Volumetric Lights in 2018 Octane

[3dreamstudios]

Just upgraded to Octane 2018.1.3. I seem to remember that volumetric lights should render much faster/less noise. I'm trying to find more information about this, or how to set it up. Can someone point me to where I can find information or help me get started here?

EDIT: What I had read was in the release of 2018 and it spoke about "We introduce a basic procedural light node type in 2018.1 XB1 which can be used for quick volumetric effects and spot light generation." So this is the feature/method I'm looking to explore in the Lightwave Plugin.

[juanjgon]

Unfortunately, this feature is not available in the LightWave plugin yet. It is based in a whole new concept of scripted node graphs that are not easy to integrate into the plugin, so we are still in the drawing board trying to figure the best workflow to support these kinds of nodes without refactoring the whole plugin node architecture. I hope to have good news along the current 2019.1 dev cycle.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[3dreamstudios]

Unfortunately, this feature is not available in the LightWave plugin yet. It is based in a whole new concept of scripted node graphs that are not easy to integrate into the plugin, so we are still in the drawing board trying to figure the best workflow to support these kinds of plugins without refactoring the whole plugin node architecture. I hope to have good news along the current 2019.1 dev cycle.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

I appreciate the response. However in the future is there a way to know or communicate to users that certain features will not, or be delayed by a significant amount to plugin versions?

This was one of the main reasons I upgraded to this version. I'ts not a huge thing but certainly something I would like better communication to users about in the future.

I totally understand that certain things are unknown to a certain level before development begins.....but I'm sure that such development happens way before even RC or betas begin to get flushed out in code.

Rant over...appreciate your work, don't get me wrong. Just miffed the main reason I personally in our workflow was excited about the upgrade...was this one feature. lol. 5% increase in speed doesn't do anything for me...and in my testing I'm actually slower (by margins of error) so that doesn't help. Other things just don't fit into our workflow much. I'm sure others can think of a reason to have a procedural sculpture mess rendered out...lol.

Def looking forward to future enhancements of the platform and then SEEING those filter into the DCC tools we use. Thanks again!

[AndyM1969]

Oh for gods sake, one of the reasons I upgraded to 2018 was this feature, are you taking the piss Juanjo!

[AndyM1969]

Juanjo, I am going to ask this once and once only before I go through my bank for a refund. WHEN will we get this feature and WHY were we not told it wasn't going to be included?

My next conversation will be with Jules Urbach.

[juanjgon]

Sorry for the long delay related to this feature. What I can say is that this feature is going to be included in both 2018.1 and 2019.1 when the plugin core is ready to support these kinds of scripted node graph nodes, not before. This is something that is expected alongside the first 2019.1 builds to be released in July.

Why some plugins don't have this feature yet? Well, in short: A whole new core technology was added in Octane 2018 to include these kinds of features in a new node type that some of the plugins were not ready to support out of the box. As you could understand, we are talking about a single missing feature in a really complex software like Octane, that of course in on the top of our TODO list, but always alongside all the other tasks related to the plugin support and development. Unfortunately, it is not easy to work on all the tasks at the same time.

Thanks for your patience,
-Juanjo

[AndyM1969]

Okay, so what's the hold up on this Juanjo? I need info please before I talk with Jules Urbach. This was the one major sales point for me buying into this and you told us to expect this with the first 2019 builds, well they're out and NO volume lights still.

[juanjgon]

I'm working on this feature right now, adding it to the current Octane light. It will be available in a new build next week.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[AndyM1969]

That's excellent news Juanjo, you really should add that level of info to your build releases or at least let us know why there is a delay in a particular feature.

[juanjgon]

This is the design approach that I have in mind to support the spectron lights in the LightWave plugin. A hard-coded GUI in the Octane light was becoming a nightmare for these kinds of lights due to the large number of parameters available, especially now that we have more spectron light types in the upcoming Octane 2019.2, so I've added a whole new node editor to the Octane light to expose there the spectron light nodes and make possible linking all the additional nodes used by these lights, like the medium or material nodes.

There is a lot of work to do yet, but at least I have the core code designed to try to support this really special and tricky Octane feature inside LightWave.

Thanks,
-Juanjo