Houdini asset not updating

[Rival Consoles]

Hello all,

I have a question that apparently has been asked a few times in here and in the side fx forums but i still couldn't find the answer that i'm looking for and maybe some expert can help. So, i created an asset in houdini to use in Maya through the "houdini engine" plugin and it works perfectly, Side FX nailed the connection between the softwares. However, after closing Houdini, turning the machine off, going home, comeback to work and turn everything on again, it seems that i lost the ability to edit the asset throught the "type properties" window.

First, the "type properties" window doesn't accept anything that i drag and drop in it. Second, even if i manually create parameters in the window, nothing is saved. Does anyone know if i can edit an asset after the Houdini scene is closed? If so, what would be the procedure? I'm using Houdini 16.5.405.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[LaidlawFX]

This seems very bizarre. I would suspect you are saving your .hda file to some place you don't have permissions too. A question for you would be are you saving one .hda per a file? Also are you .hda being saved in a place searched by $HOUDINI_PATH, or the otls can path version? Additionally, verify that your HDA is not embedded via the Asset Manager.

[Rival Consoles]

Hi LaidlawFX,

 

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll definitely try what you hvae said and let you know, i suspect that because i didn't create a project folder the file path is not being found.

 

I have access to the folder where the file is saved and i created only one .hda file which is the one that works perfectly in Maya but i cannot edit it. Regarding the asset manager, sorry for my lack of knowledge but does it mean to have an asset embedded in the asset manager?

 

Cheers,

 

Marcos

Edited April 4, 2018 by Marcola

[LaidlawFX]

If you need just drop your assets into your $HOME/houdini##.#/otls directory inorder to test a directory that is by default searched via Houdini.

As for the Embedded asset, this happens when Houdini is restarted and it can no longer find the path on disk to the original HDA, this will by default leave a shell HDA in your session. If you do not have the HDA already saved in your scene then you will not be able to find it either. This is because the $HOUDINI_PATH, $HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH, or your $HOME path i.e. & does not have your .hda/.otl in those directories. So in H16.0 and earlier you can re-source these in the Operator Type Manager Window, in H16.5+ it is now called the Asset Manager i.e. Windows > Asset Manager, in the Operators Tab there is the listing for Operator Type Libraries > Current HIP File, and if you open that and see EMBEDDED that HDA has lost it's connection to on disk. You can manually add the HDA back in that session, or close the program and fix the environment variables that define those paths on load. Once loaded with the correct path and if they still don't work you can  go to Configuration tab in the Asset Manager, change the Asset Bar: to Display Menu of all Defintions, and then above your parameter pane, you get a drop down bar you can relink your asset from Embedded to the correct HDA. I leave this bar on in production so you can easily switch version of HDAs.

Hope that helps.

[Rival Consoles]

Ok, thanks for the explanation about the asset manager! Much appreciated. I'll pay attention to path directory before trying to edit the .hda again, hopefully it will work. Thanks!