a couple of questions ...

[przemn]

Hello,
Thanks for developing Octane for archicad, I am extremly unexperienced octane user and even though I am able to get some great results rather easy. I found some small bugs working on 1.11b, I also have a couple of questions:

- during instalation octane puts itself in "Add-Ons" folder. In localized Archicad versions this folder is sometimes named differently - in polish version it's "Dodatki", so to install octane you need to manually copy it to "Dodatki/Wizalizacje". Not a big deal, but some people may find it confusing
- after assigning material from live db to Archicad material without textures it is not being shown propertly. I need to add texture in Archicad to this material first, then reload model to octane - is it the right procedure, or am I doing something wrong? How am I able to adjust live db materials ( things like texture rotation, texture start etc )?
- I don't have shadows and light from window shown on the floor in 100% transparent glass material, need to make it less transparent to have it properly shown
- light and shadows were not right ( due to to high rayepsilon - that I've just found here reading forum ). Maybe it could be a good idea to have a small tick with interior/exterior default settings?
- I made few test renderings with heavy polygon interior scene, and although all results are very good, it seems that sometimes shadows on the ceilling doesn't look right with direct lighting ( like some parts are not connected ). Is it due to limitations of direct light kernel?
- Archicad is crashing almost all the time if after a finished visualization I am swithing to different rendering kernel. Of course after crash my material adjustments, camera etc are missing ( it is not being loaded with autosaved archicad file ). Could it be because I have only one graphic card ( gf560ti )?
- Is it possible to add people/trees etc to octane now? It is crucial for me to have this option. I think adding heavy polygon 3d models is not solution - Archicad is just to slow to do it. Could anyone share some tips?
- It would be great to have a possibility to export whole model with materials, camera, light from Archicad to Octane standalone to make some final adjustments - are you planning to add this feature?
- I would also like to have a bigger preview of live db materials. Is it possible to have this window adjustable?

I am just now in process of reading octane standalone manual, so a lot of other things is more clear for me now ...

thanks,
Przem

[face_off]

Hi Przem - my apologies for not seeing your questions sooner.

- during instalation octane puts itself in "Add-Ons" folder. In localized Archicad versions this folder is sometimes named differently - in polish version it's "Dodatki", so to install octane you need to manually copy it to "Dodatki/Wizalizacje". Not a big deal, but some people may find it confusing

Thank you for this report. I may be able to get the localized Add-Ons path from the registry - I will investigate.

- after assigning material from live db to Archicad material without textures it is not being shown propertly. I need to add texture in Archicad to this material first, then reload model to octane

Can you pls provide the LiveDB material name (and category) for a material where this is happening and I will investigate.

- is it the right procedure, or am I doing something wrong? How am I able to adjust live db materials ( things like texture rotation, texture start etc )?

Texturemap rotation and offset are not currently supported by Octane, but on Otoy's list of enhancements, so hopefully they will be available some time soon. When they are supported, the OctaneRender for ArchiCAD plugin will use the texture rotation from the ArchiCAD material.

- I don't have shadows and light from window shown on the floor in 100% transparent glass material, need to make it less transparent to have it properly shown

If the Octane material for the glass "specular"? If not, change it to specular. Enable fake_shadows on the specular material might fix it. Or drop the opacity to 0.1. Once you have the right setting, save the material as Default - so it will be used next time you use that ArchiCAD material. Someone tell me what there preferred solution is and I will code it into the material conversion

- light and shadows were not right ( due to to high rayepsilon - that I've just found here reading forum ). Maybe it could be a good idea to have a small tick with interior/exterior default settings?

I have spent a lot of time on this, and not yet come up with a firm set of rules. Rayepsilon = 0.1 is right for outdoor scenes but too high for interior renders. So set it lower, and then save the rendertarget settings as default and that rayepsilon will be used next time. The next version of the plugin will allow you to export rendertargets, so you can set rayepsilon to 0.1 and export to "Outdoor settings" and then set it to 0.01 (or lower) and export to "Interior Settings".

- I made few test renderings with heavy polygon interior scene, and although all results are very good, it seems that sometimes shadows on the ceilling doesn't look right with direct lighting ( like some parts are not connected ). Is it due to limitations of direct light kernel?

This appears to be the rayepsilon setting OR an AODist. Did you try adjusting these to fill the gaps? You can also scale the whole ArchiCAD scene (in the Configuration). The recommended scale is 1, but slightly smaller settings might help (I have not had time yet to conclusively determine it this is beneficial or not).

