OctaneRender 2021.1 for Houdini production build 2021.1.4.0

[juanjgon]

Hi,

This is a production release of the OctaneRender™ 2021.1 for Houdini™ plugin compiled with the Octane 2021.1.4 core. This 2021.1.4.0 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, 18.5.759, 19.0.498, 19.0.531 and 19.0.561

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 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 2021.1.4.0 Enterprise subscription license
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... rprise.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... rprise.zip

Release 2021.1.4.0 Studio subscription license
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... studio.zip
https://render.otoy.com/customerdownloa ... studio.zip

Release 2021.1.4.0 Demo version license
https://render.otoy.com/plugindownloads ... 4_demo.zip
https://render.otoy.com/plugindownloads ... x_demo.zip

Standalone 2021.1.4 version for the network rendering nodes
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=79488


Release Notes
=============================================
RELEASE 2021.1.4.0
=============================================
* PLUGIN FEATURES AND FIXES:
- Added H19.0.561 plugin build.
- Qt5 IPR: Render region tool.
- Qt5 IPR: Always on top preferences option.
- New "Octane_IPR_updateSelectedObjects" hscript command.
- Fixed a minor issue in the Render Target HDA.

* OCTANE 2021.1.4 FEATURES AND FIXES:
- Added "Legacy blend mode" alpha operation and a "Force premultiply opacity" pin to the composite AOV layer node. These options allow you to reproduce the results seen in older scenes, before fixes were made in 2021.1.2.
- Small performance improvement for non-RTX ray-tracing.
- Improved startup times, especially on Linux.
- Map range output AOV node will now allow the output minimum value to be higher than the output maximum value.
- If an OctaneLive activation fails due to an interrupted Internet connection, we open a retry dialog and try again automatically after 20 seconds.
- Fixed authentication failures when more than 4 Octane processes try to authenticate on Linux. If a failure still occurs, we open a retry dialog and try again automatically after 4 seconds.
- Fixed incorrect rendering of materials that use a dirt texture as input of any of the channel manipulation textures (like Channel merger or Channel mapper).
- Fixed incorrect rendering of OSL textures that have an unconnected _sdf input.
- Fixed black pixels on materials that emit and which have an opacity of 0 or a general visibility of 0.
- Fixed incorrect values in volume Z-depth front AOV.
- Fixed render hang when you use the baking camera is a scene with displacement triangles.
- Fixed auto bump which may cause artefacts on vertex displacement materials that projections other than UV mapping.
- Fixed copy and pasting a geometric primitive, where the first change of the primitive type of the copied geometric primitive was ignored.


Happy rendering,
Your OTOY Team

[coresign]

So glad to see Octane_IPR_updateSelectedObjects added, but here is some problem I tested:
1: octane object parms change not update
2: sop level material change not update
3：not update for the newly created object
4: instance change not update

seem like it's only working when sop topology change

[juanjgon]

Yes, sorry, updating the SOP geometry of the available objects was indeed the purpose of this command. I'll try to expand the functions of this command for the next build.

-Juanjo

[Terryvfx]

Excellent! thanks for the release.

[vlucendo]

Thanks for your work Juanjo, with each update the houdini integration feels better and more solid.
I was wondering, is there a way to save materials to the livedb using the new IPR? Thanks!

[juanjgon]

Thanks for your work Juanjo, with each update the houdini integration feels better and more solid.
I was wondering, is there a way to save materials to the livedb using the new IPR? Thanks!

Nope, not yet. I'll try to add this feature for the next build.

-juanjo

[james_conkle]

Should I be able to save ACEScg.EXR files from the new LiveView? I see it’s listed but nothing comes from using the save dialogue.

Also a request would be the ability to lock the render resolution and scale up the view of the image.

[thanulee]

Great release testing it so far. One minor UI suggestion, when I increase exposure slider by hand goes quickly to 100. Maybe make the slider to more reasonable values like 0-10 or so! cheers

[vlucendo]

The slider step size on the Tool Range material node seems also a bit out of scale, as one milimeter makes it go from 0 to the thousands and most of the time we're dealing with way lower values.

[ryanaexavier]

Will you be implementing movement of camera via LiveViewer, similar to C4D?