Houdini 19.5 Nodes LOP nodes

Karma Render Properties

Configure Render Properties for Karma.

Since 18.0

The Karma Render Properties LOP creates render vars, a render product and a render settings primitive, configured for Karma.

Parameters

Rendersettings Primitive Path

This node creates a RenderSettings prim with the configuration you set up using the parameters. This is the scene tree path where this node will create the RenderSettings prim.

Output Picture

An output image filename (usually an .exr file), or ip which renders the image in MPlay.

Include $F in the file name to insert the frame number. This is necessary when rendering animation. See expressions in file names for more information.

Camera

Path to a USD camera (UsdGeomCamera) prim to render the scene from.

Resolution Mode

Use the USD Camera’s aperture aspect ratio to automatically set one dimension of the resolution.

The computed parm is set using an expression, but is locked to prevent accidental edits.

Manual

Set the resolution height and width values.

Set Width, Compute Height from Aperture

Set the width size, while height is computed from the width and the camera aspect ratio.

Set Height, Compute Width from Aperture

Set the height size, while width is computed from the width and the camera aspect ratio.

Resolution

The horizontal and vertical size of the output image, in pixels.

Rendering Engine

Select the rendering engine.

CPU

Runs entirely on the CPU. Since this engine is entirely in software, it will generally have more features and more correct output, however it is much slower than the currently experimental XPU engine.

XPU

The XPU engine is currently experimental. Uses available CPU and GPU (graphics card hardware) resources. Since this engine rinherits the limits of what can be done on a GPU, it will generally lag behind the CPU engine in features, however it is much faster than the CPU engine.

Simplified Shading

Disable all shading and lighting (render with one headlight on the camera). This might be useful for preview purposes if a shaded view is too slow to render.

Pixel Samples

The number of ray-samples sent through each pixel. More samples will result in a less noisy image. Also known as “Primary Samples”.

Rendering

Sampling

Lights and Indirect Rays

Convergence Mode

When set to Path Traced, maximum of 1 indirect ray is generated per bounce. When set to Automatic, the number of indirect rays is calculated based on initial noise estimate, target noise threshold, and the maximum number of camera rays. Also note that under Automatic mode, number of samples for direct lighting is adjusted based on noise estimate as well.

Min Ray Samples

Max Ray Samples

Light Sampling Mode

Whether Karma should perform uniform sampling of lights or whether rendering should use the light tree. The light tree can be significantly faster for scenes that have large numbers of lights.

Some lights cannot be added to the light tree, and will all be sampled by Karma:

  • Dome Lights

  • Distant Lights

  • Point Lights

  • Lights with Light Filters

  • Lights with shaping controls (i.e. spot lights)

Light Sampling Quality

This is a global control to improve sampling quality for all lights. This acts as a multiplier on the individual light quality controls. Increasing the quality will improve direct light sampling as well as shadows/occlusion.

Volume and Opacity

Screendoor Limit

The number of transparent samples to be shaded as a ray travels through partially opaque objects. Increasing this value will result in less noise in partially opaque objects and is generally less costly than increasing Pixel samples, Volume Step Rate, or Min and Max ray samples. This parameter will not have any effect on noise from Indirect Sources however.

Volume Step Rate

How finely or coarsely a volume is sampled as a ray travels through it. Volumetric objects are made up of 3d structures called Voxels, the value of this parameter represents the number of voxels a ray will travel through before performing another sample.

The default value is 0.25, which means that every one of every four voxels will be sampled. A value of 1 would mean that all voxels are sampled and a value of 2 would mean that all voxels are sampled twice. This means that the volume step rate value behaves in a similar way to pixel samples, acting as a multiplier on the total number of samples for volumetric objects.

Keep in mind that increasing the volume step rate can dramatically increase render times, so it should only be adjusted when necessary. Also, while increasing the default from 0.25 can reduce volumetric noise, increasing the value beyond 1 will rarely see similar results.

Limits

Diffuse Limit

The number of times diffuse rays can propagate through your scene.

Unlike the Reflect and Refract Limits, this parameter will increase the overall amount of light in your scene and contribute to the majority of global illumination. With this parameter set above zero diffuse surfaces will accumulate light from other objects in addition to direct light sources.

In this example, increasing the Diffuse Limit has a dramatic effect on the appearance of the final image. To replicate realistic lighting conditions, it is often necessary to increase the Diffuse Limit. However, since the amount of light contribution usually decreases with each diffuse bounce, increasing the Diffuse Limit beyond 4 does little to improve the visual fidelity of a scene. Additionally, increasing the Diffuse Limit can dramatically increase noise levels and render times.

This is a float because all limits are stochastically picked per-sample, so for example you can set the diffuse limit to 3.25 and have 25% of the rays with a diffuse limit of 4 and 75% of rays with a diffuse limit of 3.

Reflection Limit

The number of times a ray can be reflected in your scene.

This example shows a classic “Hall of Mirrors” scenario with the subject placed between two mirrors.

This effectively creates an infinite series of reflections.

From this camera angle the reflection limits are very obvious and have a large impact on the accuracy of the final image. However, in most cases the reflection limit will be more subtle, allowing you to reduce the number of reflections in your scene and optimize the time it takes to render them.

Remember that the first time a light source is reflected in an object, it is considered a direct reflection. Therefore, even with Reflect Limit set to 0, you will still see specular reflections of light sources.

This is a float because all limits are stochastically picked per-sample, so for example you can set the diffuse limit to 3.25 and have 25% of the rays with a diffuse limit of 4 and 75% of rays with a diffuse limit of 3.

Refraction Limit

This parameter control the number of times a ray be refracted in your scene.

This example shows a simple scene with ten grids all in a row.

By applying a refractive shader, we will be able see through the grids to an image of a sunset in the background.

