Renderman for Houdini issue...FIXED!

Man, it has been a rough couple of weeks. It all came to a head this evening, when I couldn't listen to an audio text from a friend of mine because my phone is broken, so I tried installing my sim card on the phone my uncle let me use, but after hours of messing with it, it wouldn't restore from my backup because the borrowed phone has too little available storage space, which meant I would lose my contacts and a buttload of data. So, I said screw it, who needs 500 dollars, and bought a new iPhone from Best Buy. I will be picking it up tomorrow. And after all that, I still can't hear the text. And I'm behind on my homework again. Sounds silly; sounds small, and in some ways it is, but I am positively fried. Andrew can vouch for me -- I was extremely close to screaming my head off. :')

Normally I'd be yearning for a theme park trip during a time such as this, and indeed I'm excited for Lagoon this weekend -- but really I lowkey need a slow-paced summer vacation to Hawaii. No brainpower, just beach. One workout per day, then floating in the sea or resting on a towel until the sun sets, then falling into a comfortable bed at the end of the night with the fans blasting. And 8.5 hours of sleep every night. And let's not forget the delicious food. I'm not going to get any of that anytime soon, but as Arnold from the Magic School Bus once said, a guy can dream. 

Also, everyone talking excitedly about how they're going to pull all-nighters in the animation lab soon legitimately breaks my morale. I can't do all-nighters anymore; I haven't really done one since my final CS 455 project in fall of 2018. Well, and doing my final fountain push for Death and Delila in winter 2019, but I was still dealing with simulation and physics issues well into April of that year. Regardless, my body simply will not let me do that anymore, and what's more, it's often the first domino that causes my mental health to crash. Meh, oh well, I'm just not going to show up. I'll get my work done before 8 or 9 PM every night, and ideally even before. And then I will go home, and rest. I will find a way. I have to. 

That said, I fully intend on completing both of my effects well before the end of the semester, just...not...in that way. I'll figure it out. I am going to try and push Jones to move our final CS 456 project due date into finals week since our exam is optional, but, well...We'll see what happens. I keep chickening out. And I've still gotta write a bunch of malware before tomorrow (or Friday...but really tomorrow, because I'm way behind on UX) for pentesting. 

Anyway. 

If you are having trouble with Renderman 23.5 for Houdini 18.5.499, this is because Renderman is almost always behind Houdini in terms of builds. At least as of the time of this posting, you have to downgrade it to 18.5.351. 

But that's not enough. You have to make sure that you install the Python 2.7 version of the Houdini executable. At least at the time of this posting, Renderman DOES NOT WORK WITH PYTHON 3! I repeat, it DOES NOT WORK! 

You've got to get one of these. Boop

And this is the story of why I now have 3 different versions of Houdini sitting on my computer. I really need to uninstall a few so I can free up that excellent SSD space. 


Something's wrong, I can feel it...six minutes, Slim Shady, you're ON...

But that still isn't enough! Next you have to go inside your houdini.env file, which for me is located in Documents/houdini18.5. Technically it's also in my OneDrive folder for some weird reason. I would fix that, but moving folders around with Houdini has a tendency to break the software even more than the world broke my spirit. :V

And then do this: 


It was the SOHO line that was causing me so much pain. I spent almost an entire month trying to get this to work. I'm going to say that again. Almost. An. Entire. Month. Good thing I'm not actually enrolled in the film class this semester, or my GPA would be toast. 

We DO get a few weird console errors, which leads me to think that the second entry in the SOHO environment variable isn't really necessary. But you know what, I'm not touching it right now. I don't want to die THAT badly. :P 

Anyway, after we X out of the console errors, look what we've got: 


Looks a whole lot like a CRAPPY 3D RENDER!!!!!!! AW YISS!!!!!!!

Now we can run Renderman at home, therefore cutting out commute time and allocating more time to stare blankly into the void and contemplate the meaninglessness and ephemerality of mortal existence! :D But seriously, it is a GODSEND to not have to gamble on an animation lab machine being open. THANK GOODNESS. 

That's two tech issues down, one to go, which will not be touched probably until well after the semester has concluded. 

Really yearning for summer right about now. I have some Houdini and Maya tutorials I'd really like to blast through, then some fun personal projects in which I will not have to animate in a stuffy lab with no natural light. I really do love this stuff; I've just been stressed! More than anything, though, I just need to rest. 

Take me somewhere deep,

'Cause I'm quite exhausted and I need to sleep. 

~ Sky Sailing 

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