Primary Visibility Control & Textured Lights

[leehenshall]

I've been testing Octane Render via the Maya plugin and I've been impressed with its speed and quality so far.

I'm currently having issues trying to setup an objects/lights primary visibility. I can create an octaneLight node - set the geometry to "Plane" - change the geometry type to "scatter" then uncheck camera visibility. This will allow me to have a light source that emits light, emits a reflection but is not directly seen by the camera. This would be fine but I would also like to apply a texture to my light (procedural ramp setup or hdr texture) The only way I've found this to be possible is to use emissive geometry. This allows me to use a texture to light a scene but it does not allow me to turn camera visibility off.

This is important to me because I do a lot of studio lighting. I normally setup a light cove, bounce lights off the wall and use large softboxes for direct light. For this setup to be possible I ideally need to be able to turn my lighting cove off to primary camera visibility as well as texture my lights somehow and have control over their primary visibility.

If I've missed anything then please correct me.

Cheers

Lee

[leehenshall]

No answers yet? I'm surprised that no one has an answer to this....it seems like a simple request.

If I could find a work around for this I would consider buying octane. At this point in time I'm leaning more towards I Ray for Maya.

[bepeg4d]

Hi Lee,
I guess you are talking about area light. In any emission node (blackbody or texture) you can use a texture or an IES file in the distribution pin in order to altering the form of the light, or in the efficiency/texture pin to changing the colors.
https://docs.otoy.com/#51Mesh%20Emitters
https://docs.otoy.com/#56Octane%20Light
ciao beppe

[leehenshall]

Thankyou for your response.

As I've mentioned the light node seems to work as I would like it too but I cannot find a way to apply a texture to the light. The only work around I have found is to use emissive geometry but then I run into issues making it invisible to primary rays but still visible to reflection rays.

I'm not particularly experienced with octane so I could potentially be missing something.

Any ideas?

Lee

[aoktar]

You should check "Object Layer" node. It gives what you want.

[leehenshall]

Nearly two years on and I've decided to give Octane Standalone another test now that I know HDR Light Studio might be coming to stand alone soon.

I want to use an object layer node to change the primary visibility of a mesh. The only problem is I cannot find anything to plug the Object Layer node into.

I looked at this tutorial:

viewtopic.php?f=51&t=44267

Which shows how the node setup should look:

But when I try and do the same a node plug is missing:

How do I use an object layer node correctly?

The Object Layer map doesn't have any attributes so I'm kind of at a loss as to how I'm supposed to connect the Object Layer node to it like in the tutorial.

[bepeg4d]

Hi leehenshall,
the issue you are having is that the .abc node does not have the Object Layer option active.
As you can see, after connecting the Object Layer map node, no pins are displayed.
Woth an .obj node you would not have this kind of issue, but with .abc, this could happen.
You could try to force the creation of the pins, by changing the setting in the .abc node preferences:

ciao beppe

[leehenshall]

Thanks for the fast response

You are correct. OBJ does work just fine.

I can't seem to get it working with ABC file though. Even after changing the import settings as you have suggested. This could be a problem if I needed to use and Object Layer Map with geometry that is animated.

Are you able to offer any advice on getting ABC files to create pins on Object Layer Maps. Could there be something i need to do when exporting my Animated scene files from my DCC app? I own the Maya and C4D plugins if that helps.

[bepeg4d]

Hi leehenshall,
it surelly depends from the Alembic exporting settings of your host app. But if you ownnthe c4doctane plugin, you can directly export your animated object to Standalone in .abc animated format from Live View, and the Object layer node should be already created.
ciao beppe

[leehenshall]

Ohhhh wait I think I get it now. For Alembics the Object layer map is in the Alembic node and you don't need to use an Object Layer Map.

Using the orbx scene exporter as you say will also provide this plug in the Alembic node. Or if you import a normal Alembic and you select "pin for each object" you will expose the additional Layer Map pin.

Is that correct?