From this camera angle, in order for the image to be accurate, the refraction limit must match the number of grids that that are in the scene. However, most scenes will not have this number of refractive objects all in a row and so it is possible to reduce the refract limit without affecting the final image while also reducing the time it takes to render them.

Keep in mind that this Refract Limit refers to the number of surfaces that the ray must travel through, not the number of objects.

Remember that the first time a light source is refracted through a surface, it is considered a direct refraction. Therefore, even with Refract Limit set to 0, you will see refractions of Light Sources. However, since most objects in your scene will have at least two surfaces between it and the light source, direct refractions are often not evident in your final render.

This is a float because all limits are stochastically picked per-sample, so for example you can set the diffuse limit to 3.25 and have 25% of the rays with a diffuse limit of 4 and 75% of rays with a diffuse limit of 3.

Volume Limit

The number of times a volumetric ray can propagate through a scene. It functions in a similar fashion to the Diffuse Limit parameter.

Increasing the Volume Limit parameter will result in much more realistic volumetric effects. This is especially noticeable in situations where only part of a volume is receiving direct lighting. Also, in order for a volumetric object to receive indirect light from other objects, the Volume Limit parameter must be set above 0.

With the Volume Limit set to values above zero, the fog volume takes on the characteristic light scattering you would expect from light traveling through a volume. However, as with the Diffuse Limit, the light contribution generally decreases with each bounced ray and therefore using values above 4 does not necessarily result in a noticeably more realistic image.

Also, increasing the value of this parameter can dramatically increase the amount of time spent rendering volumetric images.

This is a float because all limits are stochastically picked per-sample, so for example you can set the diffuse limit to 3.25 and have 25% of the rays with a diffuse limit of 4 and 75% of rays with a diffuse limit of 3.

SSS Limit

The number of times a SSS ray can propagate through a scene. It functions in a similar fashion to the Diffuse Limit parameter.

This is a float because all limits are stochastically picked per-sample, so for example you can set the diffuse limit to 3.25 and have 25% of the rays with a diffuse limit of 4 and 75% of rays with a diffuse limit of 3.

Color Limit

The maximum value a shading sample is allowed to contribute to an LPE image plane to reduce appearance of “fireflies” caused by undersampling of extremely bright light sources. Note that reducing this value can result in an overall reduction in the amount of light in your scene.

Shared Color Limit

When enabled, indirect bounces use Color Limit value and Indirect Color Limit parameter is ignored.

Indirect Color Limit

Color limit applied to indirect bounce only. Note that this parameter is ignored unless Shared Color Limit toggle is disabled.

Russian Roulette Cutoff Depth

Depth at which indirect rays start to get stochastically pruned based on ray throughput.

Camera Effects

Enable Depth of Field

Enable depth of field rendering.

Motion Blur

Per-object Motion Blur

Whether motion blur should be on or off for objects that don’t explicitly have an opinion. If this is On by default, the parameters below let you set the defaults.

Transform Time Samples

The number of samples to compute when rendering transformation motion blur over the shutter open time. The default is 2 samples (at the start and end of the shutter time), giving one blurred segment.

If you have object moving and changing direction extremely quickly, you might want to increase the number of samples to capture the sub-frame direction changes.

In the above example, it requires 40 transformation samples to correctly render the complex motion that occurs within one frame. (This amount of change within a single frame is very unusual and only used as a demonstration.)

Transformation blur simulates blur by interpolating each object’s transformation between frames, so it’s cheap to compute but does not capture surface deformation. To enable blurring deforming geometry, increase karma:object:geosamples.

Geometry Time Samples

The number of sub-frame samples to compute when rendering deformation motion blur over the shutter open time. The default is 1 (sample only at the start of the shutter time), giving no deformation blur by default. If you want rapidly deforming geometry to blur properly, you must increase this value to 2 or more. Note that this value is limited by the number of sub-samples available in the USD file being rendered. An exception to this is the USD Skel deformer which allows.

“Deformation” may refer to simple transformations at the Geometry (SOP) level, or actual surface deformation, such as a character or object which changes shape rapidly over the course of a frame.

Objects whose deformations are quite complex within a single frame will require a higher number of Geo Time Samples.

Deformation blur also lets you blur attribute change over the shutter time. For example, if point colors are changing rapidly as the object moves, you can blur the Cd attribute.

Increasing the number of Geo Time Samples can have an impact on the amount of memory Karma uses. For each additional Sample, Karma must retain a copy of the geometry in memory while it samples across the shutter time. When optimizing your renders, it is a good idea to find the minimum number of Geo Time Samples necessary to create a smooth motion trail.

Deformation blur is ignored for objects that have Velocity motion blur turned on.

Velocity Blur

This parameter lets you choose what type of geometry velocity blur to do on an object, if any. Separate from transform blur and deformation blur, you can render motion blur based on point movement, using attributes stored on the points that record change over time. You should use this type of blur if the number points in the geometry changes over time (for example, a particle simulation where points are born and die).

If your geometry changes topology frame-to-frame, Karma will not be able to interpolate the geometry to correctly calculate Motion Blur. In these cases, motion blur can use a velocities and/or accelerations attribute which is consistent even while the underlying geometry is changing. The surface of a fluid simulation is a good example of this. In this case, and other types of simulation data, the solvers will automatically create the velocity attribute.

Note

In Solaris, velocities, accelerations, and angularVelocities attributes are equivalent to v, accel, and w in SOPs, respectively.

No Velocity Blur

Do not render motion blur on this object, even if the renderer is set to allow motion blur.

Velocity Blur

To use velocity blur, you must compute and store point velocities in a point attribute velocities. The renderer uses this attribute, if it exists, to render velocity motion blur (assuming the renderer is set to allow motion blur). The velocities attribute may be created automatically by simulation nodes (such as particle DOPs), or you can compute and add it using the Point velocity SOP.

