OCTANE RENDER. Lighting issue. Multi Storey Car Park Tour.

[sikotik13]

If I understood correctly (I'm pretty sure I did, from some experience with camera-only animations, but feel free to chime in if I'm wrong, t_3):

The plug-in can do basically 3 things with camera focus.
1. Auto-focus (which for anything other than a stationary, single frame at a particular distance the plugin likes, is useless.
2. Manual focus (on a particular object or part of an object) useful if rotating around a given object, etc.
3. Follow focus on same types as point #2

The only option outside of that is "Get focus from Daz Camera."

His guidance (as I read it), is to make key frames with the daz camera, manually focusing if desired/required, where you want. Then tell the plugin to pull focus from it, since it will do so again at each frame. The reason for Key framing the camera is because the plugin doesn't report back to Daz Studio, it just keeps going with whatever focus it had for the first frame unless you tell it to change it (via keyframe). A keyframe would effectively read in those instructions as "Force the plugin to re-aquire focus from Daz camrea."

That sounded much more long-winded than it was in my head, but hopefully helps.

For what it's worth, I have had to do that with a couple of shorter animations where the camera lost focus (even in follow mode) repeatedly. Keyframing fixed it right up though. I have no idea how the rayepsilon/kernel stuff factors in, but presumably, if they are going off of the first frame, then the plugin is still reading the depth/whatever-other-fancy-technical info from that frame (i.e. not where your camera is, since that is not discussed, but where it was the last time it was explicitly told by Daz Studio. In that case, it would still think the camera is at frame 1's location).

[SciFiFunk]

"Get focus from Daz Camera."

Thanks very much sikotik13 - that all makes sense. It's better anyway to keyframe the camera, you are in control then. I'll give it a try.

[Spectralis]

I've done a number of moving camera animations and keyframing the DAZ camera works like a charm in OR. If you adjust the movement of the camera or its focus at any point along the timeline you need to go back and check that the camera path and focus has changed correctly before and after the edit. This takes time and patience and is often a frame by frame process along the edited section. I've noticed that even if one frame goes out of focus or the path is wrong it's visible so getting it all keyframed correctly can be time consuming but ultimately worth it in the end.

[SciFiFunk]

I've done a number of moving camera animations and keyframing the DAZ camera works like a charm in OR. If you adjust the movement of the camera or its focus at any point along the timeline you need to go back and check that the camera path and focus has changed correctly before and after the edit. This takes time and patience and is often a frame by frame process along the edited section. I've noticed that even if one frame goes out of focus or the path is wrong it's visible so getting it all keyframed correctly can be time consuming but ultimately worth it in the end.

Thanks man. Relieved there is a solution!

[SciFiFunk]

Hi


Try as I might, I can't find the "Get focus from Daz Camera." option.

I can see how to turn off autofocus (via right clicking the viewport). I can also see an auto focus option in the DAZ camera parameters in DAZ for Octane.

I can also see how to focus on a particular object.

However the "Get focus from Daz Camera." is elusive. Can any one help?

[EDIT = FOUND IT - Left message in here in case anyone else stuggles - it's at the bottom of the viewport the button will say manual or auto. Choose manual then click to select "Get focus from Daz Camera."]

(on a side note, turning off auto focus and turning auto ray epsilon ON means I don't lose the lighting at the back of the car park, it's just I'd like to get focus from the DAZ camera so that I can keyframe it)

[t_3]

(on a side note, turning off auto focus and turning auto ray epsilon ON means I don't lose the lighting at the back of the car park, it's just I'd like to get focus from the DAZ camera so that I can keyframe it)

you can directly keyframe any of the additional octane values of the daz camera, just like any other value/slider in daz - including the octane focus distance value (excluding only stereo colors).

so the most precise way to keyframe the focus (imo) is to use the focus picker of the daz viewport and create (daz) camera keyframes as needed. in general it doesn't matter how the focus distance was acquired (by picker, get from daz, focus to scene object) - it only needs to be manual to have keyframes actually affecting it when running the animation. if you use keymate/graphmate (recommended i'd say), you can precisely control where and when the focus wents in an animation by editing the keyframes directly. the simple set/delete keyframe is imo a quite confusing to control esp. camera focus in an animation...

[SciFiFunk]

if you use keymate/graphmate (recommended i'd say), you can precisely control where and when the focus wents in an animation by editing the keyframes directly. the simple set/delete keyframe is imo a quite confusing to control esp. camera focus in an animation...

Yes thanks. I understand. I can't seem to find the Octane camera parameters within keymate/graphmate. I can see that they are being altered in the DAZ timeline though. I'm rendering out the (working!) scene now, and will upload a little tutorial for this so that others can avoid seeing bits of their scene go black.

We should all be keyframing the camera anyway in an animation to keep control over it - so all is good. Thanks again.

[t_3]

I can't seem to find the Octane camera parameters within keymate/graphmate.

it's quite easy - though hard to find... needed several tries myself until i stumbled over the right button:
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... te#p172320

[SciFiFunk]

Thanks - I see the thread - I'm still struggling - but it's late here. Time to stop. I'll look again tomorrow and get back to you. At least I know I can find it when I learn how.

[SciFiFunk]

Hi,

I'm back on Octane again after a long break (Brand new Gigabyte GTX 780 Ti was faulty from new. After a struggle to get the vendor to play ball I get a reconditioned one via the Gigabyte RMA process. Not impressed at all - will not be using either the vendor or Gigabyte again).

The method I am using to get a quick and easy DOF is to use another camera side on to the camera I want to use in the shot. I select the shot camera but look through the DOF camera (the side on one). I now see a wonderfully easy to use DOF setup, where (approximately) the tranmlines are what is in focus.

However, these settings dont affect the Octane render. Instead I copy and paste FOCAL DISTANCE and F/STOP into OCTANE FOCAL DISTANCE and OCTANE F/STOP. I now get DOF. [EDIT - The F/STOP parameters work on a different scale, so no point in copying them.]

It's a bit fiddly. Isn't the "get from DAZ camera" option in the OCTANE viewport supposed to take the DAZ focal distance and f/stop parameters? If it did this would speed up the process.

Any help most appreciated. It's good to be back.