OctaneRender™ for Blender 1.52 - 4.8 beta Win [OBSOLETE]

[kubicki3d]

I just got the most insane problem in the middle of a production... Finally got the latest version to work. I´m unwrapping a plane, adding a texture... And to my big surprize I can see it correctly in material mode, but not in rendered mode!!! I can´t see the texture in view port rendering or final rendering. I thought maybe it had something to do with image format because I had a grass texture that would work as it should, but nothing else did. I tried different texture formats and ratios etc with no success. I then thought maybe it is the blender version, but in cycles it works perfectly. I then reverted to the 2.69 octane render version, and my simple tests in it worked just as it should. I can even (thanks god) open the 2.70 scene i´ve been working on in the 2.69 version and it renders my material setup perfectly. What happened??? Since my material setup works opened up in 2.69 (and also a similar material setup in cycles 2.70) I can only draw the conclusion something really strange is going on here. Any one else experiencing this problem? It´s a show stopper...

I've had a similar problem and found out that the newest version of the plugin (or Blender?) is language - sensitive in a way... Try to avoid any not-english characters in your texture names. Some of my textures had names containing polish characters like "ś", "ż" etc. and they wouldn't render unless I renamed them (changed ś to s, ż to z and so on).

Cheers, Szymon

[MattRM]

Hi,

For uv problems or layering or weird resultof the texture, I done a freeze scale of object and no more problem. I do it also when the bounding box changed.

Matt

[Marten74]

I just got the most insane problem in the middle of a production... Finally got the latest version to work. I´m unwrapping a plane, adding a texture... And to my big surprize I can see it correctly in material mode, but not in rendered mode!!! I can´t see the texture in view port rendering or final rendering. I thought maybe it had something to do with image format because I had a grass texture that would work as it should, but nothing else did. I tried different texture formats and ratios etc with no success. I then thought maybe it is the blender version, but in cycles it works perfectly. I then reverted to the 2.69 octane render version, and my simple tests in it worked just as it should. I can even (thanks god) open the 2.70 scene i´ve been working on in the 2.69 version and it renders my material setup perfectly. What happened??? Since my material setup works opened up in 2.69 (and also a similar material setup in cycles 2.70) I can only draw the conclusion something really strange is going on here. Any one else experiencing this problem? It´s a show stopper...

I've had a similar problem and found out that the newest version of the plugin (or Blender?) is language - sensitive in a way... Try to avoid any not-english characters in your texture names. Some of my textures had names containing polish characters like "ś", "ż" etc. and they wouldn't render unless I renamed them (changed ś to s, ż to z and so on).

Cheers, Szymon

Hello!

I really thought you had the answer there, but when checking the texture names, some of the ones I had a problem with did not contain swedish odd characters. Not the ocane material in it self either. AHA, the project folder contains the "strange" characters! Maybe (probably) it´s the search path that is creating the issue. I can´t test it now, but that would explain the working grass texture that has only english folder names in the search path.

Pleeeeeease Jim, would you be so kind to fix this for the next version =) It has been so lovely being able to work with my own language, and I have gotten used to it by now. Lots of scenes, materials and reusable models that would have to be changed...

[ROUBAL]

@ Jimstar :
One of the main advantages of Octane is that its node system is very efficient and it is fast to create even complex materials.
Starting from an obj export from any application allows fast setup of materials.

I expected a lot from alembic format : Complex object (obj) with materials previously created in Octane
could be easily animated by exporting them again from Blender in alembic format and copying Inside them the nodes already prepared on the static obj version.

But the main drawback of alembic export is that it requires Octane nodes already connected inside Blender.

I have many animated scenes that I would like to render in Octane standalone, but some of them have hundreds of materials.
A simple highly detailed bus or car has from 60 to 200 materials, and I have complete city scenes that I would like to render.

Creating an Octane node for all materials before export is a huge waste of time, and the
recent experience shown that it is easy to forget many objects in a so big project.

As anyway, the materials data are not stored in the alembic node when exporting, I assume that only some basic data are transfered
from the connected octane node to the alembic file.

So, here is my question : Wouldn't it be possible for the plugin to automatically create/link a basic default Diffuse or Glossy node to each pin of the
created alembic file ?