The velocities attribute value is measured in Houdini units per second.

Acceleration Blur

To use acceleration blur, you must compute and store point acceleration in a point attribute accelerations. The renderer uses this attribute, if it exists, to render multi-segment acceleration motion blur (assuming the renderer is set to allow motion blur). The accel attribute may be created automatically by simulation nodes, or you can compute and add it using the Point velocity SOP.

When Acceleration Blur is on, if the geometry has a angular velocity attribute (w), rapid rotation will also be blurred. This should be a vector attribute, where the components represent rotation speeds in radians per second around X, Y, and Z.

When this is set to “Velocity Blur” or “Acceleration Blur”, deformation blur is not applied to the object. When this is set to “Acceleration Blur”, use the karma:object:geosamples property to set the number of acceleration samples.

Velocity motion blur used the velocity attribute (velocities) to do linear motion blur.
Acceleration motion blur uses the change in velocity to more accurately blur objects turning at high speed.
Angular acceleration blur works with object spin, such as these fast-spinning cubes.

Instance Velocity Blur

When defining motion blur on instances, the transform of each instance can be blurred in addition to any motion blur occurring on the prototype. This option controls how the instance will compute the motion blur of the transform on each instance. For example, when instancing prototypes to a particle system, you'd likely want to use velocity blur to compute motion blur (the transform on the prototype would be blurred by the velocity on the particles).

No Velocity Blur

Use deformation blur of the instance to compute the blur on the transform.

Velocity Blur

To use velocity blur, the instance must be a point instancer with velocity attributes on the points.

The velocities attribute value is measured in Houdini units per second.

Acceleration Blur

To use acceleration blur, the instance must be a point instancer with point velocities and acceleration values. The renderer uses this attribute, if it exists, to render multi-segment acceleration motion blur (assuming the renderer is set to allow motion blur). The accel attribute may be created automatically by simulation nodes, or you can compute and add it using the Point velocity SOP; this will be converted to accelerations when the SOP geometry is converted to USD.

Volume Velocity Blur Scale

Velocity multiplier used to reduce or exaggerate amount of motion blur on volumes.

Geometry and Shading

Render Points As

When rendering point clouds, they can be rendered as camera oriented discs, spheres or discs oriented to the normal attribute.

Render Curves As

When rendering curves, they can be rendered as ribbons oriented to face the camera, rounded tubes or ribbons oriented to the normal attribute attached to the points.

Override Curves Basis

USD supports Curve Basis types that may not be supported directly in Houdini. In some cases, you may want to override the Houdini curve basis. For example, if you have linear curves in Houdini, you may want to render them with a Bezier, B-Spline or Catmull-Rom basis. This menu will force Karma to override the basis that’s tied to the USD primitives.

Note that the topology of the curves must match the target basis. For example, when selecting any cubic curve basis, every curves must have at least 4 vertices. For the Bezier basis, curves must have 4 + 3*N vertices.

Cull Backface

If enabled, geometry that are facing away from the camera are not rendered.

Caustics

Caustics Roughness Clamp

Increasing this value can make caustics less noisy at the cost of accuracy.

Note

Roughness clamp only works with GGX BSDF and may not have any effect with Phong, cone, or specular BSDFs.

Shading

Ray Bias

The minimum distance used when testing if secondary rays from a surface intersect with other objects in the scene. The distance is measure from surface along the direction of the ray. Objects within the ray bias distance are ignored.

Constrain by Maximum Roughness

Roughness parameter in GGX BSDFs are clamped by the maximum roughness value propagated down the ray chain in pathtracing. Enabling this option can cut out a lot of noise in indirect specular (in particular, cases where glossy surface is reflected by a rough specular surface) at the cost of a bit of accuracy.

Automatic Headlight Creation

If there are no lights in the scene, a headlight is created by default. To disable, turn off this checkbox.

Dicing

Dicing Camera

Specifies a camera that is used for dicing complicated surfaces. This can provide consistent dicing of surfaces when the viewing camera is moving.

Offscreen Quality

This parameter controls the shading quality scale factor for geometry that is not directly visible to the camera. For geometry that is outside the field of view (ie. visible only to secondary rays), karma will smoothly reduce the shading quality based on the angle between the geometry and the edge of the viewing frustum. Smaller values can increase performance particularly in scenes where the camera is within the displacement bound of nearby geometry, where it permits the hidden primitives to be diced more coarsely than those that are directly visible.

Dicing Quality Scale

This parameter is a global multiplier for dicing quality of all objects.

Image Output

AOVs (Render Vars)

In USD, a RenderVar prim (for example, /Render/Products/Vars/diffuse) configures an AOV (arbitrary output variable) to generate during rendering. AOVs are extra “channels” of per-pixel data you can add to the image output (for image formats that support multiple channels per pixel, such as .exr).

By default, this node generates beauty, diffuse, glossy reflection, volume, depth, UV and normal AOVs.

The checkboxes in this section represent commonly used AOVs. You can also create custom AOVs (in the Extra Render Vars section) from light path expressions, Material outputs, geometry primvars, and other sources.

Import Render Vars from Second Input

Finds RenderVar prims in this node’s second input and adds them to this stage, so they add to the list of render vars to generate. This allows other LOP nodes (such as Background Plate) to “offer” render vars related to that node to be generated.

Import Render Products from Second Input

Finds RenderProduct prims in this node’s second input and adds them to this stage, so they add to the list of products to generate. This allows other LOP nodes to “offer” products related to that node to be generated.

Pixel Filter

Specifies the distribution of samples over pixels. A box filter will distribute samples randomly over the interior of each individual pixel. A Gaussian filter will distribute samples in a disk around the pixel center, but with a Gaussian distribution (instead of a uniform distribution).

