Combined and Shadow pass in one rendering?

[Andreas_Resch]

Hello.

I'm on the next stage of exploring Octane and have arrived at render passes. Here's a question. Is it possible to have a "normal" pass (containing) all the objects and the shadow pass in one rendering like in the image below? I know it's possible to use render layers, but that would mean twice the render time. And as I usually render very high res images (8K+) this is a significant amount of time. Thanks for any advice.

[elsksa]

Hi,

Is it possible to have a "normal" pass (containing) all the objects and the shadow pass in one rendering like in the image below?

That's what render-layers are for. There isn't any single AOV in any renderer that is a substitute to render-layers.

I know it's possible to use render layers, but that would mean twice the render time.

Wherever you read that, that's an erroneous information, or misinterpreted/misunderstood?

If you are new to Octane, I would strongly recommend to consult some of these pages, such as "Kernel Settings" and any other one that may be helpful to you.

While I personally don't recommend it, multi-layer EXR is possibly what you meant to imply, AOVs (or "passes") into a single file. Disadvantages are essentially that all-in-one-single-file impacts on "performance", and having them separately provides higher flexibility and control.

[Andreas_Resch]

Thanks for the reply.

In Cycles it is possible to get those two passed in one render run. That's why I asked.

About render layers. From what I understood, the render process starts from scratch for each render layer. If there's a way to get multiple render layer in one render run, that's great. I'll look for more information about that.

And no - I was not talking about single-file vs. multiple files. I'm fine with multiple files. Used them in Cycles as well.

[elsksa]

In Cycles it is possible to get those two passed in one render run.

Indeed, I don't recall that being possible in Octane. It could, but through workarounds, e.g. AOVs (which don't require a "re-rendering per AOV") with cryptomatte, which is what I was actually referring to, that I mistaken with render layers.

[linograndiotoy]

In Cycles it is possible to get those two passed in one render run. That's why I asked.

How do you do this?

AFAIK, you need to render the scene twice in Cycles as well, using view layers.

Which can be done in Octane as well.

View_Layers.blend

(1.23 MiB) Downloaded 79 times

[Andreas_Resch]

It's possible in one render run. If the "Shadow Catcher" is activated as a render pass, the objects and the shadow catcher are separated like this. Here a plane is below the sphere and it's marked as a shadow catcher in the object settings.

But I guess I can come to a similar result if I extract the objects from the combined layer with an object mask.

[elsksa]

But I guess I can come to a similar result if I extract the objects from the combined layer with an object mask.

Indeed, that's what I was referring to from my previous reply (AOVs/Cryptomatte).

[linograndiotoy]

It's possible in one render run. If the "Shadow Catcher" is activated as a render pass, the objects and the shadow catcher are separated like this. Here a plane is below the sphere and it's marked as a shadow catcher in the object settings.

RenderPasses_02.jpg

But I guess I can come to a similar result if I extract the objects from the combined layer with an object mask.

In your previous example the shadow were not masked by the obejct, that's what I was thinking you needed.

[Andreas_Resch]

Yeah. That's not possible in Blender either. Not in one run. But I think I will go for extracting the objects from the combined pass. I hope I don't get any issues around the corners.

[J.C]

This might be useful but not exactly what you wanted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEgjnyNwOSg