How to load different instances of HOU module?

[leota90]

Hi there,

I'm importing the hou module into a custom python script and I would like to have multiple scenes opened at the same time. This is how it is implemented:

import sys
from importlib import reload
sys.path.append(HOUDINI_PATH)
try:
    import hou
except ImportError:
    print('houdini.py: There was a problem loading the hou module')

box_hip = hou.hipFile
box_scene = box_hip.load(path/to/box_scene.hipnc)
print(box_hip.name()) # ==> box_scene.hipnc CORRECT

reload(hou)
sphere_hip = hou.hipFile
sphere_scene = sphere_hip.load(path/to/sphere_scene.hipnc)
print(sphere_hip.name()) # ==> sphere_scene.hipnc CORRECT

# Let's print the name of box_hip again
print(box_hip.name()) # ==> sphere_scene.hipnc WRONG

As you can see, even though I've reloaded the hou module, it's still using the same hou instance for both hip files and therefore always returning the data of the latest loaded scene.

Is there a way to have different instances of the hou module so I can load and work on multiple different hip files in the same script? I've also tried to assign hou to different variables with no luck.

 

Any help would be highly appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

[Stalkerx777]

This is not possible in Hython same as it's not possible to load load 2 different hip files into a single Houdini session. You have to spawn a new Hython process per hip file, but communicating between them is not trivial at all.