Houdini 20.5 Nodes Object nodes

Indirect Light object node

Indirect lights produce illumination that has reflected from other objects in the scene.

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Since 11.0

The indirect light object can be used to add indirect lighting to the scene that is not accounted for by raytracing - including indirect diffuse lighting and caustics. The light is designed to work with all rendering engines. When using PBR, the use of an indirect light will automatically override the calculation of indirect diffuse lighting and caustics to use the photon maps generated by the indirect light. When using non-PBR engines, the indirect light can add in indirect diffuse lighting that would not ordinarily be accounted for in the render.

Note

In prior releases of Houdini (versions 9.0-10.0), photon maps were generated via the use of a second mantra ROP with parameters to control the photon map generation on the ROP itself. This workflow is no longer supported in 11.0. Instead, you should now use the Indirect Light to manage rendering of photon maps.

Note

In Houdini 11.0.513 and later, global photon maps will additionally store and approximate glossy bounces (such as blurry reflections). You don’t need to modify the indirect light or mantra ROP parameters to take advantage of photon maps for glossy bounces.

Note

This node is not actually a light. It is a photon map generator that requires one or more lights in the scene to see results.

Workflow for Diffuse Photon Map Rendering

Managing a renderer that uses photon maps can be a little more complex than simply using PBR with extra diffuse bounces. Here’s a checklist to verify that the photon maps are being generated accurately and that your render is running as efficiently as possible. These steps assume that you are using the Physically Based Rendering Rendering Engine.

  1. Create an Indirect Light using either the GI Light shelf tool or by using the tab menu to create an Indirect Light.

  2. In the Render View, perform an initial render. Verify that the photon map generation progress is reported at the top of the IPR viewer before the image is rendered.

  3. On the Indirect Light object, change the Light Type to Direct Global Photon Map. This setting can be used during interactive renders to verify that the photon map has been generated correctly and is a reasonable approximation for the diffuse lighting in the scene.

  4. If the render appears to have large blocks of constant illumination, increase the Photon Count until the quality reaches an acceptable level.

  5. Switch between Direct Global Photon Map and Indirect Global Photon Map to see the quality difference between rendering the photons directly and using them for indirect lighting. If enough photons exist in the scene, the overall light level for each render should be roughly the same.

  6. If you notice some artifacts in corners, increase the Prefilter Samples or try increasing the Photon Distance Threshold. Increasing the number of samples may require you to go back and increase the Photon Count to sharpen the photon map result.

Mantra ROP Parameters affecting photon maps

Photon map generation relies on the same shading parameters that are used when rendering with PBR. The following ROP parameters will affect the photon map generation.

  • The limit parameters on the Shading tab of the Mantra ROP. For example, to see diffuse bounces in the photon map increase the Diffuse Limit parameter, and to see refractive caustics increase the Refract Limit parameter.

  • The Allowable Paths parameter on the Shading sub-tab of the on the Rendering tab on the Mantra ROP. By default, PBR will exclude indirect lighting that it considers caustics since these types of paths commonly introduce a significant amount of noise in the render. However, with photon maps, caustic paths are easily generated and cached as part of the global photon map solution. To enable caustic paths in the photon map and in the render, change Allowable Paths to All Paths.

Caustic Light shelf tool

Adds an Indirect Light using caustic photon maps, causing other lights in the scene to cast caustic reflections/refractions.

GI Light shelf tool

Adds an indirect light using photon maps to light an enclosed environment.

Parameters

Light Type

Controls the type of indirect light to be produced and the algorithm used to produce it.

Indirect Global Photon Map

Produces indirect diffuse lighting using a photon map. Rather than using the photon map directly, diffuse rays will be traced from the shading point and the photon map will be used only for these secondary hits. It is necessary to increase the Diffuse Limit on the mantra ROP to at least 1 for indirect diffuse lighting to appear in the render.

When using PBR, using an Indirect Light of this type is a fast alternative to simply increasing the Diffuse Limit on the ROP. Photon maps can be effective in improving performance and reducing noise especially in indoor scenes that involve a large amount of diffuse inter-reflections. To compare performance and quality with and without the use of the photon map, toggle the Light Enabled toggle on this light.

Note

This setting is analogous to the Final Gather algorithm available in other rendering software.

