OcDS v1.2 - GENERAL DISCUSSION

[Spectralis]

Advanced features are good and I'm sure t_3 wants to make a great plugin but I'd rather have the basic features fully working upfront and then have advanced features added on at a later date. That seems to be the priority with iRAY which I think is the right strategy. Having said that, iRAY seems pretty advanced for most users who want to render stunning still and animated images.

[linvanchene]

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[Spectralis]

It's very difficult to reply to your questions because I haven't tried the iRAY beta and we don't know yet whether some or all of the basic features that you refer to will be available in both iRAY and OcDS. In theory OcDS will have these features but not until it's released. Knowing the thriving DAZ forums the users there will probably discover workarounds that allow iRAY to work on a similar level to OcDS v2 (when it's released!) if there are any differences.

The advanced features you mention aren't necessary for me atm. I just need an unbiased renderer that can reliably render animation. Cloud rendering sounds great but I doubt I'll ever use it with the upload speeds my ISP provides. Alembic support isn't a necessity as long as I can render using either iRAY or the OcDS plugin. Holographic support and virtual reality are out of my league - I neither have the equipment nor the budget to afford it. And this is actually vapourware until it's released sometime in the future. Even working in 4k is beyond my limits atm because of the huge file sizes and computational power that's needed to work with these files. New codecs are supposed to make this easier but we'll have to wait and see. TBH I don't need such high resolution because I can quite adequately project composites of SD & HD quality film and animation in a gallery and it will look great.

As for possible add-on plugins in OR v3 - that's not even on the horizon yet. And unless it's possible to transfer entire DS scenes correctly to the standalone then this is unlikely to ever benefit us. Now that DS has iRAY I doubt we will see a v3 of the OcDS plugin. Who is going to buy it or bother to upgrade (apart from the few who need advanced features) if iRAY does all the bread and butter stuff?

And this is the crux of the problem - OTOY pitched their unbiased renderer as a cheap option compared to the high-end renderers. But now this is no longer the case, even if they eventually provided all these advanced goodies, who out of their original customer target base is going to buy all these add-ons? If you can afford the high-end stuff then why bother with Octane? There are plenty of costly 3D software/render plugin combinations that offer all that right now. If you're limited to DS then what use is cross platform support and costly fur and hair plugin add-ons when DS/iRAY will probably have these at some stage?

iRAY has completely changed the game for us low-end customers and promises of, as yet unrealised, advanced features seem like more Walter Mitty, pie in the sky stuff when OTOY haven't even got the basic bread and butter features working in DS yet. I've waited so long for a working plugin that all the promises of advanced features in the future seem irrelevant.

[linvanchene]

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[Spectralis]

DS users like myself are mainly interested in using ready made content to create still or animated scenes. DS is incredibly versatile and with a bit of patience offers most of what I need to create animation for my art works. I'm not interested in realism. Creating hyper-real scenes is, imo, like trying to paint the Mona Lisa. It's redundant and old fashioned in the conceptual art establishment in which I work. If I need realism I'll either film it or out source it to an animation company who churn out this kind of stuff for the film/advertising industry.

My interest in OR is mainly fast, good quality renders that would take forever using 3Delight. For me DS is part of a range of software tools I use in my art practice. I have little interest in advanced tools that I'll seldom, if ever, use. I seriously doubt that many DS users will be concerned about the features proposed for OR v3. I own Lightwave but why transfer DS scenes to it when I can create what I need in DS and render them out there? A well established artist I know uses iMovie because it's all he needs to create his video's so it would be pointless transferring them to Premier Pro just for the sake of it. The point I'm trying to make is that creativity is not dependent on advanced features because there are many ways to achieve something and they don't necessarily require cutting edge technology. But if the bread and butter features aren't in place then no amount of creativity will get results.

The reason I don't think there will be a OcDS v3 plugin is because the v2 development has taken so long that I think it's unlikely that it is cost effective to take it any further now that iRAY & Reality offer very similar features. Even if I'm wrong I want a working plugin asap so my concern for advanced features in v2 or v3 is very low. I think many DS users needs are similar to my own, whether they are artists or not, so why would they now invest in OcDS, which has unfortunately become, an expensive rendering option? It doesn't matter what purchasing strategies OTOY develops - if the need isn't there then development will eventually end. I do find it galling though that v3 is announced with such fanfare when we don't yet have a working v2. In light of that anomaly is it likely that many DS users are now going to have enough confidence in OTOY to invest in OcDS in the future? Sadly, I doubt it.

[linvanchene]

edited and removed by user

[Spectralis]

The reason I don't think there will be a OcDS v3 plugin is because the v2 development has taken so long that I think it's unlikely that it is cost effective to take it any further now that iRAY & Reality offer very similar features.

I think it is exactly the other way around.
It would be extremely unreasonable to stop development now after all that time and effort that was invested to get rid of old code.

As far as I understood t_3 the main idea was that after finally all old code is exchanged in the future it will be easier and quicker to provide updates.

It still may take a little bit longer than with other software.
But as soon as there is a working version of the plugin this really does not matter that much anymore because as allready mentioned you can always export to the standalone.

So basically all Otoy needs to do is keep the OcDS plugin alive as an exporter and adding those OR3 features that can be supported with DAZ Studio.

- - -

My impression is that Otoy is looking at the big picture and the long term options.

Hopefully, you're right because if it's possible to export OcDS v2 scenes to the v3 standalone then we won't need to upgrade our plugins but I doubt this will be allowed.

Reading the latest iRAY update, renders can be resumed even if the scene has changed and the advanced tab has a Cloud rendering option. It also renders using CPU & GPU which OcDS does not yet offer so in some ways iRAY is already on a level with or more advanced than the v2 plugin. I'm heavily invested in OTOY but unless they can keep pace with DAZ then imo the future continues to look uncertain for OcDS users.

When the v2 plugin is released and working correctly with the latest features and there is a commitment to develop a v3 version then perhaps I'll feel more optimistic. But until then I don't hold out much hope for future versions.

[rogeraususa]

I'm totally disgusted with the current state of the OcDS plugin. It has such great potential and Octane is still faster than iRay... but as many here have already mentioned - it's broken to the point of uselessness and I spend more time working around the bugs in the plugin than I do anything else.

I know it can be better since I use Octane quite effectively in Lightwave, Carrara and other applications.

The current dev needs to be relieved of duty and a new one appointed or OTOY needs to issue refunds to the purchasers of this defunct piece of software (plugin).

[RafaLL92]

Hello,

So is the updated plugin version with the promised 1.0 scene converter going to be released soon?
Waiting for so long to upgrade to *at least* version 1.2 for something I've paid for almost 2 years ago is not a pleasant experience...
It's hard to believe that there is even a talk about version 2.x at this stage

Thanks,
R

...so is there any news on the 1.0 scene converter?
t_3, is it something that we can expect to eventually see the light of day?
Any information would be very helpful. Thanks!

[face_off]

OctaneRender for DazStudio versions prior to Octane 2 are not longer supported. So I am "unstickying" this thread.

Thanks

Paul