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No change in thickness? The first pic is from a still Phil has done. The second pic is a still taken from an animation Phil has done. And you see no change in thickness??? The second one looks like rubber to me. But never mind. I give up.
My 2cents...
I was working on trying to put together Octane shaders for my hairs and noticed almost immediately that the Octane hairs were thicker than the Carrara hairs, even with the same settings. I like to have my scaling for the hairs set at .9 on the medium setting for Carrara renders (though I also really like the trick PhilW came up with of duplicating the hairstyle and setting the duplicate to a 'Thin' scaling to have tiny 'fly off' specular hair effect).
However the hairs in Octane were thicker than what they rendered in Carrara. The good news for this is the same modeling parameters can be used to affect the thickness of the Octane-rendered hairs, I found by just taking it down to .5 on a medium thickness setting it's about the same (and for kicks, it can be taken all the way down to .1 on a thin scaling, where the hair is so thin it's pretty much invisible).
So while Octane does seem to render the individual hairs a bit thicker, it's easily correctable by taking the thickness down and not anything that's set in stone.
If it's generally thought that Octane is rendering it thicker than Carrara, I can have a word with Sighman to reduce the thickness conversion a little so that it matches between the two apps better. We spent a lot of time in the private beta doing such things on shaders and the like.
Argus , Those are two different hairstyles,. that's not a comparison of like and like
From your question about the change in thickness where you mention the difference between animated and still images,
I presumed that you meant (from the same animation) ..or at least the same hairstyle.
so, I'm lost as to what the problem is here,.
Is it that not all hair on all models are uniformly the same thickness. ?
Not all hair on a human or animal is the same thickness, they vary.
that's the reason there are thickness shader options, and thickness hair options
Is it that a render using Carrara produces a slightly different result in hair thickness (right now) than one using Octane. ?
This is carrara hair being sent to another program, with different features and shaders, so yes, there may be a difference in the way that hair is rendered right now between Carrara and octane rendered images.
Bear in mind that this "feature" of the Octane for Carrara plug-in, has just been added and is in the process of being adjusted,. nothing is set in stone yet, as it's still being developed.
If you can render out a couple of images from both Carrara and Octane of exactly the same hairstyle,. (same figure / same hair) then you can compare the difference like for like.
I have included suggested changes to the animation and rendered a closer version. Here is a sample frame (the full animation isn't posted anywhere yet). There have also been developments in the plugin itself, full UV mapping is proving a little elusive but I am sure that Sighman will crack it. In the meantime, he has implemented a "Random UV" mode which allocates a random UV position for each strand of hair. What this means is that you can use any picture of hair (or anything at all come to that!) and each strand will be a sample of the colours in that image, which allows some great looking natural hair textures. The hairband image is still a WIP but illustrates this.
Much better, Phil. Much, much better!
Much better, Phil. Much, much better!
Thank you for your feedback. I am always looking to refine and fine tune things, and keep in mind that using hair in Octane is a very new thing and still being developed in the plugin, but I think it shows enormous promise.
Latest example of Carrara hair rendered in Octane - I am hoping that Argus will approve!
Thanks for thinking about me, Phil. There no question about the great quality of your stills with Octane. This render is no exception. But is this one taken from an animation, or is it just a still picture? I'm concerned about Octane's capabilities in animation mostly.
Thanks for thinking about me, Phil. There no question about the great quality of your stills with Octane. This render is no exception. But is this one taken from an animation, or is it just a still picture? I'm concerned about Octane's capabilities in animation mostly.
It's a still. But Octane's animation capability is identical to Carrara's! It just renders what is passed through to it by Carrara, and all the animation stuff is done in Carrara, including the dynamic hair. So if you have an animation that are happy with in Carrara, the geometry will be the same when rendered in Octane, you might just have to tweak a few parameters such as thickness - but Octane's interactive rendering is so fast that you can effectively do this on the fly.
P.S. The blonde with the hair band posted earlier was from an animation.
Then may you please, if and when time allows, gratify us with another animation? I don't have Octane (not yet anyway, probably because I'm too cheap). So I have no idea of the means taken by Octane to arrive at a good animation. I obviously judge only by the results. Do they look plausibly realistic? That's my concern.
Wow! Just superb! :) This is using the blend of specular and glossy materials you were talking about Phil?
Wow! Just superb! :) This is using the blend of specular and glossy materials you were talking about Phil?
Actually this one doesn't even use that - it is just the default conversion (which has been changed since the first release that supported hair) plus one little trick. While Sighman has yet to fully resolve UV mapping for the hair, he has added a "Random" option in addition to "Source UV". What that does is for each strand, it allocates random UV coordinates, so if you use it with a texture map in the color channel, it just randomly samples from the colors in the image. So clip an area from a hair colour that you like and use that as the image map - it doesn't need to be in any particular format or orientation, since it is just randomly sampling colours from it. That is what gives this hair its natural variation. Oh, and I adjusted the thickness down to give finer hair and added just a touch of frizz.
It may look even better if I had bothered to add the specular material in a mix!
Sounds like I need to download the latest version to play around :)
Then may you please, if and when time allows, gratify us with another animation? I don't have Octane (not yet anyway, probably because I'm too cheap). So I have no idea of the means taken by Octane to arrive at a good animation. I obviously judge only by the results. Do they look plausibly realistic? That's my concern.
I'll see what I can do. The movement of the hair will be entirely down to Carrara and its settings, just passed to Octane to render.
does anyone know how to do a shadowcatch shader or plane in OR4C?
