OctaneRender® 1.024 beta 2.48b TEST (lin/win) [OBSOLETE]

[abstrax]

When using the material picker, right click, and the list of materials seems random now. It was better before when the material infront of the picker was on top of the material list.

Ok, we will change it back to the order front-to-back.

Cheers,
Marcus

[kubo]

small bug, I just reseted a locked render cause I had the focus pick selected prior to locking it and when I wanted to scroll, ctrl+lmb I accidentally refocused the scene and started back from zero.

[abstrax]

Works great here... but:
1) if assign material in graph editor (bottom panel), every time outliner collapse
2) if move a node in graph editor render restart

Problem 1): That's an old problem we haven't fixed yet.

Problem 2): I can't reproduce it here. Could you please explain in detail what you do and when it restarts?

Thanks,
Marcus

[abstrax]

Very solid release for me , this should have been the 2.48 version lol
Will 2.49 or 2.5 have any optimization, there seems to be some slowness happening in the past releases.
the sample rate should be [real time fast] I should see all the numbers go from 0 to 1000, not 100, 130, 155 OR 120, 130, 137.

Anyway, going to do some more testing.

Beta 2.48(b) is not slower than beta 2.46 or beta 2.47. Path tracing actually got faster. As explained in the beta 2.48 thread, the Ms/sec display was incorrect in the past. It showed a too high number (don't know why). The sample/second we display now is correct.

The PMC kernel has now slightly lower samples/second compared to beta 2.47, but should actually converge faster.

Cheers,
Marcus

[abstrax]

I realized I just posted in the wrong place... just tested with 2.48b and some issues still apply:

1. Material picker is "flakier" in current build...
Previously, the material picker was rock-solid. Now, it often doesn't find a new material that is clearly on top of the previously selected material, or takes multiple clicks to find a new material.

2. The material list is no longer sorted from closest material to furthest material. (It should be!)

3. Right clicking using material picker, then left clicking anywhere (NOT selecting a material from the drop down) resets render. (And often selecting a new material likewise resets render)

4. Right-clicking with material picker often fails to bring up material menu--takes multiple clicks to get drop-down menu to appear

Note: I do like the fact that you can now pick materials when the render is paused!

To problem 1): Are you using the multi-material picker (i.e. right mouse button)? There is one change I haven't mentioned yet: If the list contains only one entry, that material is selected immediately and no list is shown. This should save you one click.

To problem 2): As it was reported by several people, the next release will have the materials sorted by distance again.

To problem 3): The problem here is that the right mouse button is also used for camera panning and as far as I can see even slight moves during the mouse click cause the camera to change and restart the render. I have made now a change that introduces a small threshold if one of the picking tools is enabled. If that mouse movement is below that threshold, we don't change the camera. This change will be a available in the next release. As an alternative we could lock the viewport completely if one of the picking tools is enabled. Let me know what you think.

To problem 4): I think it's the same change as described in 1): If there is only one material, it gets selected immediately and no pop up list is shown.

Cheers,
Marcus

[abstrax]

Stable version (2.46b) no longer working on testing machine...

I used a machine to do some testing of this build, but now the old 2.46b (both versions) no longer work on that machine since I upgraded the NVIDIA drivers...

D'oh!

(This just means I can't test on my main quad 580-GTX rig until this version is more stable...)

Did rebooting help?

Marcus

[abstrax]

I can confirm that enlarging the render preview window to full screen now automatically sets the image to full size as well. Nice one. Thanks Marcus.

Sorry, don't get that. We haven't changed anything here? What exactly do you mean?

Marcus

[abstrax]

Scratch that... user error

The autofocus and 3d stereo render buttons are missing... not that I use them, but I noticed they are gone

Yes that's correct. You set these options in the camera node. As there is currently no system to update the toolbars when the nodes get changed, I have removed the buttons since they can display an incorrect state. We may add them back in the future, but for now the only way to enable/disable autofocus or stereo rendering is in the camera node itself.

Cheers,
Marcus

[abstrax]

Another query.This time more of a logical one than a bug.
In a real camera analogy a depth of field is created by the lens aperture.
F1.4 is very fast letting in lots of light but with a very shallow depth of field.
when you get down to around F22 you have almost infinite depth of field but requiring a longer exposure to get lots of light to get an image.

Surely these two controls I have highlighted in the attachment should really be set as one slider only, if the Camera lens analogy is going to work.This slider should really be labelled as a series of F stops from say F1.2 to F22.

You already have the autofocus point eye dropper tool on the tool bar to focus the lens on the relevant point in the scene , as an autofocus lens would in real life.Couple that with the aperture slider described above. That should duplicate a Camera lens correctly.The remainder of the camera controls you already have.The ISO Slider should be re label'd to ISO settings 64 / 100 / 200/ 400 / 800 / 1600 / 3200 / 6400 as they are currently on most Digital SLR's.The scene image would get progressively grainier as the slider approach's the higher ISO values. This way anyone who uses octane and who also does photography should instantly be able to replicate a photographic situation.

The current interface sort of smacks of over complication.

Any other views on this suggestion ?

Regarding aperture and focalDepth: focalDepth is not the width of the range in focus, but the distance/depth of the plane in focus from the camera.

Regarding UI: Well the UI/nodes have grown over time and there 2 seperate things that you want to mix together: The render camera and the tone mapping. The render camera controls the DOF and tone mapping the exposure. Internally they are not related, since the renderer doesn't really work like a camera.

We will probably streamline the UI in the future, but we have to figure out a way that doesn't break old files. The biggest problem I see here is that the aperture is given as diameter and not as f/stop as it's done in photography. We'll see...

Cheers,
Marcus

[convergen]

Cheers guys for putting in Direct lighting alpha shadows... Will be using it A LOT!!