Subtopics ¶
Mantra user guide ¶
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Explains how sampling works in Mantra.
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Absorption and nested dielectrics
Automatically scoop out geometry with one shader from inside overlapping geometry with another shader, allowing different shading properties inside.
Basics ¶
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Lets you drag a box in the viewer to render an automatically updating preview of that part of the view.
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How to use variables and expressions in file path fields to generate numbered and unique filenames.
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Renders the contents of the viewer as images, allowing you to play them back at full speed.
Lighting ¶
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The light bank is a data tree view that lets you set various parameters on all lights in a scene through a single interface.
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You can instance lights onto points at render time just like instancing geometry.
Next steps ¶
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Tips on how to integrate Houdini and Mantra into a production pipeline efficiently.
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Understanding Mantra raytraced shading
Explains the background details of how Mantra uses raytracing to shade objects in the scene.
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A quick overview of how to reduce the size of IFD files when rendering with Mantra. How to use procedurals, Alembic archives, and packed primitives to make IFDs smaller, and how IFDs work with HQueue.
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When you generate an IFD file for rendering, you can choose whether to inline the geometry in the IFD file, or store the geometry in external files.
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HQueue is Houdini’s free distributed job scheduling system.
Guru-level ¶
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How the Physically Based Rendering engine in mantra uses VEX to compute lighting.
