New to Octane - bugs and missing features in Maya

[calus]

1) EXR - feature
16-bit half float option is missing. 32bit is in most cases total overkill. 1080p frames in 32bit with multiple passes (beauty around 32mb) kills the compositing workflow. For stills 32bit is fine, but for animation 16bit must be an option! It’s possible from the standalone app (not when batch) when “save rendered to image file.” Also add compression to EXR - right, it’s missing? a black frame take up as much space as one filled with colors :/
Composit EXR file option is missing from the manual (as of 14. januar 2016):
https://docs.otoy.com/#56Additional%20s ... nal”%20tab

In case you didn't see it, 16 bit EXR and custom naming for composite EXR passes are supported since 7.19 version of the plugin... and this 16 bit float option seem to use some compression.
In practice these 16 bits EXR are around 50 times smaller than 32 bits wiht no noticeable quality difference.

But it comes with 2 restrictions:
- there is no default name for the passes custom names, so if you don't give a name for each passe they are not rendered.
- non composite EXR are still 32 bits only

EDIT: EXR custom defaut pass name now have default.

[Jolbertoquini]

Hi Guys,

One thing it's not everyone talk about it ,is how many people here, are actually change the size of the scenes to work on Maya. I think all industry (or most of them) in Maya or 3dsmax are working in cm right? I think by default should be setup as cm we are change settings most of the times for all projects and by week we have at least 10 projects between stills and animations . so a lot time changed that I write a script to do it automatic but as default would be better

and I never find someone who light on meters???? always cm really special cases people light on different scale but to be honesty I never see a lighter with a lot of experience not respect the scene scale.

Anyway maybe I'm wrong but so far is set cm and sometimes on pipeline is overwrite before you start a render.

Best
Jo

[calus]

23) Alpha - bug?
EXR images with alpha/RGBA (haven’t tried other formats) has white edge around RGB that should be “cleaned up” with premult - but photoshop etc. is a pain in this area (I’m not a compositor so, but something like that). RGBA should be used straight and not have to be premulted with the alpha to work properly.
After I have noticed this I tried the Photoshop plugin (which don't work so well with versions below 3.0 alpha, right). And there is a premult option on import. So this is not an issue if you use the plugin, but for comp / image software (I can't think of any than photoshop, but anyways) where it's hard to used premult vs. straight it would be a nice to have the option from Octane directly from the Render Settings.

Not totally sure what is the problem here but I see 2 possible answers:
- to have clean alphas make sure to disable "keep environment"in render settings.
- Make sure if you need straight alpha to disable "premultiplied alpha" in camera setting, and if you need premul alpha to enable it.

premul.jpg (18.32 KiB) Viewed 3982 times

[calus]

Hi Jo,

What have to do the scale unit with this thread ?

Or did you want to create a new topic ? (that's not the case)

[calus]

14) Pass - bug
Shadow passes are empty.

Make sure "Alpha channel", in the "Kernel" section of the render settings, is enabled.
For some reason Shadow pass doesn't work if "Alpha channel" is disabled.
Also this kind of pass like "black shadows" "colored shadows" and "layer reflection" only works in conjunction with Render Layers.

[calus]

2) EXR - feature
When using “save composite exr file” the file prefix/suffix for animation should follow Mayas. If prefix is set to name.#.ext Octane should not write name.#_passes.exr. but rather name_passes.#.exr (or not even write “passes” at all) - leave animation number+padding alone or your compositor will hunt you down
This is really a big issue for animation and a clear indication that the maya plugin developer(s) hasn’t got the full workflow in mind.

Issue solved in the last plugin version.

[calus]

6) Texture - feature / or bug?
Why is power on textures set to 0.9 as default, makes no sense. It should be 1.0.

Issue solved in the last plugin version.

[calus]

10) Slider - bug
Sliders in maya is very hard to control on octane elements, it’s like the default values is set way to high and there for uncontrollable / useless. Examples on a default scene in centimeter linear scale:
- Focal Depth on camera can go crazy high up, even when far plane is set to eg. 500 the Focal Depth max is 100000.000
- Rayepsilon seldom goes over 10.0 but maxes out at 1000.0
- Spec, glossy, AOdist under Direct Light.
- Power in lights and environment. Who crankes up the value to the max of 1000.0 when the default is 0.3 with the slider?
- Edges rounding when octane scene scale is set to 0.001 (used to get aperture to work on small scale scenes).
It makes it very difficult to do quick settings like the guys does in this video (even if it’s cinema 4D, it has the same values etc.)
https://vimeo.com/124066262
A solution would be like AutoDesk does, set the max value to something reasonable and unlock the max value so it kan be overdriven - and maybe put the min, max value in the tool tips.
A workaround is to use cmd+mouse left/middel/right drag on the value, but that doesn’t work in even higher values, so it’s not bulletproof.

Right.
Octane parameter sliders are pretty unusable.
I suppose most of us don't use them, but CTRL drag in the attribute field, or write the number, or use the channel box.
Indeed there's no soft-limit defined for these attributes that you overcome by writing in the field, like for Maya attributes.

Height parameter of the displacement node is the most obvious example:
The smallest value you can have after 0 , using the slider, is 1274465727539543905552162262439952384.000 !!!
So if you dare to use this slider while IPR is running, Maya crashes.

displace.jpg (10.13 KiB) Viewed 4514 times