OcDS 1.5 news & others

[t_3]

OcDS 1.5
since the availability of 1.5 got apparent a while back (and the sdk is now available), i locked myself in for the last 2 weeks, to close the gap between the current 1.2 version and the new 1.5 stable version; means i had to catch up with the rewritten node system in octane and plenty other changes that octane had seen since last november

most things are already working, so a first 1.5 release candidate should be available soon; currently in the works is to synchronize the daz and octane timeline for the camera (to provide camera motion blur), and some changes to the transformation nodes (which now also provide different texture mapping types as well as tiling).

btw, when the 1.5 final gets out, hopefully within a few weeks time span, this will also mark the end of the beta state of the ds plugin.

past OcDS 1.5 outlook
apart from some very cool things that will happen with octane 2.0 (and are yet to be announced by otoy), the ds plugin will get one addition from my side, to extend the workflow with 3rd-party/non-daz content, namely geometry proxies. this means that it will be possible to add and esp. on-demand refresh externally saved objects, without the need to reload a scene.

something completely different
my efforts to connect photoshop and ocds did also see some notable progress in the last weeks, so if you have a wacom laying around somewhere and almost forgotten where (like me), it might be worth to try and find it...

[t_3]

2 bits about photoshop integration:

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/89520368[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/89521507[/vimeo]

[Tugpsx]

Awesome job. Thanks for heads up.

[bluerocket]

That's cool T_3

Thanks and regards

[linvanchene]

edited and removed by user

[t_3]

Otoy released a preview about some new Octane 2.0 features during the Nvidia GPU Technology Conference:

OTOY previews OctaneRender™ version 2.0

hehe apparently my lock-in did cut the newswire also. so, the particular thing i was referring to is of course LAMH - using the new hair & fur instead using geometry imports will of course give a significant boost to its use together with octane.

This is just insane! Would not have thought that something like this would be possible!

it indeed needed a lot fiddling with what photoshop gives, as plugins there are by no means meant to access image data during editing. it actually has some limitations, that come just from the nature of the photoshop plugin framework and can't be changed; so it isn't possible to transfer data during single edits; means the bridge can send the updated texture always after i.e a single stroke did end, but not during you are still executing it. since refreshing the render needs a little time anyway, until you get a first clean look, it imo isn't a big thing.

another limitation is that the bridge plugin can only use a single layer of a photoshop document at a time; actually this may even be a plus, as you i.e. can have the uv mapping wireframe in an upper layer, set to multiply, and use it as guide for drawing, while the texture on the rendering still only contains the painted image (just like shown in the video, only probably on lower opacity as 100%).

and one of course needs a powerful machine to make best use of all that. running photoshop plus studio plus octane all together and working in parallel needs a fast gpu and a good amount of system ram (depending on texture sizes), also the bridge needs additional system ram to connect the two; imo without a dedicated display card it might get frustrating at some point. btw, still using the intel hd3000 here for a dual screen setup which works quite nice together with the titans, and made producing the demo videos (including screencap) a breeze.

The wacom is my main tool whenever photoshop is open and this looks like a dream come true!

you then may consider adding a spacepilot too i just got a hint from 3d connexion, how one can tie the spacepilot to a particular app, even if it is not the active window. this means that you can set up a "painting" environment (like i have done for the video) having ds and the ocds viewport in the background, photoshop as active window and both next to each other; then you are able to paint with the right hand (given you are right handed), while being able to navigate the camera around the target object at the same time using the spacepilot - which usually is in your left hand anyway. just tested it out and it is pretty cool

Polypainting and the 3d painting in photoshop were always suffering from the issue that one never knows how exactly the changes will look in the final render.

To be able to paint on the textures in photoshop and viewing the result in the final render engine is just pure genius!!!

even if i'm not into texture painting (10 thumbs when it comes to painting), it felt like a natural thing to partner those two in such a way; and another example where the fast feedback from octane changes the artists workflow to sthg. much more direct, allowing to judge changes while applying them. and when painting a map even in different lighting situations with just a few clicks...

[SciFiFunk]

I'm looking forward to this release.

Could I ask for a tweak please? In animation settings there is a minimum of 15 seconds a frame limit. It would really help if this could be lowered to 1 second.

The reason is for testing animations. Watching in fuzzy vision is fine, I just want a quick animation to see if the objects are moving ok.

If this is in the wrong thread, sorry about that, just move it and I'll post further requests in that thread.

Thanks!

Steve

[t_3]

I'm looking forward to this release.

Could I ask for a tweak please? In animation settings there is a minimum of 15 seconds a frame limit. It would really help if this could be lowered to 1 second.

The reason is for testing animations. Watching in fuzzy vision is fine, I just want a quick animation to see if the objects are moving ok.

If this is in the wrong thread, sorry about that, just move it and I'll post further requests in that thread.

Thanks!
Steve

no prob in posting here (or elsewhere). i'll look what lower limit is possible; 1 second is probably not going to work under certain conditions, as it might even not allow complete scene building - the sec/frame number includes geometry transfer & building, as well as maps loading where needed.

might add an option to set a lower limit to a "hacks" section in the (additional) plaintext config file the next version will also use to allow tweaking some parameters...

[aturbanotoy]

Will 1.5 be including a Paste Without Textures option? Seems like this would be very useful, since many times I'm interested in propagating the shader values, without overwriting the underlying image maps on the destination surface. Thank you for your hard work!

[t_3]

Will 1.5 be including a Paste Without Textures option? Seems like this would be very useful, since many times I'm interested in propagating the shader values, without overwriting the underlying image maps on the destination surface. Thank you for your hard work!

do you use templates? i'm asking because the concept of templates in the plugin isn't literally the same as "paste without maps" but the outcome would be pretty much the same.

1.5 will indeed also allow to paste minus maps, but this is naturally limited to identical mat (or node) setups, where templating already allows to replace an octane material while keeping the maps from the linked daz surface mat regardless how the previous material was made up...