Octane 2026.1 for Cinema4D - v1.8.1

[DinoMuhic]

There are several issues with the OpenPBR material in this release. When Metalness is set to 1, the Specular Weight parameter does not behave as expected. It works correctly in Standalone, but not in the OpenPBR material in Octane for Cinema 4d.

The Coat Darkening parameter also does not appear to function as intended. it does not do anything.

In addition, there is currently no Anisotropy Tangent input for the Specular layer, which makes it unclear how to rotate anisotropic highlights in an OpenPBR material. Other renderers, such as Redshift and Arnold, provide an Anisotropy Tangent input in their OpenPBR implementations, so it would be useful to know whether a similar control is planned or available in Octane.

Will check this and mark it for the next update, thanks

[Kalua]

Hi,

What happens if you click on the gear icon in Live View to recall Kernel settings, instead of the button/shortcut in your layout?

ciao,
Beppe

Same thing happens.
However, in this scene I particularly show now, If I open the Kernel settings window first, and hit render later, then error doesn't happen.
If I close live-view window and settings, and open again... hit render (without settings opened) I get the error again.
I saw this fail too though in other scenes.

Thanks for the report, but we will need a zipped project file with all assets from you to reproduce this, since we can't make it crash in our scenes.

Can you send it to us please?

Sure.
Already sent one to Chris.
Can send the same link to you via DM.
Have countless projects giving me this problem. Probably all my files. Haven't tried every single one, but at least 5 so far.

[DinoMuhic]

There are several issues with the OpenPBR material in this release. When Metalness is set to 1, the Specular Weight parameter does not behave as expected. It works correctly in Standalone, but not in the OpenPBR material in Octane for Cinema 4d.

The Coat Darkening parameter also does not appear to function as intended. it does not do anything.

In addition, there is currently no Anisotropy Tangent input for the Specular layer, which makes it unclear how to rotate anisotropic highlights in an OpenPBR material. Other renderers, such as Redshift and Arnold, provide an Anisotropy Tangent input in their OpenPBR implementations, so it would be useful to know whether a similar control is planned or available in Octane.

OK so
1. Can you please send a scene regarding the Specular Weight and Metalness? I don't see it behaving any differently than in Redshift. Also Standalone and Plugin behave the same.
2. Coat Darkening is a core issue and will be fixed in 2026.2
3. Anisotropy Tangent is inside the "Tangent" option in the Geometry Properties tab. I agree we could move it to the specular tab but I have to talk to core about this.

[DinoMuhic]

Same thing happens.
However, in this scene I particularly show now, If I open the Kernel settings window first, and hit render later, then error doesn't happen.
If I close live-view window and settings, and open again... hit render (without settings opened) I get the error again.
I saw this fail too though in other scenes.

Thanks for the report, but we will need a zipped project file with all assets from you to reproduce this, since we can't make it crash in our scenes.

Can you send it to us please?

Sure.
Already sent one to Chris.
Can send the same link to you via DM.
Have countless projects giving me this problem. Probably all my files. Haven't tried every single one, but at least 5 so far.

I looked at the loft scene you sent.
I think the issue is your OCIO config.
In your scenes you are using a specific OCIO View, which might be not present in your current OCIO config file.
When you send the scene to the LV it checks for it, but can't render and throws an error. However after that it will reset the OCIO view and if you resend again, you will see that it will render fine.
You have the same issue in standalone if you try to open an ORBX which is using an OCIO view that is currently not present, it will throw an error pop-up indicating that.
We have this already tracked and will change the info in the LV from "Render Failure" to a more fitting error description.

So all you need to do is switch the LV back to HDR/sRGB or LDR/sRGB before you send the scene or install the same OCIO config that you used when you created the scenes.

Other then that, the scene runs totally fine on my machine using C4D 2026 and Plugin Build 1.8.1 and shows no further errors.

[Kalua]

Thanks for the report, but we will need a zipped project file with all assets from you to reproduce this, since we can't make it crash in our scenes.

Can you send it to us please?

Sure.
Already sent one to Chris.
Can send the same link to you via DM.
Have countless projects giving me this problem. Probably all my files. Haven't tried every single one, but at least 5 so far.

I looked at the loft scene you sent.
I think the issue is your OCIO config.
In your scenes you are using a specific OCIO View, which might be not present in your current OCIO config file.
When you send the scene to the LV it checks for it, but can't render and throws an error. However after that it will reset the OCIO view and if you resend again, you will see that it will render fine.
You have the same issue in standalone if you try to open an ORBX which is using an OCIO view that is currently not present, it will throw an error pop-up indicating that.
We have this already tracked and will change the info in the LV from "Render Failure" to a more fitting error description.

So all you need to do is switch the LV back to HDR/sRGB or LDR/sRGB before you send the scene or install the same OCIO config that you used when you created the scenes.

