Rendering 360° images in Karma in Houdini

Rendering 360° images in Karma

(add some geo, then switch to /stage context) add scene import nodes (geo and material) add camera view tab -> focal length: 8 karma tab -> set or create use lens shader set or create Lens Material -> click create a lens shader LOP icon (this adds a karmalensmaterial node above cam) select the karmalensmaterial node -> lens distortion tab click set or create projection: polar (this creates a full 360, no stiching needed, add a new camera for each hotspot) add environment light and set HDR (bachground and fill) add karma physical sky node (for sun shining in!) add karma node (to add karmarendersettings and usdrenderrop nodes) karmarendersettings (high) -> engine settings: XPU parameters path traced samples: 512 (256 for low) resolution: 8000x4000 (2000x1000 for low) (set a 2:1 resolution for 360s) rendering -> limits tab -> diffuse limit: 10 reflection limit: 10 create 2 karma rendersetttings: low and high

to find noise sourcs:

karmarendersettings -> Quick Setups -> Optimization AOVs then check the images for each pass (usually indirect diffuse/reflections) go to out/ context add usdrender node LOP path: /stage/karmarendersettings override camera: /cameras/cam1 override output image: $HIP/render/pano1.exr output -> check wait for render to complete add batch node (add more usdrender/batch nodes for each cam/pano) add merge node and merge all batch nodes together