OctaneRender™ Standalone 3.00 alpha 6

[abstrax]

Hi all,

This is the 6th alpha release of v3 and fixes a few fairly annoying bugs.

We split the v3 alpha release notes into two posts: This one, which provides the download links and information specific to this particular release and a features post describing and discussing the new features and changes of 3.00. The features post will be continuously updated until we reach the stable version 3.00.


Alpha and beta version disclaimer

In contrast to v2 we want to do the alpha and beta testing publicly, to get more feedback earlier and to have changes tested more thoroughly. The plan is to let all users with a valid v2 license use the v3 alpha and beta versions until we decide that the beta period has ended and we release the first stable v3. After that you will have to upgrade to v3 or will not be able to use any v3 versions (including alpha and beta versions) anymore. We don't know yet, when that will be, but we will give you a warning a few weeks in advance so you can prepare.

Since there is a higher likelihood of severe bugs in alpha and beta versions you shouldn't use them for production work. It would be nice if you could test some production scenes with the alpha and beta versions, but you should definitely not rely on the stability of those versions to finish your projects.

In the Standalone you should be able to load v3 scenes in v2, losing only features provided in v3 and maybe some converted settings (like the new "mid level" in displacement nodes). With the plugins this isn't necessarily the case, which means that you should not create any plugin projects with v3 alpha/beta if you are not 100% sure that you want to upgrade to v3 or that you don't mind losing these projects when the beta period ends.

Offline authentication is disabled in alpha and beta versions.


Manual

We don't have an updated manual for v3 yet. That's partially due to the fact that we are currently overhauling the documentation web site, which needs to be finished until we can publish an updated manual for v3. We will let you know when the v3 manual is available until then, please refer to the v3 new features thread and its discussion.


CUDA requirements

Due to a CUDA compiler bug we had switch to CUDA 7.5, which means on Windows and Linux you may need to update your NVIDIA graphics driver to a current version which supports at least CUDA 7.5. On Mac OSX you may have to update the CUDA driver for Mac to a current version supporting at least CUDA 7.5.


Changes since 3.00 alpha 5

• Fixed crash during startup, if the default project had the resolution lock enabled (see viewtopic.php?p=265883#p265883).
• Fixed the random texture, which got broken in alpha 5.
• Fixed the render viewport lock icon.
• Reverted to the old behaviour of the gradient texture UI, where control points that are not constant colours are rendered transparent.
• Removed the OpenGL viewport, which caused too many issues and doesn't provide any advantage over the software viewport.
• On Windows, the default layout is now stored in %APPDATA%\OctaneRender instead of %APPDATA%\..\Local\OctaneRender.
• Added option labelEnabled to octane.gui.createSettingsComponent to allow using a checkbox instead of a plain label.
• Added octane.scriptgraph._icon to specify the icon image without having to call octane.scriptgraph.setIcon().

Known issues

Region rendering is still broken and we are working to bring it back as soon as possible. Unfortunately it requires a total rewrite due to the film buffer changes.


OctaneRender Standalone downloads

Windows
- 64-bit commercial version (installer)
- 64-bit commercial version (ZIP archive)

Mac OS X
- 64-bit commercial version (DMG image)

Linux
- 64-bit commercial version (ZIP archive)


Photoshop workflow plugin download

You can download and install the updated plugin either via the Adobe Exchange platform (version 1.0.1) or you can download it from the link below and manually install it:

Windows and Mac OS X
- Photoshop extension (ZXP archive)


Happy rendering,
Your OTOY NZ Team

[Rikk The Gaijin]

[smicha]

Thank you.

One small wish - would it be easy to add 'Close all tabs/scenes' and 'Close all tabs but selected' in the nodegraph editor. For 20-50 opened groups (scenes) I must click so many times to close them all...

[glimpse]

Waht's up Rikk? ..too frequent updates?

[heimlich]

Hi,

I am getting a crash with post processing enabled, when using external GPU cards (connected via 1x) - Alpha 6. Everything works fine with post processing disabled.


I have seen this post:

"It's really hard to tell, but my guess it has to do with the way how page-locked memory is handled over these splitters (i.e the memory that resides in system RAM, but is accessed from the GPU via DMA). We will do an alpha 5 release fairly soon, after that I will make a test build with more logging enabled to (hopefully) figure out, which step exactly is causing the problem. Please send me a PM and remind me in case I forget."

I am more than happy to help out with testing/debugging to get this problem solved.

[FrankPooleFloating]

I wonder if it could be possible for team to add [x] Enable PCIE 1x, for the 1x crowd, that would programmatically slow down loading of stuff when enabled, and theoretically keep stuff from timing out etc and crashing... Hmmm.... Just a thot.

[Notiusweb]

I tried new Octane Alpha 6 + new Nvidia 362.00 driver to see if PCIe 1x crashing/freezing would be cured...No good, still crashing/freezing.

BUT, my PC does have a new Spring Fresh effervescence.

[smicha]

I tried new Octane Alpha 6 + new Nvidia 362.00 driver to see if PCIe 1x crashing/freezing would be cured...No good, still crashing/freezing.

BUT, my PC does have a new Spring Fresh effervescence.

I just tested with 362.00 and works fine.

[face_off]

I tried new Octane Alpha 6 + new Nvidia 362.00 driver to see if PCIe 1x crashing/freezing would be cured...No good, still crashing/freezing.

You sure it's not hardware related? Faulty card, insufficient power supply, over-clocked cards, over-heating cards, faulty memory, etc?

[Notiusweb]

I tried new Octane Alpha 6 + new Nvidia 362.00 driver to see if PCIe 1x crashing/freezing would be cured...No good, still crashing/freezing.

You sure it's not hardware related? Faulty card, insufficient power supply, over-clocked cards, over-heating cards, faulty memory, etc?

Thanks Paul. It is most definitely hardware related, but as to what end it can be remedied is the question now. Some devices (splitters/PCIe 1X risers) are provoking a freeze when baking cam, high res, and/or higher complexity scenes are rendered.
Multiple users are reporting, and we all see the same thing, such as no issues at all with version 2 (ruling out faulty cards, ram, overheating, etc) , and no issues when using a PCIe 16x direct to mobo connection (pointing to PCIe 1x issue).
And then at least 3 users have no issues even with PCIe 1x, so it could be specific 1x devices are better, or something else unknown could be tweaked. We haven't come across an identical 1x comparison yet where 1 works and other doesn't.

I have contacted Amfeltec, the maker of my GPU cluster (several users have their splitters). They will soon be testing to see if they can identify anything on their end, I will report. This should help us all out, at minimum give us an idea what performance to expect.
But yeah, I tried with the latest releases and crossed my fingers on my scene that freezes I 'm always hoping there's some Nvidia magic with a new driver