Karma XPU: A Houdini 20 Preview | Brian Sharpe | SIGGRAPH HIVE 2023

Learn about the latest improvements to Karma XPU – SideFX's USD-based GPU/CPU renderer. New capabilities include subsurface scattering, demand-loaded sparse textures, nested dielectrics, uniform volumes, and more. Gain insights on Houdini's USD-based Solaris framework and how Karma XPU integrates with it. Uncover the technical details of how the SideFX team leveraged NVIDIA technology to power the industry's newest USD renderer.

00:00 Presentation
01:08 OpenUSD and Solaris
02:00 MaterialX
02:40 An Intro to Karma
03:15 Karma XPU
04:03 Benefits of XPU
06:15 New XPU features
11:36 Karma XPU architecture, Déjà vu
11:52 Subsurface Scattering
12:47 Uniform Volumes
13:44 Cylinder Lights
14:26 Light Clipping
15:41 NVIDIA tech
17:05 Q&A

Brian Sharpe is a Senior Rendering Developer at SideFX where he is the primary developer of Karma XPU, SideFX's new hybrid GPU/CPU renderer. Before joining SideFX, he worked at Weta Digital where he was the engineering lead on Weta’s proprietary physically-based GPU renderer, Gazebo. Brian has over 20 years of experience in the computer graphics industry and has also previously worked for Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sidhe, and Pandromeda.

[audiodrocher]

Houdini is a beautiful piece of software engineering, thanks SideFX 😊

[litalienvisual]

So happy to see Dispersion finally coming to Karma!! Can't wait for Houdini 20 to come out

[AlanAlan-pmz]

Karma xpu is incredibly fast. Even though it's not production ready I'm already using it in my work. I'm so exciting for Houdini

[pragmaticvfx]

Karma has come a long way since the initial release! Thanks SESI!

[reaktorleak]

One more year and I’ll feel comfortable moving my team over to XPU. It’s catching up really fast to renderers, like the one we pay for annually on the farm.

[HiredGunGames]

Houdini s my first choice for professional software because of how in depth it is. I can make my own tools very easy to complete my work

[laoyinglaoyingkk]

Looking forward to seeing more new features in Houdini 20

[ahahlex]

Using already karma xpu on a daily basis and I prefer to deal with limitation than using third party render engine, so happy to see light linker and AOVs are coming in h20 !

[karelchytilart]

IES great feature for me :) sure fur... and everything... love Houdini

[Qinnulay]

Learned Blender, Now Im Learning Houdini (From April?) And I love both, Maybe I'll not understand everything for now, but I'll keep going :D

[Square-zero-one]

Was that Eric Smith making a question at 21:40 ? I think I heard you buddy!

[DanteMetaphor]

Damn, andjust after I extended my redshift license. well guess its my last perpetual extension anyways since they are forcing everyone to subscriptions. Guess its time to move my pipeline to karma since i dont see any reason to pay an extra subscription for RS when the development has slowed down to a crawl.

[srinivaschilukuri-om]

First comment. Bring it on. Houdini 20

[yunchufx]

Will the H20 finish the physical caustics of the karma xpu?

[Tritoon]

The problem is sometimes when u use a feature is not supported on XPU you don’t get a warning tells you this settings is supported only on CPU.. This is so confusing.

[sanescobar]

How about use of AI for light sampling and other raytrace stuff? like it is done in oter GPU only renderer.

[SLPCaires]

great stuff, but can you render a bumpmap on xpu yet?

[RatedE]

Where’s the best spot to learn Houdini?? If I wanted a career in it.

[haifucui]

Somebody tell me is it Production Ready？

[morgonaut]

sad there will be for long time no Apple Silicon GPU support. With the unified memory that would be dealbreaker :(