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How to setup custom houdini config folder(HOUDINI_PATH)?
How to setup custom houdini config folder(HOUDINI_PATH) instead of using standard mechanism.
I don't want to install it to local user $USER\houdiniX.X folder - I want to set shared folder with configs.
It's possible? What is the most efficient way?
Thanks.
By default Houdini looks in the user folder and the Houdini installation folder for configs and scripts. But it's not a good way to put your custom files in the Houdini installation folder.
If you don't want to use the user folder, you can also specify environment variables before you launch Houdini. In most Pipelines you will have a tool from which you can launch Houdini, which defines custom environment variables before the launch. It's also on the Prism roadmap to develop an App Launcher, which will be able to do that. Setting the environment variables manually every time before you start Houdini is would get annoying after some time.
The way which I recommend is to put a package file in the user folder, which appends the path environment variable with your custom folder location where you store all your configs. Then you only have a single package file in your users folder, but all the configs and scripts can be anywhere else. (https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/ref/plugins.html)
That's also how Prism is loaded in Houdini without adding all the Prism scripts and configs to the Houdini user preferences folder.
Thanks for your reply. I’am quite familiar with dcc startup mechanism.
Yes, I asked if there any hook or plugin that can modify environment variables before app start and mechanism of configuration of that process.
Ah ok, unfortunately it's not possible to do that in Prism with a hook or plugin at the moment. Hopefully soon though 🙂
Anyway, thanks for you great work. I think I will create some custom launcher, to cover my situation.