Pixel Filter Size

This is the size of the Pixel Filter. A Guassian filter with a filter size of 1.8 will be slightly less blurry than a Gaussian filter with a filter size of 2.0.

The following checkbox is available next to each common render var:

Split Per LPE Tag

When this is on, the renderer creates additional AOVs specific to each tagged light. To manage LPE Tags for lights, use the LPE Tag LOP.

Component Level Output

LPE Tag AOV Limit

When splitting AOVs per lights' LPE Tag, specify the maximum number of LPE Tag AOVs beyond which the node will emit a warning.

Omit LPE Tags

When splitting AOVs per lights' LPE Tag, specify a space separated list of lights' LPE Tags which will not create new AOVs.

Beauty

Beauty

Add the beauty output as a color4f render var named C.

Beauty Unshadowed

Add the unoccluded (unshadowed) beauty output as a color3f render var named beautyunshadowed, using the LPE unoccluded;C.*.

Diffuse

Combined Diffuse

Add the combined (any number of bounces) diffuse surface reflection component as a color3f render var named combineddiffuse, using the LPE C<RD>.*L.

Direct Diffuse

Add the direct (no bounces) diffuse surface reflection component as a color3f render var named directdiffuse, using the LPE C<RD>L.

Indirect Diffuse

Add the indirect (one or more bounces) diffuse surface reflection component as a color3f render var named indirectdiffuse, using the LPE C<RD>.+L.

Combined Diffuse Unshadowed

Add the combined (any number of bounces) unoccluded diffuse surface reflection component as a color3f render var named combineddiffuseunshadowed, using the LPE unoccluded;C<RD>.*.

Direct Diffuse Unshadowed

Add the direct (no bounces) unoccluded diffuse surface reflection component as a color3f render var named directdiffuseunshadowed, using the LPE unoccluded;C<RD>L.

Indirect Diffuse Unshadowed

Add the indirect (one or more bounces) unoccluded diffuse surface reflection component as a color3f render var named indirectdiffuseunshadowed, using the LPE unoccluded;C<RD>.+L.

Reflections and Refractions

Combined Glossy Reflection

Add the combined (any number of bounces) glossy surface reflection component as a color3f render var named combinedglossyreflection, using the LPE C<RG>.*.

Direct Glossy Reflection

Add the direct (no bounces) glossy surface reflection component as a color3f render var named directglossyreflection, using the LPE C<RG>L.

Indirect Glossy Reflection

Add the indirect (one or more bounces) glossy reflection component as a color3f render var named indirectglossyreflection, using the LPE C<RG>.+L.

Glossy Transmission

Add the glossy transmission component as a color3f render var named glossytransmission, using the LPE C<TG>.*.

BSDF Labelled coat

Add the coat component as a color3f render var named coat, using the LPE C<...'coat'>.*.

Lights and Emission

Combined Emission

Add the combined (any number of bounces) emission component as a color3f render var named combinedemission, using the LPE C.*O.

Direct Emission

Add the direct (no bounces) emission component as a color3f render var named directemission, using the LPE CO.

Indirect Emission

Add the indirect (one or more bounces) emission component as a color3f render var named indirectemission, using the LPE C.+O.

Visible Lights

Add the visible lights component as a color3f render var named visiblelights, using the LPE CL.

Volume

Combined Volume

Add the combined (any number of bounces) volume component as a color3f render var named combinedvolume, using the LPE CV.*L.

Direct Volume

Add the direct (no bounces) volume component as a color3f render var named directvolume, using the LPE CVL.

Indirect Volume

Add the indirect (one or more bounces) volume component as a color3f render var named indirectvolume, using the LPE CV.+L.

SSS

BSDF Labelled sss

Add the sss component as a color3f render var named sss, using the LPE C<...'sss'>.*.

Albedo

Albedo

Add the albedo output as a color3f render var named export_basecolor. Only available with shaders that export this information, such as the principled shader.

Ray Level Output

Ray Origin (P)

Add the ray origin as a point3f render var named rayorigin.

Ray Direction (D)

Add the ray direction as a vector3f render var named raydirection.

Time (Shutter Time)

Add the shutter time as a float render var named time.

Near (Near Bias)

Add the near bias as a float render var named near.

Far (Max Distance)

Add the max distance as a float render var named far.

Mask (Intersection Mask)

Add the mask (alpha) as a float render var named mask.

Contribution

Add the ray contribution as a float render var named contribution.

P (World Space)

Add the world space position as a point3f render var named P.

Depth (Camera Space)

Add the distance from the camera origin as a float render var named depth.

Hitstack

Add the ray hit stack as a float render var named hitstack.

Element (Raw ID)

Add the element ID as a float render var named element.

Prim ID

Add the primitive identifier as a float render var named primid.

UV

Add the primitive hit UV as a float3 render var named UV.

Hit Dist

Add the primitive hit distance as a float render var named hitdist.

dPdz

Add the dPdz (Z-depth delta for the current microvolume) as a float render var named dPdz.

N (Smooth Normal)

Add the primitive hit normal as a normal3f render var named N.

Ng (Geometric Normal)

Add the primitive geometric normal as a normal3f render var named Ng.

Flags

Add the ray flags as a float render var named flags.

Extra Render Vars

Render Vars

Use this multiparm to add custom AOVs (render vars) to the image output.

Filters

Image Filters

Denoiser

Choose a denoiser to run on the finished image output, or No Denoiser. This utility currently supports Intel Open Image Denoise (included with Houdini) and the NVIDIA OptiX Denoiser (must be installed separately). You must be on a supported platform and have the chosen denoising library installed for this to work.

The NVIDIA OptiX Denoiser only works with NVIDIA cards. It is now included with the NVIDIA driver (version 435 or later).

