Clears the current scene and starts a new scene.

Loads a .hip file from disk.

The File menu lists the last four .hip files opened. Choose a .hip file from this list to reload it quickly.

Saves the current scene to disk.

Saves the current scene to a new file.

Saves the current scene to a new binary scene file. See text files for more information.

Saves the current scene to a new plain-text scene file. See text files for more information.

Sets up a standardized directory structure and sets the $JOB environment variable. See project management for more information.

Switches the $JOB environment variable to another project directory. See project management for more information.

Imports the data from another .hip file into the current scene.

Shows the changes made between the current scene and the last time the file was saved.

Creates a new, empty digital asset.

This submenu contains menu items for importing different file types.

The submenu contains menu items for exporting data from Houdini into different file types.

Choose a Python or Hscript file and it run it as if you typed the contents into the Python shell or Hscript textport.

Exits Houdini.

Reverses the previous user action.

To set the amount of memory reserved for undo, choose Edit ▸ Preferences and choose Miscellaneous from the pop-up menu at the top.

Replays an “undone” action.

Opens a window showing the history of user actions (the “undo stack”). Click an action in the list to undo back to that action.

Copies the current selection to the clipboard and deletes it.

Copies the current selection to the clipboard.

Inserts the current contents of the clipboard at the selection.

This submenu lets you jump to a specific page of the Houdini Preferences window.

Opens the Hotkey editor. This lets you edit the hotkeys assigned to various actions in Houdini.

Opens the Color Settings window. This lets you change color preferences such as the UI color scheme.

Opens the Aliases and Variables window. This lets you interactively edit Houdini’s environment variables.

Opens the Compositing Setting window. This lets you set defaults for compositing projects.

Releases any memory currently being used by the compositing cache to speed up compositing operations.

The compositing cache can grow very large, especially when compositing over multiple frames. If you're running low on memory, this command can potentially free up a large amount.

Adds or saves a keyframe for the selected object at the current frame.

The checkbox items in this submenu let you quickly change certain object animation settings.

The items in this sub-menu control which sub-camera of the stereo rig to display in the viewport. For more information, see Stereo Camera Rig.

Toggle live parameter update on or off. When this is on, Houdini updates parameters in the parameter editor with their current values as the animation plays. For heavy scenes you may want to disable this to speed up playback.

Toggle “intercept mode” on or off. When intercept mode is active, any keypresses are routed to the Keyboard CHOP. This lets you generate channel data using keypresses.

Toggle “auto take” mode on or off. When auto take mode is on, all parameters inside a take are unlocked, and any changes to a parameter are automatically added to the current take. See takes.

Toggle “auto save” mode on or off. When auto save mode is on, Houdini automatically saves the scene to a disk file at a regular interval (the default is one minute, you can change it in the save options).

Auto-save is always off when you launch Houdini. If you want auto-save you must explicitly turn it on in each session.

The items in this submenu let you quickly create and edit a render node without having to jump to the render network.

This submenu lists all render nodes in the default render network. Choose a node to edit its parameters in a floating window.

This submenu lists all render nodes in the default render network. Choose a node to start rendering the node.

This submenu lists all render nodes in the default render network. Choose a node to render the node into an MPlay window.

Opens a Render Manager in a floating window. This list shows all the currently active background renders. You can pause or cancel a job, or see history of completed jobs if Clear Completed Jobs is turned off.

Reload cached textures from disk.

TBD.

TBD.

The items in this submenu open instances of the MPlay image viewer.

Starts a new take extending the current take.

Toggles “auto take” mode on or off. This is the same as Edit ▸ Automatically add parameter to current take.

Creates a digital asset from the selected subnet node. This is the same as right-clicking a subnet node and choosing Create digital asset.

This submenu lists all user assets. Choosing an asset unlocks it for editing. This is the same as right-clicking an asset node and choosing Allow editing of contents.

This submenu lists all unlocked user assets. Choosing an asset locks it to prevent editing. This is the same as right-clicking an asset node and choosing Match current definition.

This submenu lists all unlocked user assets. Choosing an asset saves any changes made to the unlocked asset to the node’s definition on disk. This is the same as right-clicking an asset node and choosing Save node type.

Installs the assets from a library file on disk into the current scene file. You can use this to import “one-off” scene-specific assets from a file not on the Houdini search path.

Opens the Asset Manager window. This is the same as Windows ▸ Asset Manager.

Reloads the list of available asset libraries and their contents. This is useful if you want to pick up files that may have been added or changed since Houdini started, for example by an external asset management system.

