mcurado

mcurado

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Karma (XPU/CPU) - Pass tech AOVs through refraction (N, pRef April 7, 2025, 10:20 p.m.

Hi all,

Not sure if anyone has tried or successfully achieved this, I’m currently attempting to get tech AOVs (such as N, pRef, or even custom texture-based AOVs) to pass through refractive surfaces (like glass) when rendering with Karma, both XPU and or CPU.

The goal is to hide the glass visually, but still get the underlying deformation from IOR in the resulting AOV, essentially mimicking the look-through-glass warping without rendering the glass itself.

So far, I’ve had some success with LPE-based AOVs, such as diffuse, by tagging the glass and using a pattern like:

C'glassDome'<RD>.*L

That seems to work fine — but it obviously doesn’t help with things not capturable through LPE, like texture-based AOVs or custom maps.

I’ve considered something like trace sets, which I had success within Arnold, but I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent concept or workaround in Karma.

If anyone’s run into this or found a hack or feature that could help, I’d really appreciate a nudge in the right direction.

Thanks in advance!

Kindest regards,
Marco Curado