OctaneRender for Modo (Windows) 1.52 [STABLE]

[lightboy]

Just started a new test scene with a cube
Octane is rendering it ok, my previous scene now crashes octane.

On this cube scene I applied a checker texture to the cube, at 100% scale on the texture the cube renders fine with the checker texture. From 100% to 55% there is not change in the size of the texture.
From 50% to 1% the texture changes its size but renders with artifacts if you change the scale in a large amount from say 50% to 25%.
if you scale to numbers other than 50% 25% 12.5% ,10% 6.25% 5% 2.5% then you are fine there is no artifacts, those number cause artifacts

I'm getting lots of Octane crashes aswell. After Octane crashes I can no longer render the scene even after a Modo restart.

Here are some samples

100%

55%

50%

[cakeller98]

Paul, latest plugin getting really nice! thanks for all the hard work. Material conversions are still a bit confusing, but I have been able to get some more or less matching results in modo/octane.

Might I suggest... why not have a shader dialog within modo to define the values you want in Octane, but where the appropriate modo shader settings are set?

IOW - a dialog with all the settings for the 3 octane shader modes. set for diffuse, and set all the values within the dialog - then that pipes those values to the modo shader. Not that there would be any math to it, just a dialog with the shader controls arranged (perhaps with tooltips, and explanations) such that they make sense when trying to achieve an effect.

for example - if I want to change the IOR for my reflection in a glossy material in Octane, but not have to create an override... how do I do that?? glossy materials aren't transparent, so the IOR is grayed out hmmm....

Basically the idea here is to reveal, within the UI, the conversion rules, and make it easier to make modo shaders that more or less look like octane shaders without having to override everything. Basically I'm just suggesting a UI to edit the modo settings by way of octane-like controls. So you can get the exact octane result you want in modo that would translate then to octane as closely as possible. It would be a UI that leaves out unsupported features, and groups shader settings so it's obvious what they control. Otherwise - perhaps the translation rules should be included in the manual... e.g. in the material descriptions in them manual for each type of octane material, explain in the description how to get that material from a modo material. And for each octane material setting, list the settings/math of how you are translating it to the octane shaders.

EDIT:
Am I doing something wrong, or is Specular % being applied to the grayscale default specular amount? Since modo can apply a color to the specular,
I would expect the specular translation to be modo(Specular% * Specular Color) --> octane(Specular:RGB Color)

[face_off]

lightboy - I will look into your issues - however regarding the 702 error pls see http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Modo/?page_id=416. Once you get that, your Nvidia drivers may be in an uncertain state, and you probably need to reboot.

And a reminder to people, either report your specs (as requested in the first post in this thread), or add them to your signature. Without knowing your hardware, amd plugin version it's hard to help you.

On this cube scene I applied a checker texture to the cube, at 100% scale on the texture the cube renders fine with the checker texture. From 100% to 55% there is not change in the size of the texture.
From 50% to 1% the texture changes its size but renders with artifacts if you change the scale in a large amount from say 50% to 25%.
if you scale to numbers other than 50% 25% 12.5% ,10% 6.25% 5% 2.5% then you are fine there is no artifacts, those number cause artifacts

The Checks texture does not work correctly at the scene original. Move it off 0, 0, 0. See http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Revit/?page_id=165.

I'm getting lots of Octane crashes aswell. After Octane crashes I can no longer render the scene even after a Modo restart.

This sounds like you have a video card issue. Are you running out of VRAM? Have you applied the fix in the FAQ of the manual? Have you overclocked your card?

The new plugin crashes Modo, it takes ages to import geometry (never happened before) and at 100% it crashes

Ayertosco, can you pls provide the info requested at the top of this thread. When is it crashing? All scenes are just some? What are you doing when it crashes? Do you have a sample scene which crashes when you load it?

Paul

[face_off]

Might I suggest... why not have a shader dialog within modo to define the values you want in Octane, but where the appropriate modo shader settings are set?