Use Albedo

Some denoising libraries can use albedo to get a better sense of the image, guiding how and where it reduces noise.

Use N Input

Some denoising libraries can use normals to get a better sense of the image, guiding how and where it reduces noise.

Use Gl Input

???

AOVS

Space-separated list of AOVs to run the denoiser on.

OCIO

OCIO image filters can be added to various render vars/image planes.

Enable

Enables the OCIO image filter defined below.

Planes

The render var names to which the OCIO image filter will be applied.

Output Space

Specify the OCIO color output space the image filter will apply.

Input Space

In most cases this should be left at data. There may be some strange case where the source of the AOV is already in a defined color space, in which case you can specify the source space here.

Looks

Space-separated list of looks to apply to the finished image. A “look” is a named OCIO color transform, usually intended to achieve an artistic effect. See the OCIO documentation for more information.

Sample Filters

Color Limits

A color limit clamps the value a shading sample is allowed to contribute to an LPE image plane, to reduce appearance of “fireflies” caused by undersampling of extremely bright light sources. This multiparm lets you apply separate limits to different sets of render vars.

Enable

Enables the color limit sample filter defined below.

Planes

A space-separated list of AOV names to which this color limit will be applied.

Limit

The maximum value a shading sample is allowed to contribute to these AOVs.

Aspect Ratio

Aspect Ratio Conform Policy

What to do if the aspect ratio of the output image (Resolution width divided by height) doesn’t match the aspect ratio of the camera aperture (controlled by attributes on the camera). This allows a standard renderer to do something reasonable when you switch between cameras.

Expand Aperture

If necessary, expand the camera aperture to match the image.

Crop Aperture

If necessary, crop the camera aperture to match the image.

Adjust Aperture Width

If necessary, change the camera aperture width to match the image.

Adjust Aperture Height

If necessary, change the camera aperture height to match the image.

Adjust Pixel Aspect Ratio

Change the aspect ratio of the image to match the camera.

Data Window NDC

Directs the renderer to only render within this window of the entire output image. You specify the window as minX, minY, maxX, maxY, where each number is a normalized value from 0 to 1. 0, 0 is the bottom left, 1, 1 is the top right, 0.5, 0.5 is the center, and so on. The default is 0, 0, 1, 1 (no cropping). Note that you can use negative values. For example, -0.1, -0.1, 1.1, 1.1 will give you 10% overscan on each side.

You can use this window to temporarily crop the render to a smaller region, for testing purposes.

Pixels are only rendered if they are fully inside the window.

The normalized coordinates map to the image after any adjustments by the Aspect ratio conform policy.

Pixel Aspect Ratio

The aspect ratio (width/height) of image pixels (not the image itself). The default is 1.0, indicating square pixels.

Meta Data

Artist

The name of the person, department, or studio that created the image file. The node will set this field on the output image if the image format supports metadata (for example, .exr).

Comment

An arbitrary comment, for example a description of the purpose of the output image. The node will set this field on the output image if the image format supports metadata (for example, .exr).

Hostname

The name of the computer that generated this the output file. The node will set this field on the output image if the image format supports metadata (for example, .exr).

EXR Compression

The type of compression to apply to .exr output files.

Deep Output

Deep Camera Map

Generate a deep camera map image recording depth

Deep camera maps are rendered images, where semi-transparent areas (such as volumes) between the camera and the nearest opaque surface are stored with depth information. Each pixel in the image is represented as a curve describing how the transparency value changes across the depth of the scene. This allows you to composite rendered images and have the semi-transparent areas blend correctly according to their depth.

DCM Filename

The filename to save the deep camera map image to (this should be an .exr file).

Include $F in the file name to insert the frame number. This is necessary when rendering animation. See expressions in file names for more information.

DCM Render Vars

Space separated list of RenderVar prim paths (not a list of AOV names). These must be the fully qualified path to the RenderVar prim and the render var name. You can use patterns to match multiple prims. The default is /Render/Products/Vars/*, which matches all prims in the branch where Houdini usually creates RenderVar prims. You can also leave this field empty to omit all RenderVars and only include alpha and depth planes (like a Deep Shadow Map).

Advanced

Sampling

Noise Level

Enable Indirect Guiding

If this is on, Karma does a pre-render to roughly estimate of the light in the scene, and uses that to guide indirect diffuse rays, rather than just relying on the BSDF sampling distribution. This can improve “difficult” lighting (for example, caustics, and mostly indirect lighting), but can make “easy” lighting noisier. Before using this, you can try rendering direct and indirect AOVs to see where the noise is. If the noise is mostly caused by the direct lighting, there’s no point in turning on path guiding.

Indirect Training Samples

Number of pixel samples to use for prepass render when Indirect Guiding is enabled. Recommended minimum is 10% of pixel samples under Path Traced convergence mode, or the same number of pixel samples under Automatic convergence mode. Grid-like artifacts can show up in the final render when this value is too low and not enough data is collected. It’s recommended to keep this value above 64.

Pixel Oracle

Pixel Oracle

When rendering, a Pixel Oracle tells karma which pixels need additional sampling and which pixels are converged. This parameter tells karma which oracle to use.

uniform

Uniformly distribute rays to each pixel. Each pixel will always get the same number of ray-samples.

variance

Distribute rays based on variance in the rendered image.

Minimum Samples

The minimum number of camera rays (primary samples) for each pixel.

Plane

The AOV to use to measure variance.

Variance Threshold

The amount of variance that triggers more rays.

Random Seed

Variance sampling involves some randomness. You can change this number to get slightly different results.

OCIO Transform

Whether to apply an OCIO transform to the pixels before measuring variance.

Disabled

Do not apply an OCIO transform.

Display View

Transform to the color space of a display.

Explicit

Transform to a named color space.