- Archicad is crashing almost all the time if after a finished visualization I am swithing to different rendering kernel. Of course after crash my material adjustments, camera etc are missing ( it is not being loaded with autosaved archicad file ). Could it be because I have only one graphic card ( gf560ti )?

Try the version I uploaded 30 mins ago - it fixes an issue where material names > 50 character would cause a crash. If that was not the problem, pls send me the crash report. Do you have an onboard display adapter you can use? Also try turning off OpenGL in the ArchiCAD camera settings. In the next few weeks the Octane engine is being enhanced to cope with a single graphics card much better, so the plugin will utilise that.

- Is it possible to add people/trees etc to octane now? It is crucial for me to have this option. I think adding heavy polygon 3d models is not solution - Archicad is just to slow to do it. Could anyone share some tips?

Jeroen (forum user "rappet") has been adding trees and people to his ArchiCAD scenes and then rendering in the plugin successfully. May I suggest you PM him for his workflow. At some point, there will potentially be the option to import OBJ files into the plugin from outside the scene (geometry proxies), and do instancing (will help with trees) - but that is a couple of months away, since I have other higher priority enhancements to make first.

- It would be great to have a possibility to export whole model with materials, camera, light from Archicad to Octane standalone to make some final adjustments - are you planning to add this feature?

This is buy far the most common feature request for all the plugins, and at the moment unfortunately not possible, but is planned.

- I would also like to have a bigger preview of live db materials. Is it possible to have this window adjustable?

The ArchiCAD API makes it quite difficult to implement resizeable windows like this, but I will add it to the list of enhancements to make.

Paul

[rappet]

As you can see in the image I started a testscene with a standard tree form Archicad.
I will add a new post with some material experiments with this tree.

@face_off,
I am working with two screens and I put the OR Setup Window on my second monitor on the left side; nearby as you can see in the small printscreen below of the image.
For me it is no problem the OR Setup Window is floating as a seperate window form Archicad.
But when I have one screen it would be nice to lock the OR Setup Window like another Archicad Palet,
because when it is floating on the Archicad Window it sometimes is not handy
and I have to move the OR Setup Window around the whole time.
greetings,

[rappet]

...

- Is it possible to add people/trees etc to octane now? It is crucial for me to have this option. I think adding heavy polygon 3d models is not solution - Archicad is just to slow to do it. Could anyone share some tips?

Jeroen (forum user "rappet") has been adding trees and people to his ArchiCAD scenes and then rendering in the plugin successfully. May I suggest you PM him for his workflow. At some point, there will potentially be the option to import OBJ files into the plugin from outside the scene (geometry proxies), and do instancing (will help with trees) - but that is a couple of months away, since I have other higher priority enhancements to make first.
Paul

Hi guys,

Until we can link OBJ trees I just use the standard tree objects from Archicad and tweak them.
You can use just one tree object to make different trees by adding different materials to each tree and tweak the material in the plug-in with you own textures or form DB. The hard thing for the first time is to find the right scale.
Not all trees are optimal for doing this.. some Archicad trees have leaves with more faces in different directions, but I found out the UV mapping is pretty awkward when trying to apply a texture.
I hope the printscreens make sense without further explanation?
ArchicadTree1_12.jpg shows you different trees using just one Archicad tree with different settings.
It is not really good form up close, but in most scenes it works for environment. You have to be careful to use them while in certain viewpoints you can see the repetition. Using the material from DB seems to work better to disguise that.
But hey, in a few months we will be able to link to our own high quality OBJ trees.
But if you don't have such a library you can do it this way.

You can a result (renderings and animation) with trees done like this: http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=31907

Greetings, Jeroen (rappet)

[face_off]

Jeroen - TY for the tree tutorial - great explanation.

I am working with two screens and I put the OR Setup Window on my second monitor on the left side; nearby as you can see in the small printscreen below of the image.
For me it is no problem the OR Setup Window is floating as a seperate window form Archicad.
But when I have one screen it would be nice to lock the OR Setup Window like another Archicad Palet,
because when it is floating on the Archicad Window it sometimes is not handy
and I have to move the OR Setup Window around the whole time.

I do not believe it is possible with the current ArchiCAD API to add a window as an ArchiCAD palette. The actual Octane plugin windows are of type "Palette", but to ArchiCAD this means they are always on top. There is no way to integrate then into the ArchiCAD main window. It would be great if I could add a minimize button to the Setup window - however doing so puts it under all the other windows and you cannot find it again. Maybe a "rollup" button could be possible. - I will add it to the list.

Paul