Direct Global Photon Map

Directly display the diffuse photon map illumination on surfaces. This setting is useful to visualize the contents of the photon map but should generally not be used for renders.

Caustic Photon Map

This setting should be used when rendering caustics, or patterns of focused light that appear when illumination reflects off a reflective or refractive object. When using Caustic Photon Map mode, the photon map generation algorithm will also be configured to only calculate light paths that reflect or refract from objects before being absorbed by a diffuse surface.

Tip

If you're rendering a scene that requires both caustics and indirect diffuse lighting, you should render with 2 indirect lights - one for the indirect diffuse and another for caustics.

Irradiance Only

Produces indirect diffuse lighting using path tracing. This setting is only meaningful when rendering with non-PBR rendering engines, and it will use the irradiance VEX function.

Light Color

Allows indirect illumination to be artificially tinted when rendered. This parameter does not affect photon map generation.

Light Intensity

Allows indirect illumination to be artificially scaled when rendered. This parameter does not affect photon map generation.

Light Enabled

Turning this toggle off is equivalent to setting the light intensity to 0.

Enable Light In Viewport

Turning this off removes the light from consideration in the viewport. This is useful for lights which only make sense at render time.

Categories

Houdini render property
categories
IFD property
object:categories

The space or comma separated list of categories to which this object belongs.

Currently not supported for per-primitive material assignment (material SOP).

Photon Map Options

Options to control generation and rendering of photon maps.

Auto-generate Photon Map

Enables automatic generation of a photon map. Photon map generation will proceed before the main render begins.

Tip

Use the IPR Viewer pane to see a progress bar for photon map generation. When using IPR with photon maps, be sure to press the Render button if you need to regenerate photon maps - photon maps are treated the same way as depth maps in IPR, and so must be manually regenerated when they are out of date.

Photon Count

The approximate number of photons to store in the photon map file.

Light Mask

A bundle to specify the lights to use for photon map generation from the indirect light. By default, all lights will contribute to photon map illumination.

It is possible to separate indirect lighting from different light sources by creating several Indirect Light objects with disjoint light masks, and then using per-light exports to create a deep raster plane for each Indirect Light’s illumination.

Note

Since the Indirect Light object does not produce any illumination of its own, all Indirect Light objects are automatically ignored while generating photon maps.

Photon Target

A bundle to specify what objects should be targeted for photon storage. This parameter should be used to optimize photon renders when you know that all photons must hit or pass through a specified object.

Tip

If your render does not show any photons and produces an error message indicating that photon generation was aborted, you may need to adjust the photon target parameter to focus photon generation on a particular object in the scene. This error can commonly occur when generating caustics from a small glass object in the presence of much larger objects defining its environment.

Photon File

The photon map file to generate on disk. When rendering an animation, you should usually modify this value to include the frame number.

Photon Filter

Photon filter to use. The default Convex Hull filter improves photon map quality in corners of the scene. You can improve render time slightly by switching to Sphere at the expense of accuracy.

Filter Samples

When reading from the photon map, this is the number of photons to filter. When rendering with a prefiltered photon map, you should use a small number (generally from 1-10). When rendering non-prefiltered photon maps, you should use a large number (generally 50-500).

Photon Map Stores Direct Lighting

Store direct lighting in the photon map. When disabled, the photon map will only store indirect lighting - meaning that a full direct lighting computation is required in addition to a photon map lookup to compute lighting at a hit surface. In either case, the render should account for the same light paths. Normally you should leave this parameter unchanged.

When rendering caustic photon maps, this parameter is ignored.

Prefilter Photon Map

After photon map generation but before rendering, prefilter the photon map so that much fewer photon samples are required for rendering. Prefiltering can often take as long as the photon map generation process itself.

Prefilter Samples

The number of photons to filter during prefiltering. This should normally be a large value (generally 50-500).

Prefilter Ratio

The ratio of photons to store in the prefiltered photon map to photons in the original non-prefiltered map. Prefiltering can often take several minutes for large photon maps. Using a ratio less than 1 can improve performance by only filtering the specified proportion of photons in the map while introducing only a small difference in render quality.

Enable Point Cloud

Use the photon map for direct lighting as if it were a geometry area light with point cloud generation enabled. This setting can help to reduce noise in renders using photon maps where the illumination is highly variable.

Note that after toggling this setting it’s necessary to regenerate photon maps since the content of the map will changes depending on this setting. Only prefiltered maps are supported.

