Makes sense to switch back to Octane Blender Tweet

[linograndiotoy]

..the team really has to get right on octane to make it pull through - I've seen like 1 octane test in the blender group in the past month

What do you mean exactly?

I've seen many post in the Group this month. Also, consider the main Octane Facebook group is equally important aslo for Octane for Blender.

[acc24ex]

..the team really has to get right on octane to make it pull through - I've seen like 1 octane test in the blender group in the past month

What do you mean exactly?

I've seen many post in the Group this month. Also, consider the main Octane Facebook group is equally important aslo for Octane for Blender.

in the blender groups I noticed no octane activity, or any of the general blender news sites, blendernation, blenderartists..

[linograndiotoy]

Blender users tend to be very protective towards Cycles, that's why I don't like the idea of "bombing" the dedicated group with a lot of Octane posts.

However, personally I tend to share Octane for Blender videos into the official Blender and Blender Artsist group as well, like in this case:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2207257 ... 981942376/

In general I would prefer Octane for Blender users to do that.

[acc24ex]

Blender users tend to be very protective towards Cycles, that's why I don't like the idea of "bombing" the dedicated group with a lot of Octane posts.

However, personally I tend to share Octane for Blender videos into the official Blender and Blender Artsist group as well, like in this case:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2207257 ... 981942376/

In general I would prefer Octane for Blender users to do that.

..yeah I've missed this one on the fb group, but I've seen people show luxrender stuff and got reccomendations to try it a few times, didn't notice someone being so precious about cycles.. sure eeve vs cycles rambling.. but whatever, br a good idea to have some content to publish on the other sites, might push people to actually be interested in it and create resources

I know my way around octane, but I'm gonna keep using cycles purely because of the resources that are all cycles/eeve .. I did buy the octane box enterprise upgrade, because of hundreds of 3dsmax projects, and maybe UE and houdini, but for blender I'm just testing it out so far, and whenever it gets too crashy I don't open it for a while, or until next update..

.. just sayin a lot more integration might actually find more people engaged.. it's the same story with 3dsmax and vray - everything is compatible with vray, might turn this around if octane gets the integration working really well, just making it work almost stable on blender is not gonna be enough - people don't wanna go even try if there aren't any big names recommending and testing, blender guru, cg geek etc..

[crackfox]

hi lino,

i realize my post was prehaps somewhat unfair and subjective, i did not mean to offend anyone and apologies if i did.
fwiw i always look into the latest build.

i wont go point by point but the "waiting" thing was in reference to the whole of the last two years and for the fact that the next much needed thing, in this case brigade, always seem some way off.
why even bring brigade into discussion if there isnt even an ETA, i dont get it.
infact why even announce brigade, what 4-5 years ago as tech? i just looked it up - its 6 years ago.

for many months now i have been happily working with cycles so i am definitely out of touch regarding the latest developments or the forum communication. i did not realize the permanent license is an option, might look into that actually but sure as hell dont plan to frequent facebook, also known as the spawn of satan, the unholy one and the end of humanity:)

regarding rotation, i really have tried bunch of things but did not actually put in spherical projection into projection node. i honestly find it surprising that the environment cannot be rotated out of the box, but needs to be researched on forum- that is kind of my point here. more confusingly, one axis, the Z one i suppose, can be rotated so it makes one think it has to be a bug or user error right? then i spend hours fiddling and googling while its such a minor thing. but i guess my mistake.

you state that in your book octane is more responsive and interactive and it is more agile on my end too, especially the wind-up. however as soon as the scenes grow in complexity this is no longer the case and look development, especially with volumes in place becomes a huge pain. this is compounded by the fact that sometimes out the blue, some scenes simply quit rendering, yet were fine minutes before. i never get that with cycles (there are some cuda issues with e-cycles tbh)

how i use cycles is i do shaders in eevee, compose the frame, light it. and then its off to the cycles. all the time i get to be inspired by the way the scene is growing and it pushes me to do more.
in octane i have to deal with the solid plain shaders in viewport and do everything while live viewing, which in more complex scene becomes very slow so my productivity tapers off as projects grow.

