External Compositing Tag (Nulls) not lining up in AE Tweet

[bobbystarbuck]

Hello,

Before I decided to post, I went on an intensive search for any solution to this problem both internally and on the forums + google with only one post that mentioned this issue but no solution. Frankly, I'm very surprised that this issue hasn't been resolved as it's very important in VFX industry that exported nulls work properly to the rendered plate.

The issue is that when I apply an External compositing tag to scene objects, I am expecting them to line-up pixel-perfect in After Effects but with Octane this doesn't seem to be possible. The nulls slide and it is not a practical solution. I work in NY with several large studios such as the Mill, MPC, etc. and having discovered this problem, I don't think I can recommend Octane for further projects until this issue gets resolved.

[img][img]https://i.ibb.co/Trk96Q9/P1.jpg[/img]
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As you can see, I imported the rendered backplate (rendered in Octane) back into C4D, the white box constantly slides in position and then out of position (In Frame 62, you will see that the plate slides out from where it should be as indicated by the green arrows.) At frame 92, the plate is back into position.

[img][img]https://i.ibb.co/hFKTZYB/P2.jpg[/img]
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Again at frame 96, the plate is not aligned but back at the end of the animation F100, the plate aligns again. So it's off and on but not usable in a project where for example screen elements may need to be swapped out in composite.

I suspect the Octane Camera is the issue but I can't confirm this independently.

I've tried everything from constraining the plate to the original animation, attaching it via xpresso and baking the animation frame-by-frame to no good result.

Simply put, Octane doesn't seem to work with the C4D's external compositing tag.

Currently, I'm on a workstation at Powerhouse VFX that works in movies and television and I was the one who urged the VFX supervisors to give Octane a try. This is turning out to be a huge embarassment for me that we're stuck in this part of the process.

The Workstation I'm on is as follows:

Windows 10 64bit
Nvidia RTX 2080 TI
128 GB RAM
NVIDIA Driver 26.21.14.3086 (5/22/19)
Cinema 4D R21.026 (Build RB290015)
Octane Render Enterprise 2019.1 version:6000100 SDK:2019.1
Octane Render for C4D 2019.1 built for: 210 C4D vers: 21026

I am attaching the C4D file to this post. If you render out a basic pass in Octane, and then try to get the External Compositing tags - or even the original Geo used in the C4D project. It will NOT line up with Octanes Render.

Please help.

Thank you and respectfully,
Bobby

[aoktar]

Octane camera is simply a C4D camera but with a Octane tag. What can be an issue or bug for us here?

[bobbystarbuck]

Octane camera is simply a C4D camera but with a Octane tag. What can be an issue or bug for us here?

This is the kind of issue I'm dealing with, very dismissive responses from the developer himself.

I explained the situation with native c4d external compositing tags not lining up with Octane render passes. This makes things like toolkits, broadcast package and more complex compositing impossible in Octane. My friends are telling me to move to Redshift as apparently there's none of these headache associated with compositing in post.

Getting frustrated and I don't have time to spell things out more clear than I did in my first post.

Not a bug? Maybe, but it IS an issue. I will have to recommend Redshift to my teams until all these little papercuts can be sorted out.

Bobby

[frankmci]

What is it that makes you think it's specifically Octane causing the problem? You say you suspect, but what have you actually tried to test the theory? You don't mention if you've tried rendering the exact same scene with both an Octane and a standard C4D camera. Does the C4D camera work while the one with the Octane tag does not? If that's the case, can you share a stripped down example scene with both camera types that demonstrates the behavior?

[bobbystarbuck]

What is it that makes you think it's specifically Octane causing the problem? You say you suspect, but what have you actually tried to test the theory? You don't mention if you've tried rendering the exact same scene with both an Octane and a standard C4D camera. Does the C4D camera work while the one with the Octane tag does not? If that's the case, can you share a stripped down example scene with both camera types that demonstrates the behavior?

Yes I've tried it in C4D native and the external compositing tags + my object buffers line up.

The above post was a shot used for a CBS television show called 'Evil.' I had to explain to my VFX Supervisor the trouble and it ended up making me look bad for missing a delivery window.

I did attach a C4D file in the above post but I guess it didn't come through? I suspect it may have something todo with Octanes Camera tag, perhaps something with the imager. It's VERY easy to replicate, import the C4D file into After Effects along with a render, you will see that the compositing tags do not line up with the animation. I suggest rendering out a rotating cube (eased keyframes) that moves across the X-axis across the screen with external compositing tags on each face. Once you scrub through the timeline in After Effects, you will easily discover the issue with the compositing nulls/solids jumping around at random points in the timeline.

I tried multiple things to no avail as it was important to get these to line up, in the end I had to manually fix the areas where the compositing tags would 'jump' by hand. Not an ideal solution but the best solution at the time.

I apologize if I came across as abrasive, I do hope that Octane stays strong, I've just dealt with so many little things that it's become frustrating to recommend without someone pointing the finger at me as the problem when problems arise.

Also is there a way to speed up object buffers in Octane so it can just spit them out like native C4D render does? It boggles my mind that rendering object buffers in Octane can increase the render time so much the way it does.

Very Respectfully,
Bobby

[adriendupagne]

Having the exact same issue.

[frankmci]

I'm sorry I lost sight of this thread last month. As far as I can tell, the External Compositing Tags are working fine with Octane and AE. I'm not getting any sliding or off-registration. I'll attach a simple demo scene in both AE and C4D based your description above. I've just tested it in
C4D R21.115
Octane 2019.1.5
AfterEffects CC 2019

Could you try uploading another sample file? The forum won't accept a raw .c4d file, though, you need to compress it first.

[Seun116_1]

I was happy to see that someone has already brought this up, but sad it find out a solution hasn't been presented. The issue becomes very noticeable when the Octane scene has been rendered with motion blur. A sample text in AE lines up perfect with a hardware render from Cinema 4D, but there's a lot a sliding when it's on top an Octane render sequence.

[marco_py]

I'm having this problem because i've set the camera distortion to 1 in the Octane camera tag, so all the edges are getting bulged in and not aligning with the native c4d camera + external comp tags.

[boxfx]

The AE camera and nulls export is handled 100% by c4d, octane has nothing to do with the generation of the aec files or when AE interprets c4d files. If you're using standard c4d cameras with octane tags then in my experience they line up in octane just as well as they do in any other render engine. the only problem you're going to have is if you use any sort of camera lens distortion, either view film X/Y offsets of lens curvature distortion; but that applies 100% to all render engines. AE doesn't understand lens distortion and thus cannot work out what to do with the visual positions of 3D data.

If anyone wants to post a simple project to show the problem, im happy to take a look.