Note

This setting is currently experimental. In particular, it has the following limitations:

  • It requires a prefiltered photon map

  • It does not work correctly with volumes

  • Other indirect illumination will be completely disabled

  • The photon distance threshold does not have any effect (it’s assumed to be 0)

Point Samples

See the light object documentation

MIS Bias

See the light object documentation

Indirect Diffuse Options

These sampling options apply when using the Irradiance Only or Indirect Global Photon Map mode with a non-PBR rendering engine. When rendering with PBR, you should instead use the sampling controls on the ROP to adjust the sampling quality for indirect diffuse lighting (such as the Pixel Samples or Min Ray Samples).

Sampling Quality

The number of rays to send out for irradiance. Ignored by PBR - use the Ray Samples or Pixel Samples to adjust quality in PBR.

Max Ray Distance

Maximum distance from the sample point to consider geometry for irradiance. Ignored by PBR.

Sampling Angle

Half-angle over which to send rays for irradiance. Ignored by PBR.

Photon Distance Threshold

This parameter is a quality/performance control that can be used when rendering global photon maps. When too few photons are present in a photon map, the distance between photons can be significantly larger than the distance that an indirect lighting ray travels - which would lead to artifacts in the render if the photon map were used to approximate illumination. This parameter indicates that when the indirect lighting ray travels a shorter distance than the distance between photons in the map, that the illumination should be computed directly (via path tracing) rather than using the photon map.

Larger values will favor more path tracing while smaller values will favor the use of the photon map. A value of 0 indicates that the photon map should always be used - potentially leading to artifacts in corners. Generally a value between 0 and 4 is reasonable, with a value of 4 eliminating the vast majority of artifacts in corners.

Tip

If your photon map contains very smooth illumination (for example, when using many filter samples), you can improve performance by decreasing this parameter to 0. If you photon map is poorly filtered, you can improve quality by increasing this parameter to a value larger than 1.

Tip

To visualize how much the photon map is contributing to the image relative to path tracing:

  1. Configure your rendering engine to Physically Based Rendering.

  2. Add an indirect_diffuse deep raster and enable Export variable for each light.

  3. Look at the deep raster plane for the indirect light and for your other lights. You should see that in corners of your geometry, the indirect_diffuse will have a larger contribution than other lights. As you decrease the photon distance threshold to 0, the contents of indirect_diffuse for lights other than the indirect light should drop to 0.

Adaptive Sampling

Turns on an automatic optimization that will reduce the number of samples when there is little variation in occlusion above the sample point. This can improve performance at the expense of some possible flickering or additional noise. Adaptive sampling will only take effect with more than 64 samples. Ignored by PBR - use variance antialiasing instead.

Examples

IndirectLightBox Example for Indirect Light object node

This example shows how to set up the indirectlight object for indirect diffuse lighting. The scene consists of a box that has been extruded several times, containing a light source and the camera. The light has been placed so that all light reaching the camera must bounce more than once inside the scene before reaching the camera. The indirectlight object is configured to generate 1000000 photons. To visualize the photon map, change the rendering mode on the light to “Direct Global Photon Map”. To adjust the sampling quality, modify the pixel samples or ray samples on the mantra ROP. The rendering engine used in this example is PBR.

TubeCaustic Example for Indirect Light object node

This example shows how to set up the indirectlight object for caustic photon map generation and also how light masks and photon targets should be used. The scene consists of a reflective tube and a point and environment light. Each light has a corresponding indirectlight to generate caustics, with the light mask configured to allow the light to generate photons only from the specified light. The photon target is used to ensure that photons are only sent toward the reflective tube. The mantra ROP will produce deep raster planes for the direct_diffuse component on a per-light basis, showing the diffuse illumination from the two lights and the caustics split into separate planes.

Object nodes

  • Agent Cam

    Create and attach camera to a crowd agent.

  • Alembic Archive

    Loads the objects from an Alembic scene archive (.abc) file into the object level.

  • Alembic Xform

    Loads only the transform from an object or objects in an Alembic scene archive (.abc).

  • Ambient Light

    Adds a constant level of light to every surface in the scene (or in the light’s mask), coming from no specific direction.

  • Auto Bone Chain Interface

    The Auto Bone Chain Interface is created by the IK from Objects and IK from Bones tools on the Rigging shelf.