Converts the selected asset node into a “black box” asset that cannot be unlocked or edited. The black box asset is a new asset type with a different name.

Opens the Orbolt asset store in a browser.

Shows a pane or window allowing you to browse any assets you've downloaded from the Orbolt store.

Starts the process of uploading the selected asset to the Orbolt asset store.

This submenu contains additional items for working with assets.

“Resets” the pane layout to a single pane with a scene viewer tab.

Saves any changes to the current layout. This preserves the desktop’s current name.

If you want to save the current layout as a new named desktop, use Save Current Desktop As instead.

Saves the current layout under a new name. The name will appear in the Desktop menu, allowing you to recall the saved layout.

Saves any changes to all layouts. Use this if you've modified multiple layouts and want to keep all your changes.

Resets the current pane layout by re-reading the saved definition from disk.

This is useful to discard any unsaved changes, or if you know the desktop file has changed since Houdini was started and you want to pick up the changes.

Opens the desktop manager allowing you to perform operations on saved layouts, such as duplicate, rename, or delete them.

If you've moved the menu bar into a pane, this puts them back at the top of the main window.

(You can move the menus into a pane using the Pane interface ▸ Move main menus here item in a pane menu.)

On Mac OS the menu bar is always at the top of the main screen, so this has no effect.

If you have moved the shelf into a pane, this puts it back at the top of the main window.

(You can move the menus into a pane using the Pane interface ▸ Move main menus here item in a pane menu.)

If you've moved the playbar into a pane, this puts it back at the bottom of the main window.

(You can move the menus into a pane using the Pane interface ▸ Move playbar here item in a pane menu.)

If you've moved the status line into a pane, this puts it back at the bottom of the main window.

(You can move the status line into a pane using the Pane interface ▸ Move status bar here item in a pane menu.)

Creates a new, blank radial menu and opens it in the radial menu editor.

Opens the “current” radial menu in the radial menu editor.

Locks or unlocks the current radial menu from changing when you change pane layouts in the Desktop menu.

Toggles whether floating windows should always appear on top of the main window, or whether they should be allowed to go behind when they're not the current window.

Opens a new window with its own pane layout. This is especially useful for putting additional Houdini UI on multiple monitors.

See how to edit pane layouts.

Opens an Animation Editor window, which lets you view and edit animated parameters and how Houdini fills in the transitions between keyframes.

Opens an Hscript Textport window, which lets you type HScript commands and prints the results.

Opens a Python shell window.

Opens a window that lets you edit the contents of the hou.session module. This module is a place for scene-specific Python code.

Opens the Python Pane editor window, which lets you duplicate, edit, and rename custom pane types defined in Python.

Opens a Bundle List window, which shows all bundles in the current scene.

Opens a Take List window, which lets you switch between and edit takes.

Opens a Parameter Spreadsheet window, which lets you edit multiple values on multiple nodes at once.

Opens a Tree View windows, which shows a hierarchical list of all nodes in the scene.

Opens a Houdini Engine SessionSync window, which lets you manage Houdini Engine SessionSync.

Opens the Asset Manager window, which lets you edit, unload, and delete digital asset libraries.

Opens a Gallery Manager window, which lets you view and edit gallery entries for any node type.

Opens a Persistent handle window.

Opens a Material Palette window, which lets you create and assign materials from the gallery.

Opens a Code Viewer window, which lets you view the VEX code inside a VOP node.

You can drop a VOP node on the window or select a node using the chooser to view the VEX code inside the node. This is the same as right-clicking the node and choosing View Code.

Opens a performance monitor window, which lets you record cook times and display the results to identify slow parts of your scene.

Opens an audio panel window, which lets you control the audio output of Houdini.

Opens a cache manager window, which lets you set cache sizes, see cache usage, and clear caches.

Opens a new system command line window.

Opens an auto rigs builder window.

Opens a character picker window.

Opens a pose library window.

Opens an pose-space deform builder window.

Opens a Houdini tutorials page in a browser.

Opens Houdini’s online help in an embedded browser.

Opens Houdini’s online help to show the list of example files.

Opens the sidefx.com website in a browser.

Opens a Houdini tutorials page in a browser.

Opens the Houdini forum in a browser.

Opens the Houdini support page in a browser.

Opens the Houdini downloads page in a browser.

Toggles whether to show tooltips when you hover the mouse over something in the Houdini UI.

Toggles whether to show a window containing links to learning materials when Houdini starts up.

Lets you know which version of Houdini you are running.