OctaneRender 2020.1 for Houdini Beta build 2020.1.0.4 RC2 Tweet

[juanjgon]

Hi,

This is a beta release of the OctaneRender™ 2020.1 for Houdini™ plugin compiled with the Octane 2020.1 RC2 core. This 2020.1.0.4 release is available for the Houdini 16.5/17.0/17.5/18.0 latest production builds on Windows x64, Linux gcc6.3.1 and MacOS 10.12. This plugin is also compatible with Houdini Indie (While working inside the Indie version, the plugin will have a 4k limited resolution while rendering sequences and the scene export and cloud rendering features disabled)

To use Octane 2020.1, you need to have a Studio or Enterprise subscription license. We recommend you to update your NVIDIA driver to at least 435.80 for Windows or 435.12 for Linux.

As with all experimental builds, we advise to not to use this release for production purposes. We can't guarantee that scenes saved with this version will be compatible in future releases, and we anticipate there being several maintenance releases.

New features
To learn more about the new features and improvements of OctaneRender 2020.1, please check out the 2020.1 XB1 release post, but this is a quick list of the main new features that have been added. The features not listed here, like the new universal camera node, will be available in the upcoming builds.

• New option to enable the RTX improvements.
• Spectron Area and Sphere light types.
• Particle and Curves Point Attributes.
• New Hosek-Wilkie Spectral Sky Model.
• Improvements to Round Edges artist control.
• SSS Improvements and Random Walk SSS.
• Spectral Hair Material.
• ACES: new workflow and Image Container File Layout
• Volume Step % and Shadow Step %
• Volume Sample Position Displacement
• New Universal Dirt System

Release 2020.1.0.4 Enterprise subscription license
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... rprise.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... rprise.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... rprise.zip

Release 2020.1.0.4 Studio subscription license
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... studio.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... studio.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... studio.zip

Standalone 2020.1 RC2 version for the network rendering nodes
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=74112


Release Notes
==========================================
RELEASE 2020.1.0.4
=============================================

* PLUGIN FEATURES AND FIXES:
- Added H18.0.391 and H18.0.416 plugin builds.

* OCTANE 2020.1 RC2 FEATURES AND BUGS FIXED:
- Performance improvement when using fast rounded edges with RTX geometry.
- Make the ground in the Hosek daylight model dark when the sun is down.
- Added sun intensity parameter to daylight and planetary environments.
- Added opacity pin to shadow catcher material.
- Fixed scenario in which geometry processed using RTX would be displayed in the wrong order.
- Fixed scenario in which mediums would be not displayed correctly when mixing RTX and non-RTX primitives.
- Fixed wireframe info pass with RTX on.
- Fixed inability to use extra UV sets with media.
- Fixed issue causing info passes to get stuck at sample zero.
- Fixed a bug where enabling shadow pass makes the main render pass's surfaces a lot brighter.
- Fixed an issue with double-sided surface when using mix material, where the backface and the frontface should have its surface shaded equivalently.
- Fixed illegal memory access happening during scene compilation with meshes producing very large vertex buffers.
- Fixed issue that caused geometry that is on an inactive render layer to become visible behind a surface with a specular material with "affects alpha" on.
- Fixed some scenarios producing wrong results due to alpha sampling not properly working with multiple layers inside a mix material.
- Fixed artifacts with vertex displacement when the geometry has no UV and projection type is set to mesh UV.


Happy rendering,
Your OTOY Team

[snakeboxmedia]

Great release thank you!

I am curious, is there any hope of ever getting proper packed primitive support? this is currently a huge problem when dealing with crowds, as it's not just a matter of "instancing", but to get value out of crowds, let alone render more than a few 100s in Octane, we badly badly need packed prim support. Currently if you are asked to render a stadium with 10.000 people, you basically can't.

[juanjgon]

To instance objects, they must share the same master mesh with exactly the same deformation. The main problem with the crowd agents is that each one can have its own mesh coming from multiple non-linear, retimed and mixed deformations, making the instancing impossible.

The plugin can render packed primitives without problems, but as you say, it can't render as instances crowd agents that don't share the same mesh after all the deformations, material overrides, etc. Perhaps some kind of automatic instancing detecting master objects sharing the same master mesh could be possible, I'll think about it, but currently, the rendering of complex crowds is only possible using a conventional instancing workflow.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[seriawp]

Hello.
This very important for me, I have a non-standard task now
Help me please with camera settings, one parametr, dont sinhronize correctly with octane. This parametr "Screen Windows Size". Others parametr, like a "screen windows X/Y" sinhronize fine, but i realy need full functionality, i need for "Screen Windows Size" work correctly.
How fix this?

https://i.imgur.com/ifNUgjH.png
https://i.imgur.com/YRtIq8D.png

Set 8k resolution, and use crop settings in camera option, its not solution, because i use same camera for "UV Projection".
"Screen Windows Size" - its, look like i scroll mouse-wheel in "IPR Window"
How to make "Screen Windows Size" work in octane? I really really need this

Test Scene:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12FStWG ... sp=sharing

Maybe some OSL Camera code please

[coresign]

What about instance the packed prim like redshift, instead of extract all the packed into one mesh. it can speed loading scene a lot.

[efxlab]

Could you explain what you want to do ? is it about packed mesh scattering ? or control prim attribute on a packed mesh ?

[juanjgon]

Hello.
This very important for me, I have a non-standard task now
Help me please with camera settings, one parametr, dont sinhronize correctly with octane. This parametr "Screen Windows Size". Others parametr, like a "screen windows X/Y" sinhronize fine, but i realy need full functionality, i need for "Screen Windows Size" work correctly.
How fix this?

Sorry, the Octane camera doesn't have these exact same window size parameters, so the plugin was not translating them. What Houdini version are you using? I could send you a custom Octane 2020.1 plugin build including some new code to try to fully support the Houdini camera window shift and size parameters.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[juanjgon]

What about instance the packed prim like redshift, instead of extract all the packed into one mesh. it can speed loading scene a lot.

You can instance packed geo, but not at the SOP level yet. Currently, you can instance an OBJ node including packed geo using the Instance OBJ node or the instance point attribute but I'll try to work in the packed geo instancing at the SOP level feature at some point in the near future.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[efxlab]

packed geo instancing at the SOP level feature

You mean with copy instance SOP for exemple ?

[seriawp]

Hello.
This very important for me, I have a non-standard task now
Help me please with camera settings, one parametr, dont sinhronize correctly with octane. This parametr "Screen Windows Size". Others parametr, like a "screen windows X/Y" sinhronize fine, but i realy need full functionality, i need for "Screen Windows Size" work correctly.
How fix this?

Sorry, the Octane camera doesn't have these exact same window size parameters, so the plugin was not translating them. What Houdini version are you using? I could send you a custom Octane 2020.1 plugin build including some new code to try to fully support the Houdini camera window shift and size parameters.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

I use 391, now i can update to 416 build
I will be infinitely grateful if you add full camera support.