The world's fastest unbiased GPU rendering engine on CUDA and Metal now integrates completely with Houdini 19.5 & Houdini 20.0 Solaris.
OctaneSolaris builds supported by this release: 19.0.720, 19.5.805, 20.0.506, 20.0.547, 20.0.590, 20.0.625, 20.0.653.
What is OctaneRender for Solaris?
The OctaneRender for Solaris plugin is based on Pixar’s USD (Universal Scene Description) and Pixar’s Hydra API to empower artist workflows across look development, scene layout, lighting, and final rendering.


Pixar's USD pipeline
https://renderman.pixar.com/stories/pixars-usd-pipeline
-Installation steps-
Insert the OctaneRender® plugin folder path to the houdini.env file. Houdini®creates this file after launching it for the first time.
On Linux and macOS® systems, append a single line to enable OctaneRender®:
HOUDINI_PATH = "/path/to/octane;&"
On Windows® systems, you need to set the PATH to point to the plugin bin folder as well:
PATH = "C:/path/to/octane/bin;$PATH"
Setting this environment variable outputs any error related to loading the OctaneRender® plugin on the command line for diagnosing installation problems:
HOUDINI_DSO_ERROR = 2
-Houdnin Packages/json installation steps-
- Please create a folder inside Documents\houdini19.5 and name it as Packages
- Open notepad or any text editor and use these lines
Code: Select all
{
"enable" : true,
"env":
[
{
"OCTANE_AUTOSPAREPARAMS" :
{
"value": 1,
},
//location to your octane folder (example below)
"OCTVERSION": "PATH\TO\OCTANESOLARIS\Win64FOLDER",
},
{
"HOUDINI_PATH" :
{
"value": "$OCTVERSION",
},
"PATH" :
{
"value": "$OCTVERSION/bin",
},
"PXR_PLUGINPATH_NAME" :
{
//if you have the Solaris version installed
"value": "$PATH\TO\OCTANESOLARIS\dso\usd_plugins",
},
}
]
}
- Please make sure to disable the .env paths
New features
To learn more about the new features and improvements of OctaneRender 2023.1.3 and the Render Node app, please check out the 2023.1.2 release post
- Change log since last release
- - Merged with latest OctaneRender for Houdini -2023.1.3.0
- - Increased Houdini version support for H19.0.720, H19.5.805, H20.0.506, H20.0.547, H20.0.590, H20.0.625, H20.0.653
- - Additional light IDs support (20x) on Rendergeometry, AOV, Kernels, and Lights
- - Octane Object parameters are now set to *Do Nothing* on Rendergeometrysettings node.
- - Added support to render Data Window NDC image cropping
- - Implemented custom name for Beauty and Denoised AOV for composting
- - Fixed gradient start and end points
- - Fixed UVset bug
- - Improved region render size mismatched
- - Fixed crash ambient light ID switch
Note: Click the link below to refer to Important SOP to USD attribute conversion
https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini18.5 ... mport.html
-Known Issues-
- Deep AOV is yet to support!
Important: if using macOS, we strongly recommend that you update to version 14..
Linux Note
On Linux only compatibility Houdini 20 build is supported (gcc9.3).
It can only be installed by downloading it from the downloads page since it's not visible in the Launcher:
https://www.sidefx.com/download/daily-b ... ction=true
or direct download link: houdini-20.0.653-linux_x86_64_gcc9.3.tar.gz
We are looking into supporting the gcc11.2 build.
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Subscription Studio+ Downloads
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OctaneSolaris [Windows]
OctaneSolaris [macOS]
OctaneSolaris [Linux]
Happy GPU Rendering !!
Your team
OTOY