Render Layer / Object Buffers Issues

[jsuarez388]

Hey everyone,

I want to start by saying YES, I have seen the tutorial videos and have done some research in the forum, but the tutorial videos are for previous versions of Octane and we are already in V3.05.3 and many things have changed in the settings of Octane. And sorry for the long post, but I think this should be addressed.

That being said, I am working on this scene:

1.- I need an Object Buffer for the buildings and enviroment outisde the window so I can edit/composite in After Effects. I've selected both objects > assigned Octane Object Tags > Assigned same ID number. Problem is I am only getting the buildings and no environment, is this an Octane limitation?
Also, for the buildings buffer to be visible I had to disable the Window(glass) object from rendering, otherwise Octane won't detect/show me the buildings buffer, is this another limitation? Octane can't see thru specular objects when creating render layers (object buffers for example)?

2.- No matter what I do when I check Render Layer 1, Octane will show me all the objects in the scene with Octane Tags BUT the actual object with ID 1. In this example the patient is set to ID 1 and Octane is showing me the window. If I change the patient to ID 2 then it works as expected. I just want to know if this is a preset in Octane

3.- Maybe I'm not understanding this correctly, but when using render layers does it mean that Octane will render faster if the layers are rendered as black? In this example the patient is rendering in black, so I wonder if my scene will render faster since Octane is not looking at the patient mesh for calculations/rendering of geometry or light bounces? I could invert the selection and render only the patient in my scene and it would render a lot faster so I can then composite in After Effects?

I would REALLY appreciate anyone that can instruct me into setting this up correctly and specially answering my questions in detail, since it's very confusing how this behaves. For example: nowhere in the tutorials anyone said that selecting "Enable" render layer in Octane Settings ONLY means the Live Viewer will show the active layer, contrary to the obvious thinking that the Picture Viewer will only render that active layer. So this Enable render layer option is basically for Live Viewer feedback and checking the layers, but Picture Viewer will still render all the Layers added to the multipasses.

Thank you all!

[aoktar]

There's not much logical changes between V2 and V3.

Some details for you:

- LayerID start is 1 and all objects are on ID1 by default. So you have to use ID2 for objects you'll seperate. Ignore ObjectID checkbox in Object Tag. It'll get removed soon.

- Render Layer Masks are not native passes from Octane. They are a feature of plugin and they get extracted from RenderLayer feature of Octane. So you can't see directly in Live Viewer. Plugin runs extra render sessions for every mask to extract the alpha from RenderLayers. But you can test every ID in Live Viewer by activating Render Layer.

- Rendering with RenderLayer will not help to render faster. Same on speed. Try Adaptive Sampling with latest test version. It may help or not.

- You have to activate Specular->Common->Affect Alpha to see transparent alpha.

[jsuarez388]

There's not much logical changes between V2 and V3.

Some details for you:

- LayerID start is 1 and all objects are on ID1 by default. So you have to use ID2 for objects you'll seperate. Ignore ObjectID checkbox in Object Tag. It'll get removed soon.

- Render Layer Masks are not native passes from Octane. They are a feature of plugin and they get extracted from RenderLayer feature of Octane. So you can't see directly in Live Viewer. Plugin runs extra render sessions for every mask to extract the alpha from RenderLayers. But you can test every ID in Live Viewer by activating Render Layer.

- Rendering with RenderLayer will not help to render faster. Same on speed. Try Adaptive Sampling with latest test version. It may help or not.

- You have to activate Specular->Common->Affect Alpha to see transparent alpha.

Hey Ahmet,

Thanks for your help. I am still having some issues with Layer Masks. I need to be able to set a Layer Mask for the Window, and another for the buildings, so that I can composite the Sky in Post. Layer mask in window glass is ID=2 and works as expected. Building are ID=5 and do not work unless I turn off the glass on the window. Is the only way to render the buildings Layer Mask separetely with the window glass turned off? I have affect alpha checked on the Glass material for the window

This is my scene

Window layer mask shows up fine with Layer ID=2

[young.r85]

Hello all, building on this thread as I need some help in this area...

Say you have a cube inside a cylinder. The cylinder is a spec material with an IOR of 1.1, so it slightly distorts the cube. Now... how do I get an alpha of that distorted cube!? I turned on affect alpha in the Common tab of my specular material. Can't seem to get an alpha of my cube, please advise. Is this a limitation? Thanks in advance!