View Source

Welcome to RenderMan for Houdini 23.3!

This release of RenderMan for Houdini (RfH) 23, includes a number of new features and bug fixes that address feedback.

Please see the required version of Houdini for 17.5 and 18.0
Rendering with RenderMan will not operate on Houdini Apprentice editions. See Side FX's website for options that allow Third Party Rendering.
Houdini Indie is only compatible with 17.5 and higher, and you must be using at least version 17.5.210 or higher

New Features in 23.3

RenderMan for Houdini now supports rendering packed USD geometry within the geometry context.
Added new ROP options to enable illumination baking.

Fixes

Fixed a crash when merging VDBs
Fixed a bug where primvars are dropped when material is applied on SOP
Fixed an issue preventing render updates for keyframed parameters on light shaders
Fixed an issue that would prevent an interactive render from stopping if an abort was issued in the "it" display
Fixed an issue that was causing the IPR Render shelf tool to read the ROP display rather than always starting an IPR session
Fixed a bug that could cause Pixel Filter mode to remain pinned to "importance"
Fixed a bug that would cause interactive rendering to crash when modifying materials or the timeline
Packed Geometry:
- Fixed a bug where unpacked primitive geometry would not get material attribute applied
- Fixed a bug where velocity motion blur was not applied when packed SOP was not time-dependent
- Fixed some motion blur bugs with packed geo
- We now export packed alembic string attributes as user attributes
Instancing:
- Fixed an issue to more closely match Mantra behavior when ptinstance = off
- Fixed a crash when instances would be created from points out of a POP or DOP node
- Numerous other bugs when using instancing have been addressed
Preset Browser:
- Fixed logging bug when using the preset browser with textures
- A bug causing importing and exporting shader networks with PxrOSL shaders to the preset browser has been fixed
- A bug causing importing and exporting nodes with arrays to the preset browser has been fixed
- Address an issue where the preset browser would not import material assets with textures correctly

Miscellaneous Changes

Renamed Houdini velocity privmars called "v" to "vel"; as "v" is a reserved attribute for RenderMan geometry. Shaders in RenderMan for Houdini should refer to "vel" instead of "v".

"Smooth Displacement" parameter label has been changed to "Prevent Polygon Cracking" and moved to Displacement folder.
oslbuilder now shows up in PxrMaterialBuilder
Added support for ptmotionblur="deform" on Instance OBJ
Added RFH_USER_LOG_DIR, RFH_USER_OTLS_DIR, RFH_USER_PREF_DIR
Reorganized ROP for illumination baking options
The "darkfalloff" option has been added back to the adaptive sampling options
Added biasR, biasT, rawId, and dPcameradtime AOVs to LOPs, ROPs, and TOPs
Parameters with unknown widget types still being added to hda with a default UI

Known Limitations

RenderMan for Houdini

Can only apply materials to packed instances
Display edits cannot be 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
Rendering with Mantra lights or VOPs not possible
Bypassing shader nodes
Auto camera creation for IPR
RenderMan clipping planes