Displacement not working in OctaneRender 2018.1.3

[scooternva]

Before I waste any more time trying to get displacement to work in OctaneRender 2018.1.3 for LightWave 2019.0.3, I thought I'd post a note here and see if I'm just doing something fundamentally wrong.

I've attached a zipfile containing an example of what I'm trying to do. The scene camera is pointing at a 1-km sphere that is supposed to have its surface displaced by the PNG image file included in the zip, but every time I render the scene I get a smooth, undisplaced sphere.

Thanks...

[juanjgon]

The conventional render time displacement only works over UV mapped textured objects. The projection nodes are not compatible with it. Octane 2019 has a new vertex displacement node that has more features and supports the projection nodes.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[scooternva]

Ahh, I was afraid that you would say that.

If I upgrade to OR 2019 and find that it breaks something else that I more critically need, is it possible to downgrade back to 2018.1.3?

Thanks!

[juanjgon]

Yes, I suppose that there is no problem unless you use any of the new Octane 2019 features.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[scooternva]

Well, so far so good. All of my models are rendering exactly the same as before (and perhaps even a little faster!). And best of all, now the displacement is working as I'd hoped:

It's a... space puffer fish!

On a more serious note... la bellissima luna con dislocamento!

Thanks Juanjo!

[scooternva]

Hmmm... OK now I've run into a different problem.

I'm trying to follow this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM9HwgitbqQ

Although it was created for Cinema 4D, I was hoping that the basic concepts could be ported over to LightWave. The basic idea is that you have two spheres in different layers with slightly different displacements. The inner sphere would be emissive and would look like lava poking out at various points through the planetary crust.

The problem that I'm running into is that no matter what I do I cannot get anything but the outer sphere to render. If I temporarily hide the outer "planetary crust" layer, the inner "lava" layer displaces and renders correctly. It seems as though only one object is allowed to have vertex displacement per scene... is that true? I hope not--that would be a rather severe limitation...

Thanks...

[juanjgon]

I don't think so, and if it works in the C4D plugin, it also should work in LightWave. If you want to share your scene I could take a look at it here.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[scooternva]

ACK! Never mind! Stupid mistake on my part. Getting some funky results but I'm definitely back on the right track. Thanks!