OTOY Forums

Hi there!

This is the unofficial Octane exporter now fixed for OCS versions 1.5 and above. I took the 1.17 exporter version (which I was using up until now), rewrote the engine module, changed the GUI a little bit and also integrated the particles exporter script, so now you can do animations with particle instances.

Major changes:

* It works with Octane OCS versions 1.5 and above (or more precisely: it wont wreck your .ocs )
* It automatically exports particle systems as .csv files
* "export camera only" for flyby animations
* OCS is written only if the file doesn't not exist, never edited thereafter
* Camera updating works for RenderTarget node

What doesn't work any-more (because of OCS file structural changes)

* writing stuff into an existing OCS, which would corrupt it
* the material tab is pretty much useless now (shading is done in Octane anyway)
* "create or replace OCS file" was removed
* "Write materials in OCS file" was removed

New GUI options


* Export options: Image (renders current frame still), Animation, Geometry (just exports obj/mtl, without starting Octane)
* Camera only: exports just the active camera for each frame, without geometry
* samples & preset option is added in case of stills too
* Instances export can be automatic or manual. In auto mode it exports all PS on active layers (even if emitter is hidden for rendering). "Write dupli objects to file", will export the particle visualization object to obj/mtl each frame. (you might want to disable this for animations, unless the viz object itself is animated)
* Mesh node to render: is the name of a geometry node to render inside Octane. Usually this will be some Geometry Group node, but can be any geometry node. If the name is invalid, Octane will complain, if you leave it blank it will be the name of the .obj of the scene.

Installation

Disable your old exporter (and instances addon if you have it), save settings, close Blender, delete the old folder from ./addons (and octinstances.py if you have it), copy the new folder, enable addon (its called OctaneRender Community Plugin now).

Test on backed-up scene


Current version 1.51 Changelog here


old versions

Wow ! Thank you very much ! I have a big lack of sleep and planned to go to bed sooner than usual, but I can't resist to switch on my workstation and try this new exporter !

EDIT : So far, I hadn't exported the camera with the previous exporter, as I mainly worked Inside Octane Standalone. So this time I have exported a simple cubes scene with the camera, and the behaviour is weird imho : the regular camera connected to the Old Mesh Preview Render Target is not influenced by the export, and the actual camera view as set up in Blender is obtained when selecting the exported obj node ... which is not supposed to contain the camera and has no output pin for the camera obviously ! Also, I can't save this camera location, and if I add other objects to the scene through Geometry Group, I lose the camera framing using the render target... I get the same behaviour with the exporter 2.02 version... Is the camera export broken, or do I misunderstand something ?

The first time I also got an error message saying that the Output folder had forbidden signs or spaces... and now it works. Weird !

Awesome!

I'll have to test it out this weekend

Thank you very much ! works fine for me.

Thank you Matej

@Roubal, the camera parameters are passed through command line arguments. Previously in the old .ocs & Octane versions, those command line parameters would be assigned to the camera node that was connected inside the "preview configuration" macro. But this is not the case anymore, now the camera params are assigned to some default camera node "behind the scenes", that is used to render when you click on a geometry node. The "old preview configuration" doesn't seem to do anything in the new .ocs scenes.

Sadly that means you cant use render targets with this exporter, because whatever the camera settings in the render target, will overwrite the exported camera settings. I had a script that could read or write any camera node from the .ocs in the past, but that was coded for the old .ocs structure and would need to be rewritten. Maybe something can be done with Lua scripting inside Octane, I'll check it out, but I'm a bit behind regarding Lua scripting. It's definitely a functionality I need too and will certainly try to make it happen.

@all, I forgot to mention that this version renders animations slightly slower, because it does rendering & exporting sequentially (while the original script is exporting the next frame while the current one is rendering). I intend to fix this too, I just wanted to throw out a working exporter asap and do optimizations later.

now the camera params are assigned to some default camera node "behind the scenes",

@matej : Yes, It is what I had understood by experiments.

Anyway, thank you for your efforts !

1.51 Update (download at the top of the first post)

* Speedup in exporting animations. It's now properly exporting the next frame geometry, while the current one is rendering in Octane, like the old exporter did. Which considerably speeds up animation export.

* Render targets & camera export. Besides a geometry node, you can now specify a Render Target node to render inside Octane. The current camera settings are now updated for that render target, ie. whichever camera node is connected to that RT, it gets updated via a Lua script. The Lua script file is generated on the fly for each frame.


Geometry node - name of a geometry node to render inside the .ocs. Usually its a Geometry Group type, but can be any one. If it's not specified, the .obj node name is used
Render Target - name of a RT node to render inside the .ocs. If it's specified, the geometry one is ignored. If its not specified, the geometry one is used.
Export camera - if you want to export the current Blender camera settings. If a RT is specified it will update the Camera node of that RT else it will update the "default" camera node "behind the scenes".
Export resolution - if you want to overwrite the res. setting in the RT node inside the .ocs

Get accustomed to properly name your nodes, if two have the same name, the behaviour is unknown

Awesome!!

I love that we can choose render targets now. That was a big feature lacking before.

Now animations might just work if you have a geometry group. (I havent been able to test yet)


Question, is it possible for the project name, render target, etc, to have a drop down menu that shows everything you have used till now? Or maybe even something like the material editor where to add a render target.

That way you dont need to remember what they were or make sure they are spelt right.

I have not yet tested for animations, but the ability of saving the camera/render target is a great improvement ! Well done ! Thank you very much Matej !