OctaneRender™ 3.0 for LightWave™ - Alpha build 3.00.10.0

[juanjgon]

This is a new alpha build of the OctaneRender™ 3.0 for LightWave™ plugin. This 3.00.10.0 release is available for Lightwave 10.1, 11.6 and 2015.3 Windows x64 and OSX.

Alpha and beta version disclaimer
In contrast to v2 we want to do the alpha and beta testing publicly, to get more feedback earlier and to have changes tested more thoroughly. The plan is to let all users with a valid v2 license use the v3 alpha and beta versions until we decide that the beta period has ended and we release the first stable v3. After that you will have to upgrade to v3 or will not be able to use any v3 versions (including alpha and beta versions) anymore. We don't know yet, when that will be, but we will give you a warning a few weeks in advance so you can prepare.

This is an alpha release, so please consider this more a test or development release which may not be stable enough for a production environment. All the new 3.0 features are under development.

Alpha release 3.00.10.0
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... indows.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... .0_OSX.zip

Standalone version for the network rendering nodes
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... 10_win.exe
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... _macos.dmg

New features of OctaneRender™ 3.00
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=51679

How to install the plugin
- (Only for Windows) Remove all the old Octane plugin 2.2 files (octane.dll, octane.dat and the .p plugin file), or add a new LightWave installation to your system to test Octane 3.0
- (Only for Windows) Copy the octane.dll, tbb.dll and octane.dat files into you install Lightwave/bin directory. You must overwrite the LightWave tbb.dll file.
- Add the plugin to the Lightwave Layout.
- Install the custom menu bar to get access to the Octane features.


=============================================
RELEASE 3.00.10.0
=============================================

* NEW PLUGIN FEATURES:
- New parameters in the Octane custom object plugin to disable the NGons tessellation.
- New option in the Octane custom object plugin panel to select the NGons tessellation algorithm. The default one should work fine, but if you get polygon artifacts or holes, you can try the other ones.
- TFD libs updated to the last 1403 build.
- The volume ramp node is now available in the volume medium node menu.
- New parameter in the Octane custom object plugin to animate the enable/disable state of the object. If the parameter is < 1.0, the object with be disabled and not loaded in the scene for this frame. Only works in full scene reload mode, and doesn't work in the IPR without reload the scene.

* NEW OCTANE FEATURES:
- Switched to a totally new authentication system based on the OTOY accounts and not the old Octane customer accounts. Due to that there is no explicit ORC login required anymore and the plugin license doesn't need to be specified either by the plugin.
- Added a new "Visible Environment" pin to the render target node. If specified this environment is used for reflections, refractions and all camera rays that leave the scene and the regular environment is used only for the direct light calculation.
- Implemented region rendering for all kernels.
- Moved the volume step length from the kernel node to the volume medium node. This allows you to tweak the value for each volume and depending how close and how big they are.
- Added support for motion blur in the volume objects. Supports of the OpenVDB velocity grids. Supports of the TFD velocity grids.
- Reduced the geometry compilation times on OSX.
- Increased the maximum number of triangles to 76 million. This equates to ~8.5GB of memory.
- Added support for adaptive subdivision surface.
- Added option to render devices to toggle tone-mapping for specific devices (enabled by default). This option can be used to prohibit tone-mapping on external GPUs, which might help with performance and crash issues reported for external devices.
- Added option to the imager node which allows you to disable partial alpha, i.e. it's always fully transparent or opaque.
- The stereo eye distance can now be set to a negative value, which allows you to render cross-eye stereo images.

* PLUGIN BUGS FIXED:
- Crash while rendering objects with deformations. The problem is that the deformations can't be updated after the NGons tessellation. Fixed: The objects with deformations have the NGons tessellation functions disabled.
- Crash in the IPR updating the UVMAP node. The problem is the same: the UVMAP node can't update the map after the NGons tessellation. Fixed: The UVMAP node update function is disabled in objects with NGons.
- Smoothing problems in the IPR and main render update functions. Fixed. The problem was related to the deformations update in the objects with NGons.
- Black triangles in objects with UV maps. Fixed.
- Large loading times in scenes with 1 point polygons particle systems. Fixed.
- Crash in the volumetrics node editor if the plugin is not enabled. Fixed.
- The preview window freeze while rendering scenes with info passes. Fixed.
- The IPR doesn't adjust the window aspect after change the camera resolution. Fixed.
- Problems rendering sequences with negative frame numbers. Fixed.
- The default value in the material mixer and texture mixer nodes are now 50%

* OCTANE BUGS FIXED:
- Fixed various volume tracing bugs.
- Fixed loading of OpenVDB files with non-standard grid names.
- Fixed dramatic shifts in some animated volumes.
- Fixed random large allocations in VRAM causing random crashes.
- Fixed incorrect rendering of shadow catchers if its normal is pointing away from the shadow casting light source.
- Fixed incorrect rendering if thin film interference.
- Fixed facets in texture baking of smoothed surfaces.
- Fixed render block when changes are applied to the scene while region rendering is active.
- Fixed broken normal maps.
- Disabled post-processing when the post-processing pass is enabled.
- Fixed loading of VDBs with special characters in the file path.
- Fixed incorrect rendering of portals.
- Fixed rendering of 3rd UV set.


-Juanjo

[FrankPooleFloating]

Sweet! Thanks J!

[BorisGoreta]

Thanks Juanjo !

Limited region is not working, I thought this was enabled in this version.

[LightwaveGuru]

big up juanjo!



snip lwguru

[mstewart152]

thanks Juanjo!!!

Does it work with TFD adaptive container size yet? or is that still something TFD needs to do?

Thanks again for all your work!

[juanjgon]

Limited region is not working, I thought this was enabled in this version.

Boris, I am testing the limited region feature and it seems to work fine here. Perhaps the problem is that you are trying to use it in the IPR window ... the IPR doesn't support the region rendering yet. I will add this feature in a future release.

-Juanjo

[juanjgon]

Does it work with TFD adaptive container size yet? or is that still something TFD needs to do?

You need to set by hand the container size in this plugin version, like in the alpha 6, but the TFD API has now the functions needed to get this information, so I will add this feature for the next build.

-Juanjo

[BorisGoreta]

Yes I was thinking about IPR limited region, alright, until next time

[jang2235]

"Increased the maximum number of triangles to 76 million. This equates to ~8.5GB of memory."
I am Happy.....Thank You

[OlaHaldor]

A bit irconic Octane finally cought up with TFD 1403, when 1407 also just released?