OctaneRender™ 3.0 for Houdini™ - test build 3.06.0.4

[mz2]

Oops, I probably didn't leave the example session in a sensible state. I've attached a copy of it in the present copy stamp based state with this reply. Below you'll also find a video link showing what the effect looks like. Basically, there is an animation going on in the scene, and pretty much nothing is visible in the very first frames but then it quickly builds up (POP & DOP net driven animation).

Below you see what the output presently looks like, rendered with OctaneRender, with the output being produced from a copy stamp SOP instancing circles. I was hoping there'd be a faster way still with packed instances via the copy SOP (in the current form where the shapes being rendered are spheres, I am aware I would be able to create this effect with the particles, but I was hoping to go for a more complex being instanced still once I get the basics right):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bbdn78kempr67 ... t.mov?dl=0

This scene actually provides another issue I have meant to ask about: only way I got the animation to update correctly is by doing full scene reloads for each frame, which slows down render times a lot of course. Is the fact that Octane is not updating its representation of the geometry without full scene reloads in this case something you'd treat as a bug, or am I missing something?

A third issue I have hit with these test versions with H16 is that I cannot run local Mantra renders at all – I'm getting this sort of an error every time (even with a simple test scene that involves a single unit sphere and a camera, no Octane related nodes in it – also the same issue does not happen with network based Mantra renders):

Error
Command Exit Code: 3

Houdini DSO error on '/Users/mz2/OctaneRender/Octane_3.06.0.4_Houdini_16.0.504.20_OSX/dso/liboctane.dylib'
Missing version information.

When creating custom operators with the HDK, remember to
#include to define the required version information.
Houdini DSO error on '/Users/mz2/OctaneRender/Octane_3.06.0.4_Houdini_16.0.504.20_OSX/dso/libtbb.dylib'
Missing version information.

When creating custom operators with the HDK, remember to
#include to define the required version information.
No licenses could be found to run this application.
Please check for a valid license server host

[juanjgon]

I'll check the scene later today, but about your other questions:

The rendering in "update scene" mode only works if the scene has always the same number of objects and objects with a constant topology. From the attached video, probably this kind of animations are only possible reloading the scene for each frame to take into account the new objects and its new topology. In this cases, enabling the multi-thread scene loading should improve a lot the extraction time.

About the console errors, this is something known, but it is normal and it doesn't have any impact in Octane. It is only that for simplicity, the Octane libs are stored in the sample place used by the plugin, but of course, Houdini can't load them as plugins, printing this error message. Do you have any problem related to have these errors? It seems that you can't render with Mantra because Houdini exists after show them, or are you using an external render controler?

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[zbynekkrulich]

Hi Juanjo,
thank you very much, it is working great!
16.0.557 + OctaneVR

only one thing I can't do - save render passes when aborting render - or how I am supposed to abort it exactly? Sorry, it is something trivial but I can't figure it out
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oj8a5zkjbukw7 ... hipnc?dl=0

thanks
zbynek

[juanjgon]

You can abort the rendering closing the MPlay window, for example.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[zbynekkrulich]

so it is not working for me then ...

in settings - IPR as MPlay
in ROP
☑ save image files after aborting the rendering
☑ output image files
$HIP/Desktop/test/test_$OCTANE_PASS.png
PNG 8

it should work, am I right?

thanks
zbynek

[juanjgon]

Yes, it should work if you have the folder created, or the option to create the folders enabled. Don't you get any image file if you close the MPlay before finish the rendering? Be aware that you should not use the "_" character before any variable in the file name.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[zbynekkrulich]

Hi Juanjo,
got it! Sorry, I tried to save it from IPR - render to disk option is working like charm
again, thank you for this feature
zbynek

[juanjgon]

Below you see what the output presently looks like, rendered with OctaneRender, with the output being produced from a copy stamp SOP instancing circles. I was hoping there'd be a faster way still with packed instances via the copy SOP (in the current form where the shapes being rendered are spheres, I am aware I would be able to create this effect with the particles, but I was hoping to go for a more complex being instanced still once I get the basics right)

Use the Copy SOP is not a good idea at all for instancing. The Copy SOP is seen from the scene point of view like a node that adds copies of the object, not instances, so the full geometry is expanded at extraction time, without instance the master object.

You can instance packed primitives, but using the standard instancing tools, like the Instance OBJ node, or the "instance" string point attribute pointing to the master object. The Copy SOP is only seen as an instancing tool by Mantra at render time.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[juanjgon]

For example, this is a setup using the "instance" attribute in your scene. You only need to add the attribute pointing to the OBJ node to be instanced. You can instance a packed object if you want, and the extraction time should be fast and memory efficient.

Hope this helps,
-Juanjo

[pasto]

Hello,

There seems to be a bug in Houdini 16.0.557 that prevents us to display correctly long popups menus, it doesn't fit in the right place, the lower choices gets out of the screen and you can't select them. Impossible to change the response option to linear in the imager because the list is too long for example. I tried to add an integer directly in the NT_IMAGER_CAMERA node but it doesn't work.

Any idea ?

Many thanx.

Jérôme