Introducing the Octane for DAZ Studio plug-in

[Smaker1]

Hello,

Excuse me if it's already answered:
my main troubles with Octane are textures sizes (1,5 gig) and number of textures (64 for me). The magic answer for both is Texture Atlas in DS4. Does the plugin uses the textures generated by texture atlas?

Also does the plug integrate the LOD on geometries.

Thanks

[t_3]

Hello,
Excuse me if it's already answered:
my main troubles with Octane are textures sizes (1,5 gig) and number of textures (64 for me). The magic answer for both is Texture Atlas in DS4. Does the plugin uses the textures generated by texture atlas?

Also does the plug integrate the LOD on geometries.
Thanks

afaik not yet asked thus not answered, so here we go

the plugin respects uv set changes, thus the use of texture atlases should be no problem. one of our beta testers also reported having successfully used texture atlases, so the answer is: yes.

regarding lod: in theory yes, but there was no time yet to test it. if you like, you can pm me an object with different lod levels and i'm going to test if it works right out of the box...

[t_3]

I have a question regarding UberAreaLights. Currently you cannot export an UberAreaLight properly from DS. When you import it into Octane Standalone there is no 'named' texture for it and it ends up in a default node along with any other 'unnamed' textures. In practice it is quite useless. Will your plugin handle this case? Will it automatically convert an area light (including Uber...) into an emitter? It would be nice to be able to use the InaneGlory's Photo Studio light props with the Octane Plugin...

since the uber light props are plain geometry, you will see them in the material editor, having one entry per light prop/material, so it will be no problem to use them as emitters (and this is true for anything else, that is a geometry object in a scene).

we do not plan to convert standard lights into emitters automaticallly, because this will most probably result in something not good looking. as you are surely aware of, lighting (as well as everything else) needs to be done pretty differently in octane, thus converting 3delight tuned light setups are most likely far off what you'd expect. also you will usually end up using notably less light sources in octane than for 3delight, to create great lighting setups. but we will have something little better anyway, scheduled for one of the first updates after release - which i'd like to show as a preview...

you will be able to insert these props right from the plugin into a scene, and they will be pre-set as emitters also. and set up in a way it makes sense in octane (means power settings, distribution, light temperature, etc.):

[elwisoroarke]

Very impressive! Will the preset light props allow for the application of IES light profiles?

[t_3]

Very impressive! Will the preset light props allow for the application of IES light profiles?

yes - as for every emitter. we'll also have a small browser for the ies profiles that already come with octane (along with the preview images of course)...

[larsmidnatt]

That is awesome news. I think it was asked earlier in the thread if preset lights would be useful and I chimed in that I would use them. Currently I have a few preset mesh light setups that I start a scene with, but it looks like the plugin will eliminate the necessity for that and also make it easier to use a larger selection of lights. Very nice.

[larsmidnatt]

Also I really hope that you will do DS 4.5 instancing support. There are a few plugins that will support it that I want to use, but using them without Octane just won't satisfy. I understand this isn't realistic for release one, but I hope it can come shortly after.

[t_3]

Also I really hope that you will do DS 4.5 instancing support. There are a few plugins that will support it that I want to use, but using them without Octane just won't satisfy. I understand this isn't realistic for release one, but I hope it can come shortly after.

we are working with daz to implement the instancing features of ds4.5, but as you said, this will need some additional time - thus not realistic for 1.0. most work is to be done to include octane instances mat mappings; since daz studio itself doesn't allow individual mats for instances we need to find a way to include this into the plugin mat room without making things all too complicated

[larsmidnatt]

great to know you are working together to find a solution. Thanks for the update!

I think the combination of DS 4.5 and Octane with instancing support will provide some killer results that people would expect came out of a much more expensive solution.

[t_3]

adding some last fancy features...

... new video added on top of the others.