Unusually for a 0.5 release there is a new feature set called KineFX. This allows very interactive setup of complex lens effects such as depth of field and bokeh.

One of the most fun is the new interactive physical camera in Karma. This is all accelerated in OpenCL with the new fast pressure constraints.įor Solaris and Karma, which is still in beta, there are a lot of speed and workflow enhancements. It is now really easy to model hanging or draping cloth. Talking of simulations, there is the new Vellum brush which simulates as you brush and allows for some amazing sculpting possibilities.

It is almost as good as the final render! Pyro workflow.

This all looks amazing right there in the 3d viewport, especially with the new viewport volume rendering. You have the option to create internal scattering and bring out details in the sim. Shading Pyro convincingly has always been tricky but there is a new Pyro shader and a Pyro Bake SOP node which has some amazing controls out of the box to make the Pyro smoke and fire look amazing and detailed. It is for design and you do need to perform a proper solver, which is slower, for the final look. I found this to be particularly useful as I could iterate between different setting and sculpt my look very quickly indeed. It is called the minimal open CL solver and as the name implies it cuts down on some features for speed, and boy is it fast. These all feed into the Pyro SOP solver which has a great new feature which allows Houdini to run a high-resolution Pyro simulation on the GPU. They have timing controls and paths to control the trails that you might want to see. The new burst and trails sourcing nodes allow us to make controllable sources for explosions and trails all within SOPS. Chain and Path SOPS (Surface Operators): This philosophy of taking away the pain of making complex networks to replace it with much more creative workflows continues in the new exciting Pyro tools.

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