Last updated: 4-15-2025
After your purchase get your downloaded JLTools.zip file and drop it in your packages folder. In your Houdini Directory. If the packages folder doesn’t exist just create one in all lowercase.
*C:\\Users\\**Your UserName**\\Documents\\houdini20.5\\packages*
In some cases you might have Houdini installed with OneDrive Just make sure its the correct path.
*C:\\Users\\**Your UserName**\\OneDrive\\Documents\\houdini20.5\\packages*
Extract all the contents from your JLTools.zip so you have the JLTools folder and the JLTools.json file.
Open up the JLTools.json file and change the user name to your name.
{
"name": "JLTools",
"env": [
{
"var": "JLTools",
"value": "C:/Users/{UserName}/Documents/houdini20.5/packages/JLTools"
},
{
"var": "PYTHONPATH",
"value": "$JLTools/python",
"method": "append"
},
{
"var": "HOUDINI_TOOLBAR_PATH",
"value": "$JLTools/toolbar",
"method": "append"
},
{
"var": "HOUDINI_UI_ICON_PATH",
"value": "$JLTools/config/icons",
"method": "append"
},
{
"var": "HOUDINI_OTLSCAN_PATH",
"value": "$JLTools/HDAs",
"method": "append"
},
{
"var": "HOUDINI_PATH",
"value": "$JLTools/pypanels;&",
"method": "prepend"
},
{
"var": "HOUDINI_PATH",
"value": "$JLTools;&",
"method": "append"
},
{
"var": "HOUDINI_STARTUP_PATH",
"value": "$JLTools/startup/python;&",
"method": "prepend"
}
],
"hpath": "$JLTools"
}
We will need to install ffmpeg to get the Playblast tool to work.
First head over to the website and download the windows version of ffmpeg Download FFmpeg
Download the latest win64 version.
After downloading the zip file extract the contents. Just for simplicity rename your folder to ffmpeg. I do this because the zip file usually has a really long name.
Please the ffmpeg and all of its contents in a place were you can located so when you open up playbast you can find the ffmepg.exe file to reference.