OctaneRender 2023.1 Beta-4 Solaris19.5.605 - RC4[Obsolete]

[BK]

OTOY® is proud to announce the availability of the new DCC plugin OctaneRender 2023.1 Beta-4 Solaris19.5.605 - RC4.

The world's fastest unbiased GPU rendering engine on CUDA and Metal now integrates completely with Houdini 19.5 Solaris.

What is OctaneRender for Solaris?
The OctaneRender for Solari's plugin is based on Pixar’s USD (Universal Scene Description) and Pixar’s Hydra API to empower artist workflows across look development, scene layout, lighting, and final rendering.





Pixar's USD pipeline
https://renderman.pixar.com/stories/pixars-usd-pipeline



-Installation steps-

Insert the OctaneRender® plugin folder path to the houdini.env file. Houdini®creates this file after launching it for the first time.
On Linux and macOS® systems, append a single line to enable OctaneRender®:

HOUDINI_PATH = "/path/to/octane;&"

On Windows® systems, you need to set the PATH to point to the plugin bin folder as well:

PATH = "C:/path/to/octane/bin;$PATH"


Setting this environment variable outputs any error related to loading the OctaneRender® plugin on the command line for diagnosing installation problems:
HOUDINI_DSO_ERROR = 2

-Houdnin Packages/json installation steps-

- Please create a folder inside Documents\houdini19.5 and name it as Packages
- Open notepad or any text editor and use these lines

Code: Select all

{
    "enable" : true,
    "env": 
    [
        {
        "OCTANE_AUTOSPAREPARAMS" : 
        {
            "value": 1,
        },
            //location to your octane folder (example below)
            "OCTVERSION": "PATH\TO\OCTANESOLARIS\Win64FOLDER",
        },       
     
        {
            "HOUDINI_PATH" : 
            {
                "value": "$OCTVERSION",
            },

            "PATH" : 
            {
                "value": "$OCTVERSION/bin",
            },
            "PXR_PLUGINPATH_NAME" :
            {
                //if you have the Solaris version installed 
                "value": "$PATH\TO\OCTANESOLARIS\dso\usd_plugins",
            }, 
        }
    ]
}

- Then Save as OctaneSolaris.json
- Please make sure to disable the .env paths

New features
To learn more about the new features and improvements of OctaneRender 2023.1 and the Render Node app, please check out the 2023.1 release post


- Change log since last release[Test]-

• - Merged OctaneRender 2023.1.4 for Houdini beta (2023.1.4.0) viewtopic.php?f=102&t=82205
• - Fixed USD surface preview

Note: Click the link below to refer to Important SOP to USD attribute conversion
https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini18.5 ... mport.html

-Known Issues-
- Solaris rendering extra beauty AOV with Octane node and currently investigating
- Light Linker is yet to be supported as we are investigating if we could assign the Octane light IDs internally.
However, the usual Octane light linking works as expected.
- Deep AOV is yet to support!


Important: if using macOS, we strongly recommend that you update to version 13.3. Prior to 13.3, there is an OS-related issue that causes a render failure consistently if you render for long periods of time.

===================================
Studio+ Subscription Downloads
===================================
2023.1 Beta-4 - Houdini 19.5.605

===================================
macOS build Downloads for ARM64
===================================
2023.1 Beta-4 - Houdini 19.5.605

===================================
Linux build Download
===================================
2023.1 Beta-4 - Houdini 19.5.605


Happy GPU Rendering !!



Your team
OTOY

[Carlll]

Hello!

I cannot get ACES working properly with Octane in Solaris. I have made a reference render with Octane that use the traditional sop workflow and I cannot get the same render result in Solaris. Changing the OCIO and Tonemapping settings on the camera in Solaris doesn't affect my scene at all. So it seems like some of the important settings in the Imager tab is completely broken.