IOW - a dialog with all the settings for the 3 octane shader modes. set for diffuse, and set all the values within the dialog - then that pipes those values to the modo shader. Not that there would be any math to it, just a dialog with the shader controls arranged (perhaps with tooltips, and explanations) such that they make sense when trying to achieve an effect.

for example - if I want to change the IOR for my reflection in a glossy material in Octane, but not have to create an override... how do I do that?? glossy materials aren't transparent, so the IOR is grayed out hmmm....

I'm not sure I completely follow you here. The conversion rules for converting Modo materials to Octane materials are at http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Modo/?page_id=35. IMO, If there is something about the material that you need to change, you are better off overriding the Modo material with an Octane Override and tweaking it there then adjusting the Modo material.

Basically the idea here is to reveal, within the UI, the conversion rules, and make it easier to make modo shaders that more or less look like octane shaders without having to override everything. Basically I'm just suggesting a UI to edit the modo settings by way of octane-like controls. So you can get the exact octane result you want in modo that would translate then to octane as closely as possible. It would be a UI that leaves out unsupported features, and groups shader settings so it's obvious what they control. Otherwise - perhaps the translation rules should be included in the manual... e.g. in the material descriptions in them manual for each type of octane material, explain in the description how to get that material from a modo material. And for each octane material setting, list the settings/math of how you are translating it to the octane shaders.

I think the coversion rules from the manual do this already?

EDIT:
Am I doing something wrong, or is Specular % being applied to the grayscale default specular amount? Since modo can apply a color to the specular,
I would expect the specular translation to be modo(Specular% * Specular Color) --> octane(Specular:RGB Color)

Yes, the specular converts as a greyscale, not RGB color. It can be changed, however the feedback received so far indicated people wanted it as a Greyscale so that you could edit that pin within the Material node (rather than as a separate RGB Color node).

Paul

[face_off]

On this cube scene I applied a checker texture to the cube, at 100% scale on the texture the cube renders fine with the checker texture. From 100% to 55% there is not change in the size of the texture.
From 50% to 1% the texture changes its size but renders with artifacts if you change the scale in a large amount from say 50% to 25%.
if you scale to numbers other than 50% 25% 12.5% ,10% 6.25% 5% 2.5% then you are fine there is no artifacts, those number cause artifacts

Move the cube a fraction off the center of the scene (ie. off 0, 0, 0). To adjust the checks scale, use the Scale sliders on the Transform pin of the Checks node.

Paul

[face_off]

UV maps now are tiling properly, but the UV rotation is not being applied. However I can now put a transform on the texture and rotate it. Would it be possible to have that applied automatically?

Hi Keith - you are right - the Modo Texture Locator UV Rotation does not translate to the Octane material. I will try to incorporate this.

Bump maps are still being applied at full strength. I'm just using a image map applied to a UV. The material gets it's bump strength from the bump amplitude on the material Ref tab. Low and High values are 0 and 100 percent on the texture layers tab.

I'm not sure if the Octane bump amount translates to an actual bump amplitude. It roughly looks like a Bump Amplitude in Modo = Octane bump image power of 1. Perhaps you could validate this - and if you used a lower Amplitude for the chair - what Octane bump power did you need to use to get the same result? Once the formula is know - it will be easy to code into the plugin.

I just found an interesting problem.
I made a change to the scene and needed to see the objects better in ogl. I put a material at the top of the tree above the base shader to make all the objects in the scene grey in ogl, modo still sees the scene ok for a render as in the all the materials still came through. Octane went black in it's output and did not render anything until I went to the texture environment in Octane and unchecked use RGB color or switched to daylight mode. The area lights in the scene were not been seen anymore in Octane.
As I forgot to turn the material off above the baseshader in the tree. Modo was ok with it, Octane was not. It threw me for a loop trying to figure out what went wrong.
I don't know if there is a way around that, I know it's user error but if the modo ouput is looking ok it can throw you off if Octane is showing something different.

I checked this - and there are 2 factors at play. The first is that it looks like the Octane Override is still being applied even when there is a Modo Material above it in the tree if it's in the root (or Default tag) of the Shader Tree. I will need to investigate this some more, but it looks like a bug, which I will fix. Secondly, if you see an anomaly like this, double check by rendering to the Modo renderer, since the Modo preview sometimes does not correctly match the Shader Tree rules.

