OctaneRender for Modo (Windows) 1.52 [STABLE]

[riggles]

When the render window is paused, making an adjustment to the frame width and height makes the render update and start up again. Should stay paused.

Thomas - I was unable to reproduce this. Could you pls double-check this was happening, and that there was not something else causing the restart?

I notice this when the render has reached the max sample limit, the controls look like it's paused, but when you make a change to a scene, it restarts. Maybe that's what he was referring too?

[lightboy]

Bump maps are still being applied at full strength. I'm just using a image map applied to a UV. The material gets it's bump strength from the bump amplitude on the material Ref tab. Low and High values are 0 and 100 percent on the texture layers tab.

I'm not sure if the Octane bump amount translates to an actual bump amplitude. It roughly looks like a Bump Amplitude in Modo = Octane bump image power of 1. Perhaps you could validate this - and if you used a lower Amplitude for the chair - what Octane bump power did you need to use to get the same result? Once the formula is know - it will be easy to code into the plugin.

The bump amplitude amount I used in modo on the wood texture was 250um which came in on the Octane grey scale image plugged into the bump channel as a power of 1. It does not matter the amount of bump amplitude in Modo as the amount of the conversion to Octane is always the power of 1.
In my case I found that a bump of 250um in Modo is similar to 0.02-0.03 in Power in Octane.

[riggles]

I don't think there are 2 different goals. The goal is to convert whatever we can from modo to octane. The 2 materials systems are quite different so you can't always get a match. The rules can also get really complex once you get into the details, so Paul has to simply say "this is good enough" at some point.

Agreed. I was more commenting on cakeller98's post, and it seemed like he had one goal, to closely match MODOs output as possible because he was setting up full MODO materials first, and someone like me who's goal is to get in the same ballpark but will focus my time on setting up Octane materials. And yes, there obviously needs to be a balance of the two.

Thank you for the other materials notes. Most I knew (like coloring reflection for metals in MODO and setting diffuse to 0) but some I didn't, like MODO and Octane's conversation method being slightly different and Octane needing colored reflections for metal, too.

[cakeller98]

I don't think there are 2 different goals. The goal is to convert whatever we can from modo to octane. The 2 materials systems are quite different so you can't always get a match. The rules can also get really complex once you get into the details, so Paul has to simply say "this is good enough" at some point.

Agreed. I was more commenting on cakeller98's post, and it seemed like he had one goal, to closely match MODOs output as possible because he was setting up full MODO materials first, and someone like me who's goal is to get in the same ballpark but will focus my time on setting up Octane materials. And yes, there obviously needs to be a balance of the two.

Thank you for the other materials notes. Most I knew (like coloring reflection for metals in MODO and setting diffuse to 0) but some I didn't, like MODO and Octane's conversation method being slightly different and Octane needing colored reflections for metal, too.

I am good with balance. I was, all along, trying to explain why I wanted a bit better balance toward matching a specific modo shader feature, that was analogous to one I also use in octane, more closely. I don't expect an exact match as it's not really possible to exactly match. I just don't want to have to reshade stuff that is already shaded ( not by me... like I get it from someone else )

And I think I'm pretty happy... thanks Paul and Funk for adding the RGB Specular color.

And riggles, for what it's worth, when I do my own projects, I barely bother with the modo shaders... But I don't have budget to reshade client files... That time comes out of my pocket. So the less work I have to do the more fun I can have on my own stuff.

[lightboy]

I was playing around with a little cube scene for testing to see how Octane brings in light levels.
The scene has 2 area lights @ 6500k and a cube with a grey scale swatch board in it.
I use a scene like this for testing out materials in modo.
The grey scale swatches have no spec or reflection on them as I want to see a nice flat surface for color balance.
Octane is bringing in the material nicely without an overide.