Here are steps I've taken:
-install this latest build, (beta-4 solaris 19.5.605)
-create new scene in Solaris (using houdini 19.5.773)
-make sure my ocio.config is linked in the houdini color settings
-make sure my octane.json is pointing toward this latest octane solaris build in my houdini packages
-add rubbertoy and grid
-assign octane materials
-add octane render rop in solaris and set to kernel pathtracing
-add hdri texture in the octane render settings and set gamma to 1.0 and channel format to 32-bit float
-in the camera imager tab, set OCIO to use ACES + sRGB

This produces a render that doesn't have the correct Aces look. The colors are too saturated and wrong compared to the traditional sop render where I've created the same scene.
I also tried ticking Force tone mapping + ACES tone mapping checkboxes in the Imager tab on the camera and nothing changes/happens in the viewport.

Any answer or help regarding this would be GREATLY appreciated as I really wanna use Octane in Solaris and this prevents me from using it in production completely.
Thanks for all the work guys!

[BK]

Hello!

I cannot get ACES working properly with Octane in Solaris. I have made a reference render with Octane that use the traditional sop workflow and I cannot get the same render result in Solaris. Changing the OCIO and Tonemapping settings on the camera in Solaris doesn't affect my scene at all. So it seems like some of the important settings in the Imager tab is completely broken.

Here are steps I've taken:
-install this latest build, (beta-4 solaris 19.5.605)
-create new scene in Solaris (using houdini 19.5.773)
-make sure my ocio.config is linked in the houdini color settings
-make sure my octane.json is pointing toward this latest octane solaris build in my houdini packages
-add rubbertoy and grid
-assign octane materials
-add octane render rop in solaris and set to kernel pathtracing
-add hdri texture in the octane render settings and set gamma to 1.0 and channel format to 32-bit float
-in the camera imager tab, set OCIO to use ACES + sRGB

This produces a render that doesn't have the correct Aces look. The colors are too saturated and wrong compared to the traditional sop render where I've created the same scene.
I also tried ticking Force tone mapping + ACES tone mapping checkboxes in the Imager tab on the camera and nothing changes/happens in the viewport.

Any answer or help regarding this would be GREATLY appreciated as I really wanna use Octane in Solaris and this prevents me from using it in production completely.
Thanks for all the work guys!

Hi Carill,

Thanks for the post.

In Houdini Solaris the Aces files are automatically loaded and the View can be set from Solaris Color correction (the eye icon).
Note, that the main plugin output has a Bake gamma so make sure to enable it.

Here are the steps:

For output:

If this does not match then please share the scene for us to investigate.

Cheers

[Carlll]

Hi!

Thanks for the reply. I will try to describe my issue as detailed as possible.
I have a basic scene, and it renders correctly if I use the standard way of working. (Not solaris).

Here's a screenshot of how it looks using octane + aces.

Now I want to get the exact same result but using Octane with Solaris.
So I've re-created the exact same scene, and used the render settings that you recommend.

But I cannot get it to match. So there are 3 scenarios that I need to make sure they look the same:
- 1: scene rendered with sops + Octane (standard workflow, not Solaris based), this currently looks the same in the viewport + when rendered to disk. (This works great and this is my reference).
- 2: scene rendered in Solaris + Octane, does not look the same in the viewport or when rendered to disk, or compared to the sop version above.
- 3: importing the scene rendered in solaris to Davinci, and adding the ACES tonemapping to the exr's, (does not look the same as in the Solaris octane viewport), but it kind of almost match the sop reference.

Its very hard to explain the issue, but long story short. I cannot get the Aces color settings in Solaris to match between the viewport and the image rendered to disk.
The image rendered to disk does look better than my viewport, but it is still not a 1:1 match to my sop reference render.

Im wondering why the Solaris Aces settings doesn't provide the same result as for example the "Octane_2023.1_Beta4_0_Houdini_19.5.605_Studio+_Win64" build. That is the build I used when rendering the reference example (the image called Octane_Sops_reference).
So to me it seems like the Octane_2023.1_Beta_4_Solaris_19.5.605_Studio+_Win64 has some bug because I feel like I use the correct settings for Aces but I cannot get it to look as it should.

I've provided a zip file containing my basic scene so you can try it out yourself. I also uploaded the diffuse texture I used + linked the HDRI i used.

Link to download HDRI:
https://polyhaven.com/a/brown_photostudio_02

Finally some screenshots showing how the images differ.

