Welcome to the Houdini 22 Sneak Peek which introduces you to exciting new tools for 
Character Animation & Rigging, Retargeting & Grooming, USD World Building and Rendering, Texture Synthesis and VFX in Copernicus, and new technologies such as Gaussian Splats.


Watch the Keynote online on June 22, 2026 at 09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT / 17:00 BST / 18:00 CEST

Feels like a .5 release but I really love the UI refresh! Frankly though this was the most underwhelming sneak peak I have seen from SideFX in years. Nothing ground breaking. Nothing really for VFX which is the heart of Houdini.

rmagee
Watch the Keynote online on June 22, 2026 at 09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT / 17:00 BST / 18:00 CEST

And why does the video say at the end that we`ll see the whole shebang on 17th of June??

Sygnum
And why does the video say at the end that we`ll see the whole shebang on 17th of June??

This is because the Launch Event itself is on the 17th June, in London. The event will be recorded and uploaded June 22nd

I can only hope SideFX fixed the viewport rendering with pixel sampler and added the render region updates.

I wish there is major improvement in Karma render.

Is it just me, or does this release cycle feel a bit unusual?

For Houdini 21, the sneak peek ended with that rapid fire credits sequence showing all the new features scrolling by. It really gave the impression of a huge amount of work going into the release. This time around, there doesn't seem to be anything similar.

Unless I've missed something, there also hasn't been much talk about a major UI refresh. And traditionally, it feels like at least one part of Houdini's simulation framework gets a significant overhaul with a new major version, but I haven't really seen that this time either.

Even taking all of that into account makes me wonder what was the reasoning behind jumping to Houdini 22 rather than treating this as a smaller incremental release?

I'm not saying there aren't valuable additions and I'm genuinely curious whether there's a larger theme or set of changes that I'm overlooking.

Maybe the marketing team have decided to take a different approach and not reveal everything at this stage. It is a 'sneak peek' after all.

Mike_A
Maybe the marketing team have decided to take a different approach and not reveal everything at this stage. It is a 'sneak peek' after all.

They made the video in a hurry.
They even write "Height from caustics" rather than "Caustics from height".
I wish they refrain from introducing new stuffs and focus on completing existing features.

I hope they finally improved the vulkan/viewport/karma xpu stability and performance.
Because vulkan compare to opengl in vram and performance are much worse than opengl

The release will be available after June 22, as I understand it?

Gaalvk
The release will be available after June 22, as I understand it?

on June 22th the Keynote will be online for everyone to watch

Usually the release is launched about 20-30 days about the keynote but who knows!

Thanks! You are the industry's only engine.

habernir
I hope they finally improved the vulkan/viewport/karma xpu stability and performance.
Because vulkan compare to opengl in vram and performance are much worse than opengl

The sneak peek only shows it passively because it has few new features, but the architecture of the Vulkan viewport was a big focus in 22.

any chance MacOS got full XPU?

Any info about the changes in system requirements of H22, notably VRAM? I'm already somewhat struggling with VRAM limitations, because my current GPU is "slightly" below Houdini 21's VRAM requirements (8GB vs 12 GB), so working with COPs and KarmaXPU slowly becomes difficult. Therefore, I'd love to know this information beforehand, so I can upgrade to H22 without any surprises.

malexander

habernir
I hope they finally improved the vulkan/viewport/karma xpu stability and performance.
Because vulkan compare to opengl in vram and performance are much worse than opengl

The sneak peek only shows it passively because it has few new features, but the architecture of the Vulkan viewport was a big focus in 22.

new features like a new flipbook?

I’m still puzzled why this is 22 and not 21.5 lol. Just rewatched v21 sneak peak. It was amazing. So much new stuff. 22 feels a fraction of that and quite underwhelming but I guess SideFX spoiled us last time. It’s still waaaay bigger release than what some of the competition is doing

LukeP
I’m still puzzled why this is 22 and not 21.5 lol. Just rewatched v21 sneak peak. It was amazing. So much new stuff. 22 feels a fraction of that and quite underwhelming but I guess SideFX spoiled us last time. It’s still waaaay bigger release than what some of the competition is doing

My guess is it's because of new look.
And maybe / hopefully a lot of things under the hood that aren't flashy new features but bug fixes, quality of life and speed improvements.

I'm hoping that FX related features just didn't make it into the Sneak Peek, it looked very sparse in that area. Cool features in other contexts though!