OctaneRender™ 3.0 for Houdini™ alpha build 3.00.6.1 Tweet

[juanjgon]

Hi,

This is a new alpha release of the OctaneRender™ 3.0 for Houdini™ plugin. This 3.00.6.1 build is available for the Houdini 13.0/14.0/15.0 last production builds for Windows x64, Linux gcc4.8 and OSX 10.10

Alpha and beta version disclaimer
In contrast to v2 we want to do the alpha and beta testing publicly, to get more feedback earlier and to have changes tested more thoroughly. The plan is to let all users with a valid v2 license use the v3 alpha and beta versions until we decide that the beta period has ended and we release the first stable v3. After that you will have to upgrade to v3 or will not be able to use any v3 versions (including alpha and beta versions) anymore. We don't know yet, when that will be, but we will give you a warning a few weeks in advance so you can prepare.

This is an alpha release, so please consider this more a test or development release which may not be stable enough for a production environment. All the new 3.0 features are under development.


Alpha release 3.00.6.1
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... _Win64.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... _Linux.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... ni_OSX.zip

Standalone version for the network rendering nodes
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... _6_win.exe
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... _macos.dmg
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... _linux.zip

New features of OctaneRender™ 3.00
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=51679

Documentation (not updated with the new Octane 3 features yet)
http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Houdini/


=============================================
QUICKFIX 3.00.6.1
=============================================
- Some fixes in the licensing code.
- More robust objects visibility/candidate/force/exclude lists and bundles management.
- Rendering multiple ROP nodes doesn't respect frame ranges specified. Fixed.


=============================================
RELEASE 3.00.6.0
=============================================

* NEW PLUGIN FEATURES:
- Added a new IPR mode that works in MPlay. Can be enabled in the plugin options panel. This is the IPR mode available for the OSX version.
- Support of Houdini volume objects that don't have the same resolution in all the grids.
- Support of the "Takes" feature in the ROP node, that was not implemented.
- Support of multiple Octane ROP nodes in the same scene.
- New feature "Tessellate NGons" in the Tessellation tab of the Octane OBJ spare parameters to tessellate the object NGons without additional SOP nodes
- The Octane Network SHOP node now can be found in the "Octane" tab submenu, not in the "Custom" one.
- All the Octane HDAs can also be found now in the "Octane" SHOP tab submenu.
- The Octane VOP nodes and outputs are now clasified in tab submenus inside the Octane Network SHOP node.
- "Asynchronous file save" feature in the ROP node. If enabled the images will be saved on a background thread.

* NEW OCTANE FEATURES:
- Added new medium node "volume medium" which is similar to the "scatter medium", but allows you to additionally specify gradients via new "volume ramp" nodes, which map the channel values to a colour that is multiplied with the channel colour. The gradients are ignored if used in a surface material.
- Replaced the feature "smoothing" of the gradient texture node with an enum parameter "interpolation" which provides the options "constant", "linear" and "cubic" ("constant" is new).
- Added new parameter "invert absorption" to all medium nodes which inverts the absorption channel and effectively converts the absorption channel to a transparency channel, which seems to be preferred by most users.
- Changed the label "scale" of the volume node to "density", because that's what it defines.
- Added new parameter "gamma before response" to the camera imager node. Enabling this option brings back the old behaviour of versions < 3.00 alpha 4, where the imager gamma got applied before the camera response curves.
- Added new parameter "Object layer color" to the OBJ spare parameters to specify custom colours for object layers, which are rendered in a new info pass/channel "object color". This allows you to create coloured masks.
- Added two parameters "minimum" and "size" to the baking camera to specify the offset and size of the UV region to bake.
- The render priority is working again. The performance hit is roughly 20% for medium priority and 40% for low priority. Let me know if that is useful to you.

* PLUGIN BUGS FIXED:
- The LiveDB window freezes Houdini. Fixed.
- The LiveDB window crash loading the second material. Fixed.
- The bundle lists referencing objects inside subnetworks don't work in the ROP node. Fixed.
- Large volume objects can't be rendered. Fixed.
- IPR flickering in some Linux distributions. Fixed swithing the GLUT window to double buffering.
- Instancing motion blur from velocity vectors is broken using relative paths. The plugin crash loading the scene. Fixed.
- Render to disk doesn't close the IPR window and the render doesn't start. Fixed.
- The OBJ subnetwork hide flag and object exclussion rules are not applied to the inside nodes. Fixed.
- In the IPR, the interactive camera transformations are updated in several steps. Fixed.
- Fixed a problem in the emission HDA, that had the texture node linked to a wrong input in the texture emission node.
- No materials preview in the OpenGL viewports. Patially fixed, now some basic OpenGL parameters are supported, but the drawback is that sometims drag and drop SHOP material nodes over the objects doesn't work.
- The light emission options in the OBJ spare parameters don't support UV mapped color textured lights. Fixed.
- The IES light in the OBJ spare parameters light emission options was not aligned to the surfaces. Fixed.

* OCTANE BUGS FIXED:
- Fixed a bug that built the UV acceleration structure even if no baking camera is used.
- Fixed issue causing the baking camera to generate incorrect outputs when baking transparent surfaces.
- Revert baking does not ignore transparent or invisible objects anymore.
- Fixed kernel crash when a volume is rendered in a scene that has a (mostly) black environment.
- Fixed orientation of the tangent vector when the UV coordinate system is left-handed. This can affects normal mapping.
- Fixed rendering of volumes that have only the emission channel enabled.
- Fixed rendering of overlapping volumes with multiple root nodes (which are usually large data sets).
- Fixed loading of volumes, reducing the memory consumption in some cases.
- Fixed unnecessary sampling of portals that are switched off.
- Fixed incorrect rendering of the object layer ID pass/channel.
- Fixed picking of volume media and object layers.
- Fixed bug that caused motion blur not being disabled when a motion vector pass/channel is rendered.
- Fixed a crash when the rendering is saved as 16-bit OpenEXR.
- Fixed massive memory leak in net render slaves
- Fixed some performance issues with large scenes.
- Fixed incorrect UV mapping if the second or third UV set was degenerated.
- Fixed incorrect importance sampling of completely black environments.
- Fixed missing objects in animations exported to Alembic when a mesh node is empty the first frame it appears.


-Juanjo

[Techie]

Excellent release, thanks!

[WhyGee]

Thanks!

[lordpazuzu]

Wow the new Volume nodes are very nice!!

Thank you!

[[email protected]]

Has anyone tried to render a dense smoke?
What ever i do i cant get that billowy look...
Any instruction i tried everything

[juanjgon]

Has anyone tried to render a dense smoke?
What ever i do i cant get that billowy look...
Any instruction i tried everything

Render dense smoke should be really easy. The key can be tune the medium "density" parameter, or the kernel "volume step length" if the volume is too big or small.

-Juanjo

[Fake Pilot]

Will you update for latest production build 15.0.416?
Substance Designer released a new plugin for Houdini which only works for that build. Would be awesome to render Substances with Octane straight of the bat.
https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php?topic=9408.new#new

[juanjgon]

Yes, no problem. For what OS do you need the 416 build?

-Juanjo

[Fake Pilot]

Your fast! Windows?

[juanjgon]

Done
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... _Win64.zip

-Juanjo