Solaris Karma: GI is very weak

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Hi!

I'm lighting my terrain with a very strong sun light (no dome light for testing). I cranked the exposure at 4 and I can barely see the GI in the dark area.

If I try the same thing in Maya/Arnold, the GI is way more visible.

Any clue why? Is it only because of the color remapping (i'm using the defaults). Or is it that Karma doesn't calculate the GI correctly?
Edited by olivierth - 2026年5月18日 15:06:57

Attachments:
Houdini_Solaris_Karma_GI_01.jpg (251.1 KB)
Houdini_Solaris_Karma_GI_02.jpg (117.1 KB)

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Can you share a hip file?
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Sorry, I was a bit busy.

I wanted to create a simpler scene to upload and I noticed that I get a very similar result for both Houdini/Karma and Maya/Arnold when I set both View Transform to RAW. This shows me that the colormanagement must be the problem.

Here are my default setting when I open a new Houdini 20.0.671:
sRGB - Display
Un-tone-mapped


Is this right?
Edited by olivierth - 2026年5月24日 12:04:50

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Houdini_Color_Management_01.jpg (19.3 KB)
Houdini_Color_Management_02.jpg (15.0 KB)

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I'm afraid I need to defer to the community as to colour-management similarities/differences between Houdini and Maya, sorry!

I would encourage you to also try Arnold inside Solaris to see if you get similar results to Karma that way.
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olivierth
Sorry, I was a bit busy.

I wanted to create a simpler scene to upload and I noticed that I get a very similar result for both Houdini/Karma and Maya/Arnold when I set both View Transform to RAW. This shows me that the colormanagement must be the problem.

Here are my default setting when I open a new Houdini 20.0.671:
sRGB - Display
Un-tone-mapped


Is this right?

View needs to be set to ACES 1.0 - SDR Video. This should be the same in Maya/Arnold as well.
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ronald_a
olivierth
Sorry, I was a bit busy.

I wanted to create a simpler scene to upload and I noticed that I get a very similar result for both Houdini/Karma and Maya/Arnold when I set both View Transform to RAW. This shows me that the colormanagement must be the problem.

Here are my default setting when I open a new Houdini 20.0.671:
sRGB - Display
Un-tone-mapped


Is this right?

View needs to be set to ACES 1.0 - SDR Video. This should be the same in Maya/Arnold as well.
that's not true at all, only use the ACES tonemap if you want the tonemapped look. Using that tonemap will only exacerbate the issue since it totally crushes the shadow values in the image.

For the original issue, to determine if it's a colorspace issue or a renderer difference, open both renders in the same viewer--that should reveal any difference if both renders are treated the same.
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