OTOY Forums

Hi everyone,

[EDIT] I've wipped out some stuff here as most of the information has became obsolete. Please look at the version changes for install instructions and fixed issues.

If you want to render particle meshes:
- set a 'Particle instance' modifier on the mesh you want to render
- avoid displaying the modifer, it'll slow down Blender a lot
- be carefull with complex meshes, it can exhaust all available memory (had to kill everything when trying to render a bunch of lvl2 subsurfaced Suzanne particles, 12GB of RAM was not enough...)

I also strongly recommend you watch Jonathan Williamson's video tutorial at blenderCookie.com http://www.blendercookie.com/2011/01/20/exporting_octane/ . All you need to know for getting started is brillantly explained and demonstrated by Jonathan in this fine 18 minutes sequence.

Enjoy,
Lionel

[EDIT] 2011-01-09 : v0.3x

- updated script to remove material relinking when not writing ocs (for rendering anims where materials have nodes in Octane)

[EDIT] 2011-01-11: v0.41
*** please remove previous octanerender directory before installing this version ***
-

code cleanup - still a lot to go but it becomes more readable. Be carefull as I may have introduced some code regression
- now removes the Overwrite flag after a render is done once (seems it was fine with 2.55 but previously broken in 2.56)
- added option to relink material when not writing OCS. Default is False to match v0.3x behaviour
- removed limit on x and y resolution to match upcoming new beta of Octane
- now display version number in panel
- added GPL license file to match license from original script header

If anything goes wrong and prevents you working, please reverse to v0.3, otherwise post logs from console and/or screenshot of problem.

[EDIT] 2011-01-12: v0.42

- regression fix: put back browse button for Octane Binary path

[EDIT] 2011-01-12: v0.43
*** warning - code regression at high risk ***

- added plugin and blender version number in logs
- allowed export of 'EMPTY' object type, thus exporting object groups. Unsure about side effects, please experiment.

[EDIT] 2011-01-12: v0.44

- fixed some logging issues that made exporter crash on some kind of meshes
- v0.43 crashed when an 'EMPTY' was found but was not a dupli. Now only EMPTY with dupli-type different from 'NONE' is exported

[EDIT] 2011-01-13: v.050

- added some notifications in main panel itself
- added new render mode 'Fly': allows doing animations of static scenes by only exporting OBJ/MTL on first frame, then only updates camera and/or sunlight direction for subsequent frames
- because of possible code regression, I let previous version online to allow easy rollback

[EDIT] 2011-01-13: v0.51

- fixed export crash when using 'Camera Motion' setting

[EDIT] 2011-01-14: v0.52

- you can now intall the script from blender's interface with the 'install addon' button or place it in the user's 2.56/scripts/addons/ directory.
* you may have to restart blender after install as other addons may not show up anymore until restart - I'll investigate later
* you don't need to change, you just can if you want and it sill work if placed in blender's own 2.56/scripts/io/ directory
* always delete previous version before installing a new one, blender may not replace old files
* ensure you never have the addon installed in 2 different locations at the same time
* in case of trouble, always start blender from command line in order to get logs

[EDIT] 2011-01-15: v0.60
*** warning - lots of changes, stability not guaranteed ***

- uses notification system from Blender
- uses resolution from Blender's render, with functional presets. Allows fine camera tuning.
- uses animation frame settings from blender's render
- uses Depth of Field from selected blender's camera, using either distance or object and will ignore if 0.

[EDIT] 2011-01-21: v0.75
*** Disclaimer ***
I want to remind everybody this is not the official plugin from Refractive Software, so it is not endorsed neither supported by them. Support is only provided by the user community and myself in a best-effort manner. Thanks.
*** install notes ***

- remove any previous version of the addon
- download addon for your blender build (either 2.56a from blender or the other one for recent builds)
- from blender user preferences, choose install add-on and select the zip file (no need to uncompress)
- click on the addon check-box to activate it

*** What's new ? ***

- 'Samples Presets' now working
- camera attributes (DoP, Lens Ap) are now only exported if 'Export Camera Settings' is checked
- images export fixed
- new mtl export logic
- supports relative paths everywhere
- additional logging
- changed some default settings
- auto-fix project name with spaces
- auto-fix material names with spaces
- auto-fix names for images that are copied with export
- prevent MTL export when 'no image copy' AND an image source name/path has spaces
- now forces user to have a project directory wihtout spaces
- now forces user to have an image output directory without spaces

(the latest 6 items are here to prevent bugs in Octane parsing its command line or the mtl file. I got confirmation that this won't be fixed at the moment so I've choosen to warn the user at early stage and prevent exporting if it's known that Octane won't get the information properly).
*** Known issues ***

- unicode characters are not supported. No plan to support them in the future, so please rename your materials, objects, meshes, etc...
- using resolution presets may lead to X and Y pixel aspect ratio not being 1:1 anymore whitout the user noticing, so camera in blender doesn't match camera in octane. You must switch to blender render and manually reset aspect ratio.
- you may have issues if your scene has some kind of curves. I need more feedback/samples for debugging.

