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title: "Solaris User Interface"
canonical: "https://documentation.chaos.com/space/VRAYHOUDINI/113279337/Solaris%20User%20Interface"
format: markdown
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This page provides an overview of the Solaris user interface and the placement of V-Ray components within the Solaris environment. Overview The Solaris environment is found in the /stage network where everything is converted into Universal Scene Description (USD). The built-in Solaris desktop switches to a view with the most commonly used Solaris tools, limiting the shelf tools to only those that currently work well with LOPs. To access the Solaris desktop, go to the Desktop menu. There you can manage and save desktop layouts. Solaris Desktop This scheme shows some of the main components of the Solaris desktop. 1.  Stage view  – A place where you can view your layout and lighting and interact with primitives, lights, and cameras to set them properly. 2.  Viewport render  – You can render either with the V-Ray Hydra delegate, or with the Houdini GL, Storm USD GL solution, or another Hydra-compliant renderer. 3.  Scene Graph Tree  (pane) – Shows the output of the selected LOP node in hierarchical order. This pane is useful for seeing how nodes affect the stage and can be used to define paths to objects and materials. 4.  Scene Graph Details  (pane) – Displays status details (such as attribute values and metadata) of the currently selected USD prim in the scene graph tree. 5.  Parameters  – Displays the parameters of the currently selected LOP node and allows you to set them. Most parameters inside Solaris LOP nodes can be set or overridden by using a dropdown option to the left of each parameter. 6.  LOP Nodes  - The network editor for LOPs where all your actions in LOPs are accomplished using procedural nodes. 7.  Display Options  (bar) – Toggles for controlling scene display options. The Geometry Spreadsheet combines the Scene Graph Details and the Scene Graph Tree in one pane. V-Ray LOPs and Parameters V-Ray Parameters The V-Ray parameters reside in the V-Ray tabs of the render settings, geometry render settings, lights, and camera LOPs (see the  Useful Links  section). VOPs can be created inside Material Library LOPs which give access to the V-Ray menus from the /mat network. For more information, see the  Working with Solaris Materials  page. The parameters that correspond to a USD attribute have a pop-up menu that controls how the LOP node authors the attribute. Set or Create  – Sets the attribute to a given value, regardless of whether the attribute previously existed or not. Set if Exists  – Sets an attribute to the given value only if it previously existed. Use this option to make sure the attribute is set on primitives of the correct type. Add if Exists  – Adds an existing value to the attribute. Multiply if Exists  – Multiplies the attribute value only if previously existed. Block  – Makes the attribute appear to not exist so it takes on its default value. Do Nothing  – Does not affect the attribute, i.e. does not create or change the attribute in any way. V-Ray LOPs V-Ray offers several custom LOPs: V-Ray Aerial Perspective V-Ray Atmosphere V-Ray Deadline V-Ray Gaussian Splat V-Ray Proxy Import V-Ray Standard Render Vars V-Ray Yeti All V-Ray LOPs are available by right-clicking and then selecting the V-Ray menu. Display Options The scene display options in the  Display Options Bar  of Solaris change according to the currently selected renderer. When V-Ray is selected as the active renderer, the following icons appear in the Display Options Bar:  Show Denoised Results (if denoiser is enabled), see  Viewport Display Settings .  Headlight creation, see  Viewport Display Settings . To select V-Ray as the current renderer, click the Viewport options menu in the top right of the Scene View and select V-Ray. Viewport Render Options To access the viewport render settings, press  D  on the keyboard or click the  Display Options  button in the  Display Options Bar . This opens the  Display Options: Solaris  dialog where you can adjust common render settings such as the number of passes, denoising, GI, and many others. Note that these settings are overwritten if a Render Settings LOP is created. For more information, see the  Solaris Render Settings  page. The  Render Settings Prim  option can be manually set to  Viewport Settings  even if a Render Settings LOP is used. Useful Links Solaris User Interface Documentation Houdini Foundations Overview Solaris Render Settings Solaris Camera Settings How to work with geometry in Solaris How to work with V-Ray lights in Solaris and use native Solaris tools like Mixer and Linker How to create V-Ray materials and textures in Solaris How to add V-Ray render elements in Solaris MaterialX Support and working with MtlX nodes Working with V-Ray Proxy in Solaris V-Ray Yeti LOP V-Ray Aerial Perspective LOP V-Ray Atmosphere LOP Nodes