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Keeping a tidy otls folder


TomRaynor

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I have been trying to find a solution to this issue for a while and I am hoping someone here has a solution.

Currently my user otls folder looks like this:

---->/houdini12.5

------->/otls

------------>otl1

------------>otl2

------------>otl3

------------>otl4

------------>otl5 etc...

What I would like to have is sub folders within my otls folder so that I can keep the folder ordered and tidy as opposed to just having all of my otls just thrown in the same folder.

If I try and put the otls in sub folders within the /houdini12.5/otls/ location, Houdini doesn't pick up the otls at launch time.

Is there any way that I can have Houdini pick up these sub folders and the otls within? I was thinking that maybe by putting some code in my 123.py file or something I could get this to work?

The kind of structure I am after is:

---->/houdini12.5

------->/otls

------------>/otlFolder1

-------------------->otl1

-------------------->otl2

------------>otlFolder2

-------------------->otl3

-------------------->otl4

-------------------->otl5

Thanks very much!

Tom

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OK cool, so I have been checking out OPlibraries. They are quite interesting...

I take it you can't get Houdini to use the standard way of searching for otls and also use the OPlibraries way to grab a few extra otls from other places?

Basically is it use one method OR the other or can you use a hybrid? I like how Houdini does it by default but just want a few extra otls added on top in other locations...

I do like the way you can use wildcards in the OPlibraries file eg. /otl/testFolder/*.otl

You would have to explicitly add your subfolders to the path Houdini will look through

How exactly would I go about doing this? Don't suppose you could give me a simple code example?

Thanks Graham!

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From the link above, you have to configure your HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH to include these directories. By default it isn't set and Houdini just uses all the /otl folders in the regular HOUDINI_PATH. Since it's just a regular path style environment variable, how and where you want to set the path is really up to you. For example on linux you should be able to do something like this in a shell

setenv HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH "/home/username/houdini12.5/otls:/home/username/houdini12.5/otls/otlFolder1:/home/username/houdini12.5/otls/otlFolder2:&"

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Hey Tom.

You can simply add all your paths into houdini.env file under HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH variable ending with the default one

HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH= C:/YOUR_PATH/otlFolder1;C:/YOUR_PATH/otlFolder2;$HFS/houdini/otls [/CODE]

@Graham: I should probably reload the thread next time before I answer :) you beat me to it

Edited by milan
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Interesting stuff...

I am trying to use my user houdini.env file but am running into an issue...

I want HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH to pick up all of the paths defined by the HOUDINI_PATH environment variable using the @ syntax (as defined by http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini13.0/basics/config_env),

but also add the otls in a folder such as $HOME/houdini13.0/otls/test

I have tried stuff like:

HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH = $HOME/houdini13.0/otls/test:@

but it doesn't work.

Any ideas?

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Ahhh... This works.

HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH = "$HOME/houdini13.0/otls/test:@/otls"

Skybar: I had a look at QLIB once before but decided it was too complicated (or rather I didn't understand what it was doing). I don't suppose you could explain a bit about what QLIB is useful for, how I would set it up and use it and what the two lines of code that you have written above do exactly.

Thanks.

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Oh sorry, maybe should have explained. Qlib is a library of OTLs, which basically introduces new nodes or extended versions of existing ones. Quite neat, I don't think they have been updated for H13 yet though.

So since it is a bunch of OTLs, that line of code is what I've put in my houdini environment.

@ points to C:/users/documents/houdini13.0 (I'm not at my computer atm, so that might not be exactly correct, but you get it).

So this will then point to my otls folder:

@/otls

In my otls folder I then have a folder called qlib, which has its own subfolders to keep it organized. So before I set the OTLSCAN_PATH, I make a variable like so:

QLIB=@/otls/qLib

Which then points to my qlib folder inside my otls folder. So now I can point to the subfolders quite quickly with that variable:

$QLIB/base;$QLIB/future;$QLIB/experimental

So two examples of what you where after:

OTL1=@/otls

OTL2=@/otls/otlFolder2

HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH=$OTL1/otlFolder1;$OTL2;$OTL2/subFolder2

I hope you understand :P And mind that this is on windows, I have no idea if it is different on Linux/OSX :)

Edited by Skybar
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