Octane exporter for C4D version 0.06 Tweet

[abstrax]

Hi all,

Here comes version 0.06 of the Octane exporter for CINEMA 4D. It adds animation render support. I had to restructure big chunks of the code and I hope I didn't break anything that was working before.

Known limitations: Camera motion blur doesn't get exported yet and I didn't find a way to keep Octane in the background while rendering the animation. I.e. although the animation render dialog is non-modal, you can't really continue working in C4D until the rendering is finished. I will try to fix that today or tomorrow. I just didn't want to let you guys wait any longer and decided to release the plugin as it is as soon as possible. I also didn't provide the Russian strings as they need to be updated.

EDIT: Just found a bug: If you click on "Close" and then on "No" C4D hangs up. I will fix this as soon as possible.

The animation export dialog has an edit field that I use to display status messages. I couldn't find a less "hacky" solution and didn't want to waste too much time on it. The pause/resume buttons are not functional yet. A click on "Close" will close the dialog (after a confirmation dialog), but doesn't close Octane. A click on "Cancel" kills the Octane process (i.e. stops rendering) and closes the dialog (after a confirmation dialog).

The workflow to create an animation should be like this:
1. First you export your scene using the render button.
2. Tweak your materials in Octane.
3. Setup lighting.
4. Setup rendering.
5. Save your Octane scene and exit.
6. In the export dialog you then specify the animation range and hit the animation render button.
7. The exporter then exports the first frame, opens Octane which relinks the already existing scene (which you have saved in 5) with the new geometry and camera data, but doesn't reload the materials (similar to when you hit "Render", which also doesn't reload the materials) and starts rendering.
8. Octane renders until the specified samples/pixel and then saves the image under <image name><frame number> and then closes itself. Meanwhile the exporter waits until the Octane process stops.
9. When Octane has stopped, the exporter exports frame 2 and so on...
10. When the rendering has finished, you should see a "Finished rendering!" in the animation export dialog.
11. If you want to stop the rendering click on "Close" or "Cancel" in the animation export dialog.

If Octane crashes or closes, but the exporter can't find the image to render, the exporter relaunches Octane. This is done up to 3 times and then the exporter gives up and prints out an error message. I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not as I didn't have Octane crashing yet and can take it out, if you think that the disadvantages are too big.

4 seconds after launching Octane, the plugin will export the next frame (if Octane didn't return earlier). This should reduce the export overhead as the CPU is not needed while rendering.

I hope everything works ok so far and I try to polish and complete the animation export the coming days.

These are the PC builds of the plugin:

CINEMA 4D R9.6 (32/64bit):

OctaneExport_0.06_win_r9.6_release.zip

(168.04 KiB) Downloaded 368 times

CINEMA 4D R10.1 - 11.0 (32/64bit):

OctaneExport_0.06_win_r10.1_release.zip

(168.58 KiB) Downloaded 348 times

CINEMA 4D R11.5 (32/64bit):

OctaneExport_0.06_win_r11.5_release.zip

(247.03 KiB) Downloaded 385 times

These are the Mac builds of the plugin:

CINEMA 4D R9.6 (32bit):

OctaneExport_0.06_mac_r9.6_release.zip

(108.05 KiB) Downloaded 362 times

CINEMA 4D R10.1 - 10.5 (32bit):

OctaneExport_0.06_mac_r10.1_release.zip

(146.56 KiB) Downloaded 359 times

CINEMA 4D R11.0 (32/64bit):

OctaneExport_0.06_mac_r11.0_release.zip

(308.06 KiB) Downloaded 337 times

CINEMA 4D R11.5 (32/64bit):

OctaneExport_0.06_mac_r11.5_release.zip

(337.07 KiB) Downloaded 347 times

Happy rendering ,
Marcus

[mantra]

I'am Happy!

translation will be ready later

[Vincent]

Thank you very very very much !!!!!

[katerlake]

Great work.
Later the day i will test it with an simple animation.

Best regards from germany.

[clement]

thx Abstrax ! you rock !

[Sc4rfy]

Thanks Abstrax, I've noticed one thing....today i've try to render a Poser model, i've the plugin interposer for load poser model in c4d....when i load the model the plugin create material and texture in .mtl, when i've export the model in octane i've save the file in my document folder (not the same folder of the textures) and in octane works very good(material and textures were perfect). Perhaps is possible that octane exporter works like interposer? I dont' know because when i use this plugin for poser it's not need save the file in the same folder of the textures. I'm not a technician so it's only a question

[abstrax]

Thanks Abstrax, I've noticed one thing....today i've try to render a Poser model, i've the plugin interposer for load poser model in c4d....when i load the model the plugin create material and texture in .mtl, when i've export the model in octane i've save the file in my document folder (not the same folder of the textures) and in octane works very good(material and textures were perfect). Perhaps is possible that octane exporter works like interposer? convert in mtl and then export in octane? I'm not a technician so it's only a question

Hmm, I guess I don't understand the question. You can export MTL files with the Octane exporter. Of course, this is only possible from C4D, i.e. you need to load them into C4D first. Or do you mean that you want to move the scene from Octane back to C4D? This is not possible at the moment. Or do you mean something else?

Cheers,
Marcus

[Sc4rfy]

Yes, sorry but my english is not perfect When i export a work made with c4d with octane exporter i must save the file in the same folder of the textures.....but i've noticed that when i use the plugin interposer for load poser model is not necessary save the file in the same folder of the textures, automatically the dir of the textures is correct in octane, i hope you understand

[abstrax]

Yes, sorry but my english is not perfect When i export a work made with c4d with octane exporter i must save the file in the same folder of the textures.....but i've noticed that when i use the plugin interposer for load poser model is not necessary save the file in the same folder of the textures, automatically the dir of the textures is correct in octane, i hope you understand

Ah ok, got it.

Actually it should be possible to have the textures in a different folder. The exporter plugin converts texture paths to paths relative to the obj/mtl file combo and it worked here on my PC. Maybe I have broken something.

Are you using a Mac? What happens if you change the project name to force a new Octane project? Are the textures ok in C4D?

If you don't get it running, could you please send me an example (C4D/OBJ/MTL files) with a detailed description where the OBJ/MTL files were exported to and where the textures were stored.

Thanks,
Marcus

[Sc4rfy]

No, i'm on pc vista and cinema 11.530
If i change the project name the result is the same and the textures are ok in c4d....where i can send an example?