The world's fastest unbiased GPU rendering engine on CUDA and Metal now integrates completely with Houdini 19.5, Houdini 20.0 & Houdini 20.5 Solaris.
OctaneSolaris builds supported by this release: 19.5.805, 20.0.896, 20.5.522, 20.5.550 and 20.5.584..
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;$PATH"
Setting this environment variable outputs any error related to loading the OctaneRender® plugin on the command line for diagnosing installation problems:
HOUDINI_DSO_ERROR = 2
-Houdnin Packages/json installation steps-
- Please create a folder inside Documents\houdini19.5 and name it as Packages
- Open notepad or any text editor and use these lines
Code: Select all
{
"enable": true,
"env": [
{
"OCTANE_AUTOSPAREPARAMS": {
"value": 1
}
},
{
"OCTVERSION": "PATH_TO_OCTANE_SOLARIS_Win64 FOLDER"
},
{
"HOUDINI_PATH": {
"value": "$OCTVERSION"
},
"PATH": {
"value": "$OCTVERSION\\bin"
},
"PXR_PLUGINPATH_NAME": {
"value": "$OCTVERSION\\dso\\usd_plugins"
}
}
]
}
- Please make sure to disable the .env paths
- Please run **createPackageFileForOctane.bat** for automatic Package installer for Windows OS.
New features
To learn more about the new features and improvements of OctaneRender 2025.2 and the Render Node app, please check out the 2025.2 release post
Change log since last release
- Unified OctaneRender 2025.2 for Houdini production (2025.2.0.0)
- The Octane Window is working again for a view of the node graph being used to render the viewport.
- Orbx exports have better support for motion blur.
- Symmetric motion blur (-0.25 to 0.25) is now converted into post frame times (0.0 to 0.5) for compatibility with Orbx.
- If Alembic Orbx export is enabled, saving a viewport as Orbx now uses the Alembic format and supports motion blur.
- If the Orbx base file name contains ".fbx" the FBX file format is used for export.
- The viewport Orbx export file name is now appended with .VP to prevent it from overwriting the animation Orbx file.
- Fixed nested instances.
- Fixed viewport updates when the motion blur shutter or samples are changed.
- Fixed a crash bug when disabling the Z-Buffer.
- Fixed the light, light direct, light indirect, custom and global teture AOV sub types.
- The viewport can now display the ZDepth AOV using the depth max and environment depth settings. This does not affect final renders.
- Changed AOV float values to log in the Houdini UI.
Note: Click the link below to refer to Important SOP to USD attribute conversion
https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini18.5/solaris/sop_import.html
Important notes:
[*] The minimum NVIDIA driver version required has been raised to R528 (R572 for GeForce RTX50 Series).
[*] The GPU version of Open Image Denoise is supported on Volta and Ada GPUs currently. The CPU version is used on devices with other models, and on macOS..
[*] The minimum version of macOS required is 14.5.[/b]
Linux Note
On Linux only default Houdini builds are supported.
This means that for Houdini 20.0 and 20.5, gcc11.2 builds are supported, and for Houdini 19.5, gcc9.3 build is supported.
Important Note for this release's Mac build
Octane Render 2024.1.2 pops up a window asking user to agree or not agree to collection of anonymous usage information and statics. This window conflicts with Houdini's splash window when Houdini starts, you will not be able to click Yes/No button in the Octane Window. Octane core team is working on fix this. But before this is properly fixed, there is a workaround for this. You can press Y/N when the Octane window is popped out behind the Houdini Splash window, and this only needs to be done only once. The attached video shows the workaround for this issue.
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Subscription Studio+ Downloads
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OctaneSolaris [macOS](Link)
OctaneSolaris [Linux](Link)
OctaneSolaris [Windows](Link)
Happy GPU Rendering !!
Your team
OTOY