Display

When OCIO Transform is Display View, the display to transform to before measuring variance.

View

When OCIO Transform is Display View, the view to transform to before measuring variance.

Color Space

When OCIO Transform is Explicit, the color space to transform to before measuring variance.

Checkpointing

Output Checkpoint Files

When this is on, Karma will periodocially write out image tile data to a checkpoint file. If the process is terminated before completing the render, you can resume it by turning on Resume from Checkpoint and restarting.

Checkpoint File

When Output checkpoint files is on, the name of the checkpoint file to write to. The default ($HIP/render/$HIPNAME.$OS.$F4.checkpoint) puts the checkpoint file inside a render directory next to the current scene file, and includes the base name of the current scene file ($HIPNAME), this node’s name ($OS), and the render frame ($F) in the filename to help avoid two processes trying to use the same checkpoint file at the same time.

Save Frequency

When Output checkpoint files is on, Karma waits this number of seconds between writing out a checkpoint file. The default is 60.

Resume From Checkpoint

If this is on and you start a render and the renderer notices there is a valid checkpoint file, it will try to resume rendering from that checkpoint. If you want to restart the render from the beginning, you can turn this off or just delete the checkpoint file(s).

Tiles and Caching

Bucket Size

Karma breaks down an image into multiple buckets for rendering. This is the side length (in pixels) of the square bucket. The default is 32, specifying a 32 pixel x 32 pixel bucket. Threads operate at the bucket level, so it might be useful to lower the bucket size if there are only a few buckets that are particularly expensive. That way the expensive areas can be divided across more threads.

For example, if the image is mostly empty, but there’s a distant object that fits within single 32 x 32 bucket, then that object will only be rendered using 1 thread. If you switch to a 16 x 16 bucket, then the object might be split across 4 buckets and have 4 threads working on it.

Ideally changing the bucket size doesn’t change the results, but Karma measures variance across pixels within the current bucket, so if you set it to a low value, for example 4, Karma only has 4 x 4 = 16 pixels to look at, so Karma will tend to make very poor variance estimates. This can show up as black pixels, where pixel rendering terminated prematurely due to a bad variance estimate.

Bucket Order

Specifies which buckets are rendered first. Values can be:

middle

Buckets start from the middle of the image.

top

Buckets at the top of the image are rendered first.

bottom

Buckets at the bottom of the image are rendered first.

left

Buckets at the left side of the image are rendered first.

Note: When rendering to mplay, the user can click to focus on an area to render.

Cache Limit

Whether to use a fixed size cache (karma:global:cachesize) or whether to use a proportion of physical memory (karma:global:cacheratio)

Cache Memory Ratio

The proportion of physical memory Karma will use for its unified cache.

For example, with the default vm_cacheratio of 0.25 and 16 Gb of physical memory, Karma will use 4 Gb for its unified cache.

The unified cache stores dynamic, unloadable data used by the render including the following:

  • 2D .rat texture tiles

  • 3D .i3d texture tiles

  • 3D .pc point cloud pages (when not preloaded into memory)

Note: This value is only used for off-line rendering, not IPR.

Cache Size (MB)

An explicit memory limit for the unified shading cache. This is deprecated in favor of using the Cache Memory Ratio.

Note: This value is only used for off-line rendering, not IPR.

Driver

Image Mode

Determines how the image will be rendered.

progressive

The entire image will be progressively rendered, so the whole image resolves at the same time. This mode gives you a sense of what the whole image will look like without waiting for the render to complete.

bucket

Each bucket renders to completion before advancing to the next bucket. This mode lets you see what the final quality will be like without waiting for the whole image to render.

Note: When rendering for IPR, Karma will use progressive rendering until the IPR preview passes are complete.

Progressive Passes

When rendering in bucket mode (see imagemode), this is the number of progressive passes over the image to perform before switching to bucket mode.

Cancel Render if Missing Texture is Discovered

Component Labels

Export Components

A whitespace-separated list of shading component names that will be computed for export. If you have defined new component labels in your materials, these can be added to the list so that they are exported for per-component export planes. If you are not using some components, remove them from the list to improve render efficiency.

PBR light exports assume that this list is complete - that is, all components created by shaders are listed. If there are unlisted components, light exports may be missing illumination from these components.

Diffuse Components

A space-separated list of component types that will behave like diffuse bounces. This will affect which reflection scope is used based on the ray type and also which bounce limit to use. Uncategorized component types are assumed to be reflections.

Refract Components

A space-separated list of component types that will behave like refract bounces. This will affect which reflection scope is used based on the ray type and also which bounce limit to use. Uncategorized component types are assumed to be reflections.

Volume Components

A space-separated list of component types that will behave like volume bounces. This will affect which reflection scope is used based on the ray type and also which bounce limit to use. Uncategorized component types are assumed to be reflections.

SSS Components

A space-separated list of component types that will behave like subsurface scatter bounces. This will affect which reflection scope is used based on the ray type and also which bounce limit to use. Uncategorized component types are assumed to be reflections.

See also

LOP nodes

  • Add Variant

    Adds one or more variants to a variant set on a primitive. This node creates the primitive if it doesn’t exist.

  • Additional Render Vars

    Create multiple render vars.

  • Asset Reference

    Reference, Transform, and select variants of a USD Asset.

  • Assign Material

    Assigns a material to one or more USD primitives. You can use also programmatically assign materials using VEX, programmatically override material settings for each assignment, and programmatically assign materials to geometry subsets.

  • Assign Prototypes

    Switch point instances or USD instanceable prims to instance a different prototype.

  • Attribute VOP

    Create/edit USD attribute values using a VOP network.

  • Attribute Wrangle

    Create/edit USD primitive attributes using a VEX snippet.

  • Auto Select LOD

    Automatically selects a level-of-detail variant based on the primitive’s distance from the camera.

