Archviz features

[daniel.reutersward]

Hey,

I´ve posted these before without any reply. I recently posted this to the Octane group on Facebook and got a reply from Jules that I should post everything on the forum
Some of these features are 3Ds max specific and some are perhaps standalone?
Please let me know if some of these features are Standalone specific and I will move them to the Standalone part of the forum.

1. Custom fresnel curve or just add a curve to the falloff node
2. Dirt with a radius node - to be able to plug in a texture to control the dirt on the edges (great for wear & tear)
3. Proper real camera parameters (F-Stop, Shutter Speed, ISO etc) - This can sometimes be crucial for archviz stuff or perspective match
4. Support for Cg-Sources Multitexture - or an alternative would be a Octane specific one that works the same way. You managed to add support for the native bitmap in 3Ds Max so perhaps it´s possible?
5. Better support for Forest Pack Pro
6. A save button in Framebuffer the 3ds max plugin version - "Save all" would be saving the main image + any render elements selected in Render Setup.
7. Custom bokeh shape

Any answer to this from the developers would be very appreciated!
Also let me know if you would like me to clarify anything.

Cheers,

[thanulee]

If i may add some essential features for both archviz + animation:
- Exclude/include objects from lights
- Triplanar projection
- Curvature map

thanks, i hope someone sees this!

[Goldorak]

Hey,

I´ve posted these before without any reply. I recently posted this to the Octane group on Facebook and got a reply from Jules that I should post everything on the forum
Some of these features are 3Ds max specific and some are perhaps standalone?
Please let me know if some of these features are Standalone specific and I will move them to the Standalone part of the forum.

1. Custom fresnel curve or just add a curve to the falloff node
2. Dirt with a radius node - to be able to plug in a texture to control the dirt on the edges (great for wear & tear)
3. Proper real camera parameters (F-Stop, Shutter Speed, ISO etc) - This can sometimes be crucial for archviz stuff or perspective match
4. Support for Cg-Sources Multitexture - or an alternative would be a Octane specific one that works the same way. You managed to add support for the native bitmap in 3Ds Max so perhaps it´s possible?
5. Better support for Forest Pack Pro
6. A save button in Framebuffer the 3ds max plugin version - "Save all" would be saving the main image + any render elements selected in Render Setup.
7. Custom bokeh shape

Any answer to this from the developers would be very appreciated!
Also let me know if you would like me to clarify anything.

Cheers,

1,2 - This will happen through OSL shaders we make, or that can be combined from the vast library out there (which now powers RederMan, Arnold, Blender and more). I expect a new wave of LiveDB assets which are OSL based will help make this easy for all users to leverage.

3 - Shutter Speed is working as expected I believe - it can even be used to drive subframe rendering in 3.00a9+. The formula for the rest of the camera settings is something I need to discuss with the devs. Right now this is all done in the imager node, which itself is getting overhauled with OctaneImager and native plug-ins.

4 - The Max devs will have to confirm, but my assumption is that the key 3DS Max native texture types will be supported and emulated in Octane with OSL.

5/6 - Jim can follow up on these (although I suspect 6 is not too hard to add). Can you explain exactly what you want us to support better in FPP?

7 - OctaneImager will do this in post. Octane 3 has support for mesh based lenses for custom cameras, and 3.1 will have an API for lower level native plug-ins that could support this. If none of those cover this feature, we can put it on the to do list for inclusion in the thin lens camera projection.

[Goldorak]

If i may add some essential features for both archviz + animation:
- Exclude/include objects from lights
- Triplanar projection
- Curvature map

thanks, i hope someone sees this!

Clarify all 3 of the above with examples please.

[thanulee]

If i may add some essential features for both archviz + animation:
- Exclude/include objects from lights
- Triplanar projection
- Curvature map

thanks, i hope someone sees this!

Clarify all 3 of the above with examples please.

Sure. I am vray user for years, sorry that i have to give an example over that.

- In vray, u can make a light emit only on specific objects and not affect others. Also, it can affect only the specular or reflections and not diffuse and vice versa.

- Triplanar projection is the way uvs are projected from xyz and where seams are, uvs are blended smoothly. Its a huge feature that is also used in texturing engines such as substance painter. It is also implemented in the latest vray and here is a handy example of it: https://vimeo.com/142858281

- Curvature map i can give u an example https://vimeo.com/124072533 . That helps a lot with procedural material making.

[ingreme]

- Include / Exclude lights - it's a 3dsmax feature that allows you to include or exclude certain features from X objects. For example, you can have a domelight just affect a certain group of objects, or for example a light just to be used for character hairs, etc. You can also specify certain render elements to be affected only by X objects (that's how you do single white mattes for a group of objects). Ideally, if possible, you guys could incorporate this like Vray does, it's VERY VERY useful.

