Plugin Vs. Standalone

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Plugin Vs. Standalone

Postby aggiechase37 » Wed May 27, 2015 4:45 am

aggiechase37 Wed May 27, 2015 4:45 am
Hi. I'm just wondering which you guys find easier to work with. I'm new to Octane and am starting to go through tutorials and such. Curious if it's better/easier/more intuitive to use the C4D plugin, or if Octane works better exporting out of Cinema and using the standalone.

Also, are there any differences between the standalone and the plugin, like things that could be done in the standalone that can't be done in the plugin?

The reason I ask is I'd like to direct my attention to quickly learning the best workflow possible.

Thanks in advance for all feedback.
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Re: Plugin Vs. Standalone

Postby glimpse » Wed May 27, 2015 5:30 am

glimpse Wed May 27, 2015 5:30 am
Now that's going to be very subjective topic 'cos it depends on chosen workflow (& You should try on Your own =) here are my thoughts.

Plugins are going to give You much more fluid UI (Standalone's navigation is..not on par compared to any modeling package). By using plugin You can model, do preLighting, fine tuning & final rendering without leaving Your host app - that's convenient (for some). I guess with time we'll start seeing much more compatability with other plugins & choosing this route will be the most logical solution then..

but persoanaly I'm for Standalone. Why? Usualy I model in 3ds Max (that is far from being stable..), sometimes leveraging different tools from separate applications For me it's much better to ofload modelsby model (maybe from different modeling packages) as I go slowly building the scene (for instance : ground surface, some grenery, car, house, furniture, etc) & plug them into StandAlone (starting scene from scratch, or reusing some ready made presets).

In this case I gain flexibility & stability. It doesn't matter what I do with system, I can go crazy with modeling app, open different scenes..doing conversions, checking models..whatever..even if my modeling app fails, hangs or crashes..My render is safelly running in the background (Standalone is one of the most stable pieces I've ever worked on).


I know not all are going to like this kind of workflow =) but it works for me. Separate GPU for rendering, separate app for doing all the compute heavy work & I can do whatever I want with PC at the same time.. =) heavy CPU work in paralel without feeling anything - if not that slighly warm wind from the back of the box under the table..I would not even know..

I'd say, try Octane Render Standalone (You have to buy it even if You want to get any plugin, so why not to start from it in the beginning?) - learn it =) the same concept, working algorithms (with small interface changes) You could apply in any package with Octane's plugin later. Read through forum, educate Yourself what is the strenghts & weaknesses of packages You can choose from..

And if You interested 'bout features, well..Standalone gets those first, then follows some plugins (& other migh lag a bit..- so if You want to test the lates additions - Standalone is Your best bet).


As mentioned, this is very subjective =) & I wouldn't be surprised other user to express completelly oposite ideas =)
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Re: Plugin Vs. Standalone

Postby aggiechase37 » Wed May 27, 2015 10:23 pm

aggiechase37 Wed May 27, 2015 10:23 pm
Is there anywhere I can see what features are included in standalone that aren't necessarily in the plugin?

EDIT:

Just found this from otoy website: http://render.otoy.com/universe.php#36F ... D%20plugin

Limitations:

Material stacking is not supported
Spheres in Picture Viewer(you should set RenderPerfect is off)
Render instances in other render instances is not supported

If these are the only limitations, then sounds like the plugin might be where it's at.

I really like the idea of the node editor for materials, but can't find a whole lot of tuts on it...
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Re: Plugin Vs. Standalone

Postby LewisO » Fri Nov 13, 2015 7:16 pm

LewisO Fri Nov 13, 2015 7:16 pm
For Cinema4D right? I'd suggest you go with plugin and leave the standalone away. This is an interesting topic to talk about. I am really not a fan of the standalone's UI, I find it not modern and hard to work with, you might not agree with me if you're very familiar with it. Stacking material is a very useful function in C4D unfortunately it is not supported yet, so you have to work it out with mix material. Also, lots of C4D's native special shaders are not supported.

If you do product visualization, standalone would probably be ok, but for other jobs, it heavily depends on the plugin developer.
Thanks to Aoktar's great work, I think Cinema4D's version of OR is probably one of the best, it even support the color shader and multi shader, so it is really helpful when doing some dynamic motion graphics in cinema 4d, and it also works great with xpresso, which all of these are absolutely impossible with the standalone. In the latest test version there is even an octane scatter object, which is awesome for rendering millions of instances. I barely use standalone so I can't tell if there is any function that's missing from C4D, probably, but most of the time it's enough for me to do my job. And, one really important feature missing for me in supporting Cinema4D, is the vertex map shader, Aoktar said that it would probably be added in V3.

Some other problems, the rounding edge feature can't work with either of them, broken all the time.

For the node editor, it is very easy to understand and need no tuts if you have any experience working with other node-based tool (3ds Max's slate editor, xpresso etc). Try it a few times and you have no problem with it (although you can't link from the rightside/input port to the leftside/output port, which I've complained abt 4 a few times and no impr. maybe it is not a very urgent feature in the roadmap).
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Re: Plugin Vs. Standalone

Postby 1825 » Mon Apr 24, 2017 12:19 pm

1825 Mon Apr 24, 2017 12:19 pm
Hi guys,

Returning again to this topic... Tom Glimpse can you give your input on this, specifically concerning instances and proxys from Max to Standalone...

We're a small team with a optimized workflow between Max and Standalone. Currently we're working with an in-house script to get CSVs. But it's relatively buggy and we're searching for a direct way of creating scenes in standalone from Max. We looked into Multiscatter and phantomScatter, they're close but they're not suitable for our workflow...

Does anyone have more clues on how to improve this situation?

Thanks in advance

M
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Re: Plugin Vs. Standalone

Postby glimpse » Tue Jun 13, 2017 6:24 pm

glimpse Tue Jun 13, 2017 6:24 pm
1825 wrote:Hi guys,

Returning again to this topic... Tom Glimpse can you give your input on this, specifically concerning instances and proxys from Max to Standalone...

We're a small team with a optimized workflow between Max and Standalone. Currently we're working with an in-house script to get CSVs. But it's relatively buggy and we're searching for a direct way of creating scenes in standalone from Max. We looked into Multiscatter and phantomScatter, they're close but they're not suitable for our workflow...

Does anyone have more clues on how to improve this situation?

Thanks in advance

M


regarding to instances in 3ds Max guys usually choose Multi Scatter, Forest Pro (or one other tool, but it's less flexible). Once You're in Standalone, the best option for now is Phantom Scatter. Price wise it's really good deal for what it does, but You need to get used to it, as it's standalone application.

how to improve this this? Actually, trying to get the best of what You have I guess. Splitting larger areas into separate chunks with different cover densities & then combining everything inside Standalone that can give quite a bit of flexibility (but I can see why for some, who are used to VRAY + Forest Pack, that might seem a bit cumbersome).
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