Playing around with pyro in Karma XPU 💥

Although technically still considered an alpha release in Houdini 19, Karma XPU renderer offers significant speed improvements over the CPU only version.

Karma XPU is designed to take full advantage of all available resources within a system, including support for multiple GPU's. Performance, even at this early stage, puts it head and shoulders above both the CPU-only version of Karma and Houdini's ageing standard renderer, Mantra.

XPU isn't simply a faster alternative to these other engines, the team at SideFX have reimagined what is required of rendering in the modern era, so it sacrifices backwards compatibility in the name of forward-looking features.

The above image was simulated in Houdini and rendered with Karma XPU.