- Triplanar projection - Have a look at VrayTriplanarTex (works in GPU too). It's basically an automatic blended box mapping that works in rendertime. It has lots of features, like texture scale, texture blend, random offset by axis/frame/node etc. Very powerful! I basically use it 80% of the time instead of doing UV's. Very procedural, fast and powerful.

- Curvature Map - It's like an inverted AO but not quite, it highlights the object's edges, it's useful for edge masking so you can do edge wear and stuff. Also useful for faking certain effects like SSS, etc.

I come from the facebook post, but here's what i want the most out of Octane (related to Archviz and mostly animation) to make it production ready at my job.

- Fully interactive buffer, that fully updates geo, lights, shaders, enviroments, animation etc. It's really annoying (specially with animation) to manually refresh dozens of times for it to update your scene.
- Better and custom AOV's. For example we cannot do single white mattes and specify what objects go in it, also whatever 2d node we could put in there and customize the AOV. (have a look at VrayExtraTex).
- Overall, make Octane more Compositing-friendly. Right now Octane is really good at having a 90% image done in it, but to be useful in VFX/Film it really needs to have a lot more control over things. Also for Archviz it's nice if you can have a lot of control afterwards.

Also not so much archviz related but:
- Volumetrics (OpenVDB, FumeFX) - right now i think octane 3 only supports openVDB? FumeFX is widely used in the industry. (again, VrayVolumeGrid is very powerful)

I have a lot of smaller features that i would like to see in Octane, but those are the most critical ones... Right now we have to look at other options for certain jobs.

[daniel.reutersward]

1,2 - This will happen through OSL shaders we make, or that can be combined from the vast library out there (which now powers RederMan, Arnold, Blender and more). I expect a new wave of LiveDB assets which are OSL based will help make this easy for all users to leverage.

3 - Shutter Speed is working as expected I believe - it can even be used to drive subframe rendering in 3.00a9+. The formula for the rest of the camera settings is something I need to discuss with the devs. Right now this is all done in the imager node, which itself is getting overhauled with OctaneImager and native plug-ins.

4 - The Max devs will have to confirm, but my assumption is that the key 3DS Max native texture types will be supported and emulated in Octane with OSL.

5/6 - Jim can follow up on these (although I suspect 6 is not too hard to add). Can you explain exactly what you want us to support better in FPP?

7 - OctaneImager will do this in post. Octane 3 has support for mesh based lenses for custom cameras, and 3.1 will have an API for lower level native plug-ins that could support this. If none of those cover this feature, we can put it on the to do list for inclusion in the thin lens camera projection.

Hi Goldorak,

A huge thank you for your response, much appreciated!

3 - Sounds great! So with 3.0 the Octane camera will have proper focal lentgh, F-stop (for depth of field), etc and all working as they do in a real camera? Or at least the Octane imager will?
1-2 & 4 - Sounds great! Really looking forward to this!
5 - Regarding Forest Pack as many features as possible would of course be preferable but I´m mostly asking for support for "Forest Colour" (Randomize colors etc) and "Edge Mode" (Control edges like cutting of grass at the edge of a sidewalk). I can of course explain more in detail if you want.
6 - Sounds great!
7 - Fantastic! That together with proper real world camera parameters that act as they should would give me the control I´m missing at the moment.

Out of curiosity, does these kind of feature requests get added to a list of to-do things? For example a save button or better Forest Pack support?

Cheers,

[daniel.reutersward]

Would love to hear how much is possible to implemented regarding Forest Pack features.

If that is possible?

Cheers,

[azen]

Hi,

Regarding Forest Pack - we are engaging with iToo software regarding improved integration with Octane. According to iToo, there are some general challenges around working with GPU-based renderers. This will become a lot clearer as we get closer to the release of Octane 3. What we can say at this point, is that integration workflows for Octane 3 will well surpass Octane 2, with major improvements to plugin development being made possible by the efforts put into Octane 3

[RobSteady]

This will become a lot clearer as we get closer to the release of Octane 3. What we can say at this point, is that integration workflows for Octane 3 will well surpass Octane 2, with major improvements to plugin development being made possible by the efforts put into Octane 3

What is the roadmap for the max plugin? When do we get a final, production-ready, stable release?

Right now we have a very rough, first Alpha. Jim will be busy with Standalone until official release on May 15th.
After that a few Alpha releases, then Beta releases, Test releases... 2017?