  • Background Plate

    Sets up hold-out or matte objects that leave holes in the scene through which the background is visible. These prims still take shadows and contribute to reflections as if they were the background.

  • Bake Skinning

    Bakes animation driven by a UsdSkel into transforms and point positions.

  • Basis Curves

    Creates or edits a basis curves shape primitive.

  • Begin Context Options Block

    This node begins a block of LOP nodes, within which certain context options have certain values.

  • Blend

    Partially applies edits to a layer’s attributes based on a fractional weight.

  • Blend Constraint

    Blends transforms according to a list of weights specified as parameters.

  • Cache

    Caches the results of cooking the network at different times, increasing playback speed.

  • Camera

    Adds a USD camera to the scene.

  • Capsule

    Creates or edits a capsule (tube with hemispherical ends) shape primitive.

  • Collection

    Creates/edits collections using primitive patterns.

  • Component Geometry

    Geometry container or import source, in a network created by the Component Builder tool.

  • Component Geometry Variants

    Sets up geometry variants, in a network created by the Component Builder tool.

  • Component Material

    Assigns materials to geometry in a network created by the Component Builder tool.

  • Component Output

    Assembles the final Component prim, in a network created by the Component Builder tool.

  • Cone

    Creates or edits a cone shape primitive.

  • Configure Layer

    Edits metadata on a layer.

  • Configure Primitives

    Edits various metadata on one or more primitives.

  • Configure Properties

    Configures metadata on properties (relationships and attributes).

  • Configure Stage

    Configures metadata for how to load layers into the stage and asset resolution.

  • Coordinate System

    Define named coordinate systems used in shaders.

  • Copy Property

    Copy properties from one primitive to another, or renames properties on a primitive.

  • Create LOD

    Uses the PolyReduce SOP to automatically generate multiple levels of detail from a high-res model, and stores them as USD variants.

  • Cube

    Creates or edits a cube shape primitive.

  • Cylinder

    Creates or edits a cylinder shape primitive.

  • Distant Light

    Creates or edits a USD Distant Light, representing a far-off light source such as the sun. Adds some useful Karma-specific attributes.

  • Dome Light

    Creates or edits a USD Dome Light prim. A dome light emits light inward, simulating light coming from the sky/environment surrounding the scene.

  • Drop

    Runs a simulation to drop primitives under gravity.

  • Duplicate

    Creates copies of a prim (and its descendants).

  • Edit

    Interactively transforms prims in the viewer. Can use physics collisions to position props realistically.

  • Edit Context Options

  • Edit Material

    Allows you to edit an existing USD material by modifying parameters and shader connections. This can be useful if the existing material is on a non-editable layer.

  • Edit Material Properties

    Lets you build a spare parameter interface that reflects material or shader input attributes to directly edit their values.

  • Edit Properties

    Lets you build a spare parameter interface to directly edit attribute and relationship values.

  • Edit Properties

    Lets you refer to the parameter on another node to directly edit attribute and relationship values.

  • Edit Prototypes

    Modify the prototypes of native or point instances in-place, without disturbing the instancing setup.

  • Edit Target Layer

    Allows you to apply edits directly in a lower layer, instead of overriding prims and attributes in the active layer.

  • Error

    Generates a message, warning, or error, which can show up on a parent asset.

  • Explore Variants

    Visualize, set, or extract variants on primitives.

  • Extract Instances

    Converts (heroes) an instance into a real editable prim.

  • Fetch

    Grabs the output of another LOP, potentially in another LOP network.

  • File Cache

    Caches (writes out once and then reads from) USD layers (possibly animated) to disk.

  • Follow Path Constraint

    Constrains a prim to follow a path curve.

  • For Each

    The end node of a For-Each loop block.

  • Geometry Sequence

    Imports a sequence of geometry files into LOPs as animated geometry.

  • Geometry Subset VOP

    Creates USD geometry subsets within geometry prims (similar to groups in SOPs) based on evaluating a VEXpression or VOP network.

  • Graft Branches

    Takes prims/branches from the second input and attaches them onto branches of the scene graph tree in the first input.

  • Graft Stages

    Takes scene graph trees from other inputs and attaches them onto branches of the scene graph tree in the first input.

  • HDA Dynamic Payload

    Cooks a OBJ or SOP asset on disk and imports the animated geometry output as a USD payload.

  • Hermite Curves

    Creates or edits a hermite curves shape primitive.

  • Houdini Preview Procedurals

    Summary goes here.

  • Houdini Procedural: Hair

    Houdini Hair Procedural for Solaris.

  • Inline USD

    Parses usda code representing a layer and adds it to the layer stack.

  • Insertion Point

    Represents a point in the node graph where nodes can be inserted.

  • Instancer

    Instances or copies primitives onto points.

  • Instancer

    Create multiple render products sharing common settings.

  • Isolate Scene

    Work in masked areas of the stage.

  • Karma

    Renders the USD scene using Houdini’s Karma renderer.

  • Karma Cryptomatte

    Setup Cryptomatte AOVs for Karma.

  • Karma Fog Box

    Creates a constant volume within a box.

  • Karma Ocean

    Render an ocean with the Karma CPU renderer.

  • Karma Render Properties

    Configure Render Properties for Karma.

  • Karma Standard Render Vars

    Create standard karma render vars (AOVs/Image Planes).

  • LOP nodes

    LOP nodes generate USD describing characters, props, lighting, and rendering.

  • LPE Tag

    Manage Lights LPE Tags.

  • Labs RizomUV Optimize

  • Labs RizomUV Rectangularize

  • Labs RizomUV Unwrap

  • Layer Break

    Starts a new active sublayer that subsequent nodes will edit, and indicates all previous layers will be discarded when saving to disk.

