Plugin Possibility -- just food for thought

[Hoop]

integration will be through renderman compliant import and exporters like RIB Mosaic.

in order to use octane interactively it's meant to be a standalone UI application,
it's not tied to any specific 3d app as we don't want to limit use of octane to just 1 app at this moment.

Radiance

Hi Radiance. First of all, WOW, WOW, WOW!!! I just found out about Octane this morning and have been looking at your site for an hour with our design team here. We are very excited, as this could be a game changer for us.

I do have one question and thought. I understand, based on your comment above (from the Blender Plugin post) that your team does not want to make Octance a full blown plugin, but rather a standalone app. Understood. However, currently, jumping between two programs for modelling and rendering can be a bottleneck in and of itself (i've done it several times in the past). So, my thought (and question) is, would your team consider making PARTIAL plugins to popular apps like Blender, Rhino, Sketchup, etc., so that the Octane material/light editor is ported as a plugin in within each app. Then, when the user hits the "render" button, the model is automatically ported to Octane for rendering interactively.

So, the workflow is as follows:

In host modelling app:
1) set up all Octane materials, emitters, HDRI, etc USING OCTANE MATERIAL EDITOR
2) hit render button

In Octane app:
3) meshes exported to Octane, Octane automatically is opened with all materials, lights, meshes, etc.
4) user begins using Octane UI to create the interactive renders.

Maxwell works like this, for example. All materials and lights are set up in model app and when "render" is pressed the the Maxwell UI pops up to create the render.

What I'm getting at, is that this would allow the user to go back to the original model file, make changes based on client comments (which always happens), and not have to reimport and reassign every material and emitter again to a model file where only some items have been tweaked and moved around since all Octane materials would be embedded within the modeling app's native file. This would allow for a much faster workflow between model app and Octane.

Would this be possible? If so, can you please add Rhino3d to your list????

Thanks, and I'm really looking forward to trying out Octane, this just looks superb.

Hoop

[radiance]

what you're suggesting is basically what we are currently doing except for configuring lights and materials with an embedded editor in the host 3d app,
which kinda misses the point of octane.

that step is now delayed until during the octane phase, where you interactively tune them,
and you can reexport to octane with modified geometry without losing your octane UI configured materials / lights.

you're proposal would destroy much of the interactivity and turn octane into a classic 'configure in your mind, export, wait, see result' workflow...

i'm currently coding by myself so i can't afford to spend much time on specific plugins,
that's why we chose to go with the current workflow, which lots of testers seem to like...

tighter integration will be supplied via Renderman compatible import...

Radiance

[Hoop]

you're proposal would destroy much of the interactivity and turn octane into a classic 'configure in your mind, export, wait, see result' workflow...

Radiance

Hi Radiance,

Thanks very much for the quick response. I don't think I really worded my question in the best way. Let me make a correction to my thought. I didn't so much mean to be able to tweak materials in the host modelling app, becuase you are absolutely correct -- that would destroy much of the interactivity of Octane -- what i meant was, to be able to assign the Octane materials themselves to the model within the host modeling app, so it would be faster and easier to interact with them in Octane once the model was imported into Octane.

An example would be prop models with pre-assigned materials. In archvis, lots and lots of "props" are used in renderings over and over again -- tables, chairs, stereos, books, plants, etc. . . Currently, with most built in renderers or plugin in renderers, it's very easy to import a model with the materials already assigned to it. These models have been used time and time again and there's no need to tweak the materials becuase you've got them the way you want them. You simply import and they are render ready becuase you've got the plugin's materials already assigned to them.

It sounds like with Octane, (and again I may be missunderstanding how Octane works), that you'd have to assign materials with every single import of a model. So, if use the same plants, chairs, books, etc in 50 different scenes, I'd have to re-assign these materials to these items 50 different times (each time they were imported into Octane). Is this the case, or am I not understanding how Octane is handling this?

Thanks again,
Hoop

[star]

Being able to import SU, Rhino models directly like you can .obj would be great advantage. I can see a lot of problems in converting the models to .obj from various applications.

[n1k]

Yes. Plugins for popular 3D apps should be great. I would like to use scattering instanced geometry capabilities inside 3D app ( like trees for forests,parks , grass, etc.). It would be also cool if renderer would support proxies(something like vray or mentalray proxy).

Best regards, n1k.

[noro]

I agree (100%) - Plugins for 3d apps for better workflow

[radiance]

Hi,

As said i'm focusing on standalone user interface with OBJ/MTL import and then RIB import.
I don't have the resources at this time to start developing additional plugins.
maybe in the future.

The OBJ import is quite practical and full featured,
and i've designed some additions to the workflow to allow workarounds for the issues you propose, Hoop.

Anyways,
i need to get back to coding now

Radiance

[Hoop]

maybe in the future.

Please consider for the future! (I can imagine how full your hands are now with the release coming up, but I really think A LOT of users would REALLY appreciate the Plugins once you've established a solid build -- perhaps this can be for V2.0?

Hi,
The OBJ import is quite practical and full featured,
and i've designed some additions to the workflow to allow workarounds for the issues you propose, Hoop.

Radiance

Terrific! Any chance you could go into further explanation as to what these workarounds are??

Thanks Radiance.
Hoop

[radiance]

maybe in the future.

Please consider for the future! (I can imagine how full your hands are now with the release coming up, but I really think A LOT of users would REALLY appreciate the Plugins once you've established a solid build -- perhaps this can be for V2.0?

Hi,
The OBJ import is quite practical and full featured,
and i've designed some additions to the workflow to allow workarounds for the issues you propose, Hoop.

Radiance

Terrific! Any chance you could go into further explanation as to what these workarounds are??

Thanks Radiance.
Hoop

A little bit of patience and you'll see
It's based around linked OBJ's and reimporting, and using material names locally with node macro's in octane.

Radiance

PS: the most questions you ask, the longer it will take me to get the demo download ready

[Hoop]

My mouth is shut

And I'm patiently, but EAGERLY awaiting!

Thanks for all the answers Radiance, I think Octane will attract many, many users! I can't wait to give it a go!

Hoop