OTOY Forums

We've been testing Octane maya plugins for 2 weeks now, we've read the pdf that comes with the plugins plus the one with the stand alone and we where impressed with its capabilities , but we've came across several issues we'd like to point out:
-We know It was pointed out many many times already: The light that doesn't pass through glass(The sun): As our work focus a lot on architectural work that is a major issue for us.
-The white dots: As we began testing octane on Maya we've notice weird white dots being scattered around the image randomly, we tried to go through the different settings that are available but none could get rid of them(I've attached several images that point out this major problem). -On the attached images(the bedroom) it can be noticed that behind the glob of glass it's black when using Direct light(AO) and it's white when using PMC, tho we know that The Direct AO is more for preview but it is a decent image and it can be used. -It would be nice if the rendered time would imprint when keeping the image in the maya buffer, we need to compare rendering time between test images.
-We noticed that when we pause the render and resume it after a certain time(without changing anything) the clock would continue to run in background, ex: Let's say I've paused the render at 30sec than resume it after 1 min it would add this 1 min to the render time making it 1min30sec.
-In one of the scenes we worked on we had an issue with the perspective camera(default maya cam), every time we reload the render, the camera would go back to the same location( a little bit annoying)
-It was pointed a lot of time too, but the memory issue is a big deal: We work on big animated architectural project where trees and grass are heavily populating the environment, we know that instancing has been added, but we'd like to know if it is present inside maya plugin,and we'd like to know if there will be proxies added in the future, and if it will support the added memories of several gpus together.
-There is another issue with the shadow that's being cast on object or from objects, it isn't smooth, we know that we can add more divisions to the object to make it smooth and solving this problem but it will make the model heavier. We noticed that the smooth display in maya referring to "3" on the keyboard is not supported(Attached image shows hard edges on the sphere and on the floor). -Is there a way to rotate the textures directly from the node, cause the scale is available but not the rotate, we know we can turn the uvs but sometimes this is faster.
I know we pointed out a lot of issues (what came up in those 2 weeks of testing), but we were really impressed with the capabilities of this renderer and we needed to point out those issues to help in the improvement of this software.
Thank you.

Hi JPF,

Thanks for the feedback.

JPF wrote:-We know It was pointed out many many times already: The light that doesn't pass through glass(The sun): As our work focus a lot on architectural work that is a major issue for us.

This is something that is being worked on and a material setting that allows this should be in future releases. What works really well is to make the glass a glossy material with full reflection and then use a falloff map to control the opacity. This allows some rays to go straight through the glass but also provides nice reflections. Tweak the falloff map so that there is the right blend of high reflection at grazing viewing angles and less reflection when looking straight on to the glass.

JPF wrote:-The white dots: As we began testing octane on Maya we've notice weird white dots being scattered around the image randomly, we tried to go through the different settings that are available but none could get rid of them(I've attached several images that point out this major problem).

Did you try the hotpixel removal tool in the Octane imager settings (in the camera settings)? A value of 0 is full strength, 1 is disabled.

JPF wrote:-It was pointed a lot of time too, but the memory issue is a big deal: We work on big animated architectural project where trees and grass are heavily populating the environment, we know that instancing has been added, but we'd like to know if it is present inside maya plugin,and we'd like to know if there will be proxies added in the future, and if it will support the added memories of several gpus together.

Yes maya has instancing. Use duplicate special and tick the instance option. Then you need to let octane know what kind of instance it is by setting the Octane: Geometry type attribute of the base mesh. (Under extra attributes on the shape node). Use scatter for things like grass/trees and Movable Proxy for animated objects.

JPF wrote:-There is another issue with the shadow that's being cast on object or from objects, it isn't smooth, we know that we can add more divisions to the object to make it smooth and solving this problem but it will make the model heavier. We noticed that the smooth display in maya referring to "3" on the keyboard is not supported(Attached image shows hard edges on the sphere and on the floor).

The smooth function does it's best but nothing beats upping the geometry. Usually this is not a problem in terms of VRAM unless you have a really high poly scene. Textures and render target (if your doing a high-res render) are usually the main memory users.

JPF wrote:-Is there a way to rotate the textures directly from the node, cause the scale is available but not the rotate, we know we can turn the uvs but sometimes this is faster.
I know we pointed out a lot of issues (what came up in those 2 weeks of testing), but we were really impressed with the capabilities of this renderer and we needed to point out those issues to help in the improvement of this software.

No, sorry, at this stage there is no texture rotation in octane.
Thanks for the positive comments - i hope my answers have helped.

Thanks
Chris.

Thank you for your reply,
We actually tested the solutions you gave us and we tried the instancing:
-For the glass it worked, tricky tho cause you need to make it according to each scene and viewing angle, but it worked.
-As for the white dots, it worked for most of the hot spot but not all of them , it kept one or two at the end, but got rid of most of them.
-We tested the instancing and it worked, but something weird occurred, when we were loading the scene it didn't refresh at 1 samples, it was random, meaning sometime the display would appear at 150 samples and some time it needed to finish to appear, we don't know actually what was the issue but we thought it could be the fact that we are testing on one graphic card, is it possible?
-We noticed that there is an issue with the display of the shaders in hypershade, it doesn't show a thumbnail when you create a new shader and it only appears when you restart Maya, plus it doesn't update correctly.
-The display of the texture in the viewport isn't completely correct, for some of them it displays weird shapes. It is important to be able to see them correctly for UVs.
-Clicking on the Input within the shaders doesn't always switch to it.
-Does displacement exist in octane?
-And finally I'd like to ask about one of the points i mentioned in the previous post, about the time stamp, is it going to be added?.
Thank you.

-As for the white dots, it worked for most of the hot spot but not all of them , it kept one or two at the end, but got rid of most of them.

If the white dots are from light that has come through glass, try some caustic_blur (kernel setting). If your scene is lit mainly from sunlight thru glass, decrease the direct_light_importance. Or use a portal instead (there is a tutorial in the "Resources and Sharing" forum).

Paul

JPF wrote:-We noticed that there is an issue with the display of the shaders in hypershade, it doesn't show a thumbnail when you create a new shader and it only appears when you restart Maya, plus it doesn't update correctly.

Perhaps the IPR-render was running when you created the shader?.. The thumbnails do not refresh when the rendering is active to not interfere. The thumbnails will be refreshed automatically right after you stop the IPR.