OctaneRender® 1.025 instancing preview test build

[ROUBAL]

Wow ! Great release ! Thank you very much for this preview !

Here is a first test showing 730 Routemaster buses ! This model (currently a modelling WIP) has more than 3 millions of vertices and weights 480MB in 1280x720 format (1150 in 8000x4500). With a good exporter from Blender, vegetation and repeated architecture props should not be a problem any more, at least for still pictures, because the rendering time obvioulsy increases a lot.

As it is, it already helps to multiply some trees for example. I hate using nodes, but these placement nodes are easy to use. Great improvement !

Unfortunately, all materials have had to be adjusted again when importing an obj made with 1.0258e, but in the future this will not be a problem with files made from the recent version..

[FamilyGuy]

Can someone tell me how can I use this instancing? I want to do a test with trees.

When can we expect Max plugin with instancing?

[face]

...

For a translation:
[1, 0, 0, tx]
[0, 1, 0, ty]
[0, 0, 1, tz]
[0, 0, 0, 1]

The scatter node will contain these 12 values:
1 0 0 tx 0 1 0 ty 0 0 1 tz
...

Shouldn´t it be
[1, 0, 0, 0]
[0, 1, 0, 0]
[0, 0, 1, 0]
[x, y, z, 1]
?

The last column is irrelevant, not the last row...
face

[pixelrush]

Well this is encouraging to behold....
The new look team have been a lttle more active than I thought they would be.
Keep this up and you might get my interest back in buying v2.

[RayTracey]

Can someone tell me how can I use this instancing? I want to do a test with trees.

When can we expect Max plugin with instancing?

You can download the test scenes that were included in the first post, they contain some basic information on how to get started with instancing. for example, you can add a mesh node with a tree model in the Sierpinski scene, and then connect this node to the first Placement node at the top of the Nodegraph.

We will give more details about the Max plugin with instancing soon.

[RayTracey]

Wow ! Great release ! Thank you very much for this preview !

Here is a first test showing 730 Routemaster buses ! This model (currently a modelling WIP) has more than 3 millions of vertices and weights 480MB in 1280x720 format (1150 in 8000x4500). With a good exporter from Blender, vegetation and repeated architecture props should not be a problem any more, at least for still pictures, because the rendering time obvioulsy increases a lot.

As it is, it already helps to multiply some trees for example. I hate using nodes, but these placement nodes are easy to use. Great improvement !

Unfortunately, all materials have had to be adjusted again when importing an obj made with 1.0258e, but in the future this will not be a problem with files made from the recent version..

Looks awesome, that's about 2.2 billion vertices

[pixelrush]

Seems pretty cool.
Do you want community feedback about this preview?

Assuming you do, these transforms are all very well but how can I visualise which instance I am changing when I edit the list of scatter co-ordinates? and how can I quickly reference a particular one again or talk to another user about the file.
Could we not have an index number to the left for the transforms that can be clicked on to highlight that existing instance temporarily as say vivid pink (perhaps emitting) in the render view, or conversly an instance picker for the view to go to the appropriate numbers in the node inspector? If I want to add an instance to the list can I use a null object or the cursor to interrogate or copy/paste an x,y,z position from the view? Say I had an archviz and I wanted to place a shrub either side of an entry way or hanging flower baskets at specific locations fairly accurately just by mouse selection...

Also can we have the numbers neatly spaced across the field like a spreadsheet with a slight colour cast for the background of the various columns to make it easy on the eye.
Dunno trying to be user friendly here

BTW how come the scale and rotate have individual nodes but not translate? I presume transform has all three together for convenience?

More as I think of it...
PS can we keep the XXX.obj a little longer and add a simple delimited text file say XXX.ins for the instance co-ords. I think .obj is still quite a useful format out of many applications. No sense suddenly requiring all exporters to be rewritten while Octane v1 is almost done.

[steveps3]

...

For a translation:
[1, 0, 0, tx]
[0, 1, 0, ty]
[0, 0, 1, tz]
[0, 0, 0, 1]

The scatter node will contain these 12 values:
1 0 0 tx 0 1 0 ty 0 0 1 tz
...

Shouldn´t it be
[1, 0, 0, 0]
[0, 1, 0, 0]
[0, 0, 1, 0]
[x, y, z, 1]
?

The last column is irrelevant, not the last row...
face

No, Roeland is correct. It is the last column that is the transformation column not the last row.

Listen to me, numpty to expert in a single evening of learning

[face]

Hm, in Softimage the last column is irrelevant.
Thats what makes me a little bit confuse...

face

[matej]

There are two ways to write matrices; column major and row major. Depending on which version you use, the translation component is written in the last row or last column.

Why do you guys even bother with this? Its not that you'll be placing objects around by inputing matrix data by hand.