Blender and instanced object

[steveps3]

Work on my script to export particle geometry to a text file is almost complete. It will take each particle and convert its XYZ / rotation details into a series of matrices that can be pasted into the scatter node. Not very nice but it would appear as if this is the best that we will be able to mange for a while.

I can't believe that there is no way to hack the .OCS to include the correct XML required for the placement / scatter nodes. If this is the case then it would appear as if the alienation of blender users from Octane has begun.

[matej]

I can't believe that there is no way to hack the .OCS to include the correct XML required for the placement / scatter nodes. If this is the case then it would appear as if the alienation of blender users from Octane has begun.

You can hack the .ocs all you want. Just load it with some python XML parser (works inside Blender too) and write data into nodes (Octane dev team discourages this, but who cares). It's just a really messy work.

I think now its the time Otoy starts taking Blender users seriously (second largest Octane usergroup!!!) and gives us an official exporter. Since we most likely wont be seeing an integrated plugin for Blender, this is the least they owe us (morally too, but especially legally, since they advertise Blender as being supported).

btw, there is also a new exchange file format being developed (Roeland said so), that will probably make the instance data transfer to Octane a lot easier.

[pixelrush]

I don't think Otoy are setting out to alienate people its just they haven't really been very adept at any meaningful dialogue so far Granted though it doesn't look like we are going to get much of a conversation out of them.

[steveps3]

I agree that whilst we are quite unlikely to see a fully integrated product it would be good to have an official exporter. Or at least give the likes of Lionel the tools that he needs in order to be able to create an unofficial one

[matej]

hmm, yes, it seem that its really hard (or dangerous ) to produce a concise answer to some questions regarding Blender. It's actually possible to make an integration? It's Otoy willing to make the integration? Will we see official Blender exporter support?

I would go so far to say that Lionel should stop updating his exporter. While the community manages by itself and we are (somewhat) satisfied with our situation, Otoy wont do much. Piles of customer complaints, OTOH, should move things forward and produce some fast solutions, business logic says

I suppose they are brewing something down in the basement (Roeland mentioned a new data exchange format to replace .obj). If they are I hope they are keeping in touch with Lionel, so he wont waste his time on hacks & partial solutions. Lionel showed that he is more than willing to develop the exporter and thus keep Blender users interested in Octane (== moar licenses!!), so they ought to keep at least him informed.

[steveps3]

I may be wrong but I think that Lionel has pushed the exporter pretty much as far as he can at the moment. From the bog standard .obj exporter to what we have at present is a massive leap. I am not sure if I would still be using Octane if all I had was the .obj exporter. Especially with cycles coming on so fast.

We need some official weight behind an exporter / integration.

[thiagobulhoes]

ok, I did not understand how to do this part?

"I export my scene and during the export process the instances matrix coordinates are stored in separate files with the instanciated object as name."

enrico, if you could help me with this part I would appreciate... thanks.

[Daniel]

Save us from Cycles!

[enricocerica]

ok, I did not understand how to do this part?

"I export my scene and during the export process the instances matrix coordinates are stored in separate files with the instanciated object as name."

enrico, if you could help me with this part I would appreciate... thanks.

Unfortunately I can't help you on this, I've modified Lionel script to generate the matrix and to export the instance objects separately, I will see if I could give it here but it is based on a old version (I'm still using blender 2.52), did a quick ugly write and it's still a bit tricky for use it, not sure I'll have time to package it ...

But steveps3 has made something which may help you :
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=22630

[matej]

See here for a working script for instance export