Lightyear © Disney/Pixar

Welcome to RenderMan for Houdini 25!

RenderMan for Houdini (RfH) continues full support of the latest RenderMan.  See the RenderMan Release Notes for more details.

This current release offers support for:

• Houdini 19.5 (including Solaris)
• Houdini 19.0 (Including Solaris)
• Houdini 18.5 (including Solaris)

Please see the release notes below for all the new capabilities and known issues.  See the Installation of RenderMan for Houdini page for the list of specific production builds RfH works with.

"The Unsullied" by Dylan Sisson, rendered in RenderMan for Houdini

Lama Parameter Name Changes

Some parameters on Lama nodes were changed in RenderMan 25. The parameters "color" and "normal" have been changed to be node-specific. For example, color is now diffuseColor on the LamaDiffuse node. This was done in preparation for making the nodes compatible with XPU in the future. For scenes with version of RfH older than 25, you need to run once manually top menu "RenderMan" > "Update Lama Nodes" if using a Houdini version older than H19.5.501 (it's automated otherwise). You will also need to update your custom locked HDAs manually.

Known Limitations - New

Installation

• Renderman Houdini packages isn't supported in Houdini 18.5.

RIS and XPU

• Solaris: Light property names will be renamed to conform to the new USD schema in 19.5
• When a dome light is visible in the Houdini viewport, moving the camera can become unpredictable

Known Limitations - Existing

Live Statistics

• Live statistics are turned off by default.  Artists can turn on the statistics through the buttons in the UI.

MaterialX Lama

• Soloing complex MaterialX Lama shading networks.

XPU

• CUDA device is saved in scene rather than as a preference.

General

• Render with Takes is not supported. 
• Rendering with Mantra lights or VOPs is not possible
• Bypassing shader nodes
• Auto camera creation for IPR
• RenderMan clipping planes
• Display edits cannot changed from the image tool to mplay
• Cross-frame denoising PDG support.
• Applying undo of deleted nodes or collapsing to subnet may not work as expected
• Rewiring subnet indirect inputs
  
  

Changes in RenderMan for Houdini 25.1

• Solaris: RenderMan now respects the thread settings in husk.  RMAN-16592
• Solaris: "light group" and "visible in refraction" ligth attibutes now correctly working.  RMAN-20589
• Solaris: If you are using a Shutter of 0.0, 0.0 (for example, to turn off motion blur), XPU will now render properly.  RMAN-20621
• Fixed a problem that would cause Stylized Looks to crash within Houdini.  RMAN-20661
• If you were using XPU to render to "it" and resized the display window, XPU would have crashed.  This is now fixed.  RMAN-20237
• When rendering interactively in Houdini, XPU would not render in-memory volumes.  This is now fixed.  RMAN-20780

Changes in RenderMan for Houdini 25.2

• Hydra and hdPrman: Change the default pixel filter to importance.  This is the only mode supported by XPU, and is the mode that is required by the denoiser.  RMAN-20617
• Hydra and hdPrman: Added locks around clearing the framebuffer to prevent black buckets from appearing when they shouldn't.  RMAN-20869
• Solaris: Previously, when switching to hdPrman while there is an active Solaris live render, the renderer would either quietly fail (RIS) or crash the DCC (XPU). While this scenario still fails, it will now output an Xcpt warning and not crash..  RMAN-20793
• Solaris: Improvements to the data window and display window calculations.  RMAN-20796
• Solaris: Properly set the mse statistics attributes in AOVs for denoising.  RMAN-20783
• Solaris: Fixed an issue where if the sampleCount AOV was requested and XPU was the renderer, a black screen could result.  RMAN-20784
• Solaris: Manipulating/editing dome lights in XPU interactively now has better performance.  RMAN-20320
• Solaris: Cryptomatte filenames will now take into account husk tile suffix.  RMAN-20696
• Solaris: The RenderMan LOP now correctly matches the name of the created RenderMan Render Setting node to the one when creating that LOP node on its own.
• Removed the asymmetry denoiser parameter from the RfH UI.  RMAN-20672