OTOY Forums

if you ever worked in sketchup or artlantis, i'm sure you noticed you can have 2d objects that appear 3d when you render something/take screenshot because they're perpendicular to the point of your view.

i was wondering how hard would it be to implement something like that in octane so we could select some object or point and make it origin of an image with alpha map? its not too hard, it would be a big help with rendering foliage since it would reduce polygon count and get rid of certain disadvantages of randomly placed 2d planes.

these are called 'billboards' and are currently not supported.
You could just place these as quads manually in your scene for now and orient them towards the camera.

In general it's not a good idea to use this with a physically based engine as the results are not very good,
then again it does indeed help with reducing triangle complexity...

The 2.6 release which is coming will definately help here as it will support instancing...

Radiance

radiance wrote:The 2.6 release which is coming will definately help here as it will support instancing...

Radiance

+10

t_3 wrote:

radiance wrote:The 2.6 release which is coming will definately help here as it will support instancing...

Radiance

+10

Whoooo......................

I predict forest renders will be springing up all over this site soon.

we need more info. Instancing sounds good.

radiance wrote:In general it's not a good idea to use this with a physically based engine as the results are not very good,
then again it does indeed help with reducing triangle complexity...

i'm aware of the flaws, but for quick renders which are not meant to be realistic visualization but more of a concept show off, they can be very useful. i'm not saying this is a priority or even that i needs to be added to octane at all, but if its possible to add such a feature later on when you're done with all important features you want to add, it would be a nice and appreciated addition.

btw, now that you mentioned instances... \o/ cant wait! that and hdri+daylight system are the two things i'm missing the most in octane

"2D planes perpendicular to viewport" = "Billboard planes"

HDRI+Daylight has, obviously, the highest priority =)

I am currently using X-billoards for firtrees. I mean two billboards at 90°. They work if used in far background. Currently the two billboards support two different images in order to show more variety when rotated.

Usually X-billboards work better if one of the two images is invisible and only casts a shadow (shadow caster material not supported in Octane yet). However, if the billboards can't track the camera, two identical materials are better.

2.6! will support instancing???? have i read correctly????