OctaneRender for Modo (Windows) 1.52 [STABLE]

[PAQUITO]

Guys, where am I suposed to download the plugin? It doesn´t show in the downloads section of my customer area and it´s already paid.

EDIT: Allright, it was in the Live accounts section. Not very obvious
EDIT2: Well, after the install and activation, Modo crashes everytime I try to do anything. What am I doing wrong?
EDIT3: Updated my drivers to the latest version and still the same. The crash seems to happen everytime I try to create geometry or load a scene, but I can use the menus with no problem. I´m using the build 58358 of Modo701 64 bits.

[riggles]

Not a biggie, but in the manual, the Mix and Portal Material pages have images from the AutoCAD plugin instead of MODO.

One thing I've noticed is that the Render Priority setting seems to have less impact on recovering viewport performance than in the standalone. Navigating the menus in the setup viewport doesn't become really smooth until I deactivate my display card completely. In standalone, I could set my display card to Low Priority and everything would be smooth.

I'm running the latest NVIDIA drivers (334.89), but it could also be that I'm running in Boot Camp. Don't know for sure.

[face_off]

PAQUITO - you need to be running SR4 of Modo - build 58358 is not SR4 (maybe SR3?). This is a requirement listed on the product page and in the installation section of the manual. Pls update and let me know how you go.

Not a biggie, but in the manual, the Mix and Portal Material pages have images from the AutoCAD plugin instead of MODO.

Thank you - I will fix this.

One thing I've noticed is that the Render Priority setting seems to have less impact on recovering viewport performance than in the standalone. Navigating the menus in the setup viewport doesn't become really smooth until I deactivate my display card completely. In standalone, I could set my display card to Low Priority and everything would be smooth.

I will investigate to make sure priority is being set correctly. I don't have bootcamp installed on my Mac yet to determine if this is the issue.

Paul

[PAQUITO]

Sorry, I never heard of that "SR" thing. Aren´t you talking about SP instead?

[face_off]

Responding to some comments/questions/issues received via PM, but answered here so I don't have to repeat it

1) Authentication : Your plugin username/password is stored in Modo701.cfg, so if you delete that file, you will need to re-authenticate. There has been an issue reported that if you disable your network card, there are authentication issues. I have escalated this to Otoy to find a resolution. If you have authenticate issues, pls PM me and I will forward your issue to Otoy.

2) Animation : At this stage "Play"ing an animation in Modo does not trigger the Octane Viewport to refresh. Instead, click the Animate button (top far right) of the OctaneRender Setup window to render an animation. Be sure to set the required Max Samples in the Kernel settings first.

Previewing an animation by updating the Viewport geometry each modo frame will not likely be viable, since the time taken to load the scene into Octane may be longer than the time Modo spends displaying each frame. If you need to update once you change the current frame number on the timeline, click the refresh button (you can rightclick the Viewport to do this). The animation capabilities of the plugin will be enhanced in the next few months - at the moment it is very basic.

Also, resist usig very small Max Samples for previewing an animation using the Animation button - set a Max Samples that takes 2 seconds or more to complete the render so that everything has time to stay in sync.

3) Modo quit whilst closing a Modo scene - there have been two reports of this. If it happens to you, pls let me know.

4) The Default Geometry Update preference settings only applies to new mesh items that you add to the scene. It does not change existing mesh item "Live Update" states. For existing meshes in the scene, set the "Live Geometry Update" property on the Mesh Item. Also, I don't think that changing the subd level of a mesh triggers an update - I will look into this, but for the moment you need to Refresh if you change a subd level.

I have added a "Troubleshooting" page to the manual - http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Modo/?page_id=926

Paul

[face_off]

Sorry, I never heard of that "SR" thing. Aren´t you talking about SP instead?

Sorry - yes, Service Pack 4. SR = "Service Release". I will change the terminology in the manual to avoid any confusion.

Paul

[PAQUITO]

Ook, now it´s clear. I was going crazy finding nothing related to sr4 all over the internet lol
Thanks for the info. I will try to update and restart the installation.

[PAQUITO]

Finally working. So far it works flawlessly. There are things I would like to see:

1. A good direct material conversion. Mainly for texture projections. It needs to be able to represent what I´m seeing in my viewport. By now it changes any texture projection to a UV projection. Same thing for alpha channel textures.

2. A finer sync. After applying a material you must manually sync it. It should be automatic, I think.
3. An awesome feature would be having the same "active shade" view as with Vray RT.

On the other hand, it support SDS... cool!

This was a very rough quick test, I must say. I´m maybe wrong or missing features, but well... just speaking my mind. Overall, awesome potential... keep up the good work!

[face_off]

Thanks for the nice words.

1. A good direct material conversion. Mainly for texture projections. It needs to be able to represent what I´m seeing in my viewport. By now it changes any texture projection to a UV projection. Same thing for alpha channel textures.

Texture projections should convert automatically from Modo to the plugin. Pls see http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Modo/?page_id=799. If something is not clear in the manual, or projections are not working correctly, pls let me know. Alpha channel textures (do you mean PNG with alpha?) is covered at http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Modo/?page_id=169, but could be automated (I'm just not sure at the moment how to easily detect if a PNG has an alpha channel).

2. A finer sync. After applying a material you must manually sync it. It should be automatic, I think.

Updating a material should always update that material in the Octane Viewport. Assigning a material to a polygon/mesh will only automatically update IF you have Live Geometry Refresh on for that mesh (http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Modo/?page_id=645).

3. An awesome feature would be having the same "active shade" view as with Vray RT.

Unsure what this is - if you can provide more details I can investigate.

Thanks again for the feedback - keep it coming.

Paul

[cakeller98]

Tried to export the scene (yes with the preview window open) and Octane Standalone 1.2 claimed:

Error during loading of OctaneRender scene:
OCS version of "test.ocs" not supported.

Is this a bug or did I do something wrong between modo and octane standalone?

All I did was set up a scene in modo, open the octane setup and preview windows and then export to OCS, and can't open in octane.

Side note - look at the plugin version - modo reports 1.32, even though I've only ever installed the 1.33 version... I'm guessing the resource string didn't get modified?)
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- Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit (Service Pack 1)
- 8 GB System Memory
- nVidia Quadro K4000M (Driver Ver 320.86
- Modo 7.01 SP-4 - 66614 (64-bit)
- OctaneRender for Modo version

• Modo Reports -> 1.32.0.41
  Only ever installed -> OctaneRender_for_Modo_701_1_33_0_41_beta_64bit

- Other Plugins:

• PowerSubD Nurbs
  farfarer-vnorm
  lux-ffmpeg
  substance plugin.