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Octane missing surface materials
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:07 pm
by SimonWM
I've been plagued by this as of late. Part of my character looking textureless. As my screenshot shows I still have memory space left to load textures, Just 3 Genesis characters and some clothing. I'm using the latest DS Octane update.
(Note: I've had to darken part of the screenshot as it includes unreleased beta content that I'm not allowed to show until formally released.)
Re: Octane missing surface materials
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:28 pm
by t_3
are there geo grafted parts, or is this plain m5?
Re: Octane missing surface materials
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:45 pm
by Isotemod
The torso on that character isn't textureless its in gray scale.
Re: Octane missing surface materials
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:54 pm
by t_3
Isotemod wrote:The torso on that character isn't textureless its in gray scale.
aww

thanks for the sharp-eyed observation!
this might indeed be the case; if so: to fix it for the current scene, just open the octane material in question in the nge, and change the texture type from floatimage to image (the selected map will stay in place). to always force color maps for the diffuse channel, go to the "common" tab, and change the diffuse map dropdown box in the texture settings from "auto type" to "image"...
Re: Octane missing surface materials
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 4:57 pm
by SimonJM
LOL, I was just going to post something about this ... I'd had it happen a few times and finally, last night, spotted the floatimage/image issue. Thus far, however, I have not seen a common denominator to indicate why it happens, but will keep checking.
Re: Octane missing surface materials
Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 12:56 am
by t_3
SimonJM wrote:LOL, I was just going to post something about this ... I'd had it happen a few times and finally, last night, spotted the floatimage/image issue. Thus far, however, I have not seen a common denominator to indicate why it happens, but will keep checking.
it is an overshooting automatism
when creating mats, the plugin tries to apply texture maps in a way to minimize needed vram and needed texture slots; e.g. if the same map is used as diffuse map and bump map, you would normally (with a static mapping for the channels in the texture setup) get one image node and one floatimage node. this would cost one of the already heavy limited floatimage slots plus extra vram.
best way to apply the map in this case is the "image" type node for both channels (doesn't matter for bump, but will save 1 texture slot and extra vram).
the plugin "reviews" all maps it is going to load, where they are used, and what the ideal type would be; if coming to the limits, it will also prioritize them (color over bw in general, bigger over smaller, then diffuse > opacity > bump > specular...) and so to create as much texture nodes as possible. and it looks like this sometimes causes a diffuse map getting created as floatimage instead as image.
selecting "image" in the texture settings (common tab) is a save way to overcome this, since you usually won't ever use grayscale diffuse maps (except for seldom cases, say a bark, where gray + rgb power might be sufficient)...
Re: Octane missing surface materials
Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 2:53 am
by SimonWM
Thank you so much for the prompt response. I've been away from the computer all day but I'm glad to have come back to the forum to find the workaround to this and the explanation by T_3. Keep up the great work!!