OctaneRender® 2022.1 XB 0

[Kalua]

I know this is a very early XB, but we should probably start reporting some stuff:
Some scenes exported, are working ok with default Pathtracing kernel. The moment I switch to Photon tracing the engine stops and can't visualize results. In fact, octane becomes irresponsive.
Regards,

Are you able to share these scenes that are not responsive with photon tracing?

Yes! I will PM you.

[J.C]

The new Photon Tracer turned out to be about twice as slow as the old Path Tracer. I made a simple test scene with small emitter objects in a dark room. And the picture turned out to be absolutely identical, but with a difference of two times in speed. All settings by default (except specific settings Photon tracer).

Have you enabled "Allow caustics" in materials when using Photon Tracer kernel?

[promity]

Yes of course.

[john_otoy]

I made a simple test scene with small emitter objects in a dark room. And the picture turned out to be absolutely identical, but with a difference of two times in speed.

I had a look at your scene and none of the materials have "allow caustics" enabled.
NOTE: you also need to disable "fake shadows" on specular materials.

Here is my Photon Tracing result with those changes (1000 samples or 6m 53s on a 3090)

Here is my Path Tracing result (no fake shadows) rendered for the same amount of time (roughly 3000 samples or 6m 40s)

Here is my Path Tracing result (with fake shadows) rendered for the same amount of time (roughly 2250 samples or 6m 58s)

[nuno1980]

@any moderator
Please should reply -> viewtopic.php?p=406871#p406871

[dynaraton]

The new fast caustics is amazing in speed and quality. It is very easy to use. It is a huge addition for us Archviz artists.
Thank you Otoy team!

[roeland]

@any moderator
Please should reply -> viewtopic.php?p=406871#p406871

The photon tracing is still experimental and we may change some details. We may increase this maximum depth in later 2022.1 builds.

The problem with black areas in complex glass objects is solved by setting a high max depth for the main path tracing rays (specifically the Specular depth). You can still do this with the photon tracing kernel.

A low photon path max depth may cause some very high order caustics to go missing. I expect usually the most visible caustics will have a lower order. Please let us know if you encounter situations where you need higher order caustics.

[nuno1980]

The photon tracing is still experimental and we may change some details. We may increase this maximum depth in later 2022.1 builds.

The problem with black areas in complex glass objects is solved by setting a high max depth for the main path tracing rays (specifically the Specular depth). You can still do this with the photon tracing kernel.

A low photon path max depth may cause some very high order caustics to go missing. I expect usually the most visible caustics will have a lower order. Please let us know if you encounter situations where you need higher order caustics.

Thank you. Does new kernel support Maxwell (eg: GTX 980 Ti)? If you answer "no", I'll buy a new RTX card. But I'm worried for abnormally too high price of videocard.

[roeland]

The photon tracing kernel is supported on all GPUs that are supported in 2022.1. (this includes the GTX980)

[pixym]

Hi, Thanks so much to John_Otoy for these tests and remarks on this user scene about Photon tracing.