OctaneRender™ 3.0 for Houdini™ - test build 3.06.0.4 Tweet

[juanjgon]

Hi!

This is a test build of the OctaneRender™ 3.0 for Houdini™ plugin. This release is available for the Houdini 14.0/15.0/15.5/16.0 latest production builds for Windows x64, Linux gcc4.8 and OSX 10.11. This plugin is also compatible with Houdini 15.5/16.0 Indie. In this case, the plugin will have a 1080p limited resolution while rendering sequences, and the scene export and cloud rendering features disabled.


Release 3.06.0.4 TEST4
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 ... t4_win.exe
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... _linux.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... _macos.dmg


New features
New Octane 3.06 features: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=60014
A list of all the new features is provided here: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=51679
The plugin manual is being updated to cover most of the changes. https://docs.otoy.com/manuals/products/houdini/v3/


=============================================
RELEASE 3.06.0.4
=============================================

* NEW PLUGIN FEATURES:
- Support of packed primitives, including nested primitives and packed fragments.
- Added several new commands "Octane_IPR_xxxxxxxxx" related to control the IPR rendering, especially while working with the MPlay IPR.
- Picking functions in the MPlay IPR. New command "Octane_IPR_pickMode" to set the picking function (focus, white point or material picking).
- New "Octane IPR" shelf with some tools that can be used while working with the MPlay IPR.
- Full support of the H16 new hair system configuring the hair generator as "Use SOP Geometry".
- New option "Save image files after aborting the rendering" in the ROP node. If enabled the current frame image files will be saved in its current state after aborting the rendering.

* PLUGIN BUGS FIXED:
- The color parameter doesn't work in the Octane light HDA. Fixed, adding a new parameter to enable the texture map.
- The materials override option also overrides the Octane lights material. Fixed.

* NEW OCTANE FEATURES:
- Added support for GP100 GPUs (compute capability 6.0).
- Added back the pixel grouping option to the adaptive sampling settings, since it turned out to be quite useful to have in various cases.
- Added new option expected exposure to the adaptive sampling settings. It is used to determine the brightness of a pixel and thus allows adaptive sampling to tweak the min. samples and noise estimate.
- Changing noise threshold, min. adaptive samples and expected exposure or toggling the noise pass will not restart rendering anymore.
- Improved tone mapping of noise pass.
- Improved the distribution of adaptive sampling masks to net render slaves.
- Small tweak: If a change in the render settings doesn't require a render restart (e.g. tonemap settings), integration on local and remote GPUs is not interrupted anymore.
- Reduced the amount of data we store in the sample states, which saves about 100MB GPU memory for a parallel samples value of 16.
- Added triplanar projection node to allow the triplanar texture map calculate the UVW coordinates for an input textures, which simplifies setting up triplanar texture mapping.
- Added a blend cube transformation pin to the triplanar texture map to control the orientation of the "blend cube".
- Added a general shadow pass, which shows all direct light shadows that are calculated on the first bounce.
- Adaptive sampling tweaks: Transparent pixels stop at minimum samples and the value range of the expected exposure matches now the exposure of the imager node.
- Merged the greyscale, spectrum and normal texture evaluation into one function. The texture evaluation adapts to the correct texture fetch mode depending on the use of the evaluated texture. As a side effect, you can now add normal textures and also multiply them with a greyscale texture.
- Triplanar map textures can now be nested.
- Trying to improve error messages when the sign on fails.

* OCTANE BUGS FIXED:
- Fixed CUDA failure when a triplanar map texture is used in scenes with no instances or too many instances.
- Fixed the random colour texture to work in media, too.
- Fixed a CUDA failure that potentially could affect all scenes that contain scatter media.
- Fixed crash in PMC when the maximum samples have been reached.
- Fixed a deadlock when rendering is stopped while tone mapping is in progress.
- Fixed issue that rendering won't restart if you stopped rendering during deep pixel binning.
- Fixed broken falloff texture in the texture environment.
- Fixed missing updates of the texture environment when importance sampling is enabled.
- Fixed info passes / info channel kernel on Fermi GPUs.


Thanks,
-Juanjo

[vipvip]

Nice release, thanks ! i suppose it is compatible with H16.0.557...

[ptunstall]

Yes, 16.0.557 is in there.

[jclement]

Could I kindly request a VR build as well? I'd like to move to the latest Houdini (16.0.557) version for stability reasons.

[juanjgon]

Could I kindly request a VR build as well? I'd like to move to the latest Houdini (16.0.557) version for stability reasons.

I've sent the links to the Otoy team. I suppose that early next week the new build will be updated in your customer account.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[jclement]

Could I kindly request a VR build as well? I'd like to move to the latest Houdini (16.0.557) version for stability reasons.

I've sent the links to the Otoy team. I suppose that early next week the new build will be updated in your customer account.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

Thanks!

[Slavich]

Give please a demo version.

[juanjgon]

Sorry, the demo version will be available only for the final 3.06 plugin production build. Usually, there are no demo versions of the test builds. The latest demo version is the 3.05.3.0:
viewtopic.php?f=102&t=58690

Thanks for your patience,
-Juanjo

[mz2]

I can't seem to be able to get packed primitive rendering working with this version. I am using a copy point SOP to copy some spheres onto particle locations and the copied spheres just don't make it to OctaneRender output at all. Is there something special I need to do to make geometry like this visible to OctaneRender for Houdini?

I have uploaded an example project here to help diagnose this further:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/38we6cpirnkrq ... c.zip?dl=0

UPDATE: Ah, I actually had not checked "Pack and instance" in the relevant copy SOP. If I do tick it, nothing still shows up though. "Copy stamp" does still seem to be the way to do it?

[juanjgon]

Sorry, I think that I don't fully undestand you workflow. When I load you scene and I add a camera, nothing can be seen in the viewports. Probably you are trying to instance using some kind of not supported feature.

Also, I've seen that your second sphere "sphere2" is a primitive type, that can't be rendered by the plugin if you don't enable the primitive tessellation using the Octane spare parameters, or changing it to a regular mesh polygon object.

If you can elaborate a bit what are you trying to do, perhaps I could help you.

Thanks,
-Juanjo