RenderMan for Houdini is installed using the RenderMan Installer, which manages the downloading, installation and licensing of RenderMan Pro Server (the actual renderer) along with all bridge products.

NOTE: During the 22 beta cycle, the RenderMan Installer will not download and install RenderMan For Houdini or the pre-release. For the beta period, you will need to download and install the RenderManProServer component and the RenderManForHoudini component both separately. Please install the RenderManProServer component first.

After you installed RenderMan Pro Server and RenderMan for Houdini properly, set the following environment variables (XX.X is the RenderMan version, and YY.Y is the Houdini version). 

RMANTREE=/path/to/RenderManProServer-XX.X
RFHTREE=/path/to/RenderManForHoudini-XX.X
HOUDINI_PATH=$RFHTREE/YY.Y:&

You are now ready to setup your first scene! Houdini picks up the system's environment variables (such as $HOME) as well as the environment variables of the shell from which it was started. Houdini specific environment variables can be set in the houdini.env, found in the following locations:

Windows: %HOME%/houdiniX.X/houdini.env
Mac: ~/Library/Preferences/houdini/YY.Y/houdini.env
Linux: ~/houdiniYY.Y/houdini.env

For example on Linux, one could place this in: ~/houdini16.5/houdini.env:

RMANTREE=/opt/pixar/RenderManProServer-22.4
RFHTREE=/opt/pixar/RenderManForHoudini-22.4
HOUDINI_PATH=$RFHTREE/16.5:&