Workflow for compositing?

[itaki]

As far as I can tell there seems to be no way to catch shadows in the C4D plugin which kinda makes it useless for compositing. Has anyone figured out a workaround since you can export animations in Octane Render either?

The best way I've found so far is to just make a floor that's super white and cast shadows on it and run a render pass. Then replace the super white diffuse material with a matte octane material. Then in Nuke, knock out the shadow pass subject using the object buffer. It's by no means perfect as AO creates falloff in other parts of the frame, but with some good masks I can make it look ok.

I've been wondering about running a second pass through the standard renderer that's just a shadow catcher pass, but not sure how to set that up.

Anyone have any better solutions?

[iFloris]

Not a solution, but a me too.
We are also running into problems working around the lack of support for the compositing tag.
As Aoktar has said a few times, the compositing tag is not 'our' tag, but like you we are having difficulties finding workarounds.
In the newest version of the plugin there is basic support for camera mapping, but it requires xpresso.
While the plugin works great and is pretty much praised by all, there certainly remains room for improvement in all kinds of directions. (Sorry Aoktar, work is never over )

[aoktar]

ok,

Also i should say the concept of multipass process. Octane not doing any pass while rendering in DL/PT/PMC kernels. Pluging detects the required pass and change kernel to Info Kernel of Octane Renderer if octane has this pass. And gives the output of Octane Renderer.

If has not support for this kind of pass, so it doesn't change to Octane session and allow to render in standart renderer.
So shadow, reflection, AO, etc.. is not supported in Octane Renderer. It's rendering in SR. But octane materials can't give output for reflect/refract/shadow.

octane materials has not support for shadow generating in standart renderer. Can be added on future. But i think that the best is native support via Octane Render. We should wait until get it. Also Octane has a realistic concept and shadow is not shadow really as in Standart renderer.

For cameramapping, check pls latest samples pack. There is a scene to show how can be done natively by Perspective Projection which is linked to camera.

[iFloris]

octane materials has not support for shadow generating in standart renderer. Can be added on future. But i think that the best is native support via Octane Render. We should wait until get it. Also Octane has a realistic concept and shadow is not shadow really as in Standart renderer.

For cameramapping, check pls latest samples pack. There is a scene to show how can be done natively by Perspective Projection which is linked to camera.

Thanks for responding Aoktar,

We found the latest perspective projection, which is a great addition.
Also watched your tutorial on camera mapping here which was helpful.

So you are proposing that the best way to add shadow catching in terms of compositing is through native support.
That sounds reasonable enough to me, but do you have a guesstimate for when that might be reached?

And if shadow catching natively is still a long way off (which I assume) do you have a suggestion for a workaround?

[itaki]

Thanks for your replies. I'm not sure how camera mapping will help with shadows, but still really would love to figure out a workflow.

I'd be very interested in knowing when and if Octane C4D will have support for shadows. Or, at least have support for the materials to also generate shadows by the SR. This whole shadow capture thing is driving me crazy. If I can't capture shadows, I can't use it for compositing which means I can't use Octane at all. Such a disappointment.

[aoktar]

Thanks for your replies. I'm not sure how camera mapping will help with shadows, but still really would love to figure out a workflow.

I'd be very interested in knowing when and if Octane C4D will have support for shadows. Or, at least have support for the materials to also generate shadows by the SR. This whole shadow capture thing is driving me crazy. If I can't capture shadows, I can't use it for compositing which means I can't use Octane at all. Such a disappointment.

well, i have spend big effort to implement unsupported features. Natively octane has not this passes. If Octane Team they can implement that then will be there.

[itaki]

Oh, believe me, I truly appreciate your work. You have done amazing stuff. It's just the one thing that makes it tough. Perhaps the renderer will support animated sequences soon and all those problems will go away

[aoktar]

Oh, believe me, I truly appreciate your work. You have done amazing stuff. It's just the one thing that makes it tough. Perhaps the renderer will support animated sequences soon and all those problems will go away

there is two option.
One: I have to implement a shader model to get reflection/shadows with cpu on SR.
Two: wait and see which render passes will be there in future.

That's why i said that about my efforts. Because sdk and Octane core is coming better day by day. And if option two will be there, my efforts will gone away. Personally, i prefer two at the moment.

Are you meaning image sequence as texture? If it's yes, this is supporting since many version.

[itaki]

I am curious about the shadow catcher. Is this not something that exists in the Octane core?
http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Standalone/?page_id=454

I don't really understand the ends and outs of the core, but one of the reasons I bought Octane was because I saw this in the manual and thought I would be able to do it in C4D as well. I guess I am wrong.

I understand not wanting to implement a shader model to get reflections and shadows. That sounds like a lot of work. But again, an EXR without at least those passes is hard to composite with.

What I am working on doing is setting up 2 renders. One with Octane for all the beauty passes. And one with SR for all the shadow and reflections, though I think I may be going down a wormhole.

[aoktar]

yes, you can use shadow catcher. Create a diffuse material, select matte option. Enable alpha in kernels. that's it.

I'm saying that the correct way is native support. Because any other way can't give accurate results on reflection/refraction passes.
Btw, why this is so important. Really can't understand, because octane is lighting fast mostly to see accurate results. Render passes is a traditional way to close the lack of slowness's old renderers. I'm really want to know, that's why i'm asking.