Octane Render for SketchUp 3.08.0.9 Test Release Tweet

[CaptainCrowbar]

Release Notes for Octane Render SketchUp Plugin 3.08.0.9

This is a test release based on the Octane SDK version 3.08rc1. Currently only Windows builds are available; Mac builds will be added as soon as possible.

Changes in This Release

We now support SketchUp 2018, in addition to 2017 and 2016.

The new instance based textures in Octane are now supported. These can be used in conjunction with the third party Skatter plugin to create scattered objects with variable textures.

There is a new Settings dialog, available from the Extensions menu in SketchUp (Extensions > Octane > Settings). This currently has only one setting, a drop-down list that allows you to select the default material type used when converting SketchUp materials to Octane. The available choices are Diffuse, Glossy, Metal, Specular, or Toon; Glossy is the default if you have not chosen one. Changing this setting does not affect anything in an existing Octane version of a scene; it only controls the choice of material type when new SketchUp materials are imported into Octane in the future.

Scene conversion and rendering is now completely suppressed when the Octane window is not open, or when the pause option is activated on the toolbar.

Environment settings are now automatically transferred from the Octane view of a scene to SketchUp. When you adjust the sun position in the Octane environment node, SketchUp's sun follows (you need to have shadows enabled in SketchUp to see this, of course). This feature has a couple of limitations:

- SketchUp's lighting model is much simpler than Octane's, so there are many settings on the Octane side that are not copied to SketchUp simply because SketchUp has no way to reproduce them.

- We don't yet support different lighting models on the Octane and SketchUp sides. This means that, if you set the Octane lighting to anything other than Daylight, you will see inconsistent behaviour as the plugin tries to reconcile the Octane and SketchUp versions of the scene. Full support for other lighting models will be added in a future upgrade; for the moment, we only fully support the Daylight model.

Please note that the current Octane SDK requires CUDA 9.1 support, which is compatible with Nvidia drivers starting with version 387. Before you install the latest SketchUp plugin, you should check your video drivers and ensure you have the latest version.

Bug fixes:

- The material picker in the Octane window now works.
- You can now use materials from the LiveDB without crashing.
- Node graph changes are no longer lost when the Octane window is closed.
- The Mac plugin no longer breaks when all scene windows are closed.
- Camera settings are no longer carried over when a new scene is opened.
- Changes to daylight settings are now reliably saved.
- In SketchUp scenes with multiple views, the default view is now also saved as a separate render target.
- Re-opening the Octane window no longer resets some of the render settings.
- Several bugs involving proxy objects have been fixed.

About This Release Series

The 3.06+ release series represents a thorough redesign of the plugin's user interface. The plugin now uses a separate window of its own, similar to the standalone Octane Render application. You can open this window through the Octane button on the SketchUp toolbar, or from SketchUp's Extensions menu.

The Octane plugin window is built from a set of panels similar to the standalone app:

* The Scene Outliner (on the left in the default layout) shows an expandable list of all nodes in the Octane version of the scene. This panel also has tabs giving access to the LiveDB and the local database.

* The Render Viewport (top) shows the image rendered by Octane. This was originally a separate window in earlier versions of the plugin.

* The Node Graph Editor (bottom) depicts a "sandbox" that shows only the material nodes (and linker nodes connecting them to the geometry); the rest of the node graph (geometry, rendering options, etc) is hidden. You can manipulate the material nodes in the same way you would in the Octane standalone app.

* The Node Inspector (right) shows the full details of any selected node, and allows them to be edited by hand.

You can learn more about the new user interface from the manuals and tutorial videos for the Octane SketchUp plugin and the Octane Render standalone application:

* SketchUp plugin manual
* Octane Render standalone manual
* Octane Render 3.06.4 release notes

SketchUp Plugin v3.06 - Introduction Video



Other Recent Changes

* The plugin is now available for Mac as well as Windows. The Mac version has all the same features as the current Windows build, and the two versions will be kept synchronised in future releases. Please note that, like the Windows version, the Mac plugin requires an Nvidia video card compatible with CUDA 9.1. Most recent production Macs have AMD or Intel GPUs; to use this plugin you will need an older Mac with an Nvidia card, a desktop Mac Pro that has been upgraded with an Nvidia card, or a system with an external GPU.

