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Stumbled upon strange but incredibly positive (possible) glitch. Load V4, add texture, open Ocatane viewport. Pathtracing on. Environment texture set to an HDRI file. Open Octane viewport. Render looks so, so.

Close viewport. Swith from Texture invironment to Daylight. Render. Looks crappy. Close viewport. Switch back to Texture Environment. In the environment node, the HDRI file is no longer visable, but the parameters are. Power, Gamma, etc.

Open viewport, and Wala. Octane renders the most beautiful, photo-realistic render I have ever had. V4's skin looks so real it's amazing. I have noticed this before in earlier versions of the plugin, but failed to mention it, thinking I could still achieve a better render once I found the right HDRI file. ALL other settings in the plugin are defualt.

Am I in effect removing the texture file, and Ocatne is using a built in lighting system? Or something like that? I have never had any luck getting photo-realistic renders with Octane. Was kind of dissapointed, and others seem to achieve incredible renders.

So.... the only negative is if I rotate the camera, I lose a bit of that photo-realitic look.

What are yiur thoughts? I'm using 1.2.07 or something close to that number. Not at my house right now. As I said, I've noitice this in previous versions. I will download latest version tonight, but am sure I will get the same result.

Your thoughts?

Open viewport, and Wala. Octane renders the most beautiful, photo-realistic render I have ever had. V4's skin looks so real it's amazing. I have noticed this before in earlier versions of the plugin, but failed to mention it, thinking I could still achieve a better render once I found the right HDRI file. ALL other settings in the plugin are defualt.

Am I in effect removing the texture file, and Ocatne is using a built in lighting system? Or something like that? I have never had any luck getting photo-realistic renders with Octane. Was kind of dissapointed, and others seem to achieve incredible renders.

So.... the only negative is if I rotate the camera, I lose a bit of that photo-realitic look.

What are yiur thoughts? I'm using 1.2.07 or something close to that number. Not at my house right now. As I said, I've noitice this in previous versions. I will download latest version tonight, but am sure I will get the same result.

Your thoughts?

I think with certain Poser figure texturemaps - they render more realistically with very plain (low dynamic range) image maps - potentially because they have baked on specular reflections. In this case no IBL or a very plain IBL might look better. IMO, the very best result comes from using texturemaps with no baked on reflections or highlights, and then use a good HDR. But getting the right HDR and the right settings is key. You can also adjust the gamma of the HDR which can substantially change the realism of the lighting.

Paul

Thanks, but what about the scenario I explained? Where did the HDRI map go? What light is used for rendering after switching back and forth from daylight to texture environment? The environment texture is no longer in the node, but I get beautiful render.

When you switch from daylight to texture environment, an RGB Color is put in the IBL texture, with a color of 0.7, 0.7, 0.7 - and that is illuminating the scene.

Paul

wow, and it renders better than I could ever get it to with HDRI. I guess I could have the environment node selcted, change it to RGB to get the same result. Thanks.

For realism: when using a HDRI image you should always set it's power and gamma to 1.0 since it is linear in itself (hence: HDRI )

adjust the overall brightness of your picture with the camera settings (focus, exposure) like you would in real live.

Thanks for the tips. Also, how do you rotate an HDRI? When it's selected in the Environment texture node, there are 2 sliders to rotate but only -1 and +1 x & y which seems to do nothing.

mlru wrote:For realism: when using a HDRI image you should always set it's power and gamma to 1.0 since it is linear in itself (hence: HDRI )

adjust the overall brightness of your picture with the camera settings (focus, exposure) like you would in real live.

That's a truly good tip. I keep forgetting the settings in the Imager and Camera. It's part of the old Poser way of thinking to change the materials settings instead of using what Octane really is

morphious2013 wrote:Thanks for the tips. Also, how do you rotate an HDRI? When it's selected in the Environment texture node, there are 2 sliders to rotate but only -1 and +1 x & y which seems to do nothing.

To rotate to left and right use the x value
To rotate up or down use the y value

The range -1 - 0 +1 covers -180° - 0° - +180°

KleanZlate wrote:That's a truly good tip. I keep forgetting the settings in the Imager and Camera. It's part of the old Poser way of thinking to change the materials settings instead of using what Octane really is

You can forget about them funky Poser materials when working with Octane

Hmmmm. Using the rotation seems to have no effect on the lighting of the scene at all. Does it matter if it's a sphere, hdri cross or panoramic hdri?