Feature Request: Rounded Edges

[FrankPooleFloating]

(Not sure how Modo or other renderers have gotten away with it)

maybe licensing?.. patent holders very often license their IP...

[natalievfx]

+1 Please Please Please! I use a lot of low-poly unity assets for creating vast complex environments. the only problem is the edges are so sharp. It would be amazing to use low poly assets since we are trying to stay optimized for the GPU anyway.

[Chris]

Master Zap owns a patent on this technology. (Not sure how Modo or other renderers have gotten away with it)
Vlado from VRay has stated that this is the reason for it not being implemented into Vray.

http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/8049753.html

Vray has its own way of doing it.

[Seekerfinder]

Keyshot has it... http://www.keyshot.com/whats-new/

Please Otoy!

Seeker

[mikelmnj]

Hello!

Went back to MODO for the last several months and thought I'd check back. Octane has made some very nice improvements since I've been gone. The 1.5 features have allowed me to consider the software at work, however -- we still cannot completely do this until the rounded edges are in, but we are very ready to bring this into the pipeline. Hopefully something happens with this soon.

The OpenCL barrier is also a bit of an issue at the moment. But that can be remedied with an external GPU enclosure. Right now, the biggest feature we are waiting for is the rounded edges.

Mikel

[Seekerfinder]

The OpenCL barrier is also a bit of an issue at the moment. But that can be remedied with an external GPU enclosure.

Hi Mikel,
What does Open CL have to do with Octane and how you plan remedy it with an external enclosure?
Cheers,
Seeker

[mikelmnj]

The OpenCL barrier is also a bit of an issue at the moment. But that can be remedied with an external GPU enclosure.

Hi Mikel,
What does Open CL have to do with Octane and how you plan remedy it with an external enclosure?
Cheers,
Seeker

Hi Seekerfinder,

OpenCL is an open standard programming model supported by both AMD and Nvidia. OctaneRender currently does not have an OpenCL version of OctaneRender, only CUDA -- a proprietary programming model by Nvidia -- this means OctaneRender will not work on AMD video cards. It is my understanding that CUDA is much more mature than OpenCL at this point in time and development is only focused on Nvidia cards.

If your machine uses AMD cards and you wish to use Octane, you should be able to connect an external PCI-e box over Thunderbolt 2, and place an Nvidia card in it to be able to use OctaneRender. The problem with this theory, is it's expensive, bandwidth will be limited as Thunderbolt 2 does not have the same bandwidth as a native PCIe 2 or 3 bus. Also, the third barrier with this workaround is whether AMD and Nvidia drivers can peacefully co-exist with one another.

Mikel

[Seekerfinder]

Thanks for explaining Mikel, however you could obviously just add an Nvidia card(s) in your system instead of reverting to an external box?

Perhaps you are using OpenCL for other apps and possibly don't have additional slots on your mb?

I didn't know Nvidia can handle OpenCL and thought it was an ATI/AMD standard.

Which applications out there are currently optimised for OpenCL? Does it scale linearly the way Cuda does when you add more cards?

Tnx,
Seeker

[mikelmnj]

Thanks for explaining Mikel, however you could obviously just add an Nvidia card(s) in your system instead of reverting to an external box?

Perhaps you are using OpenCL for other apps and possibly don't have additional slots on your mb?

I didn't know Nvidia can handle OpenCL and thought it was an ATI/AMD standard.

Which applications out there are currently optimised for OpenCL? Does it scale linearly the way Cuda does when you add more cards?

Tnx,
Seeker

No problem. As far as adding an Nvidia card in the system -- that is assuming the system can take another card (as you've mentioned), or that it is a desktop and not a Notebook being docked, or that it is not an all in one such as the iMac or Inspiron -- where you don't want to use the main GPU to compute), or possibly even the new Mac Pro -- it is a legit example, emotions removed. As you can see, there can be a few circumstances why an Nvidia card is not an internal drop-in option. Which is why the following products now exist:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpressiii.html
http://www.magma.com/expressbox-3t
http://www.cubixgpu.com/

Yes, both Nvidia and AMD support OpenCL. " ... It has been adopted by Apple, Intel, Qualcomm, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Nvidia, Altera, Samsung, Vivante and ARM Holdings.":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL
http://www.khronos.org/opencl/


Certain Adobe CC offerings are now optimised for both OpenCL and CUDA. Photoshop, After Effects, Speed Grade, Premiere Pro etc. Apple's Final Cut Pro X as well. NUKE has recently adopted OpenCL and MARI has also just gained certification for AMD FirePro cards -- it is assumed that it too will be making use of OpenCL as a result: (http://www.techpowerup.com/187634/amd-p ... -2013.html)

I'm not sure about the linear scaling, not qualified to go in depth on these API's. Support is slowly coming as OpenCL beings to mature though. Hopefully when the OctaneRender team feels like the CUDA version is at a good point, they will consider starting an OpenCL version.

Edit: But for now, I'll settle for those rounded edges ;P

Mikel

[Seekerfinder]

Mikel,
Good overview - thanks.

I agree about the rounded edges thing!
And I would hope that HDRI + sun and real displacement be on the list as well before OpenCL!

But I've learned to appreciate Octane as it is since Apple, erm I mean Otoy, seems to have their own feature priority list and there seems to be little point posting feature requests. Who knows what the wizards at Apple (damn!), Otoy headquarters will impliment next (not referring to the recent leak re 1.5 features of course!)

Seeker(sometimes)Finder