This way, the export process would avoid errors due to forgotten materials, and would be as fast and simple as an obj export. It would be a great improvement in the workflow.

[JimStar]

ROUBAL
Can you give me the scene where you have doubled materials during alembic export?

[ROUBAL]

OK, I have just sent you a simple file specially prepared to show the difference between materials prepared with Octane node, with Cycles nodes and with regular Blender internal materials without nodes.

What about my suggestion ? Is it possible to implement this automatic linking of basic node data to improve the export process and avoid tedious setup when converting a big Blender scene for rendering in standalone ?

[JimStar]

Is it possible to implement this automatic linking of basic node data to improve the export process and avoid tedious setup when converting a big Blender scene for rendering in standalone ?

No, it will not be done "on the fly". This plugin is different from other plugins: this is the complicated TCP client-server system working in "offline" mode, using the principle "shot and forget" (this architecture will open its full potential after the network usage will be allowed for this plugin). In this case the server and client graph database must be strictly in sync. You can not have some object on the server which do not have their counterpart inside Blender, and vice versa. So, you must create any node inside Blender which you want to see synchronized with the server, no matter for image rendering or for any data export.

So, to "avoid tedious setup when converting a big Blender scene" - it is easily achievable on the Blender side, you may use one of Blender's instruments which are supplied by Blender exactly for such a purposes: Python scripting. Using scripting the Blender artist can avoid many "tedious setups", not only this one.
The only thing I can do here - perhaps in later versions (after the plugin will reach stable stage), I may add some internal plugin's "one shot" processing which by pressing some button will set some default diffuse Octane node to all scene objects not having material properly set...

The second thing which Roeland perhaps can do here - make some changes inside core alembic code, to force all non-connected object's material pins to be connected to one default material instead of different materials for each such pin. I asked him about it, and he said he will think about it.

[JimStar]

Pleeeeeease Jim, would you be so kind to fix this for the next version =) It has been so lovely being able to work with my own language, and I have gotten used to it by now. Lots of scenes, materials and reusable models that would have to be changed...

Thanks for report!
I've fixed it, will be OK in next version.

[Marten74]

Pleeeeeease Jim, would you be so kind to fix this for the next version =) It has been so lovely being able to work with my own language, and I have gotten used to it by now. Lots of scenes, materials and reusable models that would have to be changed...

Thanks for report!
I've fixed it, will be OK in next version.

Thanks Jim, great!

[resmas]

Is it possible to implement this automatic linking of basic node data to improve the export process and avoid tedious setup when converting a big Blender scene for rendering in standalone ?

No, it will not be done "on the fly". This plugin is different from other plugins: this is the complicated TCP client-server system working in "offline" mode, using the principle "shot and forget" (this architecture will open its full potential after the network usage will be allowed for this plugin). In this case the server and client graph database must be strictly in sync. You can not have some object on the server which do not have their counterpart inside Blender, and vice versa. So, you must create any node inside Blender which you want to see synchronized with the server, no matter for image rendering or for any data export.

So, to "avoid tedious setup when converting a big Blender scene" - it is easily achievable on the Blender side, you may use one of Blender's instruments which are supplied by Blender exactly for such a purposes: Python scripting. Using scripting the Blender artist can avoid many "tedious setups", not only this one.
The only thing I can do here - perhaps in later versions (after the plugin will reach stable stage), I may add some internal plugin's "one shot" processing which by pressing some button will set some default diffuse Octane node to all scene objects not having material properly set...

The second thing which Roeland perhaps can do here - make some changes inside core alembic code, to force all non-connected object's material pins to be connected to one default material instead of different materials for each such pin. I asked him about it, and he said he will think about it.

Thanks Jimstar, the option to mass convert all blender default materials to octane diffuse material will be as good as displacement .
As i am an architect i know noting about scripting, so for now i will manually convert my materials.
If i try to write some code now... That would be like asking a programer or dev to draw and project of a building....it. Probably crash to the ground. Hehe

Thanks for the hard work.
And thanks Roubal for asking many of my questions. I solved most of my problems by reading your discissions with Jimstar.

Can't wait for 2.0.....


Cheers
Resmas