Material Conversion identity Tweet

[prehabitat]

Hi, Quick question about the fundamentals:

Is anything relating to the Revit -> octane material conversion stored within the Revit project?

ie. can I set up a file then send to a colleague to render? or is the materials conversion for each project unique to each machine/instillation?

I'm sure if the latter is the case there is a workaround using the sync-ing of programData / materials from one machine to another..??

Thanks!

[face_off]

The Octane materials for the scene are stored in the rvt file - so you can open the rvt on a different workstation and the Octane material will load too (assuming the texturemap files are all located in the same folders on both PC's).

Paul

[thefishnut]

Hi Paul,
To further prehabitats question, does this effect the size of the Revit file dramatically? Will it simple increase the size of the file in relation to the size of the texture files used? Does this also apply to any online DB materials used? I noticed that when online database files are used they are stored in the octane for Revit root folder, are they also stored directly in the revit file for portability?
Many Thanks,
Chris.

[face_off]

To further prehabitats question, does this effect the size of the Revit file dramatically? Will it simple increase the size of the file in relation to the size of the texture files used? Does this also apply to any online DB materials used?

Hi Chris. The Octane data saved to the Revit rvt file is the nodes for each Octane material, and the Octane camera, imager, etc data. The actual texturemaps (and proxy OBJ and scatter CSV files) are NOT saved to the rvt file, so if you open that rvt file on a different PC, those texturemaps, obj and csv files will need to be in the same directory location. So NO, the texturemaps do not increase the rvt file size (but the Octane nodes will increase the size a little). If you open the rvt on another PC an the texturemaps are not found, the plugin will ask to locate them.

I noticed that when online database files are used they are stored in the octane for Revit root folder, are they also stored directly in the revit file for portability?

You can select where the plugin downloads the LiveDb texturemaps to in the plugin preferences.

Paul

[thefishnut]

Hi Paul,
Thanks for the quick reply and clarification. I have one more query and possible future feature request if you think it might be achievable and useful. I find my self at the stage of setting up the default materials of many .obj models, to make the future rendering process more streamlined. But I am wondering if this is wise. As if I decide to organise or move my models or textures at any point I may have to redirect each texture path to the correct location. Which would be a large pain.

Would it be possible to add an option to store a default material .xml in the same location as the .obj file being referenced; and at the same time use a 'relative' folder search option to search for the texture files it is referencing. This way, say for a car model where the textures might be quite unique, the texture files, .obj, and .xml files are all consolidated into one folder location. Making any future changes to the folders location possible, and also making it easily distributable as a ready to go texture model package.

I'm eager to hear you opinion on this, and if it would be achievable. Or even if I am missing something and different solution is already implemented.

Many Thanks,
Chris.

[thefishnut]

Also Paul,
Sorry to hijack this thread prehabitat. I am currently having trouble with using phantom scatter in combination with the revit octane plugin, for geometry proxy instancing. Specificity I am getting the error message:

'Unable to load c:\users\fishy\desktop\full scene rain drop test\geometry\raindrop.csv due to a transform formatting error. Transforms need to be 12 comma separated numbers per line.'

This error normally only occurs when I have a large amount of transform coordinates, over 30,000 for example. I have checked the file and it appears to be formatted correctly, and I have loaded the csv into the standalone, and the file works as expected.

Many Thanks,
Chris.

[face_off]

I have one more query and possible future feature request if you think it might be achievable and useful. I find my self at the stage of setting up the default materials of many .obj models, to make the future rendering process more streamlined. But I am wondering if this is wise. As if I decide to organise or move my models or textures at any point I may have to redirect each texture path to the correct location. Which would be a large pain.

Would it be possible to add an option to store a default material .xml in the same location as the .obj file being referenced; and at the same time use a 'relative' folder search option to search for the texture files it is referencing. This way, say for a car model where the textures might be quite unique, the texture files, .obj, and .xml files are all consolidated into one folder location. Making any future changes to the folders location possible, and also making it easily distributable as a ready to go texture model package.

It would be a simple change to have the plugin load the XML default file from the OBJ folder rather than the Octane Materials default folder - although this would break any existing defaults that people have saved. The ability to have a default material XML file for an OBJ file was only introduced in the last version - so this may not be a big issue. But having "relative paths" in the Default XML file is probably not possible (since the plugin would not know a) if a folder references was relative, and b) what it was relative to). I've seen OBJ files where the jpg texturemaps are in the same folder as the OBJ, and other's where the jpg's are in a sub folder.

Could you simply have a folder that contained all OBJ assets which could be copied between PC's? For example, have "c:\OctaneObjAssets" which contains all the OBJ and associated JPG files, and then you default OBJ Octane materials would reference texturemap files in that folder. Then the entire folder can be copied between PC's.

'Unable to load c:\users\fishy\desktop\full scene rain drop test\geometry\raindrop.csv due to a transform formatting error. Transforms need to be 12 comma separated numbers per line.'

Can you post the generated CSV here pls, and I can take a look.

Paul

[thefishnut]

Hi Paul,

Could you simply have a folder that contained all OBJ assets which could be copied between PC's? For example, have "c:\OctaneObjAssets" which contains all the OBJ and associated JPG files, and then you default OBJ Octane materials would reference texturemap files in that folder. Then the entire folder can be copied between PC's.

Yes is guess this could be a work around, to have a organised layout of all the obj and textures in one location and have this whole file shareable. But this doesn't help when it comes to wanting to store these files on a network drive for example. C drive would be universal, but there arn't many people that will store things directly on the c drive. Most commonly it is portable media or network drive. So having some sort of xml file that could reference paths relatively would be the key here I guess. I don't know enough about code, but my hope was that this could be achievable through windows, rather than the plugin.
Maybe a simpler work around for this could be the ability to select a folder for the plugin search for the missing texture files. This way we wouldn't have to re-link them one at a time. If files were on a removable drive, and the drive letter changed, we could redirect it to the new drive letter and it could find the files and update the paths automatically. I have seen this type of functionality in many programs in the past.

Can you post the generated CSV here pls, and I can take a look.

Many thanks for the help with this scatter problem. Attached are two csv files, both work in the octane standalone, but only one works in the revit plugin. I believe the threshold for the amount of scatter instances is reached at around 10000.

[thefishnut]

Csv file that doesnt work.
Chris.

[face_off]

Many thanks for the help with this scatter problem. Attached are two csv files, both work in the octane standalone, but only one works in the revit plugin. I believe the threshold for the amount of scatter instances is reached at around 10000.

Yes, you are right. I can increase this if needed. However what of geometry are you scattering such that you need more than 10000? If you are scattering grass, have you instead considered using a displacement map?

Yes is guess this could be a work around, to have a organised layout of all the obj and textures in one location and have this whole file shareable. But this doesn't help when it comes to wanting to store these files on a network drive for example. C drive would be universal, but there arn't many people that will store things directly on the c drive. Most commonly it is portable media or network drive. So having some sort of xml file that could reference paths relatively would be the key here I guess. I don't know enough about code, but my hope was that this could be achievable through windows, rather than the plugin.
Maybe a simpler work around for this could be the ability to select a folder for the plugin search for the missing texture files. This way we wouldn't have to re-link them one at a time. If files were on a removable drive, and the drive letter changed, we could redirect it to the new drive letter and it could find the files and update the paths automatically. I have seen this type of functionality in many programs in the past.

I use Junction Links as describe at http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/ for this purpose. It works very well, although might take some PC knowledge to understand fully. Use "Link Shell Extension" - not the DOS commands.

Paul