Considering to buy plugin and have a few questions

[asennov]

Hello, all

As DAZ Studio plugin development seems to be in infinite stall I'm considering to render some scenes in Carrara using Octane for Carrara (another option would be to roll out my own Alembic exporter for DAZ Studio). But before I buy another one Octane plugin I have some questions:

1. Do object motion blur work ? And with mesh-particles too ?
2. Do animated (video) textures work ? Are there any restrictions on codec (RAW frames is most important for me )
3. Is there a way to import material from Standalone .osc (or other format) into Carrara's Octane plugin (this one is not a big one, most of my materials could be unrolled into tree-like form preferred by Carrara but it would be better to have them in single format)
4. As far as I've understood reading the forum there is a way to combine Octane-rendered scene with natively rendered Carrara background right in the Carrara ? Am I correct ? (not a big one too, but maybe it will save a bit of time iterating on environment)

Thanks in advance.

[Sighman]

Hello, all

As DAZ Studio plugin development seems to be in infinite stall I'm considering to render some scenes in Carrara using Octane for Carrara (another option would be to roll out my own Alembic exporter for DAZ Studio). But before I buy another one Octane plugin I have some questions:

Welcome! I will try and answer your questions.

1. Do object motion blur work ? And with mesh-particles too ?

Yes and yes. Object Blur is done by converting the scene to an Alembic. Note that mesh particles is the only particle type that works. Meta-ball and the others are not supported.

2. Do animated (video) textures work ? Are there any restrictions on codec (RAW frames is most important for me )

Yes and no. If Carrara can play the video then so can the plugin. I read the buffered frames right out of Carrara so I don't actually deal with Codecs directly.

3. Is there a way to import material from Standalone .osc (or other format) into Carrara's Octane plugin (this one is not a big one, most of my materials could be unrolled into tree-like form preferred by Carrara but it would be better to have them in single format)

Not yet (early next year I hope). I plan on supporting the LocalDB feature of the standalone and you will be able to import standalone materials that way. LiveDB is already supported and materials are automatically unrolled to load into Carrara.

4. As far as I've understood reading the forum there is a way to combine Octane-rendered scene with natively rendered Carrara background right in the Carrara ? Am I correct ? (not a big one too, but maybe it will save a bit of time iterating on environment)

Not sure what you mean. If you mean combining a Carrara render with an Octane render within a single session then no, although that does sound like a neat idea. If you mean does the plugin recognize Carrara Background/Backdrop settings (HDRI, Texture Map, color) then yes.
You can render a Carrara background to a file and then load the file back into Carrara as a background or backdrop.

[asennov]

Thanks for the answers, Sighman.

But answers usually lead to more questions

Yes and yes. Object Blur is done by converting the scene to an Alembic.

So plugin may also work as Alembic exporter ? (maybe not all features, but at least geometric deformations and animation)

If Carrara can play the video then so can the plugin. I read the buffered frames right out of Carrara so I don't actually deal with Codecs directly.

Good! Asked because DS plugin has it's own loader for textures independent of the Studio (so basically textures are loaded twice, or three times when 3delight is used too )

I plan on supporting the LocalDB feature of the standalone and you will be able to import standalone materials that way.

Good too.

If you mean combining a Carrara render with an Octane render within a single session then no, although that does sound like a neat idea. If you mean does the plugin recognize Carrara Background/Backdrop settings (HDRI, Texture Map, color) then yes.

I mostly mean the Carrara's procedural backdrops like 'Realistic sky'. Backgrop itself may be animated as well as scene so it would be convenient to have it combined with the Octane render (for preview, as final renders will be mostly in layers anyway). But as I said as long as we can do it in postprocess it's not a big thing.

Combining native with Octane would be also great for the same purpose. I'm not very familiar with Carrara SDK but in DS there is a way to give each node additional plugin-specific properties so one could distinguish between Octane-rendered and 3Delight rendered objects (or scene "layers" in general). I did so (for 3Delight thou) to make my version of layering in DS.

[Sighman]

So plugin may also work as Alembic exporter ? (maybe not all features, but at least geometric deformations and animation)

The Alembic file format does not support materials so that has to be handled separately anyway. The plugin currently generates a single Alembic file for the entire scene. There is currently no separation of animated mesh verses non-animated mesh. The long term plan is to allow the generation of an Alembic file for any mesh in a scene. This would be much more useful as an Alembic Exporter for Carrara. You can also export the current scene as an .orbx file that can be loaded into the standalone.

Combining native with Octane would be also great for the same purpose. I'm not very familiar with Carrara SDK but in DS there is a way to give each node additional plugin-specific properties so one could distinguish between Octane-rendered and 3Delight rendered objects (or scene "layers" in general). I did so (for 3Delight thou) to make my version of layering in DS.

Layering support for Octane will be coming in version 2.2. I will be supporting that in the plugin. Adding layering support into Carrara is not so easy due to lighting, shadows, reflections, etc. A background layer is doable but adding foreground objects rendered by Carrara would not look 'integrated' into the scene.

