wishlist for future versions of the Octane plug in Tweet

[wimvdb]

I set up a list of things I would like to see in the plugin. I tend to forget these until I need them again, so I am posting this also as a reminder for myself
Feel free to add or comment

Wish list for octane render plugin

- Copy node and paste to similar nodes in the tree
- Stop/Resume render
- Warning/cancel option if render wants to restart
- Clay rendering (If that is already possible with the plugin, I haven’t found it. Useful for setting up shadowing)
- Disable mouse wheel input when setting focus in view port (if you go back to the plugin window and scroll with it, the focus changes again)
- Conversion of blend nodes to
- Implement poser texture scaling
- Image rotation (xy vs. yx)
- Default scene name for progressive saves
- Keep previous save folder location
- Use “standard” File open dialog for Save location (it includes “recent locations”)
- Script to analyze scene and optionally remove all invisible items form camera viewpoint from octane import
- Area rendering (not sure if octane allows that)
- Compare current/previous render (slider, like in Poser)
- Save Render settings as preset

And of course the already mentioned enhancements
- Resize option for all windows
- Update config file with actual video card limits
- Easier to configure sunlight direction (tie to poser infinite light)

[face_off]

Thanks Wim.....

Wish list for octane render plugin

- Copy node and paste to similar nodes in the tree
Not sure what you mean here. Can you provide more specifics pls?

- Stop/Resume render
I take it you are not referring to the existing pause/continue buttons on the viewport? If not, then you mean existing Poser and having the ability to restart Poser, load the scene and continue the render? If so, then this would be contingent on the Octane engine having a "resume" ability, which it dos not at the moment. It has been requested a few times before, so if this functionality gets added to Octane, it will be added to the Poser plugin.

- Warning/cancel option if render wants to restart
Zay has requested a similar feature, and I think it would be implemented as a "lock settings" toggle button. When it's active, NOTHING will restart the render - not even moving the camera.

- Clay rendering (If that is already possible with the plugin, I haven’t found it. Useful for setting up shadowing)
Clay rendering modes are not currently supported for any Octane plugins (but is supported in Standalone). If this functionality gets exposed to the plugins, it will be added to the Poser plugin.

- Disable mouse wheel input when setting focus in view port (if you go back to the plugin window and scroll with it, the focus changes again)
I will fix this (assuming I can reproduce it).


- Conversion of blend nodes to
This is very tricky to implement, and opens up a lot of potential problems, but I'll add it to the list. Certainly wont make the next release. What happens to blend nodes which have a non-Octane support ode plugged into one of it's inputs?

- Implement poser texture scaling
Will be added at some point. However this raises the issue of image "offset" too - which is not supported by Octane. Offsets need to be done manually in Gimp/Photoshop.

- Image rotation (xy vs. yx)
Pretty sure Octane does not support image rotation (yet), so cannot be implemented at the moment.

- Default scene name for progressive saves
Good idea - however I think it is not possible to get the Poser scene name from python. I'll double-check this though.

- Keep previous save folder location
This should happen at the moment. Maybe you mean something else?

- Use “standard” File open dialog for Save location (it includes “recent locations”)
Poser wx.python does not allow this - unfortunately it only has the "save file" dialog in use by the plugin at the moment.

- Script to analyze scene and optionally remove all invisible items form camera viewpoint from octane import
Great suggestion - very complex to write. Also potentially outside the scope of the plugin (since it could be used by the standard Poser renderer too). Will keep it on the list. Maybe another python guru could do it as a separate script?

- Area rendering (not sure if octane allows that)
Not currently supported by Octane - but if it gets added, the plugin will support this feature too.

- Compare current/previous render (slider, like in Poser)
Tricky to implement. What is the definition of the "previous render"?

- Save Render settings as preset
Do you mean the imager, camera, resolution, kernel? Should be easy to implement.

And of course the already mentioned enhancements
- Resize option for all windows - will be in the next version
- Update config file with actual video card limits - this is a great idea, but how does the user selected/deselecting certain cuda devices (resulting in a change in the text limits) get handled? I may need to pull the defaults from the OctaneDefaults.py file and store them somewhere esle.
- Easier to configure sunlight direction (tie to poser infinite light) - will be in the next version

Paul

[wimvdb]

Copy & Paste similar
What I meant here was to be able to change one node (say "Wall") with the appropriate settings and then be able to apply these settings to all node which are called wall in the different meshes.

Stop/Resume - Yes, I meant continiuing at a later time (in the mean time doing something else in Poser). Let's hope at some point they will implement it in Octane. With renders which take hours this is definitely something you'd want (letting it render during the night)

Warning/lock - Yes, a lock would be nice. I have autorefresh off and still - due to unknown reasons - the render restarts spontaneously (happened 3 times so far)

Disable mouse wheel. This was specifically mentioned by me for the following sequence:
- During render click on viewport to set new focus
--------- Now in the plugin the focal depth of the camera is set to the new value --- and remains focussed
- turn the weel and the value will change and the render will restart

Blender node. I can use the material mix now as a blender node. So if texture 1 is blended with texture 2, it can be driven by the material mix value. It won't be perfect, but at least you have a headstart in making it a valid one

Texture scaling. Most of the occurances here deals with tiling textures. They don't use offsets. So these cases could be covered

Image rotation. True rotation is not directly supported in Poser either. But a 90 degree rotation (exchanging x and y) would cover most occurrances. Easy for me to say, not sure if it can be done in Python

Previous save folder is reset when you start Poser, or not updated when save to a new scene name

Compare with previous render. I meant literally the last one. I guess you have to stop the render before making any changes otherwise the render would already restart. Reason why I would like it is to check subtle difference in materials and lighting

Save render settings: Yes, I meant saving and reloading camera, imager, kernel and maybe resolution


Thanks,
Wim

[Lightray]

I would like to see the implementation of materials transfer that represent exactly what is in the Poser settings. This would solve a great deal of issues I have. For example... When I render figures with textures that are glossy and or reflective Octane does not recognize the way poser has them set up.
Examples: The first creature was rendered in Poser with glossy settings to the textures. The second is the same shot with Octane, set to glossy. However, the images do not have the same specularity even though they are under a similar DAYLIGHT lighting. If the Poser settings would transfer directly to the Octane render settings, then it would be much easier to get the same results. I had to manually load all of the specular and bump maps into Octane, and they then need to be adjusted to get the same glossy look of the Poser original. Not even sure if that will happen... but I suspect it will take some additional tweaking.

