Animating OctaneRender specific values in OcDS

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Animating OctaneRender specific values in OcDS

Postby linvanchene » Sat Feb 20, 2016 1:49 pm

linvanchene Sat Feb 20, 2016 1:49 pm
There currently seems some kind of confusion about what is actually possible when animating in the OcDS plugin.

In short:

OcDS is able to read DAZ Studio values like position etc from the DAZ Studio timeline

OcDS specific values like light strength etc are NOT visible in the DAZ Studio timeline.

- - -

Many users many not even be aware how to actually animate OcDS specific values.

Example: Animate Light emitter power

- Create a simple scene with a light emitter
- In the material settings search for the parameter Power (Watts) and click on the diamond shaped square
- select the option place keyframe

Red keyframe.jpg


Now you can observe two things
+ the diamond shape square is now red
+ the parameter Power Watts has now a red line below


Now you want to place a 2nd keyframe with a different Power setting at 10 frames

- open the DAZ Studio timeline
- move the timeline to 10 frames
- adjust the Power to a lower value like 8.
- In the material settings search for the parameter Power (Watts) and click on the diamond shaped square
- select the option place keyframe

Placing second keyframe at 10 frames.jpg


Now you have created two keyframes and you can move trough the DAZ Studio timeline to observe the effect.

- - -
Nevertheless note that:

+ In the DAZ Studio timeline there is no indication at all that OcDS specific keyframes have been set
+ If you scroll the timeline to 5 frames the only indication that there is a keyframe set at some point in time is the red line below the power parameter.

The Red line below a value indicates an animated parameter.jpg


- - -

You can open a graph editor by clicking on the diamond shaped quare to see more information about the animated OcDS value.

Edit Graph.jpg


That graph can also be used to perform some interactions.
- move existing keyframes
- adjust values of keyframes
- create new keyframes
- delete keyframes

If you are not familiar with the controls of that graph editor you can right click and use the help cursor to display a help menu:

right click to show Standard Actions menu.jpg


Unfortunately it takes a while to get used to the controls and precise interactions with the graph controls do not always seem possible because of the scale of some parameters.
The range may be 0 to 100 but you may need to adjust from 0.01 to 0.05 etc.

Still the graph gives at least some kind of overview which kind of values are placed on a specific parameter.

- - -

What does not seem to exist at all is a way to see an overview of all keyframes placed on any of the OcDS parameters.

If you open old scenes you may not anymore know on which value you placed a keyframe.

It can be very time consuming to open up each material individually to check where red lines are showing up that indicate some animated values.

- - -

So yes currently you can animate OcDS specific parameters.

But all the current limitations do not make this an option that can be considered for a production workflow in which you need to provide results under strict time limitations.

Side Note:

Lately DAZ3D has released a lot of new videos about Animate, Keymate, Graphmate to show how animations can be done with the official DAZ Studio animation plugins.

compare:

https://www.youtube.com/user/WWWDAZ3DCOM/videos

It seems there will not be an update to the DAZ Studio timeline system any time soon.

Nevertheless based on some forum posts it seems that GoFigure is in the process of making some updates for the "official" plugins GoFigure Animate, KeyMate and GraphMate.

From that point of view it is very disappointing that so far no solution has been found to make the OcDS specific animated values show up in the existing DAZ Studio timelines of keymate, graphmate or animate.

My personal hope still is that the OctaneRender standalone team can provide an official timeline solution for OR standalone which then can be adopted for all different plugins
.
Last edited by linvanchene on Sat Feb 20, 2016 6:47 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Animating OctaneRender specific values in OcDS

Postby linvanchene » Sat Feb 20, 2016 2:15 pm

linvanchene Sat Feb 20, 2016 2:15 pm
The exception to the rule:

OctaneRender camera values which are linked to DAZ Studio values CAN be animated in the DAZ Studio timeline.

If you own the keymate plugin you can make those values show up in the keymate timeline by activating

TRSV ( Translate, Rotate, Scale, Values)

DS and OcDS shared animateable values.jpg


- - -
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Re: Animating OctaneRender specific values in OcDS

Postby linvanchene » Sat Feb 20, 2016 5:10 pm

linvanchene Sat Feb 20, 2016 5:10 pm
In order not to just complain about what is not working one example what IS working...


I was able to export that 10 frame light power animation as an .ORBX and open it in OctaneRender standalone.

Make sure that you set the proper FPS (frames per second) value in both OcDS and OR standalone.

Original 10 frame animation at 30 FPS in OcDS:

DS 30 FPS 10 frames long.png


When first importing in OR standalone the settings are by default at 24 FPS and therefore the animation timeline shows only 8 frames:

24 FPS - 8 frames long.png


Updating to 30 FPS in the OR standalone settings shows the same 10 frame animation as in OcDS:

30 FPS 10 frames long.png


- - -

Test scene is attached:
Attachments
Light Power Animation v1002.zip
.zip file with test scene in .duf and .orbx format
(690.75 KiB) Downloaded 339 times
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Re: Animating OctaneRender specific values in OcDS

Postby face_off » Sun Feb 21, 2016 4:38 am

face_off Sun Feb 21, 2016 4:38 am
Thanks for the info. Yes, finding keyframed Octane values will be challenging - however I would have thought doing such a thing would be a rarity. None of the Poser, Rhino, ArchiCAD, Revit, AutoCAD or Inventor plugins allow you to keyframe Octane values - so the DAZStudio plugin is one step ahead of them.

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Re: Animating OctaneRender specific values in OcDS

Postby linvanchene » Sun Feb 21, 2016 1:20 pm

linvanchene Sun Feb 21, 2016 1:20 pm
face_off wrote:Thanks for the info. Yes, finding keyframed Octane values will be challenging - however I would have thought doing such a thing would be a rarity. None of the Poser, Rhino, ArchiCAD, Revit, AutoCAD or Inventor plugins allow you to keyframe Octane values - so the DAZStudio plugin is one step ahead of them.

Paul


I do realize that there is only so much you can do. I do agree that it cannot be expected that plugin developers need to invest unreasonable amounts of time to code workarounds for features that should actually be available in the SDK.

I made a post in the general section of the forum to ask on the state of developing a timeline system for OctaneRender standalone that then can be used by the plugins as well.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=52773&p=265373#p265373

- - -
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Re: Animating OctaneRender specific values in OcDS

Postby Notiusweb » Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:22 pm

Notiusweb Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:22 pm
Linvanchene, loved reading this. I learn so much about Daz & OcDS from you, so thank you!
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Re: Animating OctaneRender specific values in OcDS

Postby face_off » Sun Feb 21, 2016 10:28 pm

face_off Sun Feb 21, 2016 10:28 pm
I do realize that there is only so much you can do. I do agree that it cannot be expected that plugin developers need to invest unreasonable amounts of time to code workarounds for features that should actually be available in the SDK.

I made a post in the general section of the forum to ask on the state of developing a timeline system for OctaneRender standalone that then can be used by the plugins as well.
If you need to animate Octane pin values, use the high-end animation package plugins (Modo, LW, 3dsmax, Maya, C4D).

Paul
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