General requests Tweet

[thanulee]

Hi, after gathering feedback from a lot of people that wanna use the plugin, we all feel that a revamp is essential to get things working to a good degree. As in comparison to RS, octane plugin is much more involved and way less functional.

- Loose the /shop /mat context render target, have everything on the /out ROP
- AOVs in RS are so simple and easy to use - stick to this UX/UI (see how easy it is to setup a puzzlematte in RS compared to Octane)
- Having to manually add attributes on a per object basis is an extra step RS doesn’t have
- The whole Vertex Attribute node in the /mat context is confusing
- Icons for /mat nodes
- The order of dual mix, blend /mat node inputs is the opposite from every other in implementation (incl RS)
- A dome light/ a sun/sky in obj and remove all those options from render target. Expose rgb color on the dome

Please, let's make the plugin equal to RS if not better.

Thank you.

[juanjgon]

I'll take note of these requests, but really I can't understand what's your problem with the Render Target concept. It is so powerful! Especially because the studios can build any kind of custom configuration system themselves. Anyway, I'm afraid that this is how Octane works. Octane doesn't have a bunch of hundreds of render options. All the rendering configuration pipeline is built using nodes, as you can see in Standalone or inside the Render Target /mat HDA. What's exactly the problem with this workflow? Don't have all these hundreds of render options inside the same Octane ROP node?

The same happens with the AOVs. The AOVs in Octane are nodes. Once again, this is so powerful for the studios! Do you know how many users have asked about having this workflow in other renderers? You can build any kind of workflow to match your studio pipeline using all these nodes without adding a large list of options to the ROP node.

I agree about having to manually add attributes to each object. I'll work on it. The main problem in this case is a limitation on the Octane side, that only can handle 4/2 attributes at the same time, so if the object has more, the plugin needs to figure out what attributes will be used by the shaders in advance, at the object extraction time.

Can you elaborate on the "whole Vertex Attribute node in the /mat context is confusing" request? I'm not sure to understand what's the problem, besides the fact that you need to configure the attributes to be extracted yourself.

About the dome/sky proper lights, yeah, this is also possible. In fact, easy, it is a matter of creating a small render target Light type HDA that takes precedence over the main render target HDA if available in the scene. I'll add them at some point.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[thanulee]

Regarding render target:
It is not my request, but even for me that I ve used octane in H so little, these are render settings and not material options and shouldn't be on material context does not make sense UI wise.
In RS they are not, everything render settings related is in ROP. What would users build on their own on the kernels? Nothing.
Lights/sun/hdr do not belong in render target as well, they belong in OBJ as light objects. At the moment, rendertarget is a mix and match of many things that are not relevant with each other. Why do I go to materials and control the sun from there? Why do I go to materials and pick a kernel type?
Please look how Cinema4d plugin is made/layed out. RS is exactly the same renderer in both software. I don't understand why Octane in H should look like standalone. Standalone is not the example of a good ui system, people are not using Standalone, the majority of people share H and C4d backgrounds.

About AOVs:
I do not know again, its not my request but these are requests from very experienced H users. If everyone else agrees, there is a problem with AOVs UI as well I guess?

About vertex attribute node: I don't even remember where to begin with, as I gave up while using octane on a project. I have to have preset files to remember how I get attribs from packed instance vs just instance or for hair or for anything "complex" for that matter. And also those weird maps , shouldnt be a thing.
By watching RS tutorials without any knowledge of RS i could simply add all this info in as I don't have to remember things, they are logically layed out. In octane I cannot, its very confusing. If you consider changing stuff I can do some tests again and come up with suggestions.

Again -not only my request- this comes from everyone. This is consolidated feedback. Personally didn't take many times to use Octane (that I know by heard in c4d), to realise its not user friendly as it is. Nothing H related, all is UI/UX Octane related imo.

Thanks for listening to our requests. Our aim here is to help this plugin and spread the word. We do not wanna overload you with work, we appreciate what u are doing very much. But we also need a plugin we would all be happy with and not just the very few people in this forum that are used to work this way.

[elsksa]

I don't understand why Octane in H should look like standalone. Standalone is not the example of a good ui system, people are not using Standalone, the majority of people share H and C4d backgrounds.

Most likely true, statistically.
However, Standalone's "philosophy" is similar to the very common workflow at many VFX studios (small to large). Software such as Katana, Clarisse, Gaffer, Guerilla etc, are using a similar scene node-graph approach. It's highly flexible and powerful.
I am not questioning your feedback, which I am not in a position to anyway, but rather sharing some background information.

[thanulee]

Nothing against nodes. On the contrary. The complexity of any software is not defined by nodes or placeholders. Octane is dead simple to use. H plugin makes it unnecessary complex.

Afaik no major vfx studio is using GPU engines. There is never enough vram for vfx needs till gpus evolve a lot (its not octane's fault in this case).

I work often with most of the big ones both in vfx and motion.
Octane is not in their pipeline not even for the commercial jobs. I happen to use it only for the design phase of things but when it comes to production they go to cpu solutions usually and they re create my frames.

[mirocreative]

If you have a chance check out ODTools. Other than a ton of useful HDAs, it comes with a "consolidated" Octane render node at OBJ level. I'm not a huge fan of it, but might work for you.

[elsksa]

Afaik no major vfx studio is using GPU engines ...

Not what I wrote!
Please, read again.

[thanulee]

Afaik no major vfx studio is using GPU engines ...

Not what I wrote!
Please, read again.

I got it the first time.
Why trying to explain/compare what might be the reason for the wrong ui/ux choices?

Octane needs a major rework and no one seems to listen.

[cosminstanciuro]

Hello folks.
LookDev here 90% of the time.

I've jumped in the Octane boat because RS got to a point where itself made me do it.

Only good words about Octane's stability and responsiveness.

I'd like to thing about myself as not taking sides and being objective in any kind of discussion - but here - I must say that I agree 100% with what thanulee said.

Those are about the quality of life in terms of lookdev.

Would be nice to have a place with some kind of poll - and the most voted one to be adopted for implementation - this way as the word say - "It's made for the people".

All the best.
Cosmin

[ShivaMist]

https://twitter.com/mumblinglewis/status/1641503085704130560
This kind of public feedback is what drives people decisions.. It should be taken into account and you should be actively trying to resolve this issue!
I've tried to get into Houdini/Octane coming from c4d/Octane.. i'm too used to the QoL features of the cinema plugin and i cannot with this logic. Even if the c4doctane UI is coming in all the plugins, the integration into houdini is not artist friendly coming from any other DCC with octane. I'm not saying the integration in c4doctane is perfect but in terms of Usability it's really great.

On the topic of sunlight, that's great that i have time control on my sunlight, but why it's not a physical object that i can rotate like in every other renderer/dcc ? I don't get it; this feedback was last year.. and it's not a random person like me coming in, it's a person that is know and respected in the motion design industry, and he COMPILED feedback from his peers. How has nothing changed or conversation about this were held ?