Thanks for the Solaris presentation and the Karma GPU sneak peak.

First question would be is it planned to be multi-GPU aware?

Thanks!

… and AMD GPUs compatible?

Just run it on a 32 core AMD

RobW
Just run it on a 32 core AMD

I'm pretty sure you are talking about CPU

We try to remain as device-agnostic as possible by using OpenCL. Currently the denoiser is locked to Nvidia GPUs (as it's their denoiser), but we have plans to support other denoisers as well. As RobW mentioned, you should be able to run karma on both a GPU-less farm machine via CPU CL and a local workstation with GPU CL, without any user intervention. And if you're lucky enough to have farm machines with GPUs, you can use the GPU on both.
When the Karma GPU variant is released, of course

twod
We try to remain as device-agnostic as possible by using OpenCL. Currently the denoiser is locked to Nvidia GPUs (as it's their denoiser), but we have plans to support other denoisers as well. As RobW mentioned, you should be able to run karma on both a GPU-less farm machine via CPU CL and a local workstation with GPU CL, without any user intervention. And if you're lucky enough to have farm machines with GPUs, you can use the GPU on both.
When the Karma GPU variant is released, of course

Thanks for the detailed answer. I'm very happy you're opting for a device-agnostic path.

Are you planning on releasing any more info regarding features and technical details of Karma before the H18 release? such as feature parity with Mantra on release, missing features, shader development, plug-in architecture mentioned by Scott, rendering technology used (I suppose it's based on the current unidirectional PBR Mantra engine but of course no inside info here)….

And congratulations for the Solaris development, you guys are on fire and amazingly focused on the important.

Yeah, the Intel Denoiser is device-agnostic and works alot better than the Optix Denoiser - so, I hope the Intel Denoiser is on the short list for consideration.

I'm hearing that the Renderman Denoiser is “magically good” - but requires alot more AOVs than its competitors.

jarenas
Are you planning on releasing any more info regarding features and technical details of Karma before the H18 release? such as feature parity with Mantra on release, missing features, shader development, plug-in architecture mentioned by Scott, rendering technology used (I suppose it's based on the current unidirectional PBR Mantra engine but of course no inside info here)….

Mostly all of those types of questions where answered at the end of the Solaris reveal video during the Q&A session.

Daryl Dunlap

jarenas
Are you planning on releasing any more info regarding features and technical details of Karma before the H18 release? such as feature parity with Mantra on release, missing features, shader development, plug-in architecture mentioned by Scott, rendering technology used (I suppose it's based on the current unidirectional PBR Mantra engine but of course no inside info here)….

Mostly all of those types of questions where answered at the end of the Solaris reveal video during the Q&A session.

I know I know, I mean in a more detailed and extended way

jarenas

Daryl Dunlap

jarenas
Are you planning on releasing any more info regarding features and technical details of Karma before the H18 release? such as feature parity with Mantra on release, missing features, shader development, plug-in architecture mentioned by Scott, rendering technology used (I suppose it's based on the current unidirectional PBR Mantra engine but of course no inside info here)….

Mostly all of those types of questions where answered at the end of the Solaris reveal video during the Q&A session.

I know I know, I mean in a more detailed and extended way

Probably a lot closer to release once things such as procedurals and features are more finalized. It's still in development now, which is where a lot of the vagueness in the details comes from.

twod

jarenas

Daryl Dunlap

jarenas
Are you planning on releasing any more info regarding features and technical details of Karma before the H18 release? such as feature parity with Mantra on release, missing features, shader development, plug-in architecture mentioned by Scott, rendering technology used (I suppose it's based on the current unidirectional PBR Mantra engine but of course no inside info here)….

Mostly all of those types of questions where answered at the end of the Solaris reveal video during the Q&A session.

I know I know, I mean in a more detailed and extended way

Probably a lot closer to release once things such as procedurals and features are more finalized. It's still in development now, which is where a lot of the vagueness in the details comes from.

Thanks for the informative answers!

thanks for clarifying!

sorry if already addressed, I might have missed this information:
will be hybrid rendering possible like combining karma cpu and karma gpu for the same image?

cheers

I guess I missed if OpenCL Karma will scale across GPUs, without more information I'm guessing it won't as Houdini's OpenCL currently doesn't.

twod
We try to remain as device-agnostic as possible by using OpenCL. Currently the denoiser is locked to Nvidia GPUs (as it's their denoiser), but we have plans to support other denoisers as well. As RobW mentioned, you should be able to run karma on both a GPU-less farm machine via CPU CL and a local workstation with GPU CL, without any user intervention. And if you're lucky enough to have farm machines with GPUs, you can use the GPU on both.
When the Karma GPU variant is released, of course

As far as I'm aware AMD has dropped the support of CPU CL. Does it mean that Karma would not work on AMD CPUs? Or maybe the third party OCL implementations like POCL would be a viable solution?

I'm planing to switch from redshift to karma if it supports multiple gpus, just because it's native renderer. Does anyone know more info?

+1 for Multi GPU support including Nvlink as well as a Hybrid of CPU+GPU ( why leave that multi-core Cpu idling ?)

twod
We try to remain as device-agnostic as possible by using OpenCL. Currently the denoiser is locked to Nvidia GPUs (as it's their denoiser), but we have plans to support other denoisers as well. As RobW mentioned, you should be able to run karma on both a GPU-less farm machine via CPU CL and a local workstation with GPU CL, without any user intervention. And if you're lucky enough to have farm machines with GPUs, you can use the GPU on both.
When the Karma GPU variant is released, of course

Very good the device-agnostic using OpenCL but what happens on Mac with Mojave that support only Metal and no more OpenCL?

Is the support on AMD with Metal planned?

Thanx and cheers

OpenCL works on Mac currently but at some point will be removed. That's not good for future proofing the Mac investment.

I'm not saying ditch OpenCL and transitioning to Vulcan.
But ditch OpenCL and transitioning to Vulcan.

NicTanghe
I'm not saying ditch OpenCL and transitioning to Vulcan.
But ditch OpenCL and transitioning to Vulcan.

Worse case they might have to do a Metal version for the Mac and CUDA/Optix/Vulkan version for Windows. OpenCL is just too slow.