OctaneRender® for Poser beta - build 1.02s [OBSOLETE] Tweet

[Ken1171]

I am trying to use a reflection sphere big enough to fit the entire scene inside, so that I can get reflections right in the render. It works fine in MAX and Poser, but it turns the render black in Octane, probably because it's blocking all light from entering the scene. How can I set this up in Octane? I would appreciate any help on this.

There are a few ways to do this. If the sphere is mapped as per an environment map, simply light the scene from the map (ie. use the reflection map from the sphere in the "texture" pin of the "texture environment" on the Settings Tab of the plug (and make the sphere invisible in the Poser scene).

The other way you can do it is to use the sphere as it is, and also plug the spheres reflection map into the opacity (and might have to invert it first, ie. make black = white and white=black - not sure). So where there are bright reflections on the sphere, it will not be transparent, and where there are weak or no reflections, the sphere will be transparent and let the scene lighting in.

Thanks Paul, I will try them up. Another thing I want to do with the sphere is to use it as a backdrop for the scene. Environment lighting images usually get too large in the render to serve the purpose, and I don't know how scale it down and position it where I need it. With the sphere, I could scale it to any size, except that no light can go through it in Octane. If I use the sphere as an emitter, the map will get too bright (probably turn all white), and it won't serve as a backdrop anymore. It would be great if we could exclude the sphere from the lighting, so that I could position/scale it at will without blocking/affecting the actual lighting.

[face_off]

Thanks Paul, I will try them up. Another thing I want to do with the sphere is to use it as a backdrop for the scene. Environment lighting images usually get too large in the render to serve the purpose, and I don't know how scale it down and position it where I need it. With the sphere, I could scale it to any size, except that no light can go through it in Octane.

Ken, if your camera is in the middle of the scene, the size of the sphere will make no difference to the size of the backdrop. The backdrop will look the same size regardless of the sphere size. You can also position the environment texture using the "rotation" pins (they rotate left/right and up/down).

If I use the sphere as an emitter, the map will get too bright (probably turn all white), and it won't serve as a backdrop anymore. It would be great if we could exclude the sphere from the lighting, so that I could position/scale it at will without blocking/affecting the actual lighting.

I don't think that's the case. There have been some good examples of using spheres for lighting and the backdrop. You pin the sphere map to the diffuse and emission and can separately control their intensities. But I go with environment lighting rather than a sphere any day.

Paul

[Ken1171]

Ken, if your camera is in the middle of the scene, the size of the sphere will make no difference to the size of the backdrop. The backdrop will look the same size regardless of the sphere size. You can also position the environment texture using the "rotation" pins (they rotate left/right and up/down).

I have tried this with a number of HDRI images, and I have 3 problems with that:

1. The backdrop image renders too large in comparison to the characters. This probably happens because Poser uses a tiny world scale. I would have to scale the entire scene up, but then lighting may be affected because it [probably] depends on real world scale to work properly?

2. If I rotate the backdrop in Octane, it will also affect the scene lighting, and I wanted to have them both separated - hence the sphere.

3. If I focus the camera on the character, the backdrop will go out of focus, which is only desirable in some cases. This is probably the easiest issue to fix using the camera controls (Poser cameras couldn't do this on their own).

I don't think that's the case. There have been some good examples of using spheres for lighting and the backdrop. You pin the sphere map to the diffuse and emission and can separately control their intensities. But I go with environment lighting rather than a sphere any day.

Hmm, I will have to solve the issues above before I can use environment lighting as a backdrop. In Poser, even IBL have a physical light prop we can manipulate and position inside the scene, but that doesn't seem to be the case in Octane. The reason why that is useful in Poser is because I can place the light inside a sphere and use it as a backdrop without affecting the scene lighting. In Octane, any closed geometry will be dark inside because environment lights cannot be "placed" at a specific location for the purpose of including/excluding objects from its influence.

How can we work that out? Does the sphere become black inside because IBL cannot get inside, or because I have to plug something specific to it's material pins? If light cannot get inside, does that mean that if I want to use backdrop spheres, do I also have to make the them emitters?

[face_off]

1. The backdrop image renders too large in comparison to the characters. This probably happens because Poser uses a tiny world scale. I would have to scale the entire scene up, but then lighting may be affected because it [probably] depends on real world scale to work properly?

The scale of the scene has no effect on the backdrop size. A car in the background is going to render the exact same size regardless of the sphere size it is mapped on.

2. If I rotate the backdrop in Octane, it will also affect the scene lighting, and I wanted to have them both separated - hence the sphere.

The basis of Octane is that the scene lighting DOES match the backdrop. If you want them to not match, render with alpha on, and place the saved rendered image over your background in photoshop (rendertarget->kernel->alphachannel->Enabled).

3. If I focus the camera on the character, the backdrop will go out of focus, which is only desirable in some cases. This is probably the easiest issue to fix using the camera controls (Poser cameras couldn't do this on their own).

If you set the camera->aperture to a very small number, the background will render in focus.

The reason why that is useful in Poser is because I can place the light inside a sphere and use it as a backdrop without affecting the scene lighting. In Octane, any closed geometry will be dark inside because environment lights cannot be "placed" at a specific location for the purpose of including/excluding objects from its influence.

If you run Scripts->OctaneRender for Poser->Create Emitters from Lights, it will create mesh emitters for all the lights in your scene, and these lights will be "inside" the "texture environment" lighting, and also inside your sphere (if you are using one) - so their light will not be blocked.

It sounds like a lot of the problems you are having is because you are trying to use the Poser "fake" realistic lighting tricks - but with Octane you don't need to do that. For outdoor scenes use a high quality HDR map (from http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=301),or daylight lighting, or for indoor scenes use mess emitters (from the Create Emitters from Lights script). If you use a backdrop, the lighting used for the backdrop if not going to match your rendered geometry, so I would think the result will not be that good.

If you post the some samples of the scenes you are working with, it might be easier to see what you are trying to do and provide more constructive advice.

Paul

[face_off]

I have updated the 1.02s installer with the following:

- Changing the "resolution lock" status push button does not result in the render restarting if you change an imager or postproc setting
- Fixed a crash occuring when the scene is being refreshed.

The second issue is a critical one, so pls make sure you download this new version (link as per the first message in this thread).

Paul

[mlru]

A lot of fine, very useful fixes!
Thanks!

[elenacalderas]

Renaming a figure while Octane is active will cause Poser to crash. This happens both when the renderer is active and when just the plugin window is active.

[face_off]

Renaming a figure while Octane is active will cause Poser to crash. This happens both when the renderer is active and when just the plugin window is active.

Hi. I was not able to reproduce this. Does it happen for you with the startup Andy scene?

Paul

[elenacalderas]

I have customized the Poser startup scene, but when I load Andy and do the same with him, it doesn't happen.
It happens when I have a weightmapped David3 in the scene and rename any figure. This is reproducible. Maybe it's an issue with WM David?

[face_off]

Does it happen with any other figures? (I don't have WM David in my library).