well sorry but you did write 2 new posts while i was answering to your first post. so couldn't answer to those.
- When something is called "vertex attribute" and accepts "point attributes" is simply wrong UX and super confusing.
the problem is not octane for houdini related imo. classic dcc's like maya / blender etc ... need to store per point user data as a vertex attribute.
if you want to export user data from houdini to arnold for maya, this is the same logic you have to promote point @Cd to a @vertex float 3 color to make it works.
on top of that the vertex color node is a standalone node, juanjo has implemented it exactly the way it is in standalone, so it's not a houdini issues.
i do find that having a very strong fidelity between nodes and naming between octane standalone and houdini plugin is a GOOD thing.
if you want to have a point color data nodes you have to ask this to the octane core team on the general discussion forum.
i guess they will answer you that in most dcc's point data will not exist, as most dcc's again need to store attrib per vertex for polygonal mesh ( maya , blender ... )
vray :
https://docs.chaos.com/display/VMAYA/Ho ... c+Workflow
arnold :
https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/55208/
- When I have to promote prims to vertex so i get prim attributes
see answer 1. prim attributes doesn't exist in many dcc's. the only thing that you can see is vertex attribute for geo and point att for particles. octane is a cross dcc's engine so it has to choose the common denominator to share data.
if you export houdini prim attribute to arnold for maya or in blender you have the same problem. again it's not octane related imo.
if you want clean / beautiful full featured direct access to houdini data tree, karma and mantra are the way to go.
- When i use rppk maps to get attribs (whatever this is called).
This is legacy workflow now, you don't need to use this anymore, you should be able to read @att on geo / points / cvs directly.
juanjo did it to bypass the lack of feature in octane core. it did this pre 2020 to allow us to bypass octane limitation.
what octane CAN'T do that other engine can do is to transmit a perpoint attributes to an instanced objects. that's a limitation, but you have tricks and hacks to bypass this.
When I repeat twice that exposure slider shouldnt be from 1-1000 and i dont even get a reply, what does that say to you?
i am not sure i get exactly what you are talking about ? exposure in render target ?
because houdini match perfectly standalone here ? could you be more precise about this exposure problems ?