OctaneRender 2021.1 for Houdini production build 2021.1.1.1

[juanjgon]

Hi,

This is a production release of the OctaneRender™ 2021.1 for Houdini™ plugin compiled with the Octane 2021.1.1 core. This 2021.1.1.1 release is available for the latest Houdini production builds on Windows x64 and Linux gcc6.3.1.

Houdini production builds supported by this release: 17.5.460, 18.0.597, 18.5.696, 18.5.759, 19.0.383 and 19.0.455

This build includes the first beta version of the new Qt5 IPR Window, the core of the plugin's whole new IPR system that will replace the old OpenGL IPR Window. There are still some important features missing (like render region, camera selector, shortcuts/preferences, background image, or snapshots gallery) that will be added this year, alongside the viewport IPR rendering feature, but the core technology is ready to be tested. The new Qt5 IPR window is available for both Windows and Linux (and macOS in the future) and it can be opened as a floating window or inside a Houdini pane.

This version supports Nvidia Ampere GPUs and as a consequence, we had to drop support for old Kepler cards with a compute model < 3.5. And please make sure to use a NVIDIA Studio driver with version at least 456.38 on Windows or 455.23 on Linux

New features
To learn more about the new features and improvements of OctaneRender 2021.1, please check out the 2021.1 release post


Release 2021.1.1.1 Enterprise subscription license
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... rprise.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... rprise.zip

Release 2021.1.1.1 Studio subscription license
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... studio.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... studio.zip

Release 2021.1.1.1 Demo version license
https://render.otoy.com/plugindownloads ... 4_demo.zip
https://render.otoy.com/plugindownloads ... x_demo.zip

Standalone 2021.1.1 version for the network rendering nodes
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=78954


Release Notes
=============================================
RELEASE 2021.1.1.1
=============================================

* PLUGIN FEATURES AND FIXES:
- (BETA) Qt5 based IPR window system.
- Hair rendering points width lower limit updated to 0.000001 units.


=============================================
RELEASE 2021.1.1.0
=============================================

* PLUGIN FEATURES AND FIXES:
- Added H18.5.759 and H19.0.455 plugin builds.
- Addressed a problem while creating VOP texture nodes with the IPR enabled.
- Fixed a problem in the render target HDA related to the volume AOVs.
- The Octane material builder node is now created including the Octane universal material node inside.
- Updated the defaults of some ROP parameters to match the most common production settings.
- New option in the OBJ spare parameters to ignore the pivot point attribute, enabled by default to resolve xform problems with the packed geo instancing.
- Fixed a problem in the hair rendering with very low "width" point values < 0.0001
- Added support for custom object AOVs.
- Added the "Cinema 4D Noise" shader node.
- Refactoring of the Cryptomatte AOVs to support material and object IDs from the Houdini node paths, custom OBJ IDs and layer/instance IDs.
- Refactoring of the scene cleaning code to hopefully fix some rare crashes while rendering sequences in full scene reload mode.

* OCTANE 2021.1.1 FEATURES AND FIXES:
- Added Cryptomatte AOVs for mattes based on the render layer, user instance ID and geometry node name of an object.
- Brought back the option "Emulate old volume behaviour" to the kernel nodes.
- Added a small offset to cell noise and the checkerboard texture to avoid artefacts on axis aligned planes that lie exactly on the face of a checkboard / cell cube.
- Overhauled the way how render work is distributed to local and remote GPUs: The main idea is to reassign already assigned but unfinished work to available GPU when there is no more unassigned work left. This avoids that net rendering may hang due to unfinished work, because some intermediate result got lost. It may also reduce the render time when the local GPUs are out of work but Octane is still waiting for one or more render nodes to finish and return their result.
- Fixed clipping material that is a vectron mesh not working correctly as it casts shadows over other materials its clipping.
- Fixed emission with "Visible on diffuse" disable still being visible on universal materials with a coating.
- Fixed render failure on render nodes if AI light is enabled for sphere light primitives.
- Fixed render failure in scenes with mix materials when clay mode is enabled.
- Fixed render hang if you use an environment texture that uses the "Sample position" texture and if "Importance sampling" is enabled.
- Fixed render failure when you use a texture with projection "Sample pos. to UV" for vertex displacement.
- Fixed light linking through transparency surfaces giving unexpected results.
- Fixed incorrect Vectron® bounding boxes if there are object layer maps in the node tree.
- Fixed noise pass not applying gamma when an OCIO view is selected.
- Fixed denoiser not working on CPUs without AVX support.
- Fixed mismatch between the main AOV with post FX enabled and the composite of the main AOV with the post-processing AOV.
- Fixed failure to write OpenEXR files to paths that contain characters that are not in the current ANSI code page.
- Fixed render timer not starting if no local GPUs are used for rendering.
- Fixed the cuDNN download for the demo version on systems that didn't run OctaneRender before.
- OSL: Fixed raytype("shadow") for volume scattering and absorption textures.
- OSL: Fixed referencing of vertex attributes via unconnected OSL input variable.


Happy rendering,
Your OTOY Team

[galleon27]

Happy new year and thanks for the release!

BUG: Creating a POPNET while the IPR is open causes a Segmentation fault error.

[galleon27]

BUG: Cryptomatte User Instance ID causes a Segmentation fault error.
Added the file. Start the IPR and in the AOV just switch to Crypto user instance ID. And just for future reference, i'm using 19.0.383.

[juanjgon]

BUG: Cryptomatte User Instance ID causes a Segmentation fault error.
Added the file. Start the IPR and in the AOV just switch to Crypto user instance ID. And just for future reference, i'm using 19.0.383.

This is an Octane core issue. It will be fixed in the next Octane 2021.1 core release.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[juanjgon]

Happy new year and thanks for the release!

BUG: Creating a POPNET while the IPR is open causes a Segmentation fault error.

This problem will be fixed in the next build.

Thanks for reporting it!
-Juanjo

[james_conkle]

Loving this update and the live viewer feels so much more welcoming Very excited for the Viewport IPR and render region!

Is there a way to enable the lights to behave like native Houdini area lights insofar as the ability to preview light intensity in the hardware preview? Same with previewing materials in the hardware viewport?

[Master_39]

Hi Juanjgon. I noticed Octane crashed a lot by putting the spectron light into the scene. Can you do something about this? Thank you for your work, cheers!

Houdini 19.0.455
Octane 2021.1.1.1

[juanjgon]

Is there a way to enable the lights to behave like native Houdini area lights insofar as the ability to preview light intensity in the hardware preview? Same with previewing materials in the hardware viewport?

The basic support of textures in the viewports is already possible building custom material HDAs with OpenGL tags:
viewtopic.php?f=101&t=55551

Anyway, the goal is that the future viewport rendering could help to visualize the real Octane materials in the viewport.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[juanjgon]

Hi Juanjgon. I noticed Octane crashed a lot by putting the spectron light into the scene. Can you do something about this? Thank you for your work, cheers!

Houdini 19.0.455
Octane 2021.1.1.1

Can you please share an example scene with this issue? Also, can you please enable the Octane log file in the plugin options panel and attach the log that you get after the crash?

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[BrianHanke]

I've been checking in once in a while to see if the new IPR is ready. Glad to see it finally here! It's already a big improvement over the old one, looking forward to the final release later in the year. Also nice to see so many other quality of life updates, especially all the color management stuff. Keep up the great work!