Houdini + Vray + Custom PDG scripts on windows

Epigraph · March 23, 2020, 7:35pm

Hi Community, newcomer here looking for some guidance on the following:

1 - When I “Start Spot fleet” from the AWS Portal i don’t see any Houdini+Vray on Windows. Im I missing something or the Houdini + Vray combo is only available in Linux?

2 - We use 2 Houdini packages that also need to be added to the AWS AIM configurations. One is the SideFXlabs the other package is something we build inhouse to deal with PDG and Automation.

2.1 - How do I add the SideFxLabs Package to a Thinkbox AIM Configuration?

2.2 - The way we have the custom PDG automation script setup is by only having a .json file in the clients packages folder of Houdini. That .json just points to our local server to get all the required scripts.
I know we need to let the AWS cache our local files (eg:textures and geo) so the instances can render efficiently, does that also include cashing the automation scripts we have in the server? or can those scripts be served dynamically from our server to the EC2 instances (using the json file in the package folder of the instances)?

Any help will be very appreciated.
Bruno

Justin_B · March 23, 2020, 8:31pm

Hello!

Going by the numbers here:

If it’s not there, we haven’t made an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) of it yet. You can make your own, by following the steps in our docs here.
Same answer as #1, you’ll have to customize an AMI to make that happen.

As for 2.2 I’m not sure, I assume the workers won’t be able to grab those scripts as your local server won’t be accessible to it. It might be simplest to load those onto the machine when you create the AMI. It’s also possible to have those scripts uploaded to the instance on startup but that’ll require a bit more work with Event Plugins.