OctaneRender 2020.1 for Houdini Beta build 2020.1.0.0 XB1 Tweet

[juanjgon]

Hi,

This is a beta release of the OctaneRender™ 2020.1 for Houdini™ plugin compiled with the Octane 2020.1 XB1 core. This 2020.1.0.0 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 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 %
• New Universal Dirt System

Release 2020.1.0.0 Enterprise subscription license
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... rprise.zip
Linux build coming soon!
MacOS build coming soon!


Release 2020.1.0.0 Studio subscription license
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... studio.zip
Linux build coming soon!
MacOS build coming soon!


Release Notes
=============================================
RELEASE 2020.1.0.0
=============================================

* OCTANE FEATURES AND BUGS FIXED:
- New option to enable the RTX improvements.
- Spectron Area and Sphere light types.
- Particle 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 %
- New Universal Dirt System
- New DWAA and DWAB EXR compression options.



Happy rendering,
Your OTOY Team

[realimageae]

Thanks ,
how i can use "Particle Point Attributes." ? there is no point Color attribute node in the mat context ? only vertex attribute node ?
any documentation or example is appreciated it .

[galleon27]

So i'm guessing point attributes still don't work with curves?

[juanjgon]

Thanks ,
how i can use "Particle Point Attributes." ? there is no point Color attribute node in the mat context ? only vertex attribute node ?
any documentation or example is appreciated it .

This feature works using the same nodes added for the vertex mesh attributes. You only need to declare the attributes to be extracted by the plugin in the Octane OBJ spare parameters attributes tab, and retrieve these attributes in the shaders using the color and float vertex attributes VOP nodes.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[juanjgon]

So i'm guessing point attributes still don't work with curves?

This feature is not available in the current XB1 core yet, but supporting point attributes in the curve primitives is a planned feature for this 2020.1 Octane release.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[galleon27]

So i'm guessing point attributes still don't work with curves?

This feature is not available in the current XB1 core yet, but supporting point attributes in the curve primitives is a planned feature for this 2020.1 Octane release.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

That is really good to hear. Keep up the good job.

Thanks.

[snakeboxmedia]

@juanjgon

Do you by chance have a demo scene you know for a fact will trigger a difference using RTX? I am having a really hard time guessing and making a scene where it has any effect.. like works at all. I do have the latest studio drivers etc so should work, I know its quite scene specific but when it's not 100% known what exactly is needed for it to be happy its really hard to test / confirm that it does indeed work

So if you have a scene, please share it just so we can make sure our drivers etc is working as expected.

[juanjgon]

Perhaps your best chance to check if the RTX feature is working fine in the Houdini plugin is to export the scene to the 2020.1 Standalone and check there is the RTX is improving the rendering performance. Remember that you can export the current scene to the Standalone directly from the OpenGL IPR window right-click menu, but only if you have a full Houdini license because Indie can't export Octane scenes.

To be honest, here I've only seen minor differences, but probably because I only have very simple unit test scenes. Of course, something can be broken on the plugin side, so checking the RTX feature using production scenes exported to the Standalone could be great!

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[tobywe]

It's great to see that ACES workflow has been introduced. I'm still a bit hazy on how to set it up. Am I right in thinking that to set it up correctly, it would be a matter of :

1. Bringing in the textures in pre-converted to AcesCG, ideally.
2. Setting the response curve to 'linear/off' in the imager tab.
3. Configuring the OCIO path variable in the Houdini env.
3. Setting the IPR to render in Mplay (as the Custom OpenGL doesn't seem to have an Aces Cofiguration).
4. Setting the rop to render to ACES exr.

In my test, I'm finding that a texture that's converted to AcesCG is still lookng too dark. I'm sure I've got one (or more) steps wrong in this process, but was hoping you might be able to give some direction on this.

Many thanks!


Toby

[realimageae]

Thanks ,
how i can use "Particle Point Attributes." ? there is no point Color attribute node in the mat context ? only vertex attribute node ?
any documentation or example is appreciated it .

This feature works using the same nodes added for the vertex mesh attributes. You only need to declare the attributes to be extracted by the plugin in the Octane OBJ spare parameters attributes tab, and retrieve these attributes in the shaders using the color and float vertex attributes VOP nodes.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

It's Works , thanks .