linux/osx users have a far better success rate, even if they aren't programmers.

-Drew

it might be worth finding someone outside the Houdini community to compile this...there must be a programmer out there who likes doing this type of thing and is all set up for it...?

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sorry Drew...I didn't mean to imply anything...just that HOT is so good and useful that it frustrating to see so many people having difficulties...this is partly SESI's fault as Jason mentioned and lack of compling experience...I was really just suggesting that it would be great if there was more community support for HOT - it should just 'be there' so people can use it without thinking...

:)

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  • 3 weeks later...

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