We just noticed that one of our tools (a command-line geometry converter) that uses the HDK fails when our Escape license is in use:

No licenses could be found to run this application.
Please check for a valid license server host

I thought that HDK-compiled tools didn't take a license token? Or was I mistaken?

cheers,
-Mark

While installing or compiling HDK consumes no license, running an HDK-based application will consume a license. Just in case you were to rewrite your own Houdini based on the provided HDK

Hmmmm… That's new behavior. I can see why you'd want to limit that, but I can see that causing problems for a lot of studios.

At C.O.R.E. our fur procedural linked to the HDK, so with this new behavior, every render would use a license.

I think the original behavior was that it would check for the existence of a license, but not actually consume one.

It also means that mplay takes a license when we view DPX files, since it loads our IMG_DPX.so plugin. The result is that our IMG_DPX reader no longer functions when our Escape license is in use.

That's new behavior.

I am pretty sure this has been always like that.

I think MPlay and many other utilities in $HFS/bin are indeed the ones that only checks the existence of the license. Also, in the past you may have used the portion of the HDK classes that did not try to verify the license, so no license would get checked out.

But I can see how it can be annoying for small utilities to grab a license. If that's becoming prohibitive, be sure to talk to your account manager.

cheers,
Rafal

Will do, thanks Rafal.

As a side question: it seems that when you close a Houdini session leaving mplay opened, the license stays consumed. Does it suppose to be like that?

thanks,
skk.

The license should be returned when Houdini quits, even if Mplay stays open.

I tested it and that's what's happening on my end. But, I used hkey to test that, and I used View > List Users, which kept listing the license as checkd out by my workstation, even though it was properly returned (verified with sesictrl -i). I needed to do View > Refresh to get the correct license usage state reported in hkey.

cheers,
Rafal