Easy way to convert regular surfaces to Octane?

[3Dimensional]

I asked this at the Newtek forums but I don't think I got a reply. I was wondering if there is an easy way, perhaps a script, to convert LW surfaces to Octane ones. I have a lot of things that I have to convert and it's too time consuming to go through each and every object, load the textures, make the connections and so on.

Thanks

[gordonrobb]

I thought I gave you an answer to this question somewhere. To my knowledge there is not a quick way to convert. If you find one, let me know though

[UnCommonGrafx]

Someone posted info about a dpont plug that pulls the regular surfacing into a nodal arrangement (standard material) but that's it to my knowledge.
Right now it's a build it if you want it scenario, no presets to take advantage of.

[gordonrobb]

Someone posted info about a dpont plug that pulls the regular surfacing into a nodal arrangement (standard material) but that's it to my knowledge.
Right now it's a build it if you want it scenario, no presets to take advantage of.

Yeh, that was cool. More helfpful though if you want to be able to have LW node tree if you want to be able to switch between LW and Octane.

[3Dimensional]

I thought I gave you an answer to this question somewhere. To my knowledge there is not a quick way to convert. If you find one, let me know though

Sorry, you might've, I'm trying to suck in so much 3D knowledge these days that I forget some things

[3Dimensional]

Someone posted info about a dpont plug that pulls the regular surfacing into a nodal arrangement (standard material) but that's it to my knowledge.
Right now it's a build it if you want it scenario, no presets to take advantage of.

This would be a great task for someone who knows scripting, it would save so much time. For example I have these flowers that come in a scene in the LW content, and they are pretty nice for a field with grass, also in the same scene, but there are six different flowers and each has five separate surfaces. After doing two I was ready for something else, especially after adapting lots of other objects to Octane nodes.

[jibbles10]

I mean no disrespect to Juanjo, but he needs to create a "Giant Red Easy Button" to transfer the textures, & UV maps. Trying to set up and reapply UV's and Textures using premade characters or objects from other programs takes forever. After mouse click 1001, I am exhausted and start to give up. There needs to be some simple short cut buttons added for usability to this plug in for common processes, otherwise I may not be so motivated to drop 300 + dollars on the next 2.0 upgrade.

[3Dimensional]

Yeah Jaun needs to create a "Giant Red Easy Button" to transfer the textures, & UV maps. Trying to set up and reapply UV's and Textures using premade characters or objects from other programs takes forever. After mouse click 1001, I am exhausted and start to give up. There needs to be some simple short cut buttons added for usability to this plug in for certain processes, otherwise I may not be so motivated to drop 300 + dollars on the next 2.0 upgrade.

Right, that to me is the Octane plugin's Achilles heel. While the renders are faster, it completely changes the Lightwave workflow, since everything is done with nodes. For some reason I can't understand, many people love nodes, to me they are a big annoyance because they take more time to setup and you end up with a large window full of boxes inside and lots of arrow between them, and it's yet another window that you need to have open in addition to the tons of windows you need to open in LW. In some cases they may be worth it, the car paint node is really nice and some other surfacing nodes as well, but if I just want to add a texture, the Octane workflow takes more time and more clicks. A few objects are not going to matter, but when you have lots of objects that you had from previous projects, or that you got online, or that you exported from other programs, it becomes really annoying to use so much time setting up nodes instead of using that time for more productive things like keyframing camera or objects for example.

The other thing that the LW Octane plugin needs to have to make it more worth it is a direct link to the Octane program, so that for example you can surface all the objects there instead of in LW, and then when you reopen the scene in LW the objects get those surfaces, including surfaces that you used from the LiveDB.

Currently it seems to me that you are paying for two separate products just to use one. I don't have any use for the standalone, but they make me buy it anyway to use the LW plugin. They should either sell the LW plugin separately, or at least provide a way to surface objects in the standalone to transfer to LW. You can't even export an object that you surfaced in Octane as an obj, at best you can grab the textures from the cache folder and use the nodes in LW to use them, copying all the settings manually.

[gristle]

This is why I have a good think before starting a new project. What are the requirements, timeframe etc, before lifting a finger to select the renderer. Luckily I have been using Kray for some time, which can really get you out of jail free at times (in conjunction with GarageFarm).

Maybe it would be more attractive if there was a happy medium with regards to the license and doubling up, some bundle offer. I was lucky enough to win the first Octane render contest a few years back and have a lifetime license. I only need to upgrade Juanjo's plugin.

[gordonrobb]

I disagree. Juan doesn't 'need' to create a big red button, and I assume if it was that easy, it would have been done. Octane's material/surfacing methodology is totally different from Lightwaves, that is whey there is no direct link. I assume there may be a way (eventually) to go back from standalone, to lightwave, but I doubt very much it will be clean.

Best bet, get used to setting up materials in the plugin.

Also, Jibbles10, there is no need to 'reapply UVs' to objects. If your objects have UVs, they will be right there in the plugin. The only difference is that, there can only be one UV per vertice.