Houdini applink

By mifth

I did 3DCoat-Houdini Applink asset. It’s possible to export-import meshes and export textures from 3DCoat. Very useful for modeling and texturing artists.

– Set the Exchange folder before exporting/importing.
On linux it’s at “home/user/3DCoatVersion/Exchange”.
On Windows it’s somewhere at user documents. 3DCoat creates such a folder itself.

Video test of export/import of meshes and textures:

Houdini thread:

https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=43886&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

The asset is at Orbolt 
http://www.orbolt.com/asset/mifth::mifth_3dcoat_applinker

It’s not an external reference. You can use the new subnet as a common imported fbx. The exchanging itself works using fbx/obj export/import.
All its sop nodes are locked.

I have such setup.

Hints by matthias.kappenberg

I tried creating a scene on one machine that uses this applink, then loading it on another machine – all objects that were created internally in Houdini loaded fine, but the applink object was missing because it couldn’t find the Exchange folder where the modified object lived:

You have many options if you like to transfer your stuff to another machine.

The simplest one is: check the “lock” icon, if you have the desired model imported on your base machine.
Then the FBX is locked and the actual geometry will be embedded in the Houdini file.
But beware of the dog: Never save it then, with unlocking the Geometry…
Mainly used if you like to transfer a simple Houdini file with some demo geometry.

Another option, which is usually better, is to have your files organized in a “project”, which should have
subfolders for the different needed files like textures, models, ….
like:
YourProjectFolder <— base folder
YourProjectFolder/Models <— your models
YourProjectFolder/Textures <— your textures

then save your Houdini file in
– YourProjectFolder/TheFile.hip
and the FBX in
– YourProjectFolder/Models/export.fbx

now you can use variables like “$HIP” , see here: http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini13.0/expressions/_globals

and set a variable path to the model like:
$HIP/ Models/export.fbx

or use shared path, which are accessible in the network and use them, optional with the above variable
to have all your stuff in sync.

Hope that was helpy.

@ .. VOP, SOP, COP, FLIPPITY-FLOP, DOOWOPSHEBOP … 
Have a closer look at the manual… simply think of it like: stay organized (ok, it’s much more…)
SOP -> SurfaceOPerator -> all Geometry related stuff
COP -> CompositingOPerator -> all Image manipulation