Here is my scene rendered with Octane + Solaris as EXR and Aces applied using DaVinci

Here is my scene rendered with Octane + Sops (not Solaris), this is correct and how I expect them all to look

Here is my scene in Octane + Solaris, as you can see it is overly saturated and a lot brigther than the image rendered to disk??

Check out the attached hip files! Thanks!

[BK]

Hi Carlll,

Thanks so much for the detailed information and the scene files.

We have created an internal ticket to investigate ASAP.
Btw, would you please help export both scenes as ORBX and render using Standalone while sorting out for a Davinci license?

cheers

[Carlll]

Thank you so much for investigating!

I don't think it make sense to export the standard Houdini Octane SOPs scene as ORBX and render using Standalone since that scene is giving me correct results. However, I did export the Octane-Solaris version as ORBX and render with Standalone and the interesting thing is that it actually matches the correct reference render made with the Octane SOPs setup!

So to conclude:
-I exported the Octane-Solaris scene as ORBX and rendered with Standalone and it produced a correct ACES render.
-Rendering the same Octane-Solaris scene inside Houdini with Octane in Solaris does not produce a correct ACES render.
-Rendering the same Octane-Solaris scene to disk from Houdini with Octane in Solaris does not produce a correct ACES render.

Also, I'm not using the Davinci studio version just their free version. Hope this helps!

Here is a screenshot of the Octane-Solaris scene exported as ORBX and rendered with Standalone

As you can see it matches the render made with Octane in SOPs

But it does not match the render made with Octane inside Solaris

[BK]

Thank you so much for investigating!

I don't think it make sense to export the standard Houdini Octane SOPs scene as ORBX and render using Standalone since that scene is giving me correct results. However, I did export the Octane-Solaris version as ORBX and render with Standalone and the interesting thing is that it actually matches the correct reference render made with the Octane SOPs setup!

So to conclude:
-I exported the Octane-Solaris scene as ORBX and rendered with Standalone and it produced a correct ACES render.
-Rendering the same Octane-Solaris scene inside Houdini with Octane in Solaris does not produce a correct ACES render.
-Rendering the same Octane-Solaris scene to disk from Houdini with Octane in Solaris does not produce a correct ACES render.

Also, I'm not using the Davinci studio version just their free version. Hope this helps!

Here is a screenshot of the Octane-Solaris scene exported as ORBX and rendered with Standalone

2023-10-31 09_50_04-Drafts & sent - ARC - Slack.png

As you can see it matches the render made with Octane in SOPs

Octane_Sops_reference.png

But it does not match the render made with Octane inside Solaris

Octane-Solaris_Viewport.png

Hi Carlll,

Thank you again for the test.

We just wanted to confirm with you that the output should match after we export the OctaneHydra scene.
Octane Houdini main plugin uses native Octane IPR which is why the output matches with our engine.

Houdini Solaris applies its own color correction after the rendering is completed. So it requires a linear output as well.
You can enable the *Show Octane Viewport* option from the Tools tab to confirm.

There is no way to change the linear workflow for the render output. It appears to be part of the Hydra design.

We will keep investigating or find a workaround to match the viewport render.


cheers


cheers

[Carlll]

Alright!

Appreciate that you guys take your time and reply and help out!
Let me know if you make any progress regarding the problem.

Thanks for investigating!

[BK]

Alright!

Appreciate that you guys take your time and reply and help out!
Let me know if you make any progress regarding the problem.

Thanks for investigating!

Thank you Carlll, for understanding.
Since the workflow is new we are also learning on the go!

Sure, will keep posting for any progress.


cheers

[snakeboxmedia]

It is now 27 days since we have heard a peep from Houdini for Solaris... the world has literally changed since then lol, Octane 2024 announced, Houdini 20 released... Is there any hope the Solaris side of things will get faster in the future? you guys getting more people or help? because right now it's a really REALLY hard sell recommending anyone picking up octane with the impending industry move to Solaris when it comes to Houdini, and right now this plugin is the weakest link in all this... The fact the main plugin and the solaris plugin don't release together, still is also not only confusing but silly, make it easy for people please!

Anyway... I really wish I was using octane in solaris, but there is just no way currently.