comparison of plugins

[pfrancke]

I've been using DAZ Studio as a way to put some pieces of a scene together and then export into stand-alone Octane and adding/moving additional objects (very painful process). The number of textures used quickly becomes an issue - but I read that the upcoming Octane plugin for DAZ has/will have built-in optimization and reuse of textures.

But I read that the Poser plugin (beta already available) supports instancing. I am considering purchasing Poser and the Octane plugin for Poser simply to use as an interface to Octane. If anyone has comments, I'd be interested in knowing which version of Poser (from an Octane point of view, why get the more expensive version of Poser?) and I would be interested in knowing if the Poser plugin features include built-in optimization and reuse of textures - which in my mind would be a critical feature.

In short, which workflow and why constrained by the use of fairly inexpensive software - DAZ or Poser - the more "serious" applications are out of wallet reach. Your thoughts are much appreciated.

[face_off]

Hi There

If you are looking at implementing instancing, you need an "instance" generator, which the Poser plugin has (and the instance CSV files can be re-used in any Octane plugin which supports the Octane "scatter" node). See http://vimeo.com/54438243 for details.

The least expensive Poser option (which will run OctaneRender for Poser) is Poser 9 . Expect quite a few differences between D|S and Poser.

No one has yet done a direct comparison between the Poser and the D|S Octane plugins, however they both offer all the features provided by the Octane engine, and will both be a valuable asset to D|S and Poser owners (and given the relatively small incremental cost of purchasing both plugins verses Octane Standalone I imagine a number of users will get both).

I would be interested in knowing if the Poser plugin features include built-in optimization and reuse of textures

Not sure exactly what you mean by "built-in optimization", however the Poser plugin will tell you how much memory and texture slots will be needed (and if you are over limit), and allow you to remove certain texturemaps from all material in the scene (and remove all bump maps for the scene, a figure or a prop). It also contains a texture compression utility which will reduce the size of all or a subset of texturemaps for a given figure or prop.

[pfrancke]

thank you for the reply and the link. About optimization, in the D|S plugin overview I was reading such as:

some numbers about the city ruins images:
204 daz materials,
a total of 148 textures
used 230 times
after conversion & optimization:
the number of textures was reduced to the maximum of 96
and these were used 116 times
within 129 created octane materials
vram usage was a little above 300mb...

The impression I got was that the DAZ plugin recognizes multiple textures and structures them such that a given texture only appears once. (but it may be that Octane itself does some of that kind of stuff)

Your utility routines sound very useful. In my mind, the main weakness that Octane itself presents are the texture map and video memory limitations. So utilities that assist working those issues are key.

You say: "Expect quite a few differences between D|S and Poser." -- I expect you mean that statement as a positive reflection on Poser. <grin> Now I am off to view the link above. Instancing is great - and to decide if and which Poser to buy. And if Poser is bought, one must be insane to not get your Beta plugin!!
Thanks!
Piet

[pfrancke]

FYI for anyone interested. I just bought new Poser 9 physical package for $68.99 (not download version which strangely was priced at $199) at Amazon.com (with free shipping if you are in US). If I did my homework right, later $250 will upgrade me to Poser 2012 Pro. Also I bought the Beta Octane-plugin for 99 Euro which ended up being $134.41 US.

You people can be costly you know!!!

[face_off]

The impression I got was that the DAZ plugin recognizes multiple textures and structures them such that a given texture only appears once. (but it may be that Octane itself does some of that kind of stuff)

You can use texturemaps as bump maps, and as long as the bump map is the same node type the texturemap (ie. "image") it will only take 1 texture slot (for the diffuse and bump instance). If you have the same map as an "image" in the diffuse pin and "floatimage" in the bump pin, it takes 2 slots. That is a function of Octane, but the Poser plugin utilises this feature if you use the texturemap in the bump slot, and I think t_3 has put some very good optimisations in for this on the D|S plugin too.

You say: "Expect quite a few differences between D|S and Poser." -- I expect you mean that statement as a positive reflection on Poser. <grin>

Haha - actually, no! I think they are both great products. And the competition between the 2 is good for us users too.

[pfrancke]

Paul,

Thanks for replies. Now I'm waiting for Poser to show up so that I can use your plugin. In the meantime I've been diligently reading what I could and looking at the videos you have made that describe the features available.

One feature that I have not noticed (but assumed was present) is the ability of the plugin to save the scene in an ocs format. If this is available, then one can always port the data between the plugin and Octane stand-alone. Is there any room for a workflow that includes Octane stand-alone? (I'm just getting a queasy feeling that a commitment to the plugin means leaving stand-alone behind - this puts us at your mercy if you can't keep the plugin features up-to-date).

Thanks,
Piet

[face_off]

Hi Piet

Saving to OCS was a feature of the original beta test version of the plugin, however the OctaneRender API does not wrap the OBJ file up in the saved scene, so when you load the OCS in OctaneStandalone, the materials are not connected to the OBJ, and the materials have changed names in some cases. So for the time being it has been removed, and none of the OctaneRender plugins offer saving to OCS.

I would happily invest the time to find workarounds to the above situation if there was a reason to use Octane Standalone rather than the plugin.

I'm just getting a queasy feeling that a commitment to the plugin means leaving stand-alone behind - this puts us at your mercy if you can't keep the plugin features up-to-date

The plugin has been written such that it automatically includes any new features of OctaneRender - it is simply a matter of re-compiling the plugin against the new version of Octane. So updates for the Poser plugin will be released usually within 24hrs of the updated Octane API being available.

Paul

[pfrancke]

Paul,

That's a reasonable answer to my concerns. Well thought out. The only real impact then is not being able to use the node format and having to learn the the index/directory type structure with some cutting and pasting, so other than interface type changes I should be good, I can still use octane live and load ocm files to access stand-alone created content.

Truly a nice concept the plugin is then. Octane functionality is easily maintained, and root program (Poser in this case) has all the the stuff that Octane shouldn't have to re-invent. You put a smile back on my face.

Piet