OTOY Forums

hi all, i have some development updates for you; first off a new screenshot of the viewport ui: so, what can be seen here:

• octane viewport pickers/tools; left of the progress bar, from left to right:
  - select object (plus filter materials in the corresponding plugin tab)
  - select surface/material (like in the standalone)
  - directly open the picked material in the nodegraph editor
  - focus (to the picked point - like in the standalone)
  - focus follow (lets the camera focus follow the picked object until another focus mode is set)
  - reload the picked object (useful if the live geometry mode is turned off; while tweaking poses/morphs)
  - picking into an empty area deselects elements (if any) and clears the materials filters
  .
• viewport context menu:
  - basically all the picker functions (plus affected objects/sufaces/mats labels)
  - back to autofocus & full scene reload (same as the buttons on the bottom)
  - switch between scale-to-viewport or current fixed render size
  - select a fixed render size from a list (as also found in the resolution node in the standalone)
  .
• camera controls:
  since fov and dof control is notably more important when using octane, it can get tedious to always open the parameters tab, select the camera, and open the parameter group, to finally tweak those settings, so there is a quick access to them (for the currently active camera) by clicking the camera tool button in the top-right corner (overlaying the viewport until hidden).
  note: the f/stop parameter from the daz camera is translated into the octane aperture value and vice versa.

and here is a compilation of changes and improvements completed since mid december:

• material applying between one or more daz materials and an octane material by drag & drop;
  also live db thumbnails can be dragged onto one or more daz materials to apply them;
  dragging octane materials onto other octane materials will replace them.
  .
• in addition to the octane viewport picker tools, also the node- and mat pickers from studio are supported
  to select corresponding octane materials or filter the materials trees.
  .
• auto materials are updated (if activated) whenever new material sets are loaded onto an object
  .
• as long as the live geometry mode is on, this also happens for morph/pose sets
  .
• also for auto materials it can be chosen to skip specific maps (i.e. to save vram by not using specular or bump maps).
  .
• the node type (diffuse/glossy/specular) can be changed for one ore more octane materials at once
  without the need to go into the materials settings (while keeping all appropriate settings of course).
  .
• the nodegraph editor supports copy & paste for nodes, and it is also possible to paste node settings only.
  .
• it can be chosen to use only base meshes for rendering (in favor of the subdivided meshes),
  mainly to speed up rendering while tweaking a scene.
  .
• octane's set of hdri studio maps and ies lights are embedded and can be selected from the maps list
  without the need to browse the disk (for valid nodes = texture environment power and emission distribution).
  .
• of course the new sunlight model is already included, and in addition the location
  can be set via an integrated google maps browser (fun to use and useful too).
  .
• full support for orthogonal cameras; the view cameras (top, front, left, ...) do use this by nature of course
  (thus the octane viewport replicates the daz viewport also for this cameras),
  and in addition the "perspective" on/off switch of standard daz cameras also translates to octane.
  .
• to free up resources for rendering, switching off windows 7 aero is most recommended;
  this can be done from within the plugin, and even chosen to turn aero off on every startup.
  .
• also supported is the clay rendering mode from the standalone,
  .
• as well as reduced size rendering (to speed up the viewport, called "subsampling" in the standalone).

the current release "roadmap" includes 1-2 more updates to the closed beta (which usually happen within a week each), until the plugin should be ready to be prepared for the public beta release (creating installers, preparing a manual, ...)

wow, very good integration and very beautiful icons, well done t_3
ciao beppe

bepeg4d wrote:wow, very good integration and very beautiful icons, well done t_3
ciao beppe

thank you blood sweat and tears did go into this
only the icons are just tastefully selected - in other words from a bought set...

i can only imagine the hard work there is behind
i have discovered daz only recently and is nice to see such a good integration with my beloved octane
ciao beppe

Hi T_3
It's an amazing Plugin. I already use it in Poser and i plan to use it in DAZ 3d to, because, there are some things (especially geness wise) you can only do in DAZ Studio. I just hated that renderer...
Can you tell me, when about the beta will be avaiable for purchase? Cause i got a porject pending and i would postpone that to when your plug's out.
Kind Regards Beat

beat578 wrote:Hi T_3
It's an amazing Plugin. I already use it in Poser and i plan to use it in DAZ 3d to, because, there are some things (especially geness wise) you can only do in DAZ Studio. I just hated that renderer...
Can you tell me, when about the beta will be avaiable for purchase? Cause i got a porject pending and i would postpone that to when your plug's out.
Kind Regards Beat

hi! i'm currently working on the RC, manual and some other release stuff needs to be done, but it looks like the release will happen in february...

