2020-12-292 Comments

Project Folder Creator

Every time I am doing a project, I found myself creating, or copying a folder template from another folder. It's not a big deal really, but once the guy said: "If you do the same thing often, it is worth to write a script that does that for you".
So here it is. A small script that creates a project folder structure for you, just two clicks away.

I created a video, how to install python and script. If you already know how to use python, or have it already no instructions needed.


The script comes with a predefined folder structure, so you'll have to change that yourself. To do so, edit "ProjectCreator.py" script and you're good to go.

If you have questions, feel free to drop me a line.
P.S. I'm struggling with a mac version of this script, so it is windows only.

DOWNLOAD

2019-11-21No Comments

CentOS 8 rants

Long-time no see! Well, everything was working perfectly until now! As everything is broken, everything is lost again. On the other hand, I have a reason to write!

My CentOS 8 experience is very very bad compared to 7.5 version.. but probably it's devs that do not want to adopt new builds to blame. Anyway, it's not as bad as Ubuntu. (Doesn't boot at all)

First of all, the installer. Not sure what guys have changed here but there was impossible to install CentOS 8 without switching to "simple graphics mode" that gave me basic GUI to go with. There is also a "text" mode if you want to spice up things a bit more, but I'm not that kind of guy.

Other than that, everything goes pretty much the same. After installation, there are some post process tweaks which are a must.

First - Nvidia drivers. Graphic drivers that came with OS gave me really poor experience, and with limited "simple graphics mode" I wasn't able to do much. Installing is pretty much the same as previous. The guide is here:
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-the-nvidia-drivers-on-centos-8

Next - NTFS-3G

Sadly, CentOS 8 doesn't come with this one, so forget about smooth HDD/SSD mounts if you are using NTFS (Windows file system). Here is a guide on how to make it happen and fix issues. If you do not use NTFS file system you can skip this step.

https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-ntfs-3g-on-redhat-8

After ntfs compiled comes another trouble. Disks do not mount automatically as they should. In CentOS community forum I found a solution to that. Its a simple step, you need to create a symlink in /sbin

mount.ntfs -> mount.ntfs-3g.

It fixes the issue. Thank you CentOS forum users!

Another one - Issues with Renderman.

Obviously, Pixar's Renderman doesn't support the new OS, and there was a trouble with installer, and render man engine in Houdini. These packages solved issues:

compat-openssl10
ncurses-compat-libs

Thank you renderman community!

Issues with Redshift.

And this is a huge one for me, Redshift is my main renderer! Redshift doesn't work on CentOS 8 yet. Well... Technically it works, just you can't get any result without a license and the "License tool" doesn't work, as it needs qt4 packages. Probably it is possible to reverse engineer and put needed packages into the places, but still, it might be some issues. I think it worth a try.

It is very very sad, that developers sometimes do not want to update as soon as some users do.

2019-03-22No Comments

Houdini install (linux)

It's been a while, and I noticed that I haven't made any of Houdini install guides. (It is my 3d tool exclusively now)

It's very simple by the way. Just download Houdini from the website, and by default, it will be saved in the ~/Downloads folder.

(Short guide on terminal commands):

cd - change directory
~ - home directory, usually where your user files live.
cd .. - change directory, one level up (like in Houdini)
. - current directory
man - gives a short manual about a function, for example, if you do man cd it will print out how to use cd function/command
pwd - prints current working directory.
sudo (super user do. It means you need administrator rights or root rights to be able do something, usually goes with other commands. e.g. sudo foo )
ls - lists files and directories in current place (pwd)

Anyway, let's go back to Houdini installation.

Open terminal:

cd Downloads

To navigate into Downloads folder where is Houdini. To unpack it we need to initialize tar command as its a tar package.

tar xf hou(press tab, it will enter the full name and you'll get a full line).
tar xf houdini-17.5.173-linux_x86_64_gcc6.3.tar

Let's dive into that directory:

cd hou(press tab, it will enter full path)
cd houdini-17.5.173-linux_x86_64_gcc6.3/

And now the last thing you need to do is run install script by typing ( it means, in current directory execute script that is called houdini.install)

sudo ./houdini.install

And that's it. You just need to follow up installation guide.

IN ADDITION: HOUDINI RENDERING VIA TERMINAL(works with WIN, MAC TOO)

Here is a small tip on rendering, It's not that it is very fast, but it's faster than rendering to mplay. And if you are crazy enough to render a bunch of frames, even you get that 0.005% of performance gain, I recommend to definitely use it. Every second counts!

With Houdini comes "Houdini terminal" you can run that on Windows and Mac, but on Linux you have to go into Houdini folder and run it from there.

Houdini by default installs in /opt. my version is 17.5.173 so command in terminal will be:

cd /opt/hfs17.5.173/

QUICK TIP: there are plenty of directories everywhere and TAB key is very handy, if you don't know how folders or files are called you just can type h TAB and it will list all options that starts with h:

let's list what we have:

ls

And there bunch files, but we interested in houdini_setup. It is a shell script that initializes Houdini environment. To make it happen we need to type:

source houdini_setup

if everything correctly there should be a message:

The Houdini 17.5.173 environment has been initialized.

Now you can open your Houdini files. I have an amazing scene in my Documents folder.. so I need to navigate there and change my current directory to that location.

cd ~/Documents/Houdini_Mr_Piggy_Scene/

let's list files that available:

ls

to open that scene in terminal there is a command hbatch.

hbatch Fantastic_Mr_Piggy.hiplc

and we are in.

To navigate it is the same as you do in terminal and if you list what is available, there will be familiar content /obj, /out, /shop, etc etc. To navigate to /out context just type:

cd /out

there will be all output ROPS if you saved your file.. (happens to me all the time..)

To render file it is a simple command 'render'. You can read more in Houdini documentation, but with -V argument it goes verbose mode, which gives some info about rendering. (usually just a frame number its on)

render -V And_Your_Rop_Node_Name

And that's it, files are rendering now!

Yaaayyyy!!!

2019-03-03No Comments

POWERLINE!

I started to use the terminal more and more lately. As for the guy, coming from Mac/Windows OS, it was the scariest thing ever. After all I found it very useful, especially when you need to render stuff, you can do it directly from the terminal. It is faster, and it saves a little bit of precious memory for your renders.

The thing is, the more I use it on Linux the more I need it on Mac/Windows. It became a daily tool for me. On the macOS, on the other hand, the terminal is quite similar, but Windows PowerShell it's a little bit shit, to be honest. Anyway, this stuff is about Linux, so here we go.

POWERLINE! It is an amazing plugin (let's say it is a plugin or extension) to your bash. It helps to visualise directories, and its easier to navigate there and there. These are the guides to install it:

Powerline – Adds Powerful Statuslines and Prompts to Vim Editor and Bash Terminal

by the way, you can install it for you macOS too:

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/jazz-up-your-bash-terminal-a-step-by-step-guide-with-pictures-80267554cb22

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