Thanks for the good suggestions above.

Paul

[funk]

Animated aperture and focal depth arent respected when "load all frames into octane" is enabled. (scrubbing the time line shows no change)

Is this a bug or limitation?

[Ayertosco]

Ayertosco, can you pls provide the info requested at the top of this thread. When is it crashing? All scenes are just some? What are you doing when it crashes? Do you have a sample scene which crashes when you load it?

Paul

- Win 7
- 64 bit
- 8GB of RAM
- GTX 580 1,5 GB
- 311.06
- Modo 701 sp5
- Plugin 1.52 (last one)
- Solidworks kit - PowerSUBD - J3D Moya - FusionKit 701

It happens always with the same scene as i'm working only on this. Plugin 1.51 loaded the scene in the viewport with no problem but it didn't display modo textures and materials, just flat colors (they weren't even the MTL materials ). This version simply crashes as it loads the entire scene...i thought about not enough ram but since it loaded it completely before it seems strange. Today i'll try to import different models (lighter one) to see if something change

[face_off]

- Win 7
- 64 bit
- 8GB of RAM
- GTX 580 1,5 GB
- 311.06
- Modo 701 sp5
- Plugin 1.52 (last one)
- Solidworks kit - PowerSUBD - J3D Moya - FusionKit 701

It happens always with the same scene as i'm working only on this. Plugin 1.51 loaded the scene in the viewport with no problem but it didn't display modo textures and materials, just flat colors (they weren't even the MTL materials ).

I would say you are under-equiped for all but relatively simple Modo scenes. 1.5GB of VRAM is not a lot, so you will need to monitor your VRAM usage closely. When rendering, the OctaneRender Setup window will display the usage stats in the bottom right of the panel. The "VRAM Used/Free/Total" will tell you how close you are to running out. Keep in mind that Modo uses VRAM too. You can minimse this in System->Preferences->Display->OpenGL->Texture Resolution->512x512.

This version simply crashes as it loads the entire scene...i thought about not enough ram but since it loaded it completely before it seems strange. Today i'll try to import different models (lighter one) to see if something change

I'm not sure which version you were using when the scene loaded, and I don't know the exact version of the plugin you are using now. However the VRAM requirements of the plugin increased recently when the camera and objects animation positions were loaded in the Octane. You can turn this off in Kernel->Animation->Load All Frames into Octane.

Even if you run out of memory, the plugin should not crash - so if you could send that scene to me I can take a closer look. Email to paul at physicalc-software dot com.

Paul

[cakeller98]

The conversion rules for converting Modo materials to Octane materials are at http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Modo/?page_id=35. IMO, If there is something about the material that you need to change, you are better off overriding the Modo material with an Octane Override and tweaking it there then adjusting the Modo material.
I think the coversion rules from the manual do this already?

Thanks though i could t find it before - i must have been looking at an outsated manual. I looked through that whole section.
Still reading it just now i found it to be a bit confusing.

EDIT:
Am I doing something wrong, or is Specular % being applied to the grayscale default specular amount? Since modo can apply a color to the specular,
I would expect the specular translation to be modo(Specular% * Specular Color) --> octane(Specular:RGB Color)

Yes, the specular converts as a greyscale, not RGB color. It can be changed, however the feedback received so far indicated people wanted it as a Greyscale so that you could edit that pin within the Material node (rather than as a separate RGB Color node).

Paul

You say that feedback so far says that people dont want their specular color to be reproduced? I dont understand. Many materials need colored specular... How about translate it to grayscal value if the color is 100% white and an rgb color if its anything else. I dknt see the value of ignoring the specular color. If i set an rgb specular color in modo i want an rgb specular color in octane period. And i dont want to have to set up an override for two dozen materials that come in from clients that dont have octane for modo. I want as LITTLE work as possible to render from an already set up modo scene to an octane rendered scene.