Rendering lights in Houdini 17.5 doesn't produce any result

[Patrick_Bédard]

Hi,

Users reported a problem when using Arnold in Houdini 17.5 to render lights effects. We are in no way experts in Houdini or Arnold in the IT department, so we can't really resolve this matter alone.

We first opened a ticket through Autodesk Support but they asked us to come here with the question.

Here are the steps used to create the problem

1. Create a new project
2. Add a sphere on the middle
3. Add a grid under it
4. In Arnold Lights, select Distant and add it in front of the sphere
5. In the out section, add a Render-> Arnold output object
6. Save the project
7. In Render View, click Render

The result is just the sphere and the grid, all in white, which users report should be different. (See images)

We also generated a log by adding the log to file option with log verbosity to Debug: logarnold.txt

Anyone got any idea?

Thanks

[Stephen.Blair · Accepted solution]

That is exactly the expected result.

You never assigned shaders to the objects, so they are rendered with the default lambert.

In the shop context, create an Arnold Shader Network, and then a Standard_Surface. Then drag the arnold_vopnet to the objects in the viewport to assign the material. Edit the Standard_Surface (eg change the base color).

[Patrick_Bédard]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for the answer. With that, it works. Guess end users still need to learn a few tricks.