Francis Pimenta

oldteapot7
By the way i have question about workflow. Iam still learning and havnt touched materials and shading part yet.

But is there easy way to render scene in Karma XPU as preview (for client corects and stuff)
And then render same scene in Arnold or Octane as final stage. Render for production and postprocess stage.

So.. is there any easy way for that? Or i have to make duplicate materials and lights and all for 2 different renderers?

i know that Octane in Solaris has some strange glitches had last year teached my brother and they use Octane with C4D and Maya.
the first bug was we couldn't change Render Resolution! the Plugin is over 1 year out and it can't read the Camera Resolution in the USD File WTF! and then there where many other small bugs.

In theory you can setup the scene with Solaris (Geometry, Camera, Light) define for each Render Engine a custom Shader and in the future you only need a mtlx shader. But depending on Render Engine there can be a mismatch of Render Functionality and a different stage of USD Support that need custom Camera and Light Parameters.

when you can use just one Render Engine you have less problems in my view.

andraskavalecz
Thank you for the tips )
We modeled our assets in dcc's like Maya and Modo and brought them into in its own clarisse project, applied materials...made combiners ....and then referenced in those project files into our layout scenes. pretty straight forward.

Correct me if I am wrong, but from highlevel... : import geo into houdini, apply karma materials (do variants) and save USD, reference the USDs into the Solaris/Stage and do the layout.

i would say that is the way how you will work mostly with houdini in Solaris to get a near clarisse feeling. there is the classic way of working in SOP (/obj) and then load the geometry in solaris because before solaris everything was in SOP and then rendered with some nodes in ROP. you can also do it in the classic way, end of the day you must be happy

andraskavalecz
Thank you for the tips )
Sorry for the houdini noob sounding qeustion. But does it mean the new (Solaris way) assets are not saved in native houdini files (hip, hda..) but rather in USDs?
I am tyring to keep it as simple as possible ))

simple as possible and that with houdini? I like your thinking
very good question far far above noob level!

Project file are still for houdini the .hip but you can export the solaris graph data to USD (.usda -> ASCII to analyse what is inside / USD ROP). Functionality Tools are inside Houdini and currently there is no USD way to build something like a HDA. But that could maybe change in the future. Houdini way of working is always reference the files and never embed it into the hip file. NEVER...

currently sidefx has made some move to have parameters information and node network in the geometry data (APEX thing). this is still new and it will take time how the artist can use it in production. it also means for the future one data format for CPU, GPU Functions and no dependency for the houdini core HScript.
Fun Stuff: Houdini core is inspired by UNIX so it means there is a right management where you can set permission to nodes as in the unix world (https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/commands/opchmod.html). but I think all that will be removed and don't used it in production bosses don't like it (didn't happen to me but read it somewhere studio department bosses can get angry).

There are many other factors that count too!

there are currently many developments in the rendering section with shifts from shader format (mtlx), scene description format (USD) and other technology's.

for indie artist you can select any render engine I would say most indie projects can be solved with any of these render engines. when you do architectural rendering vray could be preferred. when you have Autodesk products in your pipeline Arnold can be your ideal render. the state of capabilities, speed, and stability can change by time and project requirement. today you can get demo version with watermarks for free to learn and recrate the shader networks brings you more then just a forum post from a unknown person like me.

happy learning.