OctaneRender for Carrara 3.0.0.1 [Test]

[EddyMI3D]

Did I miss something? I still use 8.5.1.19

[PhilW]

Hi Sighman, Thanks. I hate to say it, but I think it must be your plugin, given the timing of this happening for 3dage and me.

In the pre-release publicity (months ago), there was talk of "micro-surface displacement volumes and surfaces" as a major new feature, but I can't see any reference now to it. Any idea what happened to this - is it coming? or has it been dropped?

[Sighman]

I have confirmed it is a bug in my plugin. I am working on a fix and I should have something later in the day. Any save files created with the current version are corrupt and will not load even after the fix.

Expect new features to be rolled out slowly over the next few months. Not everything can be delivered at once. For specific features you should ask on the main forums, I don't get told anything special now that things are public.

[3dage]

Hi Sighman

I had the plug-in installed into the current Production release of Carrara pro 8.5.1 (build 19) 64bit
after getting the "end of file" error , I un-installed it last night and made a couple of test scenes which opened without any issues.

[Sighman]

New update added to this thread. This update fixes the corruption of scene save files (.car). Sorry but corrupted scene files cannot be recovered.

[PhilW]

Hi Sighman, Thanks for addressing this quickly.

A couple of questions (sorry!) - is it possible to run both a version 2 and a version 3 of your plugin on the same machine, but with each on a different installed version of Carrara? Also, are Carrara's volumetric clouds the only object that you can apply the Octane volumetric material to?

Edit: I just tried the new version and the environmental medium seems to give just a uniform shading to the scene irrespective of depth, so that a near part of a terrain (or anything) gets as much "fog" as a distant part. It was not like this in the previous version.

[Sighman]

Hi Sighman, Thanks for addressing this quickly.
A couple of questions (sorry!) - is it possible to run both a version 2 and a version 3 of your plugin on the same machine, but with each on a different installed version of Carrara?

Yes but you need to manually copy the plugin to the second install of Carrara. The version 3 installer will overwrite version 2 so copy the version 2 plugin first.

Also, are Carrara's volumetric clouds the only object that you can apply the Octane volumetric material to?

Yes. As I stated in the version notes, only the 'new' Carrara volumetric clouds are supported. The other volume objects (clouds, fire, smoke) do not expose any volumetric information through the Carrara API so there is not much I can do there. What I might be able to do is create my own fog/cloud/fire generators but I don't have the expertise to do that. I would have to obtain or develop the algorithms involved but that is something that will have to go on the wish list for now.

What I am working on is a way to load OpenVDB files into a volume instance, the Carrara volume will act as a surrogate for the VDB rendered in the plugin. The Carrara volume will define the VDB's position and size.
I also plan on supporting a volume fountain (emitter) to some extent. The fountain particles will modify the voxel values within a volume to produce some interesting animation effects.

Edit: I just tried the new version and the environmental medium seems to give just a uniform shading to the scene irrespective of depth, so that a near part of a terrain (or anything) gets as much "fog" as a distant part. It was not like this in the previous version.

I have not changed anything to do with the environmental medium. Are you sure you are using the same values as before?

[PhilW]

Thanks for the info - the emitter effect sounds like it might be cool and very useful.

I have attached an illustration of the "flat fog" in the environment medium, there is no sense of it receding as it is applied uniformly across the whole image. In the previous original version, I was able to get good receding atmospheric haze in a scene like this. I am just guessing here, but maybe this is done by having an inward facing "bubble" around the camera, and somehow the normals on that have got inverted?

[3dage]

Thank you for the rapid update,. ...and on a weekend too,.

[EddyMI3D]

The Volumetric Clouds work fine in "cloud" size. But when I shrink them (approx 50 cm side length),
I cant see them any more...
So I assume, thy only work in large sizes.