Couple of issues, DB Live, Adobe Substance, Cycles materials Tweet

[ultraform]

Hello,

Just digging into octane for blender right now but I've encountered a number of problems that would be great if I could get some help on.

1: Loading project with octaneblender, seems if I open an existing project in blender I don't have access to octane, i only have access to octane if i go New > Octane Default Startup > append all assets from other blender file. Is there a way around this?

2: Using Octane DB Live, I'm unable to apply any of the downloaded materials so I can experiment with them. Am i doing something wrong?

3. I use substance designer, I cant seem to import any usable material from that software for use in octane. Is there a workflow for this?

4. Cycles materials, can't seem to use any preexisting cycles materials even when i choose the "convert to octane materials"

Thanks so much in advance for any steps I should take to bring my workflow up to speed!

[grimm]

Hi,

1) Yes, but it's a bit convoluted.
A) Set the render engine to Octane.
B) Either create a new workspace or change one of the existing ones to the Octane Kernel editor type.
C) Select the "Quick-Add NodeTree" button. This creates the kernel nodes so Octane will render (you can change the kernel type in Render Properties panel under the "Octane Kernel" and the "Kernel" dropdown).
D) Change the editor type back to "3D Viewport" or go back to the Layout workspace.

This will set it up so you can start to render. You will still need to create the environment nodes if you need that.

2) Not sure as I don't use DB Live very much. I would have to look into that.
3) There is a Blender plugin for Substance materials, but I'm not sure how well it works with the Octane plugin. Also Substance Painter has an export preset for Octane.
4) For simple textures the converter works well, for more complex Cycles materials it's hit or miss. The converter has improved over time, but I find that I need to mostly hand convert them over.