how to use Slim. The key advantage to using Slim is that you can use it to graphically create both a .sl and and a .slo file. Whenever you create a shader and preview it in its properties, it creates both files by default in whatever shader directory you have set in Resouce Locations. Because of this, you should rename your file with a full file directory location, but without the file extension. You can even create whole shader networks for transfer. However, be sure that you haveyour master settings on you main node like above.

Once you have your shader looking the way you want it, preview it one last time to save your settings into both the .sl and .slo files. In some cases you can even bring the .sl file into your editor and further edit it. However you will need to change a few things. At the very least you must change slim_shadertype to an actual .sl file type. Also it would be advisable to change slim_instancename to whatever you want your shader to be called. Then compile the shader and convert it to an .otl file. However, with some surface shaders there are some serious issues with converting it to a .sl and then compiling it... specifically with the blinn and matte nodes. When I resolve those issues I will update this page, but until then if you can't compile the .sl file from Slim, you still can bring your shader over to Houdini by converting the .slo file to an .otl file by using the rmands function.