c4d environment channel style

[weirdcore]

Hello there

sorry if this is a total newbie question, i'm not so new to octane, but i am truly stuck here.

how can the look from the c4d's environment channel be achieved in Octane?
as described in the part of this clip https://youtu.be/Y3zjhd68_QA?t=86

i looked everywhere in the octane material channel, but i can't find it
and the c4d material don't really get properly converted when it's just the environment channel

i never usually use that channel in c4d, but i'm working on a project where i'm being provided loads of octane shaders used for the print campaign,
& loads of game engine textures used in the online/interactive campaign,which work in same way as the c4d environment channel.
so it would be most ideal if if i could get that look working in Octane, as it could actually look really neat, but i'm really struggling to find out how

any advice would be most welcome
thanks
Nic

[frankmci]

I think what you are looking for is fundamentally different from the way Octane works as an unbiased render. In Octane, it's the actual environment plus any environmental shader that shows up on the surface as a true ray-traced reflection. The classic Environmental Map that's been used since the mid 90s (Buzz Lightyear's helmet dome was the first big-screen use,) is a clever way of faking environmental reflections without needing to ray-trace. Off the top of my head, you might be able to get something that behaves a little like material environmental reflection channels by using a world-coordinates spherical projection of a texture in the Specular channel. It'll probably look a little odd, though. Alternately, you could probably set up a system of render layers and object masks with your environmental texture mapped onto the insides of actual giant spheres. That seems like an awful lot of work, though, trying to find a way to use ray-traced reflections to reproduce the look of what was originally a hack designed for avoiding ray-traced reflections.

I hope that's not too much of a bummer. Maybe if you have a more specific situation and problem, someone might be able to offer a good suggestion.

[weirdcore]

thanks for the response frank

yeah i know what you mean
like i said, i never use that channel, but i'm being providing with tonnes of textures from game engine to work in that way...
i guess i'll render it in several passes/stages (ie some elements in Octane & some in physical) and then composite it together later
not ideal,, but it will do i guess
thanks
Nic

[milanm]

Hey weirdcore

We can do that now using OSL projection. (There's another way to do this--as a OSL Texture--but this way you don't have to worry about file paths)

I'll make a separate topic for this because there are a few more variations I want to post but for now check out this C4D file. I used toon shader but you can also use it in emission.

ReflectionMapProjection.zip

(4.49 MiB) Downloaded 233 times

edit: I just noticed I left in there a mysterious Reinhard.cube LUT in the tex folder. It's made for Camera Imager and the only clue on how to use it is this: 0.03125 and 5.

Cheers
Milan

[frankmci]

Milan, your OSL-fu never ceases to impress.