[asennov]

OK, so I've bought the plugin and now can whine as rightful user

Stable build has crashed 2 times for me: the first when I hit 'Activate' and the second when I hit 'Download new' in 'LiveDB' tab. Then I've switched to build 0058 and as it doesn't have 'Download' buttons at all it didn't crash yet

So I continued playing and managed to render motion-blurred animation from first attempt. I did 2 versions: with camera MB and object MB. Camera MB seems to be correct. Also checked the generated Alembic file - seems it has all what I need currently. That was good part

What's not so good
1. Animation of object visibility doesn't work. I have simple cube object that is invisible in the first frame, then become visible in the seconds, then again disappear in the third. All works OK in Carrara's 3D view but in Octane cube never show (regardless of MB settings).
2. Now to MB, first let's see scene without MB, cube and camera are moving, other objects not.

no_mb_web.jpg (7.74 KiB) Viewed 5559 times

.

Now we switch both object and camera MB on:

mb_web.jpg (6.26 KiB) Viewed 5559 times

See how the edge of plane is drawn behind the cube - it's too sharp and has discontinuity. Will see how this will affect 'real' animations when port them to Carrara from DS.

Minor issues:
1. When user clicks 'Generate animation' progress bar starts to move but never stops so user do not know if generation ended.
2. 'Render animation' doesn't affect progress bar but it would be logical to move it too
3. Motion blur checkboxes do not trigger rebuilding of scene. User must either click 'rebuild' (not always help) in Octane window or click 'Generate animation' (always help) to see preview matching current setting of MB.

[Sighman]

OK, so I've bought the plugin and now can whine as rightful user

Stable build has crashed 2 times for me: the first when I hit 'Activate' and the second when I hit 'Download new' in 'LiveDB' tab. Then I've switched to build 0058 and as it doesn't have 'Download' buttons at all it didn't crash yet

So I continued playing and managed to render motion-blurred animation from first attempt. I did 2 versions: with camera MB and object MB. Camera MB seems to be correct. Also checked the generated Alembic file - seems it has all what I need currently. That was good part

What's not so good
1. Animation of object visibility doesn't work. I have simple cube object that is invisible in the first frame, then become visible in the seconds, then again disappear in the third. All works OK in Carrara's 3D view but in Octane cube never show (regardless of MB settings).
2. Now to MB, first let's see scene without MB, cube and camera are moving, other objects not.

no_mb_web.jpg

.
Now we switch both object and camera MB on:

mb_web.jpg

See how the edge of plane is drawn behind the cube - it's too sharp and has discontinuity. Will see how this will affect 'real' animations when port them to Carrara from DS.

This looks like a problem with octane and not the plugin. Can you send me a copy of your test project and I'll forward the problem on to the Octane Team.

Minor issues:
1. When user clicks 'Generate animation' progress bar starts to move but never stops so user do not know if generation ended.
2. 'Render animation' doesn't affect progress bar but it would be logical to move it too
3. Motion blur checkboxes do not trigger rebuilding of scene. User must either click 'rebuild' (not always help) in Octane window or click 'Generate animation' (always help) to see preview matching current setting of MB.

Generate Animation is used to 'compile' the animation and generate the alembic file. This step cannot be interrupted. It is over when the progress bar is filled and the animation has been compiled and is ready for viewing or rendering. Once you have generated the animation you are in 'Animation Mode'. While in animation mode you can scrub the timeline to see motion blur. Also, while you are in 'Animation Mode' any changes you make in Carrara are ignored until you exit animation mode. There is an exit button that gets displayed on the viewport in the top right corner. To see motion blur again you need to press Generate Animation again. The green progress bar is only used to show the progress of the Generate Animation phase. The timeline is used to show the progress of the animation rendering. Clicking the motion blur buttons does not trigger an update. Generate Animation does that.

[asennov]

The project file is in the attachment. I've altered it a bit so effect is more visible now:

mb_2_web.jpg (4.77 KiB) Viewed 5545 times

Understood about 'animation mode'. Are there plans to integrate with batch rendering already available in Carrara ?

[Sighman]

Are there plans to integrate with batch rendering already available in Carrara ?

Sorry, no. Carrara's batch rendering is tied to Carrara's render room and is not accessible via the API. The Octane plugin operates completely independently of the Render Room. I would need to implement my own batch rendering system or create a native renderer.

[asennov]

I think that native renderer is a way to go.

Looked into rendering part of C8 SDK and found that higher-level API of final renderer is rather simple, basically you have to implement I3DExFinalRenderer2
which returns custom I3DExTileRenderer with support of (most) Carrara layers (GBuffers) and that will plug into existing render manager. (well, didn't see a tiled render in Octane yet but you can have single tile that covers the whole frame )

What is confusing is the existance of CreateRaytracer method that must return quite low-level object that does actual raytracing. This doesn't fit into GPU raytracing model. But seeing the NPR and preview renderers give us hope that this object is optional.

So far I like Carrara's renderer API more than DAZ Studio - there you have to basically implement the Renderman-compliant renderer or at least compatibility layer.

Hmm, maybe it worth to make Cycles plugin, as a competition What scares thou is need to convert Carrara shaders to SVM if I want a GPU-accelerated rendering. Kidding, but if to be serious I have to think about plugging the Appleseed as it has the best deformation MB implementation (within my budget). Currently I'm going to use Alembic to import scene into Appleseed but maybe more integrated way will be better.

[abstrax]

The project file is in the attachment. I've altered it a bit so effect is more visible now:

The attachment mb_2_web.jpg is no longer available

Understood about 'animation mode'. Are there plans to integrate with batch rendering already available in Carrara ?

The motion blur behaviour is correct. As a test, I rendered 1 frame using non-blurred sub-frames and then blended them together:

As you can see, the discontinuity is a consequence of when the table is visible behind the cube.

Cheers,
Marcus