  • Blend

    Switches or blends between the transformations of several input objects.

  • Blend Sticky

    Computes its transform by blending between the transforms of two or more sticky objects, allowing you to blend a position across a polygonal surface.

  • Bone

    The Bone Object is used to create hierarchies of limb-like objects that form part of a hierarchy …

  • Camera

    You can view your scene through a camera, and render from its point of view.

  • Common object parameters

  • Dop Network

    The DOP Network Object contains a dynamic simulation.

  • Environment Light

    Environment Lights provide background illumination from outside the scene.

  • Extract Transform

    The Extract Transform Object gets its transform by comparing the points of two pieces of geometry.

  • Fetch

    The Fetch Object gets its transform by copying the transform of another object.

  • Formation Crowd Example

    Crowd example showing a changing formation setup

  • Fuzzy Logic Obstacle Avoidance Example

  • Fuzzy Logic State Transition Example

  • Geometry

    Container for the geometry operators (SOPs) that define a modeled object.

  • Groom Merge

    Merges groom data from multiple objects into one.

  • Guide Deform

    Moves the curves of a groom with animated skin.

  • Guide Groom

    Generates guide curves from a skin geometry and does further processing on these using an editable SOP network contained within the node.

  • Guide Simulate

    Runs a physics simulation on the input guides.

  • Hair Card Generate

    Converts dense hair curves to a polygon card, keeping the style and shape of the groom.

  • Hair Card Texture Example

    An example of how to create a texture for hair cards.

  • Hair Generate

    Generates hair from a skin geometry and guide curves.

  • Handle

    The Handle Object is an IK tool for manipulating bones.

  • Indirect Light

    Indirect lights produce illumination that has reflected from other objects in the scene.

  • Instance

    Instance Objects can instance other geometry, light, or even subnetworks of objects.

  • LOP Import

    Imports transform data from a USD primitive in a LOP node.

  • LOP Import Camera

    Imports a USD camera primitive from a LOP node.

  • Labs Fire Presets

    Quickly generate and render fire simulations using presets for size varying from torch to small to 1m high and low

  • Light

    Light Objects cast light on other objects in a scene.

  • Light template

    A very limited light object without any built-in render properties. Use this only if you want to build completely custom light with your choice of properties.

  • Microphone

    The Microphone object specifies a listening point for the SpatialAudio CHOP.

  • Mocap Acclaim

    Import Acclaim motion capture.

  • Mocap Biped 1

    A male character with motion captured animations.

  • Mocap Biped 2

    A male character with motion captured animations.

  • Mocap Biped 3

    A male character with motion captured animations.

  • Null

    Serves as a place-holder in the scene, usually for parenting. this object does not render.

  • Path

    The Path object creates an oriented curve (path)

  • PathCV

    The PathCV object creates control vertices used by the Path object.

  • Python Script

    The Python Script object is a container for the geometry operators (SOPs) that define a modeled object.

  • Ragdoll Run Example

    Crowd example showing a simple ragdoll setup.

  • Reference Image

    Container for the Compositing operators (COP2) that define a picture.

  • Rivet

    Creates a rivet on an objects surface, usually for parenting.

  • Simple Biped

    A simple and efficient animation rig with full controls.

  • Simple Female

    A simple and efficient female character animation rig with full controls.

  • Simple Male

    A simple and efficient male character animation rig with full controls.

  • Sound

    The Sound object defines a sound emission point for the Spatial Audio chop.

  • Stadium Crowds Example

    Crowd example showing a stadium setup

  • Stereo Camera Rig

    Provides parameters to manipulate the interaxial lens distance as well as the zero parallax setting plane in the scene.

  • Stereo Camera Template

    Serves as a basis for constructing a more functional stereo camera rig as a digital asset.

  • Sticky

    Creates a sticky object based on the UV’s of a surface, usually for parenting.

  • Street Crowd Example

    Crowd example showing a street setup with two agent groups

  • Subnet

    Container for objects.

  • Switcher

    Acts as a camera but switches between the views from other cameras.

  • TOP Network

    The TOP Network operator contains object-level nodes for running tasks.

  • VR Camera

    Camera supporting VR image rendering.

  • Viewport Isolator

    A Python Script HDA providing per viewport isolation controls from selection.

  • glTF