OTOY Forums

Hi guys, i see impressive and great renders being made all the time here in the Octane Forums.
I'd like to suggest to all of us that made great renders allready to upload some of their materials to the Octane Live Database.
I started doing the same lately. If we all upload at least a few materials per project our database will grow in no time. I know there are very talented artists in here right?.
(for inspiration just see the maxwell materials database: http://resources.maxwellrender.com/news_scripts.php?t=1 )
Their render is slow as hell, but this page in their site gives us nice material ideas right?

In case you don't know (hard to imagine) but with a few simple clicks you can upload any material used in your scene to octane live for all of us to use.
maybe some of us can even record some extra video tutorials showing just how simple it is to create nice looking 'creative' of 'realistic' materials? That might inspire even more.

When the macro is completed, it can be saved for later use. Right click on the Macro Node and choose Save Node.
The Store Node dialog box appears. Enter all the information related to the material.
The location drop down allows the user to either store the macro locally or the to the Octane Live Database.
Click OK to store the macro for later use.

Some first ideas to grow our database:

1 - If you see someone in here using a nice material, please stalk them friendly and nicely to upload some of their materials (by right clicking a material node and saving to octane Live)
2 - Maybe you can go to the vray materials of maxwell materials site (and others) for inspiration? http://www.vray-materials.de or http://resources.maxwellrender.com/news_scripts.php?t=1
3 - Maybe some people know how to create some video tutorials showing this? (tip: materials creation theory for other software packages also applies to octane off course, layering materials, giving it some wear and tear etc). I don't speak english that well maybe some of you do?
4 - Maybe people can upload general material renders (pictures) + explanation on how they created that material? (more emphasis on how te nodes interconnected of were created)

What are your thoughts on this? please let us know so we can improve.

New additions to Octane Live DB: I just uploaded two materials:
The: "ArtRock" material and "Old Wood Floor material" (as shown in the floor in my picture below)

Another new addition to Octane Live Database:
"Rusted Iron"

A new addition to the materials database:
"Red Fiberglass" (it has little scratches and bumps on it)

A new addition to the octane live materials database:
"Dirty Golf Ball" (use the clamp to remove the dirt, of the normal map size to change the size of the depth spots)
Replace the simple 512 x 512 white diffuse image with your own logo or so.

The spots are fake and created in photoshop.
The round dimples are 4 simple circles (normal map)
The pictues (with my name in it is also simply created in illustrator 512 x 512 image with some logo on a white background in the middle. (replace mine)

A new addition to the octane live materials database:
"Dirty Wooden Floor"
A very dusty ans messy wooden floot material.

A new addition to the octane live materials database:
"Old tiled wall"- An old looking meglected tiled wall.
This one is filed under the category "misc"

Hey, nice initiative & materials. There's a few problems, though:

1.) I cannot download some of your mat. (like the tiled wall). AFAIK there was a problem downloading macros with big size (more than 1k, IIRC) textures.

2.) If you are serious about creating macros for other users, than there are a few things to follow:

* One is that every macro that uses textures should (I think this should be a requirement, so must) offer outside control of scale through float pin input. The texture scale you rig on the material ball will in 99% look off on real objects (the ball is very small), so user will most certainly have to tweak scale. Now if the macro has only one texture, it's not that a big problem, you open it and tweak scale, but if it has more textures, the creator should supply the users a mean to sale everything from outside (possibly with only one input), without opening the macro. That what input pins are for.

* The macros should be as lightweight as possible. Rememeber that images are saved uncompressed in the macro, so big image textures will take a long time to download (or fail, as it seems to be the case).

* Apart from scale a good behaved macro should offer also the ability to change color or other applicable parameters, without going into it.

The devs promised to implement a lot of additional functionality for the node pipeline, and also (through a new site) the ability to delete or modify your uploaded macros, so I hope this will happen anytime soon.

Hi there matej
Thanks for the great advise. I agree.
I just found how to add 'controls' to materials so others don't have to go INSIDE it.
I however didn't find a way yet to 'edit' already uploaded materials to the octane live DB.
(note to octane developers) maybe this wil change in the new site?