Hey guys, is there a standalone installer for the houdini engine? i.e. I already have houdini installed, but I got a new version of maya

currently, I have to rerun the whole installer to get the houdini engine in my new maya version. I would be nice if I did not have to do that

thank you!

When you install the Maya plugin, the plugin files for all the Maya versions are placed in $HFS, regardless of what Maya versions you have installed. So the plugin files for all the Maya versions are actually available in $HFS/engine/maya. If a certain Maya version is installed, the only additional step that happens is that the installer will copy the module file from:
$HFS/engine/maya/maya<version>/houdiniEngine-maya<version>
to
$MAYA_LOCATION/modules/houdiniEngine-maya<version>

So if you have installed a new Maya version after installed the Maya plugin, you can simply copy the module file from $HFS to $MAYA_LOCATION. Then Maya would be able to find the Maya plugin.

Rather than copying the module file, it's also possible to insert the $HFS/engine/maya/maya<version> path into MAYA_MODULE_PATH. Then, Maya would also be able to find the Maya plugin.

thank you Andrew!

Hello, I checked the folder C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2020\modules ; there is a file called "houdiniEngine-maya2020"; hOWEVER, WHEN i GO TO MAYA > windows > settings preferences > plugin manager > I don't see any Sidefx plugin here...
What should I do???

Answering myself : You can use the command line to only install Engine. Just pass the option: /HoudiniEngineOnly to the installer.

www.sidefx.com/faq/question/silent-installuninstall/

Grendizer
Hello, I checked the folder C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2020\modules ; there is a file called "houdiniEngine-maya2020"; hOWEVER, WHEN i GO TO MAYA > windows > settings preferences > plugin manager > I don't see any Sidefx plugin here...
What should I do???

Thank you so much @grendizer - After a few hours of the same issue - it was the Houdini Launcher that was bugged. Installing from the standalone installer instead fixed the issue and the plugin is visible (I didnt do the silent install just ran it over a current one).

So is there a standalone installer for the Engine Maya plugin?

Cause I tried the command line install with these commands:
houdini-18.0.xxx-win64.exe /HoudiniEngineOnly
houdini-18.0.xxx-win64.exe /EngineMaya
Both do not work, they install the full Houdini package.

Any clue??

What are you trying to achieve? You need Houdini to be installed to utilize the plugin. You must also be careful to make sure that the HAPI API version of the plugin is compatible with the version of Houdini that you are using. This is one of the reasons why we bundle them together.

There is no installer that just contains the plugin. If you are running into issues with the installer flag, please submit a ticket to support.

Hey John

Well here is a scenario :
Maya 2020 is installed.
I install Houdini 18.5 with the Houdini Engine plugin for Maya.
Now I want to install Maya 2022. After I install it, it doesn't have the Houdini Engine plugin.
So the best thing would be to install ONLY the Houdini Engine plugin for Maya 2022. Why would I re-install all Houdini?

As Andrew said above, all versions are installed regardless of the version of Maya that you choose in the installer. Instead, what the installer does is add the module file for the selected version into the Maya module path. If you want it to show up in the new version, you must add the module to your module path. See Andrew's comment above for details.

Ok, got it, thanks.
So then what's the use for these switches and why don't they work?
/HoudiniEngineOnly
/EngineMaya

From the help page:

HoudiniEngineOnly: Installs only the files needed to run a
non-graphical instance of Houdini. It does not
modify the registry in any way. This option
cannot be selected at the same time as MainApp
or LicenseServer.

Please try /EngineMaya=Yes. If that doesn't work, please message support as I do not take care of the installer.

Thanks a lot. I tried
/EngineMaya
/EngineMaya Yes

but I never tried
/EngineMaya=Yes

No wonder it didn't work!

Should the maya engine plugin installed via the Houdini Launcher just work?

It's also not showing up in the Plugin Manager. While the mod file and everything else seems up to snuff.

Which OS are you on, and which version of Houdini did you install?

Where is the mod file located? Is that path in the MAYA_MODULE_PATH? You can run getenv MAYA_MODULE_PATHinside Maya to see.

Windows, Houdini latest daily build (708). And I have it correctly on the MAYA_MODULE_PATH.
Used this help file for mod path : (https://www.sidefx.com/docs/maya/_maya__install.html)

Tried the all paths from the default:
C:/Program Files/SideFX/Houdini Engine/Maya

up to:
C:/Program Files/SideFX/Houdini Engine/Maya/18.5.708/maya2018/plug-ins

For this project I need to use Maya 2018.

If I try to force install it via mel : loadPlugin houdiniEngine;
// Error: line 1: Plug-in, "houdiniEngine", was not found on MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH. //

All the prerequisites seem in the right place, mod file seems to work correct too on the env PATH. Not sure what else I can do.

What is the output of the getenv MAYA_MODULE_PATHmel command?

As stated I tried with all paths I could from

C:/Program Files/SideFX/Houdini Engine/Maya
up to:
C:/Program Files/SideFX/Houdini Engine/Maya/18.5.708/maya2018/plug-ins

None gave me the plugin.

Thanks!
-Johan

Hi Johan, this seems to be caused by an issue in the Launcher. It should be fixed in tomorrow's launcher build. I'll update this thread once it's available.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

No worries at all, not in a big rush! Thanks for helping out!