Manipulating asset internals

The hotl command line utility takes the name of an OTL file and prints information about the operators defined in the OTL. This is the same information that appears when you press on a node.

It can also expand the files contained inside an .hda file, and collapse expanded files back into an .hda file. This may be useful for programmatically or batch editing files inside assets.
The VEX compiler vcc can generate an asset library file from a .vfl file.
```
vcc -l shaders.hda shader.vfl
```
This compiles shader.vfl, and puts the generated dialog script file, .vex file, and the uncompiled .vfl file into shaders.hda. You can also specifyan icon, name, and label for your shader. You can edit the .vfl file in the new asset’s type properties window.

Getting started

Introduction to digital assets

Houdini lets you turn your work into reusable custom nodes called digital assets.

Creating assets

Digital asset versions and namespaces
Two types of asset versioning

For historical reasons, Houdini supports two different systems for versioning assets, that support different use cases. You can use either or both at the same time.
Manipulating asset internals
Working with files and assets as text

You can save HIP files as plain text, and expand asset files into a directory of plain files. This makes it easier to use diffing and source control on Houdini files.