Karma Renderer
Houdini's built-in renderer
Also known as: Houdini Karma · Karma XPU · Karma CPU · Houdini Solaris render · Karma USD render
Definition
Karma is Houdini's own renderer, built on USD and used through Solaris, Houdini's lighting and look-development context. It comes in two versions, Karma CPU and Karma XPU, which uses the CPU and GPU together, and renders physically based images with global illumination, volumes and motion blur. It is used for effects, procedural scenes and final renders from Houdini, where the scene is described in USD.
In production
Use it for beauty renders of Houdini effects and procedural environments, and learn Solaris for lighting and layout. For game art, Houdini is mostly used to create assets, scatter and effects, and renders for portfolios are often done in Karma or other engines. Karma uses the MaterialX and USD preview surface materials, which are similar to the Principled BSDF in Blender.
