I've been having a problem setting the HOUDINI_DSO_PATH.

What I'm trying to do is to add a path to the DSO search path.
I have new directory called: cmy_dso/ which contain my custom dso's

By default, Houdini is launched without setting the variable HOUDINI_DSO_PATH.
So in this case, the default value is : “@/dso_^;@/dso” which expands
to : “$HFS/houdini/dso”
On my system is : “C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini
10.0.430\houdini\dso”

When I try to explicitly set the env variable to :
set HOUDINI_DSO_PATH=@/dso_^;@/dso;c:\my_dso

I get warnings on startup in the console window:
================================================
Warning: Bad operator type when binding handles: Object/path
Warning: Bad operator type when binding handles: Object/pathcv
Warning: Bad operator type when binding handles: Sop/platonic
Warning: Bad operator type when binding handles: Cop2/emboss
================================================

My DSO is loaded and is useable in the session, BUT I am now missing a
bunch of other nodes such as TimeBlend, and others…

Substituting forward or backslashes doesn't make a difference.

If I explicitly set it to : HOUDINI_DSO_PATH=@/dso_^;@/dso
then the warnings as well. (ie: missing op nodes in houdini)

Btw, I'm on windows xp64 and in our environment, we cannot copy files
to the program files\ install area, that's why I have a separate
directory for dso. This directory will ideally be on a shared
network directory, so $HOME is no ideal as well.

Thanks!

Markus

This is an artifact of you using the DOS shell. In the DOS scripting language, the caret (^) symbol is used as an escape character. Since we need it to be an actual character in the environment variable value, you need to escape it as well:

set HOUDINI_DSO_PATH=@/dso_^^;@/dso

Just tried it with the double caret (^^) and same issue.

Thanks!

Run hconfig and make sure that the environment variable was properly set.

hconfig output:
==========================================
N:\repo\deployment\GridTools\toolsetManagement\selectors41>hconfig
EDITOR := ‘CPROGRA~1/vim/vim72/gvim.exe’
HFS := ‘CPROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.430’
HOME := ‘H:’
HOUDINI_DESKTOP_DIR := ‘CDOCUME~1/mng/desktop’
HOUDINI_DSO_PATH := ‘Cdev/mng/gnomeo_m2008_64bit-rcan/houdini/dso_10.0.430;@/dso_^;@/dso’
HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH := ‘/houdini/otls;Cdev/mng/gnomeo_m2008_64bit-rcan/houdini/otls’
HOUDINI_TEMP_DIR := ‘CTEMP’
HSITE := ‘CPROGRA~1/SIDEEF~1/HOUDIN~1.430/site’
JOB := ‘nprojects/gnomeo/gn01/production/show/’
USER := ‘mng’
==========================================

hconfig -ap output:
==========================================
HOUDINI_DSO_PATH := “Cdev/mng/gnomeo_m2008_64bit-rcan/houdini/dso_10.0.430;@/dso_^;@/dso”
The search path for loading custom plug-ins (Dynamic Shared
Objects or Dynamic Link Libraries).

Default path: ‘@/dso_^;@/dso’
Where @ is replaced with HOUDINI_PATH
and ^ is replaced with nt_x86_64
Directories searched (in order) are:
1) “Cdev/mng/gnomeo_m2008_64bit-rcan/houdini/dso_10.0.430”
2) “$HFS/houdini/dso”
===========================================

It looks to me that it's your HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH is wrong. Do an “unset HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH” and then try running Houdini again.

Excellent.. that did it.

I changed the HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH to: “@/otls;Cdev/mng/gnomeo_m2008_64bit-rcan/houdini/otls”


===========================================
HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH := “@/otls;Cdev/mng/gnomeo_m2008_64bit-rcan/houdini/otls”
This path specifies the directories Houdini will search for OTL files.
This value is only used if the Operator Type Manager is configured not
to use OPlibraries files to find OTL files. The default for this value
is the HOUDINI_OTL_PATH with “/otls” appended to each directory in
that path.

Default path: ‘@/otls’
Where @ is replaced with HOUDINI_OTL_PATH
Directories searched (in order) are:
1) “$HOME/houdini10.0/otls”
2) “$HFS/houdini/otls”
3) “Cdev/mng/gnomeo_m2008_64bit-rcan/houdini/otls”
===========================================


Thanks for your help!

Hi advance,
I have some questions..
How to setup the hconfig env at first?
I want to use command to run houdini with specified environment about each project, includ dso, otls, prefs, shelfs…etc

can you help me, I really appreciate !!
Thanks!

The traditional way is to use a script which sets up those environment variables in your shell (eg. in bash: source project_setup.sh project_name). Then you can launch Houdini from that shell. On Windows, I'm not sure how to do it but I'm sure PowerShell can do it.