Animating Octane nodes over time?

[JamZam]

Hey!

So I've been loving Octane for rendering still images, but any time I need to do animation I almost always want to animate material nodes over time, and from everything I've seen and read I don't think there's a way to do that in the current version of Octane in Cinema 4D? Nothing like a "time" node available to plug into various attributes, and the "animation speed" setting in the noise nodes just isn't working, neither is the movement speed settings. It seems Octane just doesn't register any type of animation within the node editor?

I mean manual keyframing works fine, but that's awfully annoying in larger scenes... isn't there any way to automate this type of stuff? I've been googling for ages but I can't find any fix for this.

[aoktar]

You can animate material or texture attributes by keyframing or with some xpresso/python. Animation parameter didn't work work because plugin just updates the things if any change message detected. This is done because provide intelligent algorithm for sending smaller data. Since next builds plugin will update noises if you use animation parameter too. Because I've added a special handling to detect if noises have animation parameter.

Also send some example to show what you want to animate, I'll show you best and quick ways.

[JamZam]

You can animate material or texture attributes by keyframing or with some xpresso/python. Animation parameter didn't work work because plugin just updates the things if any change message detected. This is done because provide intelligent algorithm for sending smaller data. Since next builds plugin will update noises if you use animation parameter too. Because I've added a special handling to detect if noises have animation parameter.

Also send some example to show what you want to animate, I'll show you best and quick ways.

Aha, I think I get it then! I'm fairly experienced with Xpresso so I think I can put some basic rigs together... it's just a few extra steps I'd prefer to not have to go through.

As for what I'm trying to animate, at the moment I'm working on sort of sci-fi engine thrusters. So here's two examples:

1. Going for a "flame" type look, by animating noises on the emission and opacity channels of an Octane diffuse material:
https://gyazo.com/5d8413638df229ee35ec7dbbb5748a42

In this case my solution has been to manually keyframe the uvw transformation of the noises responsible for the shader movement, but I'd also love to beable to use the noise animation speed setting. Crossing my fingers for that being implemented in the plugin!

2. "Ion thruster" aka a more stable flame, or a cloud of plasma. It's meant to be stable without alot of movement, but I want to animate sort of a "pulsating" effect with a gradient moving through the opacity channel:
https://gyazo.com/8c642cab49caea1756fa8cf2d58c7ca6

I believe I can achieve this with some Xpresso trickery, but I can't seem to figure out how to hook up a uvw transform node to a gradient, so I'm not sure how to animate it.

[aoktar]

1- As I said that noise animations will work with next builds without putting keyframes. Also we'll bring fully procedural version of C4D noises with 2020.x builds soon. So it can work great.
Also you can use octane's noise with putting some projection nodes to animate.

2- How do you animate gradient in C4D with standard way?

[JamZam]

2- How do you animate gradient in C4D with standard way?

Well, when you put it that way it made me double check the standard C4D gradient and as you say, there doesn't seem to be a way to animate it like I'm trying to do. That's my bad, it just made sense in my head that you should beable to do that. Something like a "gradient phase offset" or whatever you'd call it. But apparently not!

Instead I just found the "SineWave" node in Octane and it does exactly what I need it to do, and it lets me animate the uvw coordinates! So I will use that instead. Thank you so much for your swift and helpful responses, it's seriously appreciated!

[JamZam]

One more question for you aoktar, since I can't seem to figure it out or find anything about it from some googling... how do I actually get a transform node (or more specifically, the T.Y attribute in a transform node) into xpresso? I can get some other Octane nodes into xpresso, but not the nodes I actually want to rig for animation...

[aoktar]

I'll put some examples for you. Because this is important topic.

[frankmci]

One more question for you aoktar, since I can't seem to figure it out or find anything about it from some googling... how do I actually get a transform node (or more specifically, the T.Y attribute in a transform node) into xpresso? I can get some other Octane nodes into xpresso, but not the nodes I actually want to rig for animation...

It's a little tricky, in my experience. You can't just drag the node from the node editor into the XPresso Editor. Instead, you have to dig down to the node you want in the C4D Attributes editor window, then drag the icon in the upper left corner into XPresso. If there's a better way, I'd love to know about it!

[JamZam]

One more question for you aoktar, since I can't seem to figure it out or find anything about it from some googling... how do I actually get a transform node (or more specifically, the T.Y attribute in a transform node) into xpresso? I can get some other Octane nodes into xpresso, but not the nodes I actually want to rig for animation...

It's a little tricky, in my experience. You can't just drag the node from the node editor into the XPresso Editor. Instead, you have to dig down to the node you want in the C4D Attributes editor window, then drag the icon in the upper left corner into XPresso. If there's a better way, I'd love to know about it!

Aah, yeah that works. Thanks! But yes, it would indeed be great if there's a better/faster way.