OctaneRender™ 2.2 for LightWave™ BETA 1

[juanjgon]

This is the first beta build of the OctaneRender™ 2.2 for LightWave™ plugin. This 2.20.1 release is available for Lightwave 10.1, 11.6 and 2015.1 Windows x32/x64 and OSX x64

This is a beta release, so please consider this more a test or development release which may not be stable enough for a production environment.


Beta release 2.20.1
http://render.otoy.com/customerdownload ... indows.zip
http://render.otoy.com/customerdownload ... .1_OSX.zip

Standalone version for the network rendering nodes 2.20
http://render.otoy.com/rcdownloads/Octa ... _win64.exe
http://render.otoy.com/rcdownloads/Octa ... _macos.dmg

Documentation
http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Lightwave3D/
http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Lightwave3D/?page_id=717


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RELEASE 2.20.1
=============================================

* NEW FEATURES:
- Optimizations in the mesh builder to make it faster and save GPU memory. This version saves up to 60 Mb of GPU RAM per million of triangles.
- New mesh functions to support multiple UV maps. Currently Octane has been enabled to support up to 3 UV maps in each object.
- New option "UV Set" in the Texture Image node to select the UV map that will be used by this texture. Currently the LightWave UV map names are not available for this node, so you only can see 1, 2 or 3 as map names.
- New option "UV Set" in the Infochannel Kernel to select the UV map rendered in the UV channel output.
- New option "UV Set" in the Render Passes node to select the UV map rendered in the UV channel output.
- New "Affect Alpha" feature in the Specular material node. This feature makes specular materials transparent in the alpha channel.
- The option "keep environment" got removed from the render kernel nodes. This option never really made sense, since blurry effects like DOF don't work with it. With the modified environment render pass you can now compose something between the environment and the scene.
- The environment render pass is now an info pass and will contain the environment over the whole image.
- New "Environment Max Samples" option in the info pass node
- Support of the LightWave 2015 overscan feature.

- Support of the Octane Render Layers. New core code to manage the render layers at objects level in the scene, store the layers setup in the scene file and so on.
- New "Render Layers" command to open the render layers configuration panel. This command has been added to the main Octane menu branch.
- New feature in the IPR window to set the current render layer. Minor changes in the IPR buttons layout to add the new render layers menu.
- New "Layers" options tab in the render target root node panel with the layers rendering options for the F9/F10 rendering.
- Added the render layers code to the main core rendering loop. The layers are rendered for each frame without reload or update the scene to be as fast as possible.
- Added the layers rendering status to the rendering preview window.
- Support of rendering layers file name postfix while rendering sequences using the LightWave native save file functions.
- Support of rendering layers file name postfix while rendering using the Octane passes node.
- Added five new render passes to work with the render layers: Layers black shadows, layers colored shadows, layers reflections, layers ID and layers mask.


* BUGS FIXED:
- The UVMAP node can crash the Layout if used in objects with more than one UV map. Fixed.
- The Octane CUDA error messages are now available in the LWSN console window.
- The "Scale" parameter in the medium nodes is not a distance parameter, it is a multiplier parameter. Now it is a standard floating point parameter.
- Polygon artifacts in the spline hair guides obejects. Fixed, now the plugin filters the spline polygons to don't render them.
- Crash in a polygonal hair scene. Fixed.




-Juanjo

[gordonrobb]

Thanks for the update.

Quick question about the 3 UVs. I'm certain I've had objects loaded and work that have multiple UVs. Is it that the same polys/vertices can be part of up to 3 UVs now?

[vipvip]

Nice to see it released ! thanks !

[juanjgon]

Thanks for the update.

Quick question about the 3 UVs. I'm certain I've had objects loaded and work that have multiple UVs. Is it that the same polys/vertices can be part of up to 3 UVs now?

Now your objects can have up to 3 UV maps and you can select which one do you want to use to apply your texture in the texture image node.

-Juanjo

[gordonrobb]

Still not clear. I have objects with multiple UVs (but it's the surface which defines which is used) and each vertices can only be in one UV. So it must be polys/surfaces can have up to 3 UVs selectable.

[juanjgon]

Before the 2.2 version Octane only had support for 1 UV map and the plugin was using the first UV coord available in each vertex. Now each object can have up to 3 UV maps in the same vertex, and you can select what UV map are you using for each texture map. It is near the same workflow that working with the native LW renderer, but limited to only 3 UV maps in each object.

-Juanjo

[gordonrobb]

I think I get it. However, the bit that I'm not getting through is that before this version you could have as many UVs as you wanted in an object, they just weren't selectable, and could not have any points on more than one UV. I for example have a space ship object, that has around 20 UVs and it works fine.

[juanjgon]

I think I get it. However, the bit that I'm not getting through is that before this version you could have as many UVs as you wanted in an object, they just weren't selectable, and could not have any points on more than one UV. I for example have a space ship object, that has around 20 UVs and it works fine.

Yes, true ... now you can only have 3 UV maps in each object layer, and you need to select the one to be used in the texture nodes. The problem is that I don't know how to have the two behaviors (the old workflow with only one UV map in each vertex, and the new one with multiple UV maps) at the same time, and I think that support multiple UV maps is an important feature for the future.

Anyway I will think about it.

-Juanjo

[Rob49152]

Yes, true ... now you can only have 3 UV maps in each object layer, and you need to select the one to be used in the texture nodes. The problem is that I don't know how to have the two behaviors (the old workflow with only one UV map in each vertex, and the new one with multiple UV maps) at the same time, and I think that support multiple UV maps is an important feature for the future.

Still not clear to me. So if I have a 1 layer model of a standard 6 sided cube (as opposed to the non-standard 8 sided cube ) and each side has a separate texture name and UV map I can only have 3 UV maps? not the 6 needed?

if that is the case then I am staying with the current version because I have one model with 40 UV maps and 70 textures all on one layer.

[juanjgon]

Still not clear to me. So if I have a 1 layer model of a standard 6 sided cube (as opposed to the non-standard 8 sided cube ) and each side has a separate texture name and UV map I can only have 3 UV maps? not the 6 needed?

if that is the case then I am staying with the current version because I have one model with 40 UV maps and 70 textures all on one layer.

Yes, this model is not compatible with the new multiple UV map behavior, but I am going to think about how to support both UV models in the next release, if possible.

-Juanjo