Houdini vs. The Feisty Fawn by Georg Dümlein

Change to the directory houdini-8.2.13-linux-rhEL4 by entering cd h[TAB][Enter] and prepare the files for installation.


There are many shells flavors and each of them supports an different command set. Ubuntu Linux default shell is bash. You need to edit the install scripts to use bash instead of sh:
gedit houdini.install &opens an text editor. Now change the first line reading #!/bin/sh to #!/bin/bash and save the file. Same modification needs to be done in sesinetd.install (gedit sesinetd.install &). This is described in the SideFX-Forum [Link].


Installing Houdini

Now you can install Houdini: sudo ./houdini.install


*** NOTE: Looks like Ubuntu abstracts the user management and there is no root exposed in the default installation. To ensure houdini is installed as root you need to run it with sudo and you will be asked for your password.

After answering the questions - I kept everything as default - the system installs Houdini. The process is imaginable unsuspectacular and ends with an blinking cursor:


Now change to your home directory using cd and create and edit a new text file: gedit myhoudini &.


Enter the following lines of code:

#!/bin/bash
cd /opt/hfs8.2.13/
source houdini_setup_bash
sudo /opt/hfs8.2.13/houdini/sbin/sesinetd
houdini

This will change to the houdini directory, setup environment variables, start the licence server (as root) and last but not leat fire up houdini.

Save and close the file and set the permission to executable by entering chmod u+x myhoudini.


Now you can start Houdini from your home directory by entering ./myhoudini.


At the start of your first houdini session you will be asked for an license. Just click the link for non-commercial license to get the free Apprentice Version. You will be asked once a month as the free license lasts that long.

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