OcDS 2.1 PRE RELEASE 5th

[sikotik13]

If your only intention is to do all of the primary work in Daz Studio then finalize in standalone, then the export options in version 2 are reported to be good for that purpose. The primary weak point at the moment is mostly related to animation and the basic node structures as pointed out by linvanchene above. If the standalone is addressing these issues, it's a matter of time before t_3 implements them as well, but that only affects you if you animate or need to finalize overly complex scenes in the plugin. For exporting purposes, the plugin works well in that aspect at this point, if you want more features, it'll be a wait until we get something back from t_3.

[hoddie]

As always thanks t_3 - a great achievement, its really stable and looking like a final product

[DrHemulen]

Wait, what?!

[garand3d]

its really stable and looking like a final product

If you're referring to the 2.15, well... "stable" is a relative term. And yeah, I suppose it's "looking like" a final product, just not quite IS yet sadly.

[Liagriest]

As always thanks t_3 - a great achievement, its really stable and looking like a final product

The last "beta" is definitely not stable and it is so so so so not even close to a final product. I hope hoodie you are just joking

[Stevenyang0430]

As always thanks t_3 - a great achievement, its really stable and looking like a final product

Why do I smell the sarcasm XD

[jimgale]

actually, if you see hoodie's over-time responses, they are months apart, but with compliments - so no sarcasm.

AND to add to it... I've been comparing my purchase of Carrara's plugin with Daz3d's plugin and I gotta say there's things in the Daz3d one that I *miss* in the very-simple Carrara one (i.e. forget node editing). Plus lots of crashes (it's still in beta too). So, I actually re-appreciate THIS plugin.

[vortex3d]

actually, if you see hoodie's over-time responses, they are months apart, but with compliments - so no sarcasm.

AND to add to it... I've been comparing my purchase of Carrara's plugin with Daz3d's plugin and I gotta say there's things in the Daz3d one that I *miss* in the very-simple Carrara one (i.e. forget node editing). Plus lots of crashes (it's still in beta too). So, I actually re-appreciate THIS plugin.

Part of the comments are because we appreciate it, but feel left out in the dark.

DEV(s), PICO-PLEASE ADD BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY !!!!!

[dustrider]

actually, if you see hoodie's over-time responses, they are months apart, but with compliments - so no sarcasm.

AND to add to it... I've been comparing my purchase of Carrara's plugin with Daz3d's plugin and I gotta say there's things in the Daz3d one that I *miss* in the very-simple Carrara one (i.e. forget node editing). Plus lots of crashes (it's still in beta too). So, I actually re-appreciate THIS plugin.

Interesting, that's the exact opposite of my experience. I've found the Carrara plugin to be extremely stable, while the DS plugin crashes often and at random. I've actually worked on projects for days with Carrara and the Octane plugin without a crash or restarting Carrara. I use a laptop, and when not working on it, I close the lid and let it go to sleep, then "wake it up" and go back to working without any problems at all. With the DS plugin I'm usually lucky to go an hour without a crash. If your getting a lot of crashes from the Carrara plugin, it would be very helpful to let Sighman know in the Carrara forum (with a detailed post on what caused the crash).

Just one quick note on the Carrara plugin - if you try to consolidate shaders (or run any shader modification scripts) with the OCVP rendering this will often cause Carrara/Octane to hang. Pausing the render before doing any mass shader changes will avoid this problem. You can also create some very complex Octane shaders with the Carrara plugin through the use of the Octane "mix material" - which actually adds new nodes to the Octane shader (exporting your project to .ocs and opening it in the stand alone will give you a very good idea how the shader set up from Carrara is converted to Octane nodes).

Now back to the DS plugin. The interface and feature set is quite impressive and polished. My biggest problem with the DS plugin is the random and constant crashing, though the latest version seems much more stable for me. (Note: I'm still using 1.x - haven't upgraded to 2.x yet as I will have to pay for the upgrade, and I'm just having problems justifying paying 2 when 1.5 isn't finished yet, but I'm sure I will get the upgrade to 2.x.) Some of the crashing is probably just DS too, as I can have it open and doing noting and it will just crash .

As others have noted, the lack of communication from t_3 between releases combined with the long time between releases, is probably one of the biggest factors for the "unrest" here. However, it is a pattern that has been repeated so many times that this is what I expect to happen. My greatest concern at this point is that t_3 may be putting too many great features into the plugin that require too much work for a single (part time?) developer to maintain, especially at the rate Otoy is adding features to Octane. When you consider that we still don't have a "final" version of 1.5 (and 2 has been out for what, almost a year?), I would guess that he is trying to complete 1.5, while working on getting a feature complete version of 2.x out. Otoy adding features to Octane 2.x at a faster rate than we are getting beta updates to test, and the indication from linvanchene in an earlier post that t_3 may be working on another major re-write to make the code easier to maintain (at least it sounded that way to me), it seems to me that t_3 is definitely fighting an uphill battle. Hopefully he has been able to make good progress by putting all his efforts into development and coding and we will see something new to test in the near future.

[jimgale]

sounds all good - and I agree getting to a final/stable then venturing further would be better - as well as more communication.

I'm glad to hear that you find the Carrara one stable. That would mean that my configuration may be to blame - and that's something I have control over.

On the ability to mix/play with shaders and materials - do you have a link handy to explain how that's done (or where that's found). I searched both in the plugin, docs and web and couldn't find it. (thanks).

Thanks for the thoughts,