Materials not saved with the scene

[Rik56]

Hi, I have a following issue:

I have a scene with one character in it, it's using the default mats. I import my previously created material in .orbx format and apply it to the character. However when I save the scene and reload it, it's using the default material again. It even specificaly asks if it should save unused materials. What are the things I should check?

Daz 4.9.1.30 Pro, Win 10 64 bit, nvidia drivers 368.39, Octane version 3.01.1b, plugin version 3.1.1.23

[face_off]

Have you checked question 9) at https://docs.otoy.com/#60FAQ?

Paul

[linvanchene]

Have you checked question 9) at https://docs.otoy.com/#60FAQ?

Paul

The referenced question 9 is:

9) The plugin always renders in Clay mode.

This is actually not Clay mode rendering, but rendering without any Octane Materials. To fix this, tick the Preferences->”Load Octane Materials from .duf user presets” and the reload your scene. If there are no Octane Materials saved in your scene, you will have to re-convert all the missing materials in the Materials tab->Missing button, or tick the Preferences->”Automatic material updates after content loads” checkbox and reload your scene. See Preferences Tab for details.

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Side Note:

The posted link defaults to the Octane for Rhinoceros FAQ section.

As far as I was able to check every single FAQ for any application that has a FAQ section now uses the same "external" URL

https://docs.otoy.com/#60FAQ

It seems the whole link system for the "OctaneRender™ Universe" section was changed lately.
I do not know if the web team is already aware of all the side effects this change had...

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[Rik56]

Hi, I did check it and it doesn't seem like this issue. I don't get any errors and I can load the materials just fine. It's just they revert to default when I close the scene.

[linvanchene]

Hi, I did check it and it doesn't seem like this issue. I don't get any errors and I can load the materials just fine. It's just they revert to default when I close the scene.

I was able to replicate this.

The described issues apply only to materials which were imported from OctaneRender standalone via the Import .orbx option in the OcDS materials tab.

Issue 01:

Imported .ORBX materials can be applied to the surface in OcDS but are missing when loading the.duf

I cannot assess if the imported materials are not saved with the .duf or fail to be included on scene load. In any case the observable result is that the material is not anymore available in the OcDS materials tab when loading the scene.

Issue 02:
Imported .ORBX materials that are saved as OcDS "My Presets" cannot be applied to any surface.

"Cannot be applied" means that dragging materials and dropping them on a surface has no effect. The already present material is not updated with the "My preset" material.

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Tested with
Daz Studio Pro BETA - version 4.9.2.70
OcDS 3.1.1.23
OR standalone version 3.01.1b: (installer released on June 10, 2016)

Steps to replicate the issue

Test 01

- 1 Create Custom material in OR standalone

- 2 Import Custom material in OcDS

- 3 Imported custom material applied

- 4 save scene

- 5 load scene

-> Scene state after loading - imported custom material is missing from the OcDS materials tab
No materials are applied.
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Test 02:

As a potential workaround I tried to

- I) save a different imported .ORBX material (green) under "My Presets"

- II) close DAZ Studio
- III) open DAZ Studio
- IV) try to apply the previously saved material from "My Presets" to any surface

-> Even though the green imported test material shows properly on the preview sphere it cannot be applied to any surface in OcDS.

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Added the test materials blue & green as .duf in .zip:

Test Materials.zip

(1.4 KiB) Downloaded 278 times

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[face_off]

I will investigate this issue over the next few days.

Paul

[face_off]

I tested this on 2.24.2.2 and the problem occurs there too. So I suspect using import ORBX materials has never worked. I will see if there is a solution.

Paul

[Rik56]

ok, thanks. One more thing, I am not sure if it is related, but it seems that if I want to apply the materials correctly, I have to drag the from the right window list into the left, never the other way around. If I drag them from the left to the right now, wrong material gets applied.

[face_off]

An update on this issue...

When you use the Import button the material is imported, but will not save with the .duf because it is not registered in the data that is saved in the .duf (for reasons that are difficult to explain). After a few days working to try to resolve this I cannot find a solution. A workaround is that after importing the material, you rightclick the imported material and "Copy as new material", and use the copy - and that copy WILL be saved in the .duf.

So an option to progress this issue is that whenever you Import a material, a popup dialog is displayed "You need to 'Copy as new material' in order for this material to be saved in the .duf".

Your thoughts pls?

Thanks

Paul

[linvanchene]

An update on this issue...

When you use the Import button the material is imported, but will not save with the .duf because it is not registered in the data that is saved in the .duf (for reasons that are difficult to explain). After a few days working to try to resolve this I cannot find a solution. A workaround is that after importing the material, you rightclick the imported material and "Copy as new material", and use the copy - and that copy WILL be saved in the .duf.

So an option to progress this issue is that whenever you Import a material, a popup dialog is displayed "You need to 'Copy as new material' in order for this material to be saved in the .duf".

Your thoughts pls?

Thanks

Paul

Thank you for investigating and coming up with this workaround. Would not have thought to try that....

Did a quick test with the blue material posted in this thread and the described workaround seems to work
- when applying a copy of the imported materials
- when adding a copy of the imported materials to "My presets"

-> Having to use "copy as new material" may confuse new users at first but after you know the trick this seems not that much of a hassle.

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Long term alternative:
If it would be possible to add an option to the OcDS Node Graph Editor to import individual material based nodes like scattering, absorption, noise etc this might help as well so it would not even be necessary to import complete materials if only parameters of one node are needed...

Maybe after OctaneEngine and OctaneImager are available it will be more clear if there are alternative workflow options for importing / exporting materials between different versions of OctaneRender.
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