Learning Octane

[Rosco]

I just purchased Octane and wounder; what is the fastest way to learn it?

My experience with rendering is rather limited, but now because of octane i bought a brand new system with two GTX 480's. Everything is running sweet. Now I just need to start educating myself, but how do I get started?

Does there exist there tutorials like pdf's, videos or books and where/how do I get it?

Cheers,
Rosco

[mib2berlin]

Hi, for a quick overview look at the video page:
http://www.refractivesoftware.com/videos.html

In every release candidate or stable download a pdf handbook is included
latest here:
http://www.refractivesoftware.com/forum ... =33&t=3760

Cheers mib

[Rosco]

Thanks a lot, I kind a knew that already. Have read the PDF and seen the videos. What I was thinking of was a more step by step tutorial like you see it in many other apps. Besides fooling around and tweaking that and that, it's nice to know the "right way" to begin with. Then you can grow from there ... Any other ideas?

[PhilBo]

I'd also look at this series if you have not yet.

http://www.refractivesoftware.com/demotutorial.html

[Rosco]

Thanks, bin there too ..
any other suggestions?

[PhilBo]

Those are pretty much the basics. It just takes some exploration from there.

Maybe you could list some areas where you'd like to improve or that you are unsure of, and we could direct you more from there.

[acc24ex]

Thanks, bin there too ..
any other suggestions?

here's one, after you find out how to change materials and add lights, do the render in your primary application, set up the materials to as close as you would like do some test renders to make sure you got most of it right, then switch to octane and try to copy the same settings, I usually end up with much better stuff with doing just that .. the materials are important and the uvw mapping, and if you are making small stuff add some smooth edges, a higher poly count object can get more realistic results, play with the exposure vignetting and tonemapping for the finishing touch, you have to explore it on your own in order to motivate yourself what to learn, try different tests and simple things just to make sure you can get great renders, people often times have like perfect renders when they post their first wip renders, just read through the whole forum and you're on your way .. browse around the forum and you'll get some more insight

[Rosco]

sounds like a good start. Motivation is there no doubt !
So my work flow will be like this: Alias Studio > Maya > Octane.
I have to use Maya as a gateway to get the settings in the obj-file from Alias to Oct.
Guess I will make a set of templates i Maya and save the whole scene for Oct.