The world's fastest unbiased GPU rendering engine on CUDA and Metal now integrates completely with Houdini 20.0, Houdini 20.5 & Houdini 21.0 Solaris.
OctaneSolaris builds supported by this release: 20.0.896, 20.5.684, 21.0.440, 21.0.512 and 21.0.559.
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;$PATH"
Setting this environment variable outputs any error related to loading the OctaneRender® plugin on the command line for diagnosing installation problems:
HOUDINI_DSO_ERROR = 2
-Houdnin Packages/json installation steps-
- Please create a folder inside Documents\houdini20.5 and name it as Packages
- Open notepad or any text editor and use these lines
Code: Select all
{
"enable": true,
"env": [
{
"OCTANE_AUTOSPAREPARAMS": {
"value": 1
}
},
{
"OCTVERSION": "PATH_TO_OCTANE_SOLARIS_Win64 FOLDER"
},
{
"HOUDINI_PATH": {
"value": "$OCTVERSION"
},
"PATH": {
"value": "$OCTVERSION\\bin"
},
"PXR_PLUGINPATH_NAME": {
"value": "$OCTVERSION\\dso\\usd_plugins"
}
}
]
}
- Please make sure to disable the .env paths
- or Please run **createPackageFileForOctane.bat** for the automatic Package installer for Windows OS and the shell script **createPackageFileForOctane.sh** for macOS and Linux.
New features
To learn more about the new features and improvements of OctaneRender 2026.1 and the Render Node app, please check out (Link )
Known issues
- Houdini app crashes when enabling Meshlet.
-Octane crashes for Houdini21 LinuxOS. We are reaching out to SideFX to help debug. [Fixed and replaced the download link]
- Missing features will be added asap
Change log since last release
- - Unified with OctaneRender 2026.1 for Houdini production (2026.1.0.0) viewtopic.php?t=85382
- - Fixed internal bug reports
Note: Click the link below to refer to the 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, 20.5 and 21.0 gcc11.2 builds are supported.
Note: Please do not use Houdini 21.0.440 and 512 build for production yet. We are releasing it as an experimental release and to collect bug reports. Also, our macOS build for Houdini 21.0 crashes on startup. SideFx is helping us to resolve this issue asap
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Subscription Studio+ Downloads
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OctaneSolaris [macOS](Link)
OctaneSolaris [Linux](Link)
OctaneSolaris [Windows](Link)
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Demo Downloads
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OctaneSolaris [Windows](Link)
OctaneSolaris [Linux](Link)
Happy GPU Rendering !!
Your team
OTOY
