Octane for Houdini

The OctaneRender® for Houdini® plugin can render polygon mesh edges as Octane Hair and Houdini Fur objects. The Octane Fur is rendered with motion blur if the hair object has the Velocity parameter enabled. It also supports UV texture mapping from the UV map available in the Skin root object.

Rendering Polygonal Meshes As Hair

To enable the fur rendering for any polygonal object, add the +ObjParms node to the object (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Adding the Octane Object Parameters tab to an object 

In the object's Octane tab, select Fur as the Octane Object Type (figure 2). You can control the hair thickness with the additional parameters in this tab.

Figure 2: Accessing the Fur options from the Octane Object Parameters tab 

Figure 3: A scene object rendered as a Curves/Fur object 

Rendering Houdini Fur Objects With OctaneRender

Select your object and create Houdini Fur using the Add Fur button on the Hair Utils shelf (figure 4)

Figure 4: Adding Houdini Fur to an object 

Next, select the Hair Generate node (Figure 5) and change the Hair Generation type to Use SOP Geometry from the Render sub-tab (Figure 6).

Figure 5: Selecting the Hair Generate (hairgen) node 

Figure 6: Setting the Hair Generation type to Use SOP Geometry 

Make sure to add the +ObjParms node to the Hair Generate node and set the Octane Object Type to Fur in the object's Octane tab (figure 7). Create a material for the hair in the MAT network. There is an Octane specific hair material that can be applied to the object. More information on the Octane Hair Material can be found in the Materials Overview section. Select the object's Hairgen node and add the hair material in the Material parameter (Figure 8).

Figure 7: Setting the Octane Object Type to Fur 

Figure 8: Assignment a material to the Hair Generate node

The hair is ready for OctaneRender to render. Open the IPR window to see the Octane hair rendering in action. The example in Figure 9 also consists of Frizz and Length nodes.

Figure 8: A Hair object rendered in the Octane IPR