[face_off]

I would like to see the implementation of materials transfer that represent exactly what is in the Poser settings. This would solve a great deal of issues I have. For example... When I render figures with textures that are glossy and or reflective Octane does not recognize the way poser has them set up.
Examples: The first creature was rendered in Poser with glossy settings to the textures. The second is the same shot with Octane, set to glossy. However, the images do not have the same specularity even though they are under a similar DAYLIGHT lighting. If the Poser settings would transfer directly to the Octane render settings, then it would be much easier to get the same results. I had to manually load all of the specular and bump maps into Octane, and they then need to be adjusted to get the same glossy look of the Poser original. Not even sure if that will happen... but I suspect it will take some additional tweaking.

The plugin does not try to disect the nodes from the Poser materials. Instead it brings across the diffuse, bump and trans maps, and converts these to Octane diffuse, glossy or specular materials according to a set of rules which are detailed in the plugin manual. You can control the conversion to some extend by tweaking the parameters in the OctaneDefaults.py file. Bump map files are automatically bought across from the Poser material. Specular maps are not. One of the issues with specular maps if that the Poser nodes might invert a specular map (or do some other operation) such that if just the specular map was plugin into the specular Octane pin of a glossy node, it would look terrible. In the long-term, the above system will save you a huge amount of time over a system where you have to fix up conversion issues resulting from bringing across complex Poser node setups.

For the example you provided, tweak the Octane nodes for the figure, and then save the material as a preset for future use. And also save the Octane material back to the Poser material, and when you next load that figure, it will have your tweaked settings.

[face_off]

Image rotation. True rotation is not directly supported in Poser either. But a 90 degree rotation (exchanging x and y) would cover most occurrances. Easy for me to say, not sure if it can be done in Python

I'll add this to the list, but it will mean the plugin flipping the texture and saving it in the temp folder, and using that modified map in the Octane "image" node. Given the relative rarity of rotated images in Poser materials, I would put this as a low priority, so unlikely to make the next release (or two). The easy workaround is to simply manually rotate the map using Photoshop.

Compare with previous render. I meant literally the last one. I guess you have to stop the render before making any changes otherwise the render would already restart. Reason why I would like it is to check subtle difference in materials and lighting

I would also like this feature. In practice, you'll often tweak 2 parameters rather than 1, so you'll loose your original comparison render after the 1'st tweak. I'll add it to the list though.

[foxid]

1.Less noise in interiors.
2. sun separate from sky system and replace sky with backgraound or hdri.

[face_off]

1.Less noise in interiors.

This is a generic requirement of Octane, rather than specific to the plugin, and there are people on this forum far more skilled than I who can provide advice. However, in my experience, the following should eradicate any noise...
1) Set imager->hotpixel_removal to 0 - see the Octane Standalone manual for details
2) Increase kernel->caustic_blur (0.3-1 depending on your lighting) - see the Octane Standalone manual for details
3) If your light is going through a specular material, use the PMC kernel (and you can reduce the kernel->direct_light_importance) - see the Octane Standalone manual for details
4) If you light is going through a doorway/window, use a portal material (tutorial available in the shared resources forum here).
5) If using emitters, use blackbody instead of texture emitters - the Poser plugin uses the latter by default, so manually change to blackbody, or change the default to blackbody in the OctaneDefaults.py file (set USE_TEXTURE_EMISSION_FOR_EMITTERS = 0)
6) Use larger, low poly geometry for emitters rather than small high poly geometry
7) Noise is sometimes actually a glossy material with the bump and specular set too high. If the noise is on a particular material, this may be the case and is easy to fix by reducing the bump or specular.

2. sun separate from sky system and replace sky with backgraound or hdri.

This is again a general Octane requirement rather than specific to the Poser plugin. Michael worked out an innovative way to achieve this using an alphamap on an Envirosphere. I haven't tried it myself, but you can read about it http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=26231&start=10.

Paul

[wimvdb]

Regarding noise in low light conditions.
I have done quite a few experiments with this. If you want to light up an entire room with small light source(s) (like a bulb), it is better to create an additional emitter and make it larger and surround the actual light source. Use an object which has as few polygons as possible (low res ball or single side square). Set the emitters opaque value to 0 and use blackbody. If you want to influence the falloff use IES lights for the distribution.
If needed keep the original lightsource an emitter, but set the power low. The additional emitter will take care of the light.
With the larger emitter, the noise is considerably less. You may still have noise, but you can use Pauls suggestions to reduce those

[Lightray]

What I would like to see is a larger, separate materials window for Octane/poser that would allow for me to drag and drop materials and textures like in the stand alone version. One thing that I don't like is the plug in window is way too small. Unless I have it up on a big screen monitor, it's nearly impossible to see the settings clearly unless I'm right on top of the screen. Make the plug in window adjustable. That would help.

With a materials window, you would be able to drop new materials onto the model and fine tune the look of your work.