For february, That sounds good !! Same announcing day for Geforce Titan ?
I'm ready ! as I spend many times to go back and forth between DAZ and MAX for animation.
thanks

February sounds awesome!
But I bet with my luck it will be next week while I'm out of town and can't play with it!
I'm pretty eagerly waiting on this.

Just a quick question, as of my understanding this will run in Studio 3 last release as well, right?
I somehow can't wrap my head around the UI of Studio 4.5...

if this helps: it'll be most probably not already next week release builds, installers, manual, ... also need a little time to do.

about ds3: the first release will be 4.5 only - sorry to say. i personally too do still favor ds3 (a bit) over ds4.5 and want to use it myself, so of course it will be ported back, but this will need some extra time; material system, geometry and so on is already compatible, also saved data is interchangeable, but the changes in the ui framework (Qt) will need a decent amount of work to get get it working in ds3, since it dates back to mid 2009 and lacks a bunch of currently used features.

ps: being a ds3 user in first place, i finally got used to ds4.5 also, while working on the plugin. mainly because of using the darkside layout/style which is way more decent (and space-saving). the only drawback in ds4.5 is (and imo will be), that it's ogl viewport is slower than the one in ds3 in general, and notably slower with pre-genesis stuff. for example i do use the intel hd graphics of my cpu for my (dual) main display, to have all gpu resources for rendering, and this is more than suitable in ds3, but getting a little laggy in ds4.5.

UruMike wrote:February sounds awesome!
But I bet with my luck it will be next week while I'm out of town and can't play with it!
I'm pretty eagerly waiting on this.

Just a quick question, as of my understanding this will run in Studio 3 last release as well, right?
I somehow can't wrap my head around the UI of Studio 4.5...

t_3 wrote:if this helps: it'll be most probably not already next week release builds, installers, manual, ... also need a little time to do.

about ds3: the first release will be 4.5 only - sorry to say. i personally too do still favor ds3 (a bit) over ds4.5 and want to use it myself, so of course it will be ported back, but this will need some extra time; material system, geometry and so on is already compatible, also saved data is interchangeable, but the changes in the ui framework (Qt) will need a decent amount of work to get get it working in ds3, since it dates back to mid 2009 and lacks a bunch of currently used features.

ps: being a ds3 user in first place, i finally got used to ds4.5 also, while working on the plugin. mainly because of using the darkside layout/style which is way more decent (and space-saving). the only drawback in ds4.5 is (and imo will be), that it's ogl viewport is slower than the one in ds3 in general, and notably slower with pre-genesis stuff. for example i do use the intel hd graphics of my cpu for my (dual) main display, to have all gpu resources for rendering, and this is more than suitable in ds3, but getting a little laggy in ds4.5.

UruMike wrote:February sounds awesome!
But I bet with my luck it will be next week while I'm out of town and can't play with it!
I'm pretty eagerly waiting on this.

Just a quick question, as of my understanding this will run in Studio 3 last release as well, right?
I somehow can't wrap my head around the UI of Studio 4.5...

Thanks for the heads up t_3!
Sure, releasing a softzware is a lot of work, but we waited so long, another week more shouldn't really matter!

No need to apologise for the plugin being for DS 4.5 only first.
I want to try using LAMH and Octane, so I'll have to start getting used to 4.5 anyways.
About the ogl, I have a dedicated small graphics card for display use and didn't notice any lag so far with 4.5

So once I get used to 4.5 I'm not sure I'll go back, but let's see...