Customizing the Houdini Interface

Houdini provides almost limitless customization, it's easy to be overwhelmed at first as there's lots of different places where you change settings.

Outlined below are the steps I take to customize Houdini to my liking.

Get the Slate Theme

For a flat user interface, I'm using this Slate Theme from Odforce I found a while ago. It eliminates a lot of the shading on UI elements like buttons and tabs. I find it easier on the eyes as well as more simplified modern look.

The theme can be downloaded here Slate_Theme_Houdini.zip, unzip the files and put them in your $HOME/houdiniX.x/config/ directory. The next time you launch Houdini, you should see the Slate theme as an option in your Edit > Color Settings Window

Changing the Desktop Layout

Download the .desk file and place it in your local preferences desktop directory $HOME/houdiniX.x/desktop/

You can switch between desktops here https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/basics/panes.html#layouts

By default Houdini starts up in the Build desktop, but you can change that here [1]

Simplifying Node Shapes

https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/network/menus.html#view_menu

Show Custom Node Shapes -> Disable, so all nodes are rectangular

https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/network/menus.html#tools_menu

Make Room for New Nodes -> Disable

https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/ref/windows/mainprefs.html#net

Use simplified shape when node shapes -> Enable, uses an even simpler default node shape (a simple rectangle instead of a rounded rectangle)

Animate network changes -> Disable

https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/network/options.html#display

Default node colors -> Disable

Changing the Splash Screen

Some aspects of Houdini can only be customized through Setting Houdini Environment Variables.

You can customize the following Houdini Environment Variables by editing $HOME/houdiniX.x/houdini.env

HOUDINI_SPLASH_FILE = ~/hsplash/hsplash_014.png
HOUDINI_SPLASH_MESSAGE = WELCOME ${USER}@${HOSTNAME}\\nVERSION: ${HOUDINI_VERSION}
HOUDINI_UI_QUEUE_SIZE = 2500000
HOUDINI_NO_START_PAGE_SPLASH = 1
HOUDINI_MAX_FILE_HISTORY = 32
HOUDINI_ENABLE_OLD_PRESETS = 1
HOUDINI_USE_OTL_AS_DEFAULT_HDA_EXT = 1