also, maybe my bad - but for example again volumes - when i have a box encompassing a scene, ofcourse it obscures all of the objects in it. there is no way i have found to hide the box in the actual viewport so i can see and move objects because if i hide the box in the viewport, its gone from the live viewer too.
there is honestly a lot of stuff like that and sure every engine has its idiosyncrasies, but it adds up to a whole user experience.
its not about running a benchmark and simply going by the numbers is what i am saying - its the whole experience. aesthetically, truly octane is in its own league, no doubt about it.
its kind of like hasselblad vs a 5d canon tbh.

also i get that a native renderer is going to have a smoother or a more seamless integration than a plugin, still it is what it is.
however now that i know there is a permanent license, i will see if i can jump on that.
my issue was primarily justifying the ongoing renting, and i simply cant.

with apologies, some of your retorts come off as a tiny bit passive aggressive, and again am really sorry if mine read that way. i did not imply otoy was not in "good luck", it was just a half baked douglas adams reference.
i do hope otoy keeps going strong, contrary to how it may read - i am a fan.

[crackfox]

[quoteJ

Have you tried simple plane (with normals facing camera) in front of camera with Specular material with medium node? Easy and controllable.

[/quote]

hi J.C.

thank you, i have seen this setup but its more of a hack just for certain cases. in my scenarios, more often than not there is light in the background that interacts with the fog and produces interesting volumetric results.
dont think this use case works for that.

this video from lino is probably the best tutorial for blender, but i just couldnt make it work and i feel stupid for not managing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e1IN2VI7cY

also entering the fog would brake any setup i had, since the box acted as a volume only when outside. thickening the fog would always darkens it and finding a sweetspot is a nightmare.
switched to cycles and had it done quite easily. i dont mean to sound like a zealot, i get that blender uses can be very defensive of the software.
bit cultish in that regard.

[linograndiotoy]

hi lino,

i realize my post was prehaps somewhat unfair and subjective, i did not mean to offend anyone and apologies if i did.
fwiw i always look into the latest build.

Hi!
I didn't register your post as offensive. In general I love critics, as I love discussing about what gets criticized. So no need for any apology at all! And I apologize if my answers sounded "a tiny bit passive aggressive", it was not my intention! Sorry about that.

i wont go point by point but the "waiting" thing was in reference to the whole of the last two years and for the fact that the next much needed thing, in this case brigade, always seem some way off.
why even bring brigade into discussion if there isnt even an ETA, i dont get it.
infact why even announce brigade, what 4-5 years ago as tech? i just looked it up - its 6 years ago.
for many months now i have been happily working with cycles so i am definitely out of touch regarding the latest developments or the forum communication. i did not realize the permanent license is an option, might look into that actually but sure as hell dont plan to frequent facebook, also known as the spawn of satan, the unholy one and the end of humanity:)

Some of the Brigade features have been implemented in Octane 4 about 2 years ago already. Those made Octane more interactive and responsive. Jules video is pretty clear about Brigade, especially the fact that the RTX technology is making it possible to finally get 60 fps real time path tracing on a single card. It will be an alternative Octane Kernel, just like Eevee is for Cycles.
Facebook, if used "professionally", represents an amazing resource. Octane Facebook groups (both the Octane and Octane for Blender one) have never been so alive and dense of news, questions, requests and stunning digital art.
Who's not "connected" to it is somehow losing some important opportunity to interact and be constantly informed and updated.

regarding rotation, i really have tried bunch of things but did not actually put in spherical projection into projection node. i honestly find it surprising that the environment cannot be rotated out of the box, but needs to be researched on forum- that is kind of my point here. more confusingly, one axis, the Z one i suppose, can be rotated so it makes one think it has to be a bug or user error right? then i spend hours fiddling and googling while its such a minor thing. but i guess my mistake.

