OTOY Forums

Hello. I discovered this awesome software and I have a couple of questions before deciding if to purchase Octane. I already tried the demo version and it worked well (I only had some problems loading up some of the .jpg images).

1. Is it true if I purchase it now(2.2) then I can download next versions(2.3; RCs?) with no extra cost until the final version what's going to cost 200 euros or extra 99 euros for already licenced customer?
2. If you can tell me that, how many pages the manual has; does it 1)include information/tutorials about node setup inside Octane, 2)include information/tutorials about exporters for blender, 3ds max etc and how to set it up in these programs? and is it in .pdf format?

Blender related questions:
1. Does the Blender exporter work for Blender 2.5 or is it only for 2.4*?
2. Would Blender's particle system work for Octane while using the exporter or do I have to convert particles into mesh data? If it works for version 2.5, is it possible to use the voxel data(smoke simulator)? Of course I could render smoke separately and merge 2 footages later at video editing software, but it would be good if it render's in Octane.
3. I read that version 2.3 is going to have mesh emmitters. Is the lighting going to be done inside Octane or would I have to set up area lights, or meshes with emit value inside Blender before exporting?
I will ask more if I remember something. Thanks for your time.

Hi there. Glad you are happy with Octane. It rocks. Here are the answers I can give you:

1) Yup. Buy today and you will get all of the beta releases without additional costs. When the final release comes out it will just be an additional 99 euros for that existing license.
2) The manual is pretty sparse when it comes to node setups. It lists what some of them do, but because things are changing so quickly it is still being fully ironed out. The biggest bit that is complicated is when you jump into the material nodes and start making some crazy stuff. There are some tutorials here and there about this but none has made it into the manual yet that I know of. It does cover a little about the host app exporter plugin, but most of the information you'd want would be in that plugin's dedicated forum which you will see when you become a licensed user.

blender questions:
1) As of right now the plugin is only for 2.4x. I've tried it on 2.5x without success. It is supposed to be coming soon, but I don't know when. I keep meaning to take a look at it and see if I can fix it, but I just haven't had time.
2) At the moment the particle system, as non-object based particles, aren't supported. Best thing is to use a small mesh as the particles and then tell the exporter to apply modifiers on export. I have yet to try the smoke simulation, but if it is point based particle then it is a no for now.
3) From what we've been told the emitting mesh can be any mesh. It is just a material add-on that you can setup in Octane. If you want to mimic a lamp, setup a plane with the same angle and such as the one you want in blender and in Octane setup that plane to be an emitter. There's your area light. All the values can be edited in Octane. I am not sure if they would register as emitters in the exporting/importing between blender and octane.

Hi,

A current beta license gives you a free final v1.0 and subsequent v1.1, 1.2, etc...
The manual is about 100 pages thick, and we're building a completely new redesigned manual for the new beta 2.3 with much more information and much more pages.
The manual contains what you ask, although we will elaborate more on the nodes usage in the new beta 2.3 manual.

the current plugin script is for blender 2.4, we're working on a 2.5 version, it will be available soon, as 2.5 is still not finalized.
we do not have support for particles, only meshes with triangles...
emittance will be a property of a material, so you need to just assign your materials accordingly, then finetune in real-time in the octane UI.

Radiance

Thank you very much for making things clear. I have a couple of more things to ask.
1. Are textures with alpha supported?
2. Is it possible to animate depth of field? I know that you can't animate inside Octane, but I saw that the exporter has features like Lens Aperture, Focal Depth. So I could set up an empty that acts as Dof object or just animate Dof distance inside Blender?

havensole wrote:tell the exporter to apply modifiers on export

That's a good idea, but I can't see an option to apply modifiers at the exporter window. Or is it at the Advanced tab at the top? Its available when I export as .obj

RainerS wrote:Thank you very much for making things clear. I have a couple of more things to ask.
1. Are textures with alpha supported?
2. Is it possible to animate depth of field? I know that you can't animate inside Octane, but I saw that the exporter has features like Lens Aperture, Focal Depth. So I could set up an empty that acts as Dof object or just animate Dof distance inside Blender?

havensole wrote:tell the exporter to apply modifiers on export

That's a good idea, but I can't see an option to apply modifiers at the exporter window. Or is it at the Advanced tab at the top? Its available when I export as .obj

1. yes, but you need to have an alpha mask map, octane does'nt use the alpha channel in PNG files yet
2. yes, it's animatable from the plugins.

Radiance