Trying to like Octane but not succeeding

[lasvideo]

Sorry buddy, in my experience you are dead wrong. Ive had to learn lots of software over the years . Compared to C4D it is extremely obtuse. The managers for material creation are way more convoluted.

Hell, I can get s shadow in 10 seconds with C4D. Still not getting one as documented in the original post using Octane.

As editors and AE users new to C4D look for a faster way to render their projects, they will discover Octane...then run away screaming after blindly trying to get basic things done.

If tutorials arent forthcoming, Octane may find it has a very limited audience with you as a member.

[rappet]

I am surprised to hear you having so much struggle to learn Octane.
There are quit a few tutorials (20+). When I discovered Octane I went for after experimenting a bit and found out it is very intuitive,
and such great stuff possible to render that I just set my mind to learn bit by bit, and still are.
I got problems to learn C4D while I cannot learn it autodidact as I am used to, and also learned Ocate, by just pushing buttons and see what they do and figure out till I know what they do.
In my opinion I will need many many tutorials for C4D... I have to start one day, but I have my hands full on Octane and other stuff.
I made my workflow in Octane more easy then I expected in the beginning... my advice is: really go for it and do not expect to get the hang of it overnight and learn bit by bit and ask the community for help.. it is such a helpfull and friendly community.
Greetz,

[abstrax]

Ok, I turned on my extremely mad C4D skillz and churned out this highly sophisticated scene:

That's the C4D scene file for it:

light.zip

(98.63 KiB) Downloaded 135 times

I was using C4dOctane version 0.69b.

Since I have never used the plugin before I stumbled over three things:
- The light must be an area light. You have to explicitly switch to type "Area" and give it some reasonable size. (Octane doesn't support point lights, because in real life there ain't no such thing like a point light)
- By default, a grey texture environment is used. To turn it off, I had to create a Sky object with an Octane Environment tag and set its power to 0
- By default, the light source emits light but is invisible and needs to be made opaque if you want to see it. You can set its opacity in the Octane LightTag.

But all in all it was working quite well considered that it's current version number is 0.69 and it took me only ~15min.

Cheers,
Marcus

[xxdanbrowne]

Yeah although I can't speak to C4D (and to be fair I struggled a bit with the maya install) I can say that the standalone is so easy to use it's unbelievable. I'm a lighting and rendering noob (though I have a couple years modeling experience in maya and sculpting in zbrush) and I have had some really pretty good results with it.

Anyways, each to their own. I think Octane rocks.

[lasvideo]

Marcus, thanks for taking the time to post that file. I updated the stand alone and the C4D plug in as well.

When I first bumped into the issues, I had generated Octane stuff using the drop down menus on the Viewer. FYI that light was set for area light and shadow.

This time I just created C4D stuff then added the tags. By toggling back and forth between your settings on lights/camera/materials I was able to successfully get things to work. I found your materials seemed to render faster then the Octane materials I generated. Im not sure why.

I think its important for folks here to know that learning by randomly pushing buttons is a great way to learn if you dont have a life, a job and limited time.

rappet, I see no 20 tutorials on using the Octane for C4D GUI, only for the Stand Alone which I dont use and Maya which is quite different. Please point out those tutorials so I can benefit from them.

Again my deepest thank for allowing me to experience some goodness from Octane, Marcus.

[rappet]

I think its important for folks here to know that learning by randomly pushing buttons is a great way to learn if you dont have a life, a job and limited time.

rappet, I see no 20 tutorials on using the Octane for C4D GUI, only for the Stand Alone which I dont use and Maya which is quite different. Please point out those tutorials so I can benefit from them.

Hi lasvideo,
Sorry, Yes, I was talking about the standalone tutorials
I learned Octane standalone first and now my workflow is 95% with the Archicad plugin and that's mayor beyond satisfying
Maybe you can learn the standalone with the tutorials.. This way you will get to know Octane better then learning OR with the C4D plugin. This way you already know OR when working with the C4D plugin and it might be easier.
And yes, I am lucky to have a life, my own job and I got time for the rest of my life to push any buttons I want
Hopefully you are getting the hang of it sooner of later.. It would be regretfull not to go for Octane.
Greetz,

[steveps3]

As a CMX/Avid/FCP/Premiere/After Effects editor for the past 30 years I think tutorials speed up and enhance the learning process for me.

So you are saying that you have been using these programs since before they were written? amazing.

[rappet]

..Ive taken the time the last several months to learn from the best (fxphd/Lynda/Digital Tutors/etc.)...

Side question: have you learned C4D from Digital Tutors
I was thinking of that, but I am not sure yet how to learn C4D best
greetz,

[Elprezzy]

Digital tutors is a great way to learn, pay for a month and get out the popcorn.
I am a noob with c4d and octane and learning curves can be quite steep.
It would be great to see some octane c4d tutorials on the net as a manual is ok but for a lot of people (visual learners) there is nothing to beat a demonstration.

Craig.

[aoktar]

Hi,
i was following this interesting thread for a while. There is some manuals and a few videos to give general idea about workflow of plugin. Also this is not a plugin related thread. If you want help you must write down to related section.
Plugin has not a long history. We are shaping some parts. I'm still busy to finalize stabilitation issues. Please describe what kind of specific tutorials you need. But with a little time you can start to use plugin. Also there is some sample and bonus scenes. I'm not sure about you have checked.