Couple things about Octane_2.24.2.0 Tweet

[benandaim]

Hi,

First post here, just got Octane_2.24.2.0 - Have a couple of questions:

1. When I drag an Octane VOP material onto an object it doesn't actually apply. I have to use the picker to make do so, is this normal?
2. The Gradient tool doesn't let you crunch the incoming values at all, just assign colors. Will this let us remap the values like the regular Houdini ramp eventually?

There's plenty more but this will do for now. Thanks

Sorry had to ask - Can we use Area lights? I doesn't look like they're supported hopefully they will be right?

Ben.

[juanjgon]

Hi,

Drag an Octane VOP material into an object should work, but the problem is that currently you need to reload the scene to see the change in the IPR. I will try to fix this problem in the Octane 3 plugin.

The gradient tool has Octane texture inputs, so you can only remap octane nodes with a texture output, like colors, octane texture maps or octane procedurals. Perhaps I am not understanding your question.

Build an area light is easy. You only need add a plane object, add the Octane OBJ spare parameters and enable the lighting feature (or apply an emissive material to the object). Octane doesn't have lights, it works with emissive geometry, so you can build any kind of light source using polygonal objects (planes, spheres, etc.)
https://docs.otoy.com/Houdini/?page_id=733

-Juanjo

[benandaim]

I double checked, dragging the octane vopnet to object in the viewport definitely deosn't apply it here like the regular octane materials, you have to go back to the top level and use the picker.

So with the gradient tool, if you move the knots the input texture or procedural noise etc. should be manipulated - (clamped etc.) When I do do this nothing happens. You can only assign colors to the knots. That part updates.

One of the cool features of Houdini which I use all the time is "Look through light" to place my lights then move them around etc. I understand Octane uses geo but is there a way to have something similar?

I tried to make an Area Light digital asset to speed up the process a bit but it seems octane can't update the transforms / settings once they're at a lower level. Channel refs don't seems to work correctly either.

[juanjgon]

Yes, you are right, I can reproduce the problem dragging the octane vopnet in the viewports. It is a weird issue, I will try to fix it for the first Octane 3 beta build.

About the gradient tool, really I don't understand what are you saying. Why do you think that the input textures should be manipulated? The gradient tool only mix textures using the main input texture as reference value. Attached you have a sample image where you can see how the gradient tool is mixing three procedural textures using the falloff texture as reference value, and all seems to work fine. Can you show a example of what do you want to do with the gradient tool?

I will try to support the Houdini area light in the Octane 3 plugin (or build a custom light for Octane with the same workflow that the Houdini lights), but anyway, can you send the digital asset that doesn't work to test it here?

-Juanjo

[benandaim]

Glad you could recreate the vopnet problem

With the gradient see the attached image. If you move the knots around on the ramp (upper level) you can crunch or remap the noise values. This is kinda what I expected the gradient tool to do, maybe I misunderstood. Hopefully you understand what I mean now.

I'll try to send the Area Light HDA though soon. If you created a rig for this it would be incredible

Also is there a way to change the color of the dirt on the dirt shader?

Thanks for the info...

Regards,

Ben.

[juanjgon]

Please, check this doc from Standalone about about how the gradient node works:
https://docs.otoy.com/Standalone_2_0/?page_id=3355

The Octane gradient node can be used to remap the texture input defining the colors through a series of control points on the curve. Linking texture nodes to the keys pins, you can also use any kind of texture in the control points, not only colors.

The dirt shader can be used with the texture mixer node to get a RGB gradient output.

-Juanjo

[benandaim]

Thanks for the tip with the dirt shader.

I can get the gradient to crunch proc maps but only if I add additional keys which seems a bit strange, would be great if we could manipulate the values using the default 2 keys, slide them and remap without having to add keys which makes it hard to control.

Is there way to do simple math operations like Houdini's VOPS - Multiply, Add etc? Say I have a noise map that I want piped into spec & roughness but I'd like the spec to be multiplied by half, can we do that?

Thanks mate

Regards,

Ben.

[juanjgon]

No math nodes yet (the Octane 3 OSL should open the door to this kind of nodes), but you can use the color correction node or the texture multiplier node to support simple multiply math.

-Juanjo