Tutorial - Procedural Planet Lookdev in Houdini Karma

Very quick and easy way to populate a system with some procedural planets without using any textures (as always).
With larger time investment the same setup could be used to create very realistic looking planets for cinematics or feature films.

[@BizarreSelfProduction]

Completely forgot to show you guys the ATMOS material, but it's basically just ClassicShaderCore with: 1. Disabled Diffuse, 2. Refl rough at 0.85. 3. Refraction enabled. The rest is at default.

[@dreamsprayanimation]

How do your shadows look so smooth? Mine look choppy and artifacty.

[@dreamsprayanimation]

Up subdivision on the main mesh.

[@vectorhunter4659]

looks cool! love your tutorials

[@vazelevz]

This is the way )

[@BizarreSelfProduction]

This is the way.

[@authenticmuffin]

It appears you're using the VEX Material Builder, but when I apply a material made using the VEX Material Builder, it doesn't show up for some reason. Any idea why?

[@BizarreSelfProduction]

Hard to tell just from this description, you can always try rendering with Mantra and see if that works and then switch to Karma.

[@authenticmuffin]

@@BizarreSelfProduction Figured out the issue. The VEX Material Builder is only compatible with Karma CPU and not XPU.

[@BizarreSelfProduction]

​@@authenticmuffin well, yeah, I assumed you tried it with Karma CPU) for XPU use matX shading, approach will be the same.

[@authenticmuffin]

@@BizarreSelfProduction Thanks yea sorry, this was kinda my first time diving into Solaris. It's funny how simple things can stump you for a minute haha.

[@spectrewashere]

Is there a way to scale the planet without scaling each noise individually?

[@BizarreSelfProduction]

you can transform the planet after the material assignment, if that's what you're referring to.

[@spectrewashere]

@@BizarreSelfProduction ah that didnt work unfortunately. The noise pattern becomes too small :(. Any other suggestions?

[@BizarreSelfProduction]

@@spectrewashere try adding transform node inside the shader right after you take P from globals, and set it to from camera to object space.

[@spectrewashere]

@@BizarreSelfProduction It works! Thanks so much, really appreciate the help. Have a great day.

[@kir11]

Very cool!

[@ItIsOri]

Absolutely incredible! What did you do for the atmosphere? material wise?

[@BizarreSelfProduction]

Check out the pinned comment from me above)

[@paoloricaldone6273]

thanks!

[@shivdholakia]

Really nice, please could you share the hip file on Gumroad?

[@BizarreSelfProduction]

I showed all of the settings you need to recreate it, why do you need the file? Try making it!

[@shivdholakia]

@@BizarreSelfProduction It’s good to have it as a reference so was just wondering. No big deal. Thanks anyways! 😊

[@Todd_Manus]

@@shivdholakia It is a big deal... I can't understand why people ask for the project file. The software is right there waiting for you to play with it? If you need the project file so badly, maybe 3d isn't for you.

[@shivdholakia]

@@Todd_Manus I only meant to say it’s no problem if he doesn’t want to share the scene file. Sometimes it’s good to have the scene file so you can use it as a reference and compare with your scene file. Also, it’s good to see exactly what settings he was using to reproduce the effect faithfully. Anyways, all good. No worries. Now let’s leave it at that 😊