OctaneRender® for ArchiCAD beta - build 1.11c [OBSOLETE] Tweet

[BfPuVAK]

Hi Paul,

I suspect that issue was caused by 1.11c (the version prior to 1.11c2) which have a LiveDB bug which could cause this. For the scene you are having problems with, did you have 1.11c installed at some point and did you possibly use the LiveDB?

Regardless, I would like to see the file you have having problems with pls. You can even delete all the geometry from the scene if you like. If it is < 5 Meg in ZIP format, email to [email protected]. Then I can code the plugin to handle that situation better.

When i was running on 1.11c2 I'm 99,9% sure to have added the 'glass architecture' from LiveDB.
The PLA of this is (even with no geometry) quite big; I'll mail you an download-link.
(The renaming of the too long materialnames is already done here)

The quickest way to manually do this is to copy the "diffuse" texturemap and paste it to the "opacity" pin, and then change the node type from "image" to "alphaimage". I will also see if I can automatically do this for ArchiCAD materials which have the alphachannel effect transparent ticked. I am reluctant to change the screen format at this stage, but will do so if the automatic conversion does not work well enough.

Thanks, copy/paste really acclerates solving that problem
Automation would be better of course no hundrets of materials to go through

By the way: will the limitation "GDL materials of the same name, for different objects, are merged to be one Octane material" be solved in future ?
I'm getting exact this problem now with my vegetation (which I won't miss anymore)...

I just see, you made it with the alphachannel
Of course, add bump mapping and - if without much ado possible - Surface/Ambient/Specular/Diffuse, too.
Preserve of course the possibility for the user to choose another image if needed !

The less changes/optimisations you need to get a similar material look between Archicad & Octane the more attractive the plugin will be for Archicad-users...

Thanks & greetings,
A

[face_off]

By the way: will the limitation "GDL materials of the same name, for different objects, are merged to be one Octane material" be solved in future ?

The problem is that a GDL material called say "Carpet" is named "GDL64_Carpet" inside ArchiCAD when the material conversion happens. Then when you render it, the GDL objects all get renumbered, and that same material is then called "GDL46_Carpet". Then you render again, and that objects material is called "GDL213_Carpet". The numbering seem random, and I cannot work out any way to maintain the integrity of the material linkage other than to ignore the GDL number - and thus all GDL objects with a "Carpet" material use that same carpet material in Octane.

They may be a way around this they I have not discovered yet - so one day this limitation may be lifted.

Of course, add bump mapping and - if without much ado possible - Surface/Ambient/Specular/Diffuse, too.

Specular and Diffuse are easy to implement, but I'm not sure what will happen if you plug an alphaimage into those pins. I will investigate.

Paul

[BfPuVAK]

Hi Paul,

The problem is that a GDL material called say "Carpet" is named "GDL64_Carpet" inside ArchiCAD when the material conversion happens. Then when you render it, the GDL objects all get renumbered, and that same material is then called "GDL46_Carpet". Then you render again, and that objects material is called "GDL213_Carpet". The numbering seem random, and I cannot work out any way to maintain the integrity of the material linkage other than to ignore the GDL number - and thus all GDL objects with a "Carpet" material use that same carpet material in Octane.

I work also withe Maxwell Render, the main principle is quite similar to Octane i would say, but the above-named problem does Maxwell not have.
I did some tests with different trees - which consist always of 3 materials with the same materialname within GDL - and exported it to Maxwell Studio and checked the names.
The right red arrow indicates (probably) the added numbers you mentioned above:


Then I added some further objects (same GDL materials) and exported it again...the nummeration of the GDL material stayed the same, also the object name with the ID (left arrow).
Same behaviour when i multiplicated the existing trees up to 300 objects, restarted Archicad or the computer - he kept the nummeration after export as at the first time.
A change came first up when i had around 500 trees:


By the way: Every tree has always its 3 materials sorted/numbered one after another, example:
- GDLM7_VB_Rinde (Rinde = bark)
- GDLM8_VB_Blatt_Sommer (= Leaf Summer)
- GDLM9_VB_Ast (= branch)

I've searched a bit in the german Archicad-forum and found a suggetion to handle such things with the global internal ID (GLOB_INTGUID or GLOB_INTID[old?]) of Archicad which is unique for
every object used.

I hope you can do somthing with that ideas...

Greetings,
A

[face_off]

Thanks Artur. I will have another look at it. Perhaps I missed something when I originally looked at this.

Paul

[face_off]

I got suddenly the same problem as Ruppet with the missing camera, environment, etc. in the settings; they're missing in only one project
and it happend from one day to another, before - it worked of course. I think I got a simple error massage like "No Texture" or something and
then saved & closed the project and did something different. After opening it again, the problem appeared.

Artur - I've just done some work on this. The material name character limit is 50, so I do not believe it is that issue. The "Texture not found" message is incorrect, and I have reworded it to be "No Octane material matches ArchiCAD material".

I wonder if this issue could be due to a special character in the ArchiCAD material name? That's why renaming it is fixing the problem. I cannot reproduce the issue here. If you have a scene where this occurs, could you send it to me pls? Even without geometry is fine - just let me know the material name which triggers the error.

Paul

[face_off]

I work also withe Maxwell Render, the main principle is quite similar to Octane i would say, but the above-named problem does Maxwell not have.
I did some tests with different trees - which consist always of 3 materials with the same materialname within GDL - and exported it to Maxwell Studio and checked the names.
The right red arrow indicates (probably) the added numbers you mentioned above:

The number after "GDL" represents the material number in the scene. So if when you select a GDL object (say, a vehicle), the materials for that vehicle populate in the Materials tab of the plugin. At this stage the GDL material name for the tire is GDLM19_tire_mat (because it was the 19th material in the list of materials that were searched through). Then when you render the scene, that same material name is GDLM37_tire_mat (because it is the 37th material in the scene).

If your case above, the GDL tree has the 7th, 8th and 9th material in the scene.

Maxwell is getting around this by appending the GUID of the GDL object to the end of the material. This might be an option.

Paul