Installation

There are a few different approaches for installing houdini-pbrt-v4.

Notes:

• The follow assumes a Linux like terminal, bash/tcsh/etc on Linux or Git Bash on Windows.
• While I use houdini18.5 as an example you can substitute houdini18.0 as needed.
• $HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR is where your user Houdini prefs live. On Linux this will probably be $HOME/houdini18.5, on Windows it will be something like C:/Users/<username>/Documents/houdini18.5

Method 1: houdini.env (Preferred Method)

This method will use the your houdini.env to point to the houdini-pbrt-v4 install.

Step 1 - Select a location to clone the repo or extract a release.

cd $HOME/Documents/git
git clone https://github.com/shadeops/houdini-pbrt-v4.git
# You'll now have a $HOME/Documents/git/houdini-pbrt-v4 directory

Step 2 - Modify your houdini.env file

Edit your $HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR/houdini.env and add the following -

# Replace this path to where ever you cloned the houdini-pbrt-v4 repo to.
H2PBRT = "$HOME/Documents/git/houdini-pbrt-v4"
HOUDINI_PATH = "$H2PBRT;&"

For details on the houdini.env please refer to Houdini's help on Environment Variables

Method 2: Advanced Install (required for multiple 3rd party renderers)

If you are using multiple 3rd party renderers then you'll need do some extra steps. This is due to Houdini only allowing for a single entry point to the SOHO parameter interface. For each 3rd party renderer there will be a houdini/soho/parameters/SOHOparameters file. Only the first of SOHOparameters found in the $HOUDINI_PATH will be used, so care will need to be taken if more than one 3rd party renderer is used.

In the following example we have RenderMan for Houdini and Houdini to PBRT installed.

Step 1 - Create Base Config Location for SOHO

Here we'll make a SOHO config directory which we'll use to collect our different SOHOparameters files into a single place. Then we'll add this new directory structure to the front of the $HOUDINI_PATH. For this example we'll create our configuration directory here C:\Users\shade\Documents\houdini_config\houdini18.5. We'll call this location an arbitrary $BASE_HOUDINI_CONFIG later on. Within this directory structure we'll create the standard Houdini SOHO directories - C:\Users\shade\Documents\houdini_config\soho\parameters In the C:\Users\shade\Documents\houdini_config\soho\parameters folder, we'll create a file called SOHOparameters. In this new SOHOparamters file we'll have the following contents

#include "$HFS/houdini/soho/parameters/SOHOparameters"
#include "$RFHTREE/18.5.351/soho/parameters/SOHOparameters"
#include "$H2PBRT/soho/parameters/SOHOparameters"

Step 2 - Adding Our SOHO Base Config to the Houdini Path

With our directory and SOHOparameters file created above, we'll now update our $HOUDINI_USER_PREF_DIR/houdini.env with the following.

# This is a new location that will contain our base config for SOHOparameters
BASE_HOUDINI_CONFIG=C:\Users\shade\Documents\houdini_config\houdini18.5

H2PBRT=C:\Users\shade\Documents\git\houdini-pbrt-v4

RMANTREE=C:\Program Files\Pixar\RenderManProServer-23.5
RFHTREE=C:\Program Files\Pixar\RenderManForHoudini-23.5
RMAN_PROCEDURALPATH = $RFHTREE/18.5.351/openvdb;&

# Here we ensure that BASE_HOUDINI_CONFIG is the first in the path.
HOUDINI_PATH=$BASE_HOUDINI_CONFIG;$H2PBRT;$RFHTREE\18.5.351;&
PATH=$RMANTREE\bin;&

Method 3: Quick and Dirty Approach

Go to your Houdini preference folder in your $HOME directory and clone the repo directly in there.

# Linux
cd $HOME/houdini18.5
# Windows
cd $HOME/Documents/houdini18.5
git clone https://github.com/shadeops/houdini-pbrt-v4.git .

This is very messy and not recommended but is an easy way to get going without any configuration.

Further Information

SideFX's docs on the HOUDINI_PATH.