OctaneRender 2020.2 for Houdini Beta build 2020.2.0.2 RC7

[juanjgon]

We need to release a proper plugin build including the latest new stable 2020.2 core, but yes, I think that this problem is fixed in the upcoming stable build:

"Fixed CUDA failure when the scene contains a material with a vertex attribute texture and emission."

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[juanjgon]

I noticed this version introduced a bug when using the "forced phantom" option in the Octane ROP for rendering an animation. Only the first frame is rendered correctly. You can check in the attached file that the sphere becomes visible again from frame 2. Simply render it to disk.
It used to work fine though.

I've fixed this problem for the next build.

Thanks for reporting it!
-Juanjo

[trogers]

Hi Juanjo,

I was just playing around with the new Packed Geo Instancing functionality and am happy to see this making its way into Octane. Thanks for your work on this! I have a couple of suggestions regarding future development, but forgive me if they're already on the to-do list.

It seems that the packed instances don't get picked up by Octane when they're merged with other geometry in the same geo node (example attached). I'm not sure if this workflow even makes sense and it might be generally better to separate the packed geo into it's own geo node, but I wanted to better understand if the Octane packed geo instancing functionality will be able to accommodate for this use case at some point. I've been working on building an HDA to create donut type and would love to be able to instance the sprinkles as it can become a lot of geo to pass to Octane, but as I have everything in a single geo node it's not currently possible to use this feature.

Also, it seems that Octane won't render a material on the Octane instances if that material is added via a material node within the geo node. It will only render a material if you add it via the Render tab on the geo node itself.


Thanks!
Travis

[scarything]

Currently having the mentioned emissive material + attribute issue. Is there any ETA on the next release? I big time need to render a scene with this in it ASAP.

[juanjgon]

Currently having the mentioned emissive material + attribute issue. Is there any ETA on the next release? I big time need to render a scene with this in it ASAP.

The new build should be ready tomorrow, but I could send you a custom build (if it is for Windows) today if you send me a pm including your Houdini version and the Octane license type.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[scarything]

Currently having the mentioned emissive material + attribute issue. Is there any ETA on the next release? I big time need to render a scene with this in it ASAP.

The new build should be ready tomorrow, but I could send you a custom build (if it is for Windows) today if you send me a pm including your Houdini version and the Octane license type.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

That is awesome news. I mega appreciate this. Sending you the details. Much love!

[scarything]

Noticed another bug related to the topic of emission materials and attributes. When linking up an attribute to control the emission, if the attribute is at 0, there will still be some light. Not sure why this is happening... (This seems to happen when the attribute is 0 everywhere on the geoemtry)

[juanjgon]

It seems that the packed instances don't get picked up by Octane when they're merged with other geometry in the same geo node (example attached). I'm not sure if this workflow even makes sense and it might be generally better to separate the packed geo into it's own geo node, but I wanted to better understand if the Octane packed geo instancing functionality will be able to accommodate for this use case at some point. I've been working on building an HDA to create donut type and would love to be able to instance the sprinkles as it can become a lot of geo to pass to Octane, but as I have everything in a single geo node it's not currently possible to use this feature.

Also, it seems that Octane won't render a material on the Octane instances if that material is added via a material node within the geo node. It will only render a material if you add it via the Render tab on the geo node itself.

Currently, it is not possible to mix conventional geometry and instances in the same OBJ node. The Octane plugin only can render one object type in each OBJ node.

About your second question, I'm afraid that this is a known limitation. The instances don't support material overrides to assign a material to each instance. Perhaps this core limitation could be implemented on the plugin side ... I'll think about it.

Thanks,
-Juanjo