Hi

As I understand the situation - houdini works with two kinds of materials - native karma materials and "external" MaterialX materials

Serious questions immediately arise:

1. MaterialX is external world format - and it will not adapt for native karma format
2. Karma format deeply integrated into houdini that is positive. It allow to get advanced possibilities when working with materials in contrast to materialX

3. MaterialX never removes native Karma


The quaestion: - may be recompile MaterialX and native Karma to get new KarmarialX material format as a layer for simplicity and harmonization to extend the capabilities of MaterialX to those of Karma.

KarmarialX will be effective (layer, stratum) for ease of use of materials and Karma itself will only be used by the firm's technical developers

PS

I just learn Houdini: - as i know we can't use karma material and MaterialX material togather?

It’s a little hard to answer your questions because there isn’t really a native Karma material. The newer Karma XPU renderer only supports MaterialX materials (and technically USDPreviewSurface as well). The way SideFX are offering enhanced functionality and deeper integration above and beyond the MaterialX standard is by implementing additional nodes that will only work with Karma CPU/XPU. Take a look at the nodes available in the ‘Karma Material Builder’ - it’s still a MaterialX material but there’s a whole bunch of nodes that are Karma specific.

antc
It's a little hard

.

I'm worried that I'll create a large project on MaterialX, and then discover that a number of the nodes I need are Karma nodes - I'll lose out simply due to inattention.

"No matter how many languages there were in George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones - there was always a common language KaramarialX" - which always helped out ))))

Maybe we should use a wrapper programming pagadigm. Take a karma node that needs to be wrapped in a functional-wrapper, and we get a KarmarialX node

PS

antc
It’s a little hard to answer your questions because there isn’t really a native Karma material.

It is not only karma nodes. This may include some nodes that are simply not friendly with MaterialX

Fordencore1966
I'm worried that I'll create a large project on MaterialX, and then discover that a number of the nodes I need are Karma nodes - I'll lose out simply due to inattention.

Assuming you're rendering your large project with Karma it doesn't really matter, because Karma is only available in Houdini. The Karma specific nodes are only a problem if you're wanting to use another renderer. If that's the case I would recommend using that renderer in Houdini as well, instead of Karma.

Fordencore1966
It is not only karma nodes. This may include some nodes that are simply not friendly with MaterialX

I'm not following. Can you give a concrete example of a node that is not friendly with MaterialX?

antc
The Karma specific MaterialX nodes are only a problem

As i understand i can use Karma nodes and Karma specific MaterialX nodes togather?

PS

"I'm not following. Can you give a concrete example of a node that is not friendly with MaterialX?"

Unfortunately, I was thinking in generalities and can't give an example.

Now I'm watching video tutorials and i often hear that this node doesn't fit the nodes we use...... - Maybe my mistake. (paid a small amount of attention)

The general idea was that MateralX is a non-native material and therefore not all the features of Houdini can be used
That is, there is a certain material Y which is completely native and therefore can use all houdini features, but it is not friendly with MaterialX for obvious reasons.

I wanted to make MaterailX the dominant material and adapt the Y-material to MaterialX.

General scheme of thinking - I may be wrong

It's a complicated landscape for sure and out-of-date tutorials can add to the confusion as well. Overall I'd recommend trying a small project with Karma XPU and MaterialX, utilizing all the nodes in the 'Karma Material Builder' as you see fit, and see how it goes. Using Karma XPU pretty much closes the door on all the confusing legacy stuff (VEX etc).

Fordencore1966
The general idea was that MateralX is a non-native material and therefore not all the features of Houdini can be used
That is, there is a certain material Y which is completely native and therefore can use all houdini features, but it is not friendly with MaterialX for obvious reasons.

Ah ok I see. Well like I said there is no native material Y. There are legacy/deprecated rendering/material/shading technologies that have piled up over many Houdini versions (Mantra and VEX, primarily), and yes in some cases there may have been features that have not been brought forward into newer architectures like Karma XPU. If they're important they can be added of course, however one of the reasons Karma was created (instead of just evolving Mantra) was to start with a clean slate and throw out features that don't have a place in a modern path tracer architecture.

Btw if you haven't seen this page [www.sidefx.com] it's still worth a look.

antc
There are legacy/deprecated rendering/material/shading technologies that have piled up over many Houdini versions (Mantra and VEX, primarily),

At the moment I'm learning VEX - is it the right strategy if in your phrase VEX is related to words like: legacy/deprecated

Fordencore1966
At the moment I'm learning VEX - is it the right strategy if in your phrase VEX is related to words like: legacy/deprecated

Sorry I should have been more specific - the VEX language is very much alive and well in other areas of Houdini (SOPs for example) and is definitely worth learning imo. But VEX-based shaders (Principled shader for example) are not supported by Karma XPU, only Karma CPU and Mantra.