One of the best features of a program such as Houdini is the ability to write and add your own vex and renderman shaders, however the process appears to have varied as new editions of houdini are released.

My question is which is the best workflow to use to add shaders to houdini (I am using version ‘8’ ) and where is the best location to place the dialogue files produced once slo shaderfiles are compiled using rmands.

One houding manual I have read (houdini ‘5’ ) suggested placing the dialogue files .ds in a directory on your personal $JOB directory called /config/Shaders.

Another internet posting suggested sidefx recommended building a file stucture in $JOB/shaders/shop/dispalcement, light. surface etc. essentially grouping the dialogue files into the files rmands places them into. The posting was silent on the matter of where to place the shader files themselves

I would be grateful for any help in this matter.


While on this subject which is the best project structure to use in you job directory, Maya and XSI stucture this for you when you request it on opening a project.

Funny you should ask. See Mario's post on this thread:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=7408 [sidefx.com]