Jonathan de Blok - JDBgraphics

It depends on the workflow but another approach could be to save it locally and have some background tool push it to the NAS. That will be the fastest way to get it out of Houdini and get back into the UI.

And on a related note, when saving the hip file on the network gets slow check the HOUDINI_BUFFEREDSAVE env var options.

I understand the problem, what I mean is that it will only save materials when the materials the @shop_materialpath points to do actually exist.

A complete hack, but with some python one could switch to a dummy LOP with no content and a dummy output name when an existing frame is detected.