You can just attach a Transform node to the Image Transform input and use X and Y translation to rotate the HDRI. The other method is something I've been personally found and the one I advise users to use.
The beauty of Facebook groups is you can really post a question and receive an answer almost instantly. I'm also doing my best to keep this place alive, answering question, bug reports and feature request on a daily basis.

you state that in your book octane is more responsive and interactive and it is more agile on my end too, especially the wind-up. however as soon as the scenes grow in complexity this is no longer the case and look development, especially with volumes in place becomes a huge pain. this is compounded by the fact that sometimes out the blue, some scenes simply quit rendering, yet were fine minutes before. i never get that with cycles (there are some cuda issues with e-cycles tbh)

Especially with 2020 RC4, stability has been greatly improved. We've fixed a lot of issue already, and we're really close to a production ready release. And thanks to the latest NVIDIA drivers, RTX is now very stable.

how i use cycles is i do shaders in eevee, compose the frame, light it. and then its off to the cycles. all the time i get to be inspired by the way the scene is growing and it pushes me to do more.
in octane i have to deal with the solid plain shaders in viewport and do everything while live viewing, which in more complex scene becomes very slow so my productivity tapers off as projects grow.

I agree, plain shaders can be a problem. My feeling is we could find a way to get UV projection images in OpenGL, starting from the Albedo and possibly expanding that to other channels.

also, maybe my bad - but for example again volumes - when i have a box encompassing a scene, ofcourse it obscures all of the objects in it. there is no way i have found to hide the box in the actual viewport so i can see and move objects because if i hide the box in the viewport, its gone from the live viewer too.

This can be solved setting the Display As option to Bounds:

there is honestly a lot of stuff like that and sure every engine has its idiosyncrasies, but it adds up to a whole user experience.
its not about running a benchmark and simply going by the numbers is what i am saying - its the whole experience. aesthetically, truly octane is in its own league, no doubt about it.
its kind of like hasselblad vs a 5d canon tbh.

That's exactly what we're here to solve, idiosyncrasies. Also, thanks to Landon Dou the user experience has been improved (and still is, this guy is a machine) a lot.
Not only he wrote an Octane dedicated Megascans bridge, he's also constantly developing Octane Helper, a menu dedicated to Octane features that speeds up a lot working with Octane in Blender:
https://github.com/Yichen-Dou/OC-Blende ... /README.md

There's a dedicated thread about it anyone can contribute to.

also i get that a native renderer is going to have a smoother or a more seamless integration than a plugin, still it is what it is.

That's natural, of course, and true for all external renders.

however now that i know there is a permanent license, i will see if i can jump on that.
my issue was primarily justifying the ongoing renting, and i simply cant.

I totally get it.

with apologies, some of your retorts come off as a tiny bit passive aggressive, and again am really sorry if mine read that way. i did not imply otoy was not in "good luck", it was just a half baked douglas adams reference.
i do hope otoy keeps going strong, contrary to how it may read - i am a fan.

Again, no apology needed, and sorry if I sounded a little harsh, was not my intention!
We really hope to have you back with us as soon as possible.

[acoval]

Lino Hi

I might have missed your reply on Facebook but do you guys plan to have a material browser for Octane in Blender , something similar to the one in Cinema 4d?

And i definetly feel that the biggest missing feature right now is to see your materials in real time in the viewport , waiting for the noisey to dissapear before you see
the shift in the texture is taking to long to make it a fast process.

Brigade will be awesome , unlike Lavina it won' t be in a separate program.

[linograndiotoy]

Lino Hi

I might have missed your reply on Facebook but do you guys plan to have a material browser for Octane in Blender , something similar to the one in Cinema 4d?

And i definetly feel that the biggest missing feature right now is to see your materials in real time in the viewport , waiting for the noisey to dissapear before you see
the shift in the texture is taking to long to make it a fast process.

Brigade will be awesome , unlike Lavina it won' t be in a separate program.

About materials, Octane Local and LiveDB are fully supported in Octane for Blender.
UV texture support is something I'd like to introduce as soon as possible.
And yes, can't wait for Brigade to be available!

[acc24ex]

yes, great https://github.com/Yichen-Dou/OC-Blender-Helper-Addon/blob/master/README.md is what I was looking for - and where's the dedicated thread, I have suggestions/would like to do something with the gui, the renderable on/off should be easily accessible and stuff like that - I did a similar script thing for 3dsmax, easy basic set up stuff..
.. comparing now to luxrender and cycles, octane is much faster, it's snappier than all of those still ..

BTW for asset management best tool I found was https://blendermarket.com/products/asset-management it works with octane (except world/hdri setup), saves objects, materials, and whatever you render out can be saved as a thumbnail - really great tool

..pls post more locations with octane resources/addons groups if you can, this is first stuff I've seen here