Other then that, the scene runs totally fine on my machine using C4D 2026 and Plugin Build 1.8.1 and shows no further errors.

Ok.
Will take a look.
I never had issues in Stand Alone.
But will def look into what you said.
Thanks.

[Kalua]

Thanks for the report, but we will need a zipped project file with all assets from you to reproduce this, since we can't make it crash in our scenes.

Can you send it to us please?

Sure.
Already sent one to Chris.
Can send the same link to you via DM.
Have countless projects giving me this problem. Probably all my files. Haven't tried every single one, but at least 5 so far.

I looked at the loft scene you sent.
I think the issue is your OCIO config.
In your scenes you are using a specific OCIO View, which might be not present in your current OCIO config file.
When you send the scene to the LV it checks for it, but can't render and throws an error. However after that it will reset the OCIO view and if you resend again, you will see that it will render fine.
You have the same issue in standalone if you try to open an ORBX which is using an OCIO view that is currently not present, it will throw an error pop-up indicating that.
We have this already tracked and will change the info in the LV from "Render Failure" to a more fitting error description.

So all you need to do is switch the LV back to HDR/sRGB or LDR/sRGB before you send the scene or install the same OCIO config that you used when you created the scenes.

Other then that, the scene runs totally fine on my machine using C4D 2026 and Plugin Build 1.8.1 and shows no further errors.

U see the issue is... I CAN render... but I CANNOT open the Kernel Render window without crashing the engine... I already shared here a video.
Am attaching it again.
Tried to reset the OCIO files and no solution, I have been using the very same OCIO files since forever. Can't understand what OCIO files are missing. And this error happens only in plugin, no errors in Stand Alone.
I also tried another scene with same error, disabled OCIO completely from Octane. As soon as I render and open the Kernel Settings Windows, crashes...
So I cannot understand how this has aything to do with OCIO.

[special.agent1990]

There are several issues with the OpenPBR material in this release. When Metalness is set to 1, the Specular Weight parameter does not behave as expected. It works correctly in Standalone, but not in the OpenPBR material in Octane for Cinema 4d.

The Coat Darkening parameter also does not appear to function as intended. it does not do anything.

In addition, there is currently no Anisotropy Tangent input for the Specular layer, which makes it unclear how to rotate anisotropic highlights in an OpenPBR material. Other renderers, such as Redshift and Arnold, provide an Anisotropy Tangent input in their OpenPBR implementations, so it would be useful to know whether a similar control is planned or available in Octane.

OK so
1. Can you please send a scene regarding the Specular Weight and Metalness? I don't see it behaving any differently than in Redshift. Also Standalone and Plugin behave the same.
2. Coat Darkening is a core issue and will be fixed in 2026.2
3. Anisotropy Tangent is inside the "Tangent" option in the Geometry Properties tab. I agree we could move it to the specular tab but I have to talk to core about this.

I tested it in another scene, there was no issue there, but it does not work properly in this older scene, here is the link:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8ma7eq77jchzkprx0ffeb/metalness.zip?rlkey=02g4h0b2hu2o52kpuzib1arhj&st=h9ba9h7q&dl=0

What is the workflow to rotate the tangent? is there a specific node to connect to the tangent input?

[special.agent1990]

Can you confirm whether the following features are actually working? They don’t appear to be functioning correctly on my end:
• Support for C4D’s User Data Tag (via AttributeTex node)
• Mograph data support (via AttributeTex node)

[J.C]

There is a position shift in texture displacement between normal and high settings.

[Kalua]

Thanks for the report, but we will need a zipped project file with all assets from you to reproduce this, since we can't make it crash in our scenes.

Can you send it to us please?

Sure.
Already sent one to Chris.
Can send the same link to you via DM.
Have countless projects giving me this problem. Probably all my files. Haven't tried every single one, but at least 5 so far.

I looked at the loft scene you sent.
I think the issue is your OCIO config.
In your scenes you are using a specific OCIO View, which might be not present in your current OCIO config file.
When you send the scene to the LV it checks for it, but can't render and throws an error. However after that it will reset the OCIO view and if you resend again, you will see that it will render fine.
You have the same issue in standalone if you try to open an ORBX which is using an OCIO view that is currently not present, it will throw an error pop-up indicating that.
We have this already tracked and will change the info in the LV from "Render Failure" to a more fitting error description.

So all you need to do is switch the LV back to HDR/sRGB or LDR/sRGB before you send the scene or install the same OCIO config that you used when you created the scenes.

Other then that, the scene runs totally fine on my machine using C4D 2026 and Plugin Build 1.8.1 and shows no further errors.

Alright.
Whatever reason it is, I am doing what you suggested.
I can bridge those scenes to newer engine. Working now.
Will do this to old scenes that I want to work again.
Thank you.