Getting started
Installing
Put JV-COPout-v1.0.hdalc in Documents/houdini22.0/otls/. Houdini picks it up on the next launch.
If you're updating, delete the old .hdalc first. Two files defining the same asset will collide, and which one wins is not something you want to discover mid-show.
It appears under Tab ▸ JV ▸ COPout, at SOP level.
Indie and Apprentice only
.hdalc is the Indie/Apprentice asset format. It will not load in Houdini FX or Core (commercial). That's a licensing rule of Houdini's, not a choice this tool makes.
Your first output window
The short version: drop the node, wire a copnet in, pick a screen, press the button.
Anywhere in /obj. It's an ordinary SOP.
A SOP-level COP Network node has an output, so it wires straight in. COPout reads whichever node inside it holds the display flag.
The Screen dropdown lists the screens Qt can see right now — so your projector shows up as an entry once Windows has it.
The window opens on that screen, borderless, at the COP's own resolution. Close Output tears it down again.
That's it. Everything from here is placement and taste.
No network yet? Use the test pattern
Turn on Test Pattern and press Output COP with nothing wired at all. You get a grid, a centre crosshair, an aspect circle, colour bars and a gamma ramp — enough to aim and focus a projector before the content exists. Pick the aspect you're going to work at from the resolution menu beside it.
Getting around the window
It has no title bar, so the usual furniture isn't there. The bindings are also listed in the node's Utilities tab, right where you'll be looking for them:
If something looks wrong
Three things that look like bugs and aren't:
Windowed and fullscreen look identical. They genuinely coincide whenever the COP's resolution already matches the screen exactly — the windowed size is the screen size. Nothing is broken; change the COP resolution if you want to see the difference.
The "Both" overlay doesn't match COP mode. It won't, and that's expected. In Both mode the COP is composited by the viewport, which applies an approximate gamma rather than the exact sRGB curve. Treat Both as a reference view. If a colour decision matters, make it in Copernicus mode.
The frame rate caps out lower than you asked for. Almost always your COP network's own cook time, not the output path — a 1920×1400 feedback sim measures 24–43 ms a frame on its own, which is a 25–40 fps ceiling before COPout does anything. Read the Status field: it reports the measured read time and the frame rate that implies, so you can tell which side the limit is on. Raising Max FPS past what the network can cook buys you nothing.
