Élie Michel

It is C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini 18.0.499\binthat must be in PATH. I am not sure for hdalc, let me know. Afaik the Houdini Engine has a more restrictive license when used outside of authorized vendors like Unreal/Unity/etc. :/

the files are under the installation folder: engine/thrift
Windows: C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini 18.0.xxx\engine\thrift

Thanks I found the thrift files, they are very interesting for retroengineering but I think the "This software is proprietary and is not to be reproduced" prevents me from using it for my own implementation. Though it's basically a header file/API and the jurisprudence about the possibility to license APIs is a bit blurry iirc. Anyway, I'll stick with Open Mesh Effect to be sure.

what if the data format would be USD and Open Mesh Effect is just a data flow manager that can start program's (DCC, custom program, background processes)

I am not sure about what you call data flow manager, but the goal of an mfx plugin in general is to be a kind of dll loaded at runtime. The case of bridges with other DCCs is possible, but is only one use case among others. I mentioned USD indeed to be the file format used to share graphes of mfx plugins and have a unified format to share modifiers stacks among DCCs.

I did not know Verse, what is its status? The fact that it features a screenshot of Blender 2.4 in the homepage makes it feel… a bit old. ^^

Indeed, I didn't know much about Thrift (actually I just realized with the video that this is a thing beyond Houdini) but is there a specification of the RPC endpoints used by Houdini? Or is it the very same API except in Thrift's “language”?

Actually I'm already using Thrift in MfxHoudini because with my plug-in based architecture I couldn't find a way to share the same HAPI session between all Blender objects and Thrift was the only way to maintain more than one session afaik.

If starting know, I'd clearly look at how to make an open source drop in replacement to libHARC, but know that I've been in the process of thinking about an Open Mesh Effect API, I got attached to it and started believing that it is something interesting beyond this Houdini-Blender project. Here is a blogpost where I present the intention: https://blog.exppad.com/article/the-need-for-open-mesh-effect [blog.exppad.com]

For instance I am planning on doing it the other way around too: a Houdini node that loads an Open Mesh Effect plugin, so that a developper could write C++ plugins once for both Blender and Houdini. The inspiration and basis is OpenFX, which allows plugins developpers to write once for Nuke+After+Fusion+Natron+… because they all implement this same plugin architecture.

PS: Yeah it's me for the Google Maps importer, though it's a completely different project. ^^