OTOY Forums

leave2 wrote: Thu Sep 04, 2025 1:31 pm

adrianr wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2024 3:49 pm

leave2 wrote:Displacements are by far Octanes most obvious weakness. The implementation of them is terrible, and lag behind even ancient renderers like Modos. Like already stated above, vertex displacements just aren't an option for 99% of people interested in speed and efficiency.

I remember the most I realised how bad they were. I needed to add two displacements together to create slightly embossed text on a logo, and when using vertex, it added 3 million triangles to a scene that was only 820k to begin with.

Compare that to Modo where you just drop a displacement in the shader tree and you can stack them all day.

I actually don't understand why displacements are so bad in this renderer.

I want to +1 this more times than would be sensible. Displacement in Octane is such a miserable experience. Are there any hints on a roadmap that this is due an overhaul?

And one year later, displacements are still miserable

I was very excited to see the improved texture displacements coming in 2026, so we probably only have another full year to wait before we can use a stable version without a bunch of caveats

Edit: I just learnt that even the rewritten 2026 displacement isn't going to support motion blur. Absolute insanity.

As someone who came from a photography background, knowing none of the history of how these types of software are produced, I realise I was spoiled as a photographer with all of my software just getting consistently better over time.

The more I use Octane, the more I feel gets broken with every successive update.

Not once in the 4 years that I've been using this, has an update ever blown me away or made me feel like I actually got something.

Hello OTOY team,

I'd like to request a feature for Octane Layered Materials: per-layer volumetric absorption (tinted clearcoat).

Currently, if I want to make a tinted lacquer or clearcoat layer that absorbs and tints light (for example, colored varnish on wood or car paint with a colored clearcoat), the only way is to use separate geometry shells with their own Specular/Universal material and Absorption Medium attached. This workflow is inconvenient for heavy assets and doesn't allow for flexible stacking inside a single Layered Material node.

In RenderMan, the MaterialX Lama system solves this directly: you can use the LamaDielectric node (typically for clearcoat) and assign "absorption color" and "absorption radius" parameters to that specific coat. For example, setting absorption color to a reddish tint and a radius of 0.1 will cause the topcoat to tint the underlying base, creating physically plausible colored lacquer or glass. All layers can have their own absorption, giving complete control and stacking flexibility.

What I'd like to see in Octane:
- An absorption (color/density/radius) parameter directly in the Specular Layer of Layered Materials, so the coloring/attenuation is local to that layer—just like LamaDielectric in RenderMan.
- This would allow physically-based, creative, and production-friendly stacks: colored glass coatings, clear tinted lacquer, car paints, or creative FX, all in a single material tree, without geometry workarounds.

Example from RenderMan Lama:
> LamaDielectric (Coat): absorptionColor = (0.5, 0.05, 0.05), absorptionRadius = 0.2
> Effect: clearcoat layer appears tinted red, base layer stays physically unaffected except through the transmitted light.

Such an option in Octane would be invaluable for high-end lookdev and shader creativity.

Thank you for considering this!

I keep being reminded of this every time I have a job that needs a label putting on a product.

The way it's done now is so clunky, it makes it such a chore, especially with embossed logos. There just needs to be a specific node to allow full control of displacements in a certain orientation. The whole triplaner-that-never-works method just feels like such a hack.

Again, though, it just always comes back to the fact that Octane has terrible displacement control.