OctaneRender™ Standalone 1.15

[abstrax]

Improved bump/normal mapping for diffuse and glossy materials

Hem, what did you guys improved exactly? The normal maps are still broken!

The diffuse material bump was broken in the normal and in the transmissive case (see screenshot on page 1 of this thread). The Diffuse and specular channels of the glossy material were causing black spots near the rim if you use a very strong bump / normal map. There are still issues at glancing viewing angles if the specular channel has very very low roughness and the bump is very strong. I hope I have a solution to this problem, but it requires some more work and I'm not 100% sure if it will work.

The problems with normal/bump mapping seem trivial but they are not, because a bump/normal map "fakes" a surface that doesn't exist which creates a whole bunch of issues and unwanted side-effects.

[abstrax]

Hi, thanks for the new RC but..

I cant deactivate and activate a GPU in Preferences without stuck with the performance of one card.
For example:
Deactivate GTX 550Ti for faster viewport, render only on GTX 560Ti.
Reactivate the GTX 550Ti but get only the performance from the GTX 560Ti.
I have to reload the scene to get the performance of the two cards back.
Is this regular or is it a bug?
It would be nice if somebody from Otoy team can answer this question.

Cheers, mib.
EDIT: This work with 1.11

Hmm, it sounds like a bug, but I couldn't reproduce this issue. What exactly are you doing? Does one of the GPUs fail?

[juanjgon]

Hi, thanks for the new RC but..

I cant deactivate and activate a GPU in Preferences without stuck with the performance of one card.
For example:
Deactivate GTX 550Ti for faster viewport, render only on GTX 560Ti.
Reactivate the GTX 550Ti but get only the performance from the GTX 560Ti.
I have to reload the scene to get the performance of the two cards back.
Is this regular or is it a bug?
It would be nice if somebody from Otoy team can answer this question.

Cheers, mib.
EDIT: This work with 1.11

Hmm, it sounds like a bug, but I couldn't reproduce this issue. What exactly are you doing? Does one of the GPUs fail?

Today I just see this problem inside the Lightwave plugin. If I disable a GPU at render time, it can't be enabled again without reload scene.

-Juanjo

[mib2berlin]

Yes, both GPU are showing in the render window but only one is working if you enable it again.
No error messages.
Maybe it is linux related?

Cheers, mib.

[abstrax]

Yes, both GPU are showing in the render window but only one is working if you enable it again.
No error messages.
Maybe it is linux related?

Cheers, mib.

We tried it on Linux, but there we couldn't reproduce it there either. Does it always happen or only sometimes? Do you've got a GPU meter to check how much the GPU is used? Maybe the performance stats are just incorrect, but the GPU is actually working?

[mib2berlin]

Hi, thanks for testing.
It always happen on every scene.
I don´t have a GPU meter but if I loot to the themperatures only one card ascends, second reactivated card stand still on 65 C°.

Cheers, mib.
EDIT: It only happen if i pause render before switch second card on or off.
If I switch during rendering it works.
But was different in 1.11.

[Rikk The Gaijin]

The diffuse material bump was broken in the normal and in the transmissive case (see screenshot on page 1 of this thread). The Diffuse and specular channels of the glossy material were causing black spots near the rim if you use a very strong bump / normal map. There are still issues at glancing viewing angles if the specular channel has very very low roughness and the bump is very strong. I hope I have a solution to this problem, but it requires some more work and I'm not 100% sure if it will work.

The problems with normal/bump mapping seem trivial but they are not, because a bump/normal map "fakes" a surface that doesn't exist which creates a whole bunch of issues and unwanted side-effects.

Alright got it.
I realized if my comment sounded a bit annoying, I'm sorry to stress you guys on this, but in my work I have to deal with low-poly assets with normal maps, and after every render I need to spend time in Photoshop retouching away the black artifact, it's not too bad if I have just few objects in the scene, but sometime I have to render large scenes, and it takes me a lot of time to clean the image because if this issue. Please, please abstrax, try your idea as soon as possible, I really don't want to go back using Vray because of this problem!

[abstrax]

Hi, thanks for testing.
It always happen on every scene.
I don´t have a GPU meter but if I loot to the themperatures only one card ascends, second reactivated card stand still on 65 C°.

Cheers, mib.
EDIT: It only happen if i pause render before switch second card on or off.
If I switch during rendering it works.
But was different in 1.11.

Cool thanks, pausing was the key. I can reproduce it here and try to fix it. Thanks.