Vue XStream and octane, whether max or C4d..

[squidman]

Tried to post this but then windows update got in the way, Has anyone got Vue to work with either Octane or Indigo, whether via max or C4d (or directly from vue?). Was thinking of purchasing Octane, new pc with 4-6+ pci-e slots and lots of nvidia cards (rendering Vue Xstream is painful!), but can't get it to work (exporting vue scenes from C4d and Max in .obj). Works pretty well for simple scenes, but am limited in hardware at moment (laptop with i7 2630 and GT540m/2GB). Was looking at gtx 580 3GB too, but need to make sure of workflow. Any ideas? Otherwise it's waiting for next-gen SR2 motherboard with dual Sandy-bridge-E or more (ikea render farm?)...

thanks...Indigo sucks @ss btw at the moment, Octane seems more stable, but only for simple scenes? Luxrender a real alternative?



PS thoughts on Arion or other (fryrender etc.) solutions? Remember budget budget...and animation is key....

PPS - old lappie, with dual 7900 GTX go soft-modded to Quadro 3500's dug out tonight...prbly faster in viewport than new lappie....but CPU sucks...thus the windows updates...

[gabrielefx]

Vue uses its rendering engine and combine it with the host render. If you use Vue with Vray in Max you will have two renderings combined perfectly in one single image.

Octane can't use the Vue parametric vegetation. You can do a manual compositing.

[squidman]

I take it that's a no? regarding using Octane for Vue animation? I suppose I could use Terragen, but the GUI isn't exactly intuitive...

Still a newb at this, do I need to bake everything, set lighting etc.? Don't see how to export Vue scene files as meshes or Octane-friendly (lighting, materials, atmosphere etc) .obj files. Even iray and Vray RT are painfully slow (rendering now, looks gorgeous tho'). Ditto it would be nice to render Realflow in Octane as well...

NB I have the trial version (so no exporter plug-in for MAX), although I managed to find a C4D exporter floating around on the web. Does the exporter make a difference? Any animation-friendly exporters for Octane?

Thanks! At this stage Octane looks mostly as though it's geared toward stills, product previews etc. Can't complain about the price! even if still in beta..

[[gk]]

Only so much is practical to rende rwith octane...
What i mean is just because it can grind pixels doesnt mean its good for anything. Vue is practically the oposit world of octane domain, billions after billions of polygons, yes instances, but with incorporated state of the art procedural populations which octane doesent even have any of, then we got god rays, environemnt haze, disatance fog, insane procedural second to non rock, stone galore shaders et tout.
Animatable volumetic clouds. The list is long.
Vue has its own render and via max both mental ray and vray can render it with a custom environemnt hook that is needed. Leave vue in its own department with mental ray and vray, it aint for gpu renders.

You can get some of the elements going down the road, but not everything, not today.

Octane is fantastic for product shots, , mediocre detailed scenes and static animations. With a handful of textures.

Id advise not to dream too much, only some parts are possible do do on a gpu only.

[squidman]

Oh well, was kind of hoping to avoid building a render farm! How much easier to stick 4 cheapish graphics cards on a mainboard...On the other hand, real flow meshes work! So that's something! Still at the hobby stage here, so no crisis, but waiting days for renders is pretty pathetic..really would like to be able to do decent renders for live action compositing. Vue seems to work only with mental ray in max as primary renderer, can't even get Vue file renderer to work. Back to digging out all old laptops and pc's and networking render cows... , or something like this http://helmer.sfe.se/.