Octane linear workflow + rebuild

[ChrisAngelius]

Hey guys,

Can someone point me in the direction of information pertaining to the linear workflow in Octane and the proper pass rebuild in comp?

The way I'm currently setting up my scenes is as follows:

C4D render settings, Octane submenu:
Render Buffer Type: Float (Linear)
Render Passes: Enabled
Format: PNG 16bit
Save Beauty: Enabled
Image Color Profile: Linear
Tonemap Type: Linear
Beauty Passes: Diffuse/Reflection/Refraction/SSS/Emitters
Lighting Passes: Ambient Light

Live Viewer Octane Settings:
Camera Imager:
Gamma: 2.2
Response: Linear

Settings:
Env: Env. Color Black

With nothing else changed, my scenes appear fine in the Picture viewer, when I bring them into AE and try to rebuild they're darker than what the PV was showing me.

If I apply an exposure effect and adjust my gamma to 2.2 for each layer it becomes brighter than the PV.

I know this has been asked a dozen times on here, and I've read them all but can't find definitive information on properly rebuilding passes for a linear workflow.


From VRAY, without using Raw passes I'd be doing Lighting+GI+Refraction+Reflection+Spec+SSS etc. and this would give me my beauty.

I've tried a bunch of methods but can't get any combination from Octane to match the beauty.

What's the correct rebuild for Octane, and are my settings correct for linear?

[aoktar]

Have you tried these way? You should not apply any gamma to individual layers. Keep gamma=1 without touching.
https://docs.otoy.com/Cinema_4D_Plugin_ ... s%7C_____1

[ChrisAngelius]

Hi Aoktar,

Based on that documentation, camera imager gamma and response shouldn't matter. According to the documentation it has no effect if the Render Buffer is set to linear.

I believe my pass rebuild is the same, I'm not using indirect/direct as Diffuse should be the combination of the two anyway. Same for Reflection.

My build is Diffuse+Reflection+Refraction+Emitter+Ambient.

Since my environment is set to all black I assumed that meant it wasn't providing any light and as such isn't needed. Is this incorrect?

Also do my passes need to be RAW to work with linear?

On top of this I'm trying to get my zDepth to match what I'm seeing in the PV and live viewer. When I render to the PV I get the same result as my live viewer. But if I use the render queue it seems to clamp my zDepth and give me more information than I want. Not the worst problem as I can adjust it down in comp, but if I'm expecting one thing and it's providing something else I'd like to know why that is.

[ChrisAngelius]

Oh shit, I think I get it. You're saying that because my camera imager is set to 2.2, what I'm seeing in the Live Viewer is wrong, not the other way around. If I change my camera imager to 1, and then light based on that, my linear composite should work.

Is that right?

[aoktar]

I'm not very familiar to purposes or common usages of regenerating image from passes. Btw you don't need to change anythings from default parameters of render setting. Keep it how was it and just use 16/32 bit exr/tiff/psd for saving. I'm not sure about impact of RAW parameter. Other than this, don't forget that: LV is displaying tonemapped results for passes and main buffer, but passes in PV is linear by default. This always makes confusions. See this video: https://vimeo.com/201203670

[zinogino]

Have you tried these way? You should not apply any gamma to individual layers. Keep gamma=1 without touching.
https://docs.otoy.com/Cinema_4D_Plugin_ ... s%7C_____1

Just revisited the new docs on render passes.
It says best results in AE is to save as 16-bit EXR/TIFF/PSD files but how's about PNG files?

[thanulee]

U should only use EXR when compositing. Its the industry standard and are good reasons behind this

[zinogino]

U should only use EXR when compositing. Its the industry standard and are good reasons behind this

Yeah, this I get it.
For smaller lower budget clients and fast turnaround jobs, I find EXR files very troublesome that's all.

[thanulee]

For smaller lower budget clients and fast turnaround jobs, I find EXR files very troublesome that's all.

Its just an export, lighter than any other formats with much better capabilities and essential if u wanna go 16/32 bit.
I wont get into more depth to this subject, google it out, but do u know that exr is much lighter than tiff 16 bit or that no other format at 16 bit contains actual tonal range for compositing?
My point is, if u comp there is only 1 way and thats exr. Anything else is NOT true 16/32bit image. I dont understand why its troublesome. Its the only file that actually matches the back to beauty 1:1, with proper alpha, and its lighter than other formats. Google those stuff are pretty basic, its like rgb vs cmyk basic

If u wanna go 8 jpg or png doesnt even matter we aint talking compositing there anymore.