Textures dissappear after upgrade of Octane

[Moonhowl]

Hi,

I've upgraded yesterday from 2.23 to 2.24 and noticed that every single scene I open has textures missings. The materials and everything else is still there, just the textures in the RGB and other octane mapes have been wiped out clean, so I have to go and relink them one by one (it's not a matter of wrong paths to the textures but rather the textures have been wiped out in all materials).

While not a total trainsmash it is still highly inconvenient and time consuming to relink all the textures.

What gives?!

[kcpr-raffaEl]

Well, this is absolutelly normal. All settings are reset - not only textures.

It's because of major engine switch between 2.23 and 2.24.

That's why its stated:

THIS MAJOR VERSION'S SCENE FORMAT IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH PRE-2.0 PLUGIN VERSIONS! DON'T SWITCH THE CURRENT CRITICAL PROJECTS TO THIS AND LATER RELEASES!!!
Read the changelog of this 2.X branch and discussions in previous threads of 2.X versions.
You can use the materials export/import to/from LocalDB to transfer the materials between 1.X branch versions and current versions.

[Moonhowl]

Hi,

the major switch in your quote is referring to the pre 2.0 versions and I was aware of that.

I updated from post 2.0 version to another post 2.0 version.

Either way, resetting all materials every time you need a version update?? Really???

Vray 1.5 to 2.0 was major engine update. 2.0 to 3.0 even more so. Magically, studios around the world did not have to redo all their scenes of their past 10 years every time they made an update. As a matter of fact, I seriously doubt that there is a render engine out there that would do such a thing.

*exasperated*

[Jaybs]

Moonhowl ,

You are absolutely correct on how the version update warning reads, and I completely agree with your sentiments about Octane. This issue really set me back on several projects. Read the warning, figured I was fine since I already have 2.0. Surprised no one else has brought this up until now. When I read these forums everybody brushes off these problems like Octane is still in alpha or something. I don't get it.

[JimStar]

THIS MAJOR VERSION'S SCENE FORMAT IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH PRE-2.0 PLUGIN VERSIONS! ...

Starting from version 2.22.2 - 1.0 the plugin version is nothing common with Octane engine version. Read the full plugin's version number (and plugin's change log having plugin versions numbers) carefully please. The full version number consists of two parts (that was already stated here): <engine version> - <plugin version>. Different plugin versions can have the same engine version integrated. It is enough to mention a plugin version only part when you report a bugs, or mention a full version number, but it is absolutely not enough to mention only engine version part, 'cause many different plugin versions can have the same engine version part.

This plugin is a young software. Early versions of plugin had a design flaw that (among other problems) restricted the future plugin improvements, such as full MaxScript support or plugin-specific node's properties for Octane nodes, etc... It was a tough decision wether to go on with the initial design and without many asked features, or fix this, losing the scenes compatibility (thanks to weak 3ds Max API). There were no way to have both - compatibility and all other things.
So, after discussions here on the forum with users asking for the improvements needed this change as a base, we finally decided to go on with it. Some users ask now for both in a new versions (the compatibility and a new features) - but this can't be considered reasonable 'cause it was explained here from the beginning that keep both is impossible due to restrictions of 3ds Max API.
But the good news is it was a one-time change and nothing similar is needed in the plugin anymore.

You can use a scene converters if you want to open old pre-2.0 scenes in a post-2.0 plugin. Like THIS ONE. You can batch-convert many scenes at once as many other users already did.

Sorry for inconvenience, but this was an important step for this plugin.

[Moonhowl]

Hi Jim,

thanks for the reply and the explanation.

I figured it out by myself a bit later on. Was sure my max plugin is also 2.0+, which in hindsight it was, but apparently the engine was not. Was wondering what those other numbers were for:-)

Like, most of us I don't think read full release notes for every plugin/engine version update. And some of us don't read them at all:-)

I'll try using the converter you suggested and hopefully it will help some way with this.

Thanks