* Added an option to "pause" the connection between SketchUp and Octane. When paused, changes to the SketchUp scene will not be copied to Octane; this allows you to make complex changes to the SketchUp scene without the Octane scene being updated for every step, and then update it all at once when you unpause. There are toolbar buttons for the Pause and Rebuild actions.

* When you add a new camera view in SketchUp, a corresponding render target node will be created in Octane. The camera position and render settings are tracked separately for each render target, and will be saved with the SketchUp model in your .SKP file. When switching cameras, the corresponding render target is selected in the scene outline.

* There are no longer separate menu options for converting a SketchUp material to an Octane one, or for creating a new Octane material from scratch. These are no longer necessary since the new GUI window provides equivalent functionality. Converting a material from SketchUp to Octane is not a separate operation now; it happens automatically as soon as the material is used.

* All information about Octane materials is now saved with the SketchUp scene in the .SKP file. Unlike earlier versions, all texture graphics are included in this; textures are no longer saved in a separate directory. The saved scene also records any changes you make to the material nodes through the node graph editor. This means that you can now transfer a scene file to another computer, or send it to another user, without losing the texture information. However, it also means that scene files containing Octane plugin data are necessarily larger (sometimes much larger) than they were as plain SketchUp scenes, since they now contain all of the image files needed to reconstruct the Octane textures.

Requirements

Software (Windows version):

* SketchUp 2016, 2017, or 2018 for Windows x64; SketchUp 2018 is recommended
* Microsoft Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or 10 for x64
* The plugin is not compatible with any x86 (32-bit) version of SketchUp or Windows

Software (Mac version):

* SketchUp 2017 or 2018 for MacOS; SketchUp 2018 is recommended
* MacOS 10.11 (El Capitan), 10.12 (Sierra), or 10.13 (High Sierra)
* The plugin is not compatible with any version of MacOS earlier than 10.11

Hardware:

* 64-bit Intel or AMD CPU
* One or more recent model Nvidia GPU cards
* Nvidia drivers version 387 or later; CUDA 9.1 support is required
* The plugin is not compatible with AMD or Intel GPUs

Installation

The installer has been completely rewritten. There are now separate installers for the SketchUp 2016, 2017, and 2018 versions of the plugin. You can install more than one of these on the same computer; they are treated as separate applications.

We recommend uninstalling all previous versions of the SketchUp plugin before installing the latest version.

Please note that stable and test releases will not be identified by any special version numbers. Because of potential compatibility issues if different builds of the Octane engine are run on the same system, we believe it is more important to keep plugin version numbers synchronised with the corresponding build of the standalone Octane application and the Octane SDK. If you are having problems, the first thing you should check is that you do not have different versions of other Octane products installed.

Support Information

If you have a support issue, please provide the following information:
- Operating system (e.g. Windows 8.1 x64)
- CPU type (e.g. Intel Core i7)
- Amount of RAM
- Graphics cards - model (e.g. Nvidia GTX 690 with 4GB)
- Nvidia driver version (e.g. 390.77)
- SketchUp version (e.g. SketchUp Pro 2017 version 17.2.2555 64-bit)
- Skatter version (if you have it installed; e.g. Skatter 1.2.0)
- OctaneRender for SketchUp version (e.g. 3.08.0.9)

The most important part of resolving a problem is our being able to reproduce the problem, so please provide as much detail as possible!

Download Links

(For this test release, only Windows compatible plugins are currently available.)

* Windows plugin for SketchUp 2016
* Windows plugin for SketchUp 2017
* Windows plugin for SketchUp 2018

Earlier Changes

These changes were made in earlier 3.x releases of the plugin, and are still relevant in the latest release:

* Like the Octane 3 standalone version, the SketchUp plugin uses the new single sign-on system. You still need to have purchased a license for the SketchUp plugin, but it will now be checked automatically when you log in using your Otoy account credentials; you no longer need to keep track of user IDs and passwords for individual licenses. The new authorization management window is a modal dialog where the user can sign out and sign in. It also informs the you under which name you are signed in and if that sign-in was in offline or online mode. When a user signs out, all of your licenses which were activated on this computer will be deactivated. This requires that all these licenses are currently not in use by other Octane processes; if that is not the case the sign out will fail.

* Because most rendered images are now stored in your computer's main RAM instead of your video card's RAM, all Octane 3 applications, including the SketchUp plugin, will frequently use a good deal more memory than their Octane 2 equivalents, especially for high resolution renders. You should keep this in mind when upgrading.

