Houdini, developed by SideFX, is a popular 3D animation software application in FX departments for the creation of visual effects in films and games. If you intend to choose a suitable renderer for your Houdini projects, there are various options of renderers for Houdini.

However, do not forget to consider between CPU and GPU renderers. If your work requires large amounts of volatile memory, currently, GPU-based renderers are either limited or a lot more expensive.

Popular renderers for Houdini

Mantra Renderer – Best Renderers for Houdini

Mantra, the built-in renderer of Houdini, is a CPU renderer for Houdini. It comes with the benefit of being “free”, as well as with the best integration with Houdini. This renderer gets data directly from Houdini. Specifically, it is a multi-paradigm renderer, implementing scanline, raytracing, and physically-based rendering.

Because Mantra has deep integration with Houdini, such as the highly efficient rendering of packed primitives and volumes, this render engine becomes a good choice for Houdini artists.

Redshift Renderer – Top Render Engines for Houdini

As a well-known GPU renderer for Houdini, Redshift has the features and quality of a CPU renderer, but at GPU rendering speeds. Unlike other GPU renderers, Redshift is a biased renderer. Specifically, it allows adjusting the quality of individual techniques to get the best performance.

This render engine meets the specific demands of contemporary high-end production rendering. Moreover, Redshift offers a suite of powerful features and integrates with industry-standard CG applications.

V-Ray Renderer

V-Ray is a production-proven CPU & GPU rendering for high-end VFX and animation, built to handle the most demanding projects and visual effects pipelines. Seamlessly integrated into Houdini, it enables smooth scene exchange and iterations between Houdini and other DCC applications. V-Ray for Houdini is designed for artists working in 3D animation and VFX for film, TV, video games, and virtual reality.

Arnold Renderer

Arnold is a good CPU & GPU renderer for Houdini, based on Monte Carlo Ray Tracing. Its engine is optimized to send billions of spatially incoherent rays throughout a scene. It often uses one level of diffuse interreflection so that light can bounce off of a wall or other object and indirectly illuminate a subject. For complex scenes such as the space station in Elysium, it makes heavy use of instancing. Arnold for Houdini (or HtoA) provides a tight bridge to the Arnold renderer from within the standard Houdini interface. It enables smooth lighting workflows between Houdini and other DCC applications since setups can be exported and shared.

3S Cloud Render Farm is a cloud rendering service supporting Houdini and Redshift, Mantra, V-Ray, Arnold together with other 3D creation suites with their renderers/render engines such as Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, 3ds Max, and to be continuously updated.

We offer an unlimited number of CPU/GPU servers with high configuration to speed up your rendering and to make sure you never are in queues. With just a few clicks, it’s very flexible for you to render images with 18k or more in resolution. Besides, the Free Preview Render feature provides you accurate cost & time estimates and a preview image for free.