[EDIT] 2011-01-22 : v0.82
*** do backups of your blend files before using this version - materials can/should be altered ***
*** delete previous version before installing ***

- bug fixes
- automatically resets aspect ratio to 1:1, making resolution presets safe to use
- specular x2 correction on glossy materials is now optional (in Octane system Settings - disabled by default)
- option to force diffuse/specular intensity to 1 (in Octane system Settings - disabled by default)
- camera now selectable from list
- sun/lamp now selectable from list
- interface tweaked
- default settings tweaked
- simplified Material panel
- simplified Texture panel
- option to pull still-rendered image from Octane into blender 'Render result' Image/UV editor, with dedicated samples settings.
- automatically pulls animation frames into blender 'Render result' Image UV editor

[EDIT] 2011-01-23 : v0.83

- bugfix: render still image sometimes pushed one frame on completion
- bugfix: animation always started from frame 1
- bugfix: 'Create ocs file' may not have been properly cleared after render
- new export option: 'Remove invisible' to prevent export of objects made invisible in the viewport

[EDIT] 2011-01-24 : v0.84

- now exports text objects
- now exports material of META objects
- now switch to Object Mode at export time to ensure deformations are applyed on curves, surfaces, etc...

[EDIT] 2011-01-25 : v0.85

- unified material export, build-independent, should fix text objects not having a material

[EDIT] 2011-01-25 : v0.86

- internal 'rename party' for compatibility with builds 34480 and above
- bugfix: high CPU usage when on material panel fixed
- texture foolproof UI change: now replaces UV layer field with message UV mapping not supported for non-mesh objects
- export camera setting changed: now when activated takes camera from Scene - no need to select anymore
- export camera behaviour changed: now always takes DoF from camera, but still ignores of 0
- export sunlight setting changed: you can now select the Sun you want from a list with all objects. ERROR icon will stay until object is a light and light is a Sun
- export behaviour change: stop export if exported light is not a Sun
- export behaviour change: stop export if exported camera is not of perspective type

[EDIT] 2011-01-29 : v0.90
*** Lot's of internal changes, be carefull if using in production ***

- log cleanup to make the exporter a bit less verbose
- now set samples to 64000 for still image render so you're not stuck if you forget to change the setting once in Octane
- support animated textures of type 'Sequence'. 'Frames', 'Start', 'Offset' and 'Cyclic' parameters are taken in account, 'Fileds' is ignored. 'Copy Images' AND 'Export Materials' MUST be ON. See demo here : New feature demo - unofficial exporter v0.90 - Blender 2.56
- exports next frame in advance for animations, so next render starts immediatly eliminating export time for all frames but the first one.

[EDIT] 2011-02-05 : v0.92

- new feature: Blender's camera lens shift is now exported to Octane
- lens shift correction: lens shift is transformed depending on screen ratio in order to match Blender's viewport display
- FOV correction: FOV is transformed for portrait-mode resolution in order to match Blender's viewport display
- bugfix: export crash on some builds fixed
- bugfix: export now aborts with an error when finding a texture slot without image, instead of crashing
- bugfix: import of rendered images where scale was above 100% now works fine
- bugfix: render in 'Fly' mode doesn't crash anymore
- bugfix: materials for duplicated meshes belonging to different objects are now properly exported
*** Known issues ***
The plugin will not properly work with Blender builds greater than or equal to 34590

[EDIT] 2011-02-05 : v0.93

- emergency bugfix: textures were not exported. Please delete 0.92 and use this one.
*** Known issues ***
It seems the relink option is ignored by Octane, materials not getting updated - this needs to be confirmed by Refractive
The plugin will not properly work with Blender builds greater than or equal to 34590

The script, as is, doesn't allow you to specify the position of the octane executable. Looks promising though.

Ah, sorry, you have have this down to system settings. I've found it now

particle systems do not appear to work.

What do you mean?
Do you have a .blend sample?

sure, very simply but find attached

I don't see any attachment. You probably need to zip it first, I'll then have a look at it.

try again

ok, third time lucky

OK:
- particle instance should be on mesh that is the particle, not the emitter
- you resized your plane object instead of resizing the mesh itself
Particle system working