Deborah R. Fowler
Houdini Lighting
Render Passes / Layers and Tips
Posted Dec 13 2017
If you wish to create multiple passes in Houdini it's easy!
(Rule of thumb - depth of field - do it in comp, motion blur - do
it in render)
There is a distinct difference between a render pass and a render
layer. Passes are when you split up lighting layers for more
control in compositing. Layers are when you split up geometry,
typically to reduce render time. [Passes == lighting, Layers ==
geometry]. Keep in mind that you could have render passes for
render layers.
Both are super easy to do in Houdini:
Render passes:
In the mantra node, under Extra Image Planes you
will find that you can add many different attributes to your exr
No need to render DOF.
Render layers:
The categories are fairly descriptive. The first one, force objects, is very convenient for turning off heavy geometry on display but forcing it to be on at render time (Houdini has multiple ways of doing this).
Force Matte is shown here, "Cutting out the geometry".
And just a reminder that the Render Tab on any Object Node allows you to specify reflection/refraction masks as well as illumination linking (usually created using the Data Tree)