The future of Blender + Octane Tweet

[convergen]

Anyway current Octane exporter for Blender is pretty good. And if you need to customize some changes, the python source code is readily available to everyone. It's not hard at all to incorporate any changes once you know the basic of python programming (and how it's used in Blender). But if somehow you can't afford the time to do it, then this forum is perhaps your best friend though it'll take some time for a newer version to be released.

I have been using the blender 2.5x exporter... and it doesnt work well with octane 2.52... it cant update the ocs file after the first export due to the new nodes / materials avaliable (portals... updated specular etc.etc.)..

If they opened up the OCS spec, sure I would be more then willing to update yoyoz python exporter... but at the moment they have not.

[steveps3]

I have been using the blender 2.5x exporter... and it doesnt work well with octane 2.52... it cant update the ocs file after the first export due to the new nodes / materials avaliable (portals... updated specular etc.etc.)...

I see this as being one of the best points with the current exporter. I export the materials once and then it is up to Octane to deal with these materials. If I add a new material to blender then this is exported and once again it is left to Octane to deal with. I really don't want to have to setup my materials every time I export from Blender.

[Daniel]

I'm not really sure of what I'm speaking about here, but under Blender's license, legally you are allowed to repackage and resell Blender. Would it be possible to create a plugin for Blender and resell it as its own application, but only for the plugin? That means we could work in another version of Blender, bring it into the Octane rendering version and render using that.

[convergen]

I have been using the blender 2.5x exporter... and it doesnt work well with octane 2.52... it cant update the ocs file after the first export due to the new nodes / materials avaliable (portals... updated specular etc.etc.)...

I see this as being one of the best points with the current exporter. I export the materials once and then it is up to Octane to deal with these materials. If I add a new material to blender then this is exported and once again it is left to Octane to deal with. I really don't want to have to setup my materials every time I export from Blender.

I totally agree... That being said I would like to set the camera up in blender (much easier controls) and have that sent over to octane, but at the moment we cannot update the camera apart from doing it directly in octane / manually entering in the values from blender.

[matej]

I totally agree... That being said I would like to set the camera up in blender (much easier controls) and have that sent over to octane, but at the moment we cannot update the camera apart from doing it directly in octane / manually entering in the values from blender.

This would be possible by directly editing the .ocs from Blender, but you would need to reload the scene in Octane each time you export the camera. And paying attention that the updates in Octane are synchronized with the updates from Blender (ie. that you don't overwrite one .ocs update with the other). Hackish... It's probably easier to manually copy the camera params... (or use octane power tools )

[DayVids]

I'm not really sure of what I'm speaking about here, but under Blender's license, legally you are allowed to repackage and resell Blender. Would it be possible to create a plugin for Blender and resell it as its own application, but only for the plugin? That means we could work in another version of Blender, bring it into the Octane rendering version and render using that.

if that's legit, it sounds like a great option! - would love to see that happen, then there would be no reason that they couldn't just update their package with newer versions of blender as often as they would update their plug-in. So as Bmesh and other tools are added to blender, we could be able to use it directly with blender. I'd pay another $100 or so to have that option. I've had so much difficulty with animations going from blender to octane it's been driving me crazy, but I LOVE octane, I have no great desire to use cycles at this point.

[Skwerm]

I doubt the idea of a "special" version of Blender would appeal to many people, especially if there's a purchase price. Despite the fact that you *can* charge money for Blender, enhanced with additional features or not, it wouldn't be a popular move with the Blender community.

Personally, I'd much rather find a way to have a free plugin developed and distributed the way it has been until now. I think there needs to be compensation to the developers, though, so a funding campaign would be one way to accomplish that. Similar things have been done for the Ocean Simulator and BMesh (if I'm not mistaken) and have been a way for people who are interested in having something made for Blender to get it done.

If someone gets an Octane plugin fund-raising initiative moving, they can sign me up for US$ 150. And I'll even contribute to the docs!

[DayVids]

I don't think there needs to be a "special" version of blender. it's just another way of saying it so we can have direct integration with blender. It would be no different than them saying this integration works with X.XX version of blender and is only supported in this version so we are including it in the plug-in sale so you know that you have the correct working of blender for this integration tool. when we support a new version, we will include it in the next update.

[Faizol]

I don't think GPL should be an issue. Vray did a plugin for Blender, and nobody sue them to get the whole Vray renderer be GPL'ed.

Just get the right libraries (the ones that come with LGPL), and Octane should be fine.

If somehow Refractive Software doesn't think that developing a connector to Blender is a good idea, then perhaps use existing interchange format that supports animation. MDD might be a good choice. Camera information then can be exported via a python based plugin. The existing Blender plugin can be a base for that (thus, it's gonna be a community based plugin). But that can only happen if Octane supported mdd file format internally.

[arexma]

I don't think GPL should be an issue. Vray did a plugin for Blender, and nobody sue them to get the whole Vray renderer be GPL'ed.

No. It´s an independent dev´s work - by bdancer. And the plugin is an exporter for the standalone version of vray.

Let´s stick with vray for compariosn:
The standalone costs 350 Euro, the Blender exporter is free - well donationware.
The integrated version, for example for 3dsmax costs 1350 Euro.

Would you buy a more costly Blender integrated version of Octane? The development has to be paid somehow. I guess Refractive just sees no economical reason to do it. After all it´s a company trying to generate revenue, not to please all communities.

Beyond that, is should be possible to create a Blender integration without any license violations. You can always write your stuff, make a DLL and use python to integrate it, without dropping your pants (reveal code) or violate the GPGPL.