To create a digital asset from a subnet, press
on the subnet’s node tile in the network
editor and choose Create Digital
Asset. This turns the subnet into a new operator type you can reuse.
After you create an asset, you can edit most of its settings by
pressing on an asset instance and choosing Type
Properties to open the type properties window.
You can create a custom VOP from SHOPs, VOP networks, or any other VEX-based operator.
When you create a digital asset from a VOP network, the type of asset created depends on the type of VOP network. Most of the options required to create the new operator type are gathered from the VOP network.
Operator Name
Internal name of the operator. This must be unique across all the scene files you want to use this asset in, and is very difficult to change. You should use some kind of naming convention to ensure uniqueness.
The name must start with a letter, and can contain letters, numbers,
and underscores (_).
Operator Label
The human-readable name of the operator, which appears in the Houdini user interface (including the tab menu. This should be relatively short (two to four words) but as descriptive as possible.
Minimum Inputs
The minimum number of inputs an instance of this operator must have
to be considered valid. Set this to 0 if the operator is not
required to have an input connected.
Maximum Inputs
The maximum number of inputs an instance of this operator will accept. The default value is the current number of inputs to the subnet you are creating the new digital asset from.
Save to Library
Location of the operator type library (HDA) file to save the new asset into.
While a single .hda file can contain multiple assets, in general
you should save each digital asset in its own .hda file and name
the .hda file after the asset’s internal name. This makes it
easier to manage assets, libraries, and dependencies in a pipeline.
If you enter the word Embedded instead of a library name, the
asset definition will be embedded in the scene file instead of saved
into a .hda file.
Install Library to
After the digital asset’s definition is created it needs to be installed to be available in Houdini. This menu lets you choose the scope in which the library will be available:
-
For the current hip file only.
-
For you only (HOME).
-
For the current project (JOB).
-
Anywhere else in your HOUDINI_PATH.
(If you choose a directory in your path, the HDA is not copied to the specified location. Instead Houdini adds a reference to the HDA to the OPLibraries file there.)