Export subnet to .hda without making source into an asset

[bento]

Hi - I've got a feeling I'm coming about this from the wrong angle, but does anyone know if it is possible to programmatically export a subnet as an digital asset, without actually turning it into an asset?

 

I'm looking for an equivalent to hou.Node.createDigitalAsset(), but which doesn't turn the source into an asset in the current session. Something like exportAsDigitalAsset()....

 

If this seems backward or bizarre, please do say and I'll elaborate on the motivations. See if there's a better way of coming at it.

 

 

thanks

Ben

[michael]

do you want to create a digital asset /on file/ without creating the asset in your Houdini scene?

I don't think there is a way to do this...

 

why are you doing this?

[bento]

Thanks Michael,

 

do you want to create a digital asset /on file/ without creating the asset in your Houdini scene?

 

 

 

Yes.

 

 

I'm just looking at setting up an asset management layer for houdini (for more traditional assets such as characters, props etc rather than 'tool' type assets).

 

Initial instinct is to keep approach in the same ball park as how we would approach things in Maya (bear with me...)

 

 

What I'd like to do is have working (hip) files for asset generation that would contain the asset subnet itself and any required development aids (think a light rig and turn table for producing a lookdeved asset)

The hip files containing the development aids and the 'proto-asset' would be saved and versioned, available for anyone to pick up at a later date.

 

Then to pass the resulting asset out into production the creator would 'publish' their work. At this point I'd like to write out a versioned HDA to the central location.

 

That all works fine if I only publish once, but it seems a little messy if I then make changes and publish again. createDigitalAsset() wont work on the same asset twice, so from what I can tell I'd get into doing some HDADefinition stuff second time round. Is that right?

[michael]

you could have an asset that contained all the stuff you need to build the asset

then click button on that asset that creates a new asset - this new asset would be your versioned, publishable asset.

so you could have:

myAssetMaker.hda

which produces:

myAsset_v002.hda etc

 

the old Auto-Rig tools do this...

if you feel brave you can look in:

$HFS/houdini/python2.7libs/autorig

[bento]

Thanks - I'll take a look.