Octane - Atmosphere and Volumes

[AaronWestwood]

Hey hey,

I made a post over on FB which got some traction, thought to post here also.

Im going to copy and paste what I said there. Feel free to check it out over on FB: http://www.facebook.com/groups/OctaneRe ... 066238593/

Theres a post in the last day talking about intersecting volumes once again. Just thought to re-iterate that this is still a major issue. Im aware a 'solution' to this is turning off "Emulate Old Behavior" however the appearence from volumes using this isnt desirable/good. The look of Volumes with this on is fantastic, but we now get intersecting. We NEED to be able to have the look from volumes with the Old Volume Behavior ON, and be able to layer up volumes till our hearts are content without intersecting with variable step lengths, sizes and density's as layering this is so important.

A secondary point with doing large environment work, Octane DOESNT have a good workflow for natural atmospheric haze/absorption. You essentially need to create a massive volume KM's wide to fit a whole 1:1 scene in. This 10000% should be a feature of the daylight / HDRI rigs. Now that your whole scene is in a volume, positioning cloud layers/overlapping cloud types within this is such a huge pain point as so many problems can arise.

I really hope:

1. The daylight/HDRI rigs get a propper atmospheric system thats reactive/natural so we dont need to manually position a gigantic volume. The system in Corona, or Unreal, Or Arnold, Or Vray is something we NEED here in Octane. Here it is in Corona for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xhr62C7INM

We cant do this using the current volume tab within the rigs with anything large scale as the scene just gets coated in blackness no matter how low the values go. If the scene is too big, it will still be dark.

2. This rig would also benefit hugely from having propper and true gradated height fog.

3. The VDB system gets another overhaul to allow for intersecting volumes with the original volume appearence that allows various step lengths, density, volume scales, intersecting etc.

We can obviously get awesome environment renders using Octane, and all the above is managable in achieving that. But solutions to these issues would only increase that bar, give more creative freedom, and remove the pain points currently in the workflow.

[ramone163]

+1

[thanulee]

+1 I ve asked multiple times in c4d the Corona/Vray feature about distant fake fog. This will help so much instead of comping z to position passes etc etc

[AaronWestwood]

+1 I ve asked multiple times in c4d the Corona/Vray feature about distant fake fog. This will help so much instead of comping z to position passes etc etc

Jules commented on the FB post with a "We're on it" so fingers crossed. Getting a true atmos kit with reactive sky absorbtion, height fog, distant fog etc like in Corona/Vray is all we need! (not the mention the intersecting!)

[haze]

Yes, we're investigating. Does anyone have any feedback on the Standard Volume workflow in 2022?

[Despot]

Yes, we're investigating. Does anyone have any feedback on the Standard Volume workflow in 2022?

I haven't tried this yet... how is this setup in Standalone ?

Also, I've asked this question twice in 2 different areas and it's not been answered.. so I'm going for 3RD time lucky and asking again here...

I believe there is an Oren-Nayar BRDF type now, but it doesn't appear where you would expect it to be... is this only for the Arnold Surface ?

If that is the case, can you please add it as a BRDF type with Beckman/GGX etc please ? this exists in other renderers like Redshift / Corona / VRay.

[thanulee]

Bumping this thread as I find the new volume behavior very slow and I cannot get a good look as before.

A scene file made with c4d s26 and 2021.1.6 for anyone interested to take a look:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vs6fd21wfvpx ... fu1Ia?dl=0

There are 2 videos also in this link which demonstrate the problems in 2 different scenarios.

Thanks!

[haze]

I already replied on FB but just so everyone else knows, we have some improvements coming in the next XB. Basically we keep the original legacy volume look but also keep the improvements on overlapping we've made. That said, it's still not a perfect solution and we're looking to do an overhaul of it in a next major version. You can still overlap up to a max of 16 volumes (do make sure your kernel's setting is correct for what you need) but you still need to make sure the step lengths match for the volumes that you want to overlap.

[henningricke]

This is definitely a big deal! Please, give us a simple way of adding atmosphere for large scale scenes without messig up cloud volumes!!!

[henningricke]

I already replied on FB but just so everyone else knows, we have some improvements coming in the next XB. Basically we keep the original legacy volume look but also keep the improvements on overlapping we've made. That said, it's still not a perfect solution and we're looking to do an overhaul of it in a next major version. You can still overlap up to a max of 16 volumes (do make sure your kernel's setting is correct for what you need) but you still need to make sure the step lengths match for the volumes that you want to overlap.

Hi, I suppose 2022.1 doesn't have any improvements in the volumes jet, right?

I'm currently struggeling hard with those issues in 2021.1-6 and was wondering wether or not updating could help in any way.