My question is when I create an override for the area lights they always come in at a power of 1000 no matter the setting in Modo.
To match the grey values from modo I have to make changes to the power settings.
In this scene both my Modo lights are at 13.0 W/srm2 to get the same values from Octane I have a power setting of 635.
I have the camera imager set to linear with a gamma of 2.2.
Would it be possible for the overide to read the w/srm2 settings from the modo lights and convert it to Octane units?
This would help a lot in scenes that are already done saving some work.
Of course if the imager is changed to a film type it will play with the levels and color balance as does the camera exposure setting, but I was thinking if you were to set the imager to linear/gamma 2.2 then that would be a good default for modo as there is no camera or film tone mapper in Modo.
What do you think?
Keith

[face_off]

My question is when I create an override for the area lights they always come in at a power of 1000 no matter the setting in Modo.
To match the grey values from modo I have to make changes to the power settings.
In this scene both my Modo lights are at 13.0 W/srm2 to get the same values from Octane I have a power setting of 635.
I have the camera imager set to linear with a gamma of 2.2.
Would it be possible for the overide to read the w/srm2 settings from the modo lights and convert it to Octane units?
This would help a lot in scenes that are already done saving some work.
Of course if the imager is changed to a film type it will play with the levels and color balance as does the camera exposure setting, but I was thinking if you were to set the imager to linear/gamma 2.2 then that would be a good default for modo as there is no camera or film tone mapper in Modo.
What do you think?

Hi Keith. The amount of light emitted from an Octane emitter depends on a few factors - so there is not an exact way to match them - however, certainly with point lights, it should be possible to get it closers than it is now. I will look at this for the next release.

The bump amplitude amount I used in modo on the wood texture was 250um which came in on the Octane grey scale image plugged into the bump channel as a power of 1. It does not matter the amount of bump amplitude in Modo as the amount of the conversion to Octane is always the power of 1.
In my case I found that a bump of 250um in Modo is similar to 0.02-0.03 in Power in Octane.

Thanks - I will code those values into the next release.

In the standalone, if you have alpha channel enabled, you can also check "keep environment" and it shows your background color/texture. This doesnt seem to work in the plugin

I have escalated this to Otoy to determine if it's a plugin issue or a problem with Octane.

Paul

[funk]

I would like better area light conversion too. I'm doing some quick tests right now to determine better (approximate) values for conversion.

Paul, I have a small request. When you select an area light and press "create octane emitter", the plane octane creates blocks some of the light in modo, so it makes it harder to compare. When point light geometry is created, you are adding an item shader with all the visibility options turned off.

Can you also do this for the Area light emitter geometry? I'm doing this manually now

[funk]

After some quick tests here is my idea for area lights.

When "create octane emitter" is pressed
1. Create the area light emitter geometry and add an item shader to it (same as octane does for point light). This helps us to compare modo to octane better
2. Use an octane texture emission (not a blackbody as it does now) with these settings:
* Octane Power = Modo Area light Radiance
* Octane Efficiency = 0.5 (or better 0.5 * light material color)
3. Octane diffuse opacity = 1 (So we see it in reflections. I tried matching modo visibility options, but the rules get complex and many dont match octane)

The match seems pretty close. What do you guys think?


UPDATE: I think I need to include light color too! I'll edit the above and also include a screenshot (of Efficiency = 0.5 * light material color)
UPDATE 2: I forgot to test if the intensity still matches when the lights are scaled. Glad to report it does.
UPDATE 3: I'm not 100% sure how to handle the light visibility. For now, I set the octane diffuse opacity to 1 so we can see the light in reflections

[lightboy]

When "create octane emitter" is pressed
1. Create the area light emitter geometry and add an item shader to it (same as octane does for point light)
2. Use an octane texture emission (not a blackbody as it does now) with these settings:
* Octane Power = Modo Radiance
* Octane Efficiency = 0.5 (or better 0.5 * light material color)

I like that idea, I have not used any point lights yet so I didn't know the plugin was doing that.
As I said I was having problems with the light balance (power) in the Octane conversion.
Thanks to everyone's ideas and Paul's hard work I feel the plugin has made great progress since I purchased it just 3 weeks ago
I really like the fact that scenes set up in Modo are starting to look really similar, which is a great starting point to take advantage of Octane's power.

[funk]

I often use luminous polygons instead of lights in modo, so I decided to see if we could convert them the same way.

Modo's material luminous intensity matches area light radiance, so we could convert using almost the same rules.

If I have a 1m x 1m plane (matching an area light) with luminous intensity > 0
* Create the same node setup as the area light (octane texture emission plugged into a diffuse material?)
* Octane Power = modo luminous intensity
* Octane Efficiency = 0.5 * modo luminous color
* Octane diffuse opacity = 1 (So we see it in reflections... right now the plugin makes area lights invisible)

It ends up looking very similar to the area light screen shot I posted

This means we should be able to do "on the fly" conversions of luminous materials, without the need for an octane override