* 3.03+ releases include experimental Pascal GPU support. Please note that we are still working on performance issues there.

* Support has been added for the Skatter plugin's Render Only mode.

Known Issues

We hope to fix these in a coming update:

* Time zones may not be tracked correctly when converting daylight settings between Octane and SketchUp.

* The Mac installer is not signed yet; we're still organising the details. For the moment, if Finder gives you an error when you run the installer, you can override this and run it by right-clicking on the installer and selecting Open from the popup menu.

* The toolbar buttons on the Mac plugin sometimes show incorrect pressed/unpressed states. This is a SketchUp bug that we will try to work around.

* The status bar text is not reliably updated in the Mac version. This is also due to a a SketchUp bug.

* Custom resolution in the material preview does not work.

* Once a texture has been copied from SketchUp to the Octane version of the scene, any changes made to either version of the material are not reflected in the other version. (This is a simplification applied to ensure the two versions of the material are handled correctly in this version of the plugin; we intend to add automatic transfer of changes from one to the other in future, where the different properties and behaviour of Octane and SketchUp materials allows it.)

* Re-applying the same texture after an undo may fail to work. This is a bug in SketchUp, not related to the Octane plugin.

* SketchUp may crash if plugins are frequently disabled and re-enabled while the Octane plugin is installed.

Release History

3.08.0.9 - Support SketchUp 2018; fix proxy and Skatter issues; support instance-based textures; add settings dialog.

3.07.0.14 - Fully suppress scene conversion when no Octane window is open; automatic transfer of environment settings from Octane to SketchUp; fix material picker and LiveDB bugs.

3.06.4.10 - Better isolation when Octane is paused; bug fixes to Mac toolbar and installer.

3.06.4.5 - New Mac build.

3.06.4.0 - Highlight render target when changing camera; add pause and rebuild buttons.

3.06.2.5 - Track separate render targets for each SketchUp camera; add menu command to rebuild the Octane scene.

3.06.1.4 - Fix slow geometry transfer when render window is not open; add scene outliner to default view; save workspace layout with scene file.

3.06.1.2 - Initial public test release with the new user interface.

[smicha]

Will test it asap. Thank you guys.

[ff7darkcloud]

Thank you!! Working great, awesome that you included the default material option!

[Jorgensen]

My I ask why "SketchUp 2018 is recommended" ?

Looking forward to test.

thanks
Jorgensen

[Jorgensen]

Not sure what I do wrong.

I uninstalled the old version of the plugin, installed the new 3.08.0.9 for sketchup 2017 / windows.

Now I get at Bug Spalt when I try to open Sketchup.
I see "Octane render loading..." and then bug splat.

I can send SketchUpLog-2018-03-12-12_33_26.log and SketchUpOJI96HJ3.dmp as PM if it makes any sense.

Jorgensen


Edit
The standalone version runs just fine.

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
16 gb ram
Sketchup 2017
2 x GeForce GTX 780 Ti
Driver Nvidia 391.01

[bepeg4d]

Hi Jorgensen,
are you able to run Standalone 3.08 RC1:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=65686
ciao Beppe

[CaptainCrowbar]

My I ask why "SketchUp 2018 is recommended" ?

Simply because that's the most up to date version of SketchUp, and earlier versions of SU will nag you to update. We intend to continue supporting older versions, but going forward, most of our testing will be on SU 2018.

[Sheiken]

BugSplat here too. Crashes just after the Octane toolbar becomes visible. I am able to run the standalone.
SU2018, Nvidia 391.01.

[Jorgensen]

I tried to disable all other plugins. Still bug splat.

I then updated to SketchUp 2018, and now it seems to run. I have not test intensive yet,
but at least I can now start SketchUp.

Jorgensen

[Jorgensen]

NODE INSPECTOR / ICONS
Do you plan to add these icons to the node inspector, as they are in the standalone?
I find them very usefull.


NODE INSPECTOR / DEAULT
is it possible to have the default scene in the node inspector when starting octane?
i thought that the node inspector would remember the layout of the nodes.

NODE INSPECTOR SKETCHUP VS STANDALONE
when i use the standalone and import the objects i have a very some layout in the node inspector.
when i open octane in sketchup the node inspector is more complicated.
i like the simple layout of the standalone, but that might be a sketchup limitation?
not that important.

bery good to see some updates on this plugin.

Jorgensen