  • Layer Replace

    Replaces all uses of a certain layer with a substitute layer from its second input.

  • Layout

    Provides tools for populating a scene with instanced USD assets. You can place individual components, paint/scatter components in different ways using customizable brushes, and edit existing instances.

  • Light

    Creates or edits a USD Light prim. This node also adds some useful Karma-specific attributes.

  • Light Filter Library

    Authors USD light filter primitives from VOP nodes.

  • Light Linker

    Creates USD light link properties based on rules.

  • Light Mixer

    Lets you interactively edit USD properties for multiple lights.

  • Load Layer for Editing

  • Loft Payload Info

    Adds basic information from inside a payload to the primitive that loads the payload.

  • Look At Constraint

    Constrains a prim to always point toward a target.

  • Mask from Bounds

    Sets a primvar based on whether/by how much selected prims are inside a bounding shape.

  • Match Size

    Resizes and recenters the input geometry to match a reference bounding box.

  • Material Library

    Authors USD material primitives from shader VOP nodes.

  • Material Linker

    Creates material assignments based on rules.

  • Material Variation

    Creates attributes/primvars to override material parameters per-prim/instance.

  • Merge LOP

    Merges the layers from incoming stages into a unified layer stack.

  • Mesh

    Creates or edits a mesh shape primitive.

  • Modify Paths

    Modify asset path attribute values.

  • Modify Point Instances

    Modifies point transforms and property values for individual point instances.

  • Motion Blur

    Adds time samples to allow motion blur when rendering.

  • Null

    This node does nothing. It can be useful to insert a Null into a network as a fixed point in the network that you can refer to by name in expressions/scripts.

  • Output

    Represents the output of a subnetwork. Allows you to design a node asset with multiple outputs.

  • Parent Constraint

    Makes a primitive appear to inherit the transform hierarchy of another prim somewhere else in the tree.

  • Points

    Creates or edits a Points shape primitive.

  • Points Constraint

    Position and Orient primitives using point positions from a geometry.

  • Primitive

    Bulk-creates one or more attributes of a certain type.

  • Prune

    Hides or deactivates primitives and point instances.

  • Python Script

    Lets you write Python code in the node to use the USD API to directly manipulate the stage.

  • RBD Destruction

    An example of how to a fracturing simulation in USD, also useful as a canned effect.

  • Reference

    References the contents of a external USD files and/or layers created by other LOP nodes into a branch of the existing scene graph tree. Can also remove or replace existing references.

  • Render Geometry Settings

    Applies renderer-specific geometry settings to geometry in the scene graph.

  • Render Product

    Creates or edits a UsdRenderProduct prim, which represents an output of a renderer (such as a rendered image file or other file-like artifact produced by a renderer), with attributes configuring how to generate the product.

  • Render Settings

    Creates or edits a UsdRenderSettings prim, which holds the general settings for rendering the scene.

  • Render Var

    Specifies a custom variable computed by the renderer and/or shaders, either a shader output or a light path expression (LPE).

  • Resample Transforms

    Generates interpolated transform time samples from existing time samples on USD prims.

  • Restructure Scene Graph

    This node has various operations for editing prim paths, variant sets, and composition arcs.

  • Retime Instances

    Offsets and/or scales the timing of animation on selected instances.

  • SOP Character Import

    Imports a character or animation from a SOP network into the USD scene graph.

  • SOP Create

    Lets you create geometry in a SOP subnetwork inside this node, so you can create geometry in-place in the LOP network instead of needing a separate SOP network.

  • SOP Crowd Import

    Imports a crowd from a SOP network into the USD scene graph.

  • SOP Import

    Imports geometry from a SOP network into the USD scene graph.

  • SOP Modify

    Converts USD geometry into SOP geometry, runs the SOP subnet inside this node on the geometry, and converts the changes back to USD overrides.

  • Scene Import

    Imports models, materials, and lights from the Object level into the LOP network.

  • Scope

    Creates a scope primitive. Scope is the simplest form of grouping, and does not have a transform. Scopes can be useful for organizing the scene tree.

  • Set Extents

    Sets the bounding box metadata of selected primitives.

  • Set Variant

    Selects (switches to) one of the variants stored in a variant set on a primitive.

  • Simulation Proxy

    Generates low-poly collison geometry suitable for physical simulation and creates a proxy relationship to the original model.

  • Sphere

    Creates or edits a sphere shape primitive.

  • Split Point Instancers

    Splits a point instancer into two or more instances, which divide up the original instances.

  • Split Primitive

    Splits USD geometry prims into child primitives based on geometry subsets or primvar values.

  • Split Scene

    This node splits a scene graph into two disjoint sets of primitives.

  • Stage Manager

    Provides a convenient interface to reference in many files at once and place them in the scene graph tree.

  • Store Parameter Values

    Lets you store temporary (unsaved) data in the stage.

  • Sublayer

    Imports from USD files or other LOP node chains into as sublayers, or removes/replaces/reorders existing sublayers.

  • Subnet

    Encapsulates a LOP subnetwork, allowing you to organize and hide parts of the network.

  • Surface Constraint

    Constrain a prim to stick to a surface.

  • Switch

    Passes through one of several inputs, based on a parameter choice or expression.

  • TimeShift

    Outputs the stage as it is at a different point in the timeline.

  • Transform

    Edits the transforms of selected USD primitives.

  • Transform UV

    Moves, rotates, and scales texture coordinates on USD primitives.

  • USD ROP

  • USD Render ROP

  • Unassign Material

    Unbinds a material from one or more USD primitives.

  • Value Clip

  • Vary Material Assignment

    Assign different materials across a number of prims to create variation.

  • Volume

    References volume data on disk into a volume prim containing field prims.

  • Xform

    Creates or edits an Xform prim. Xform (and its sub-classes) represents a transform in the scene tree.