Hello,

I recently restarted to learn Houdini after a long interruption and I'm quite happy with the progress, although I've only scratched the surface so far

Coming from Softimage there's a fundamental question that I couldn't really find a proper answer for yet:

The question is, if can I set up multiple ‘render passes’ or ‘layers’ like in Softimage with different contents (and I don't mean AOVs)?

Let's say I want to render the background (floor, sky etc.) and the foreground objects separately and merge them later on in AE or Nuke?

In Softimage, if I like to render only the background, but want to keep GI, shadows, reflections etc. of the foreground objects, I can just put the foreground objects in a separate partition and disable the primary rays for that particular group.

Does that work similarly in Houdini? Do I create different groups that will be assigned to a particular ROP node?

Maybe there's a tutorial or documentation that deals with that topic?

Thank you very much in advance & best regards

HHaynes
Do I create different groups that will be assigned to a particular ROP node?

Exactly. Different ROP nodes for different renders. The object lists can either be discrete, or use bundles to create groups of objects using the bundle manager. Subnets can also be used to group objects.

Hello jsmack,

thanx for your response and the hints. I've managed to render the separate images as desired and I'm glad that this can be done in Houdini quite easily!

Best regards