I noticed iray has a plane you can enable and shadowcatch is something I have sorely missed using Octane
Even Blender does it easily enough for Cycles and Blenderrender.
I am surprised not something in live DB as others would use it, I tried various octane shader functions but having no real success just varying sorts of opacity with shadow where you can still clearly see the plane
found this http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Standalone_2_0/?page_id=454
now to figure it out in Carrara :lol:
AH get it but you lose your HDRI backgrounf :lol:
Hi Wendy,
I'm getting the HDRI background with the shadow catcher (see attached), maybe it's the image format or an environment setting that is keeping it from rendering??
A ShadowCatcher in Octane is basically just a diffuse material with the Matte option checked. Whether you see the background or transparency will depend on the Environment options in the Octane kernel (I think) and the format that you save in. But it certainly works because I was using it just the other day.
Something else that I think is fantastic about the Octane implementation, is that if you use a Matte/Shadowcatcher plane, it responds correctly to depth of field - so the HDRI map that you are using as background will be in focus where the plane is at the focal distance, etc. Very clever!
well I just cannot get it to work
amend that
I have now gotten it to work
checking alpha in Carrara render settings!!!!!
new oddity, I rotated the camera and figure but the HDRI does not rotate in animation, I am pretty sure it did before without the alpha checked, in otherwords just rendering the figure not BG and uses first frame only.
nevermind think my target helper modifier stopped spinning
I've been trying to figure out for days now how one can use Octane Materials on a Carrara Hair. The Top shader can only be one of the other, either Hair shader or Octane Material. So how does one keep the shaping that comes from the Carrara shaders while using Octane for the material? Any help is appreciated. Thanks
Leave the Carrara shader in place in the textures room, and that way you retain any of the 'shaping' results of the carrara hair shader (kink, clump, wave, etc).
In the assembly room, with the Carrara hair primitive object selected from the instances, up above select the 'Effects' tab for the hair. One of the selections about halfway down the effects column is titled 'Octane Hair'.
Click on 'Node Editor' and there will be a popup which asks 'Override Hair Shader', check it and it will popup a window right into Octane itself, Click on the Hair Group primitive here and you'll be able to change the Octane materials.
This way you can preserve the shaping qualities of the Carrara hair shader while still being able to play with the Octane materials of it.
Leave the Carrara shader in place in the textures room, and that way you retain any of the 'shaping' results of the carrara hair shader (kink, clump, wave, etc).
In the assembly room, with the Carrara hair primitive object selected from the instances, up above select the 'Effects' tab for the hair. One of the selections about halfway down the effects column is titled 'Octane Hair'.
Click on 'Node Editor' and there will be a popup which asks 'Override Hair Shader', check it and it will popup a window right into Octane itself, Click on the Hair Group primitive here and you'll be able to change the Octane materials.
This way you can preserve the shaping qualities of the Carrara hair shader while still being able to play with the Octane materials of it.
Much thanks!
You don't need to use the Node Editor, there is another button (just to the left of Node Editor, but I can't remember what it is called!) that allows you to override the Carrara texture with an Octane Materal, but still in a Carrara format shader like you do for other materials.
Thanks both of you. I've observed two issues I suspect, but I'd like to confirm them before I bother Sighman with them.
1. Each time I rebuild the scene entirely (as is necessary when updating image files with newer versions that share the same name), the connection between the Hair instance and the special Octane Material for the Hair is lost. Can anyone else reproduce this error?
2. The hairs are rendering much thinner in Octane than they do in Carrara. Is there any particular reason for this?
I also have a couple of questions about the Octane Hair shader and the two color thingamabob. Is this intended to represent tip and root or are these full length descriptions?
Anyhow as always, I am having a fantastic time learning all of this stuff. I should be uploading some render examples soon. Thanks again for all of your help so far.
EDIT: I think I might have figured out what I was doing wrong. Crisis averted.
You need to save the octane shader added on a primitive like a sphere you make invisible to keep it if saving the scene.
it's very late so i don't like to search every page if this question was already asked and answered.
I have just installed the full version of octane for carrara but i have two issues with that.
So i have the newest version but the first issue is that i don't really know how i can display the dynamic hair in octane renderer as i was reading the last page, i have nothing that is called: Octane Hair in the effects tab.
The second issue is that all my characters have black eyes but in Carrara render the settings are all fine and there is no issue.
So what could that be?
The latest version of Octane Render for Carrara automatically converts Carrara's dynamic hair into Octane Hair primitives, so you don't need to do anything special, just render the scene!
The black eyes issue will be due to the Eye Surface (or Eye Reflection) shading domain of the figure not auto-converting very well. Create yourself an Octane Material which is basically water (index of refraction 1.33) and drop this onto the Eye Surface (and maybe the Cornea as well). Save it - you will find it very useful!
This screen shot should provide you with what you will need to get it going. Once it is set up everything works just fine except for a couple of issues.
1. Realize that now there are 2 "shaders" related to your hair object. The upper part of the original Carrara shader is ignored because of the little check mark being enabled in the attached image, the only part that remains relevant are the settings for density, length, clump, frizz, wave. In order to alter the material appearance of the hair in Octane, you need to select the new shader you've created for that purpose.
2. Sometimes Carrara gets confused about the Octane Material shader for the Hair. For example, if you "Remove Unused Shaders" it will delete the new material you created as the Octane Hair. So any hair materials you create for Octane should be saved to a library so you can reload them as needed.
And to help get you going, here is a sample hair texture I created specifically for this purpose.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4IpzCJ1fXpea3ZkUkM4d28yT1E/view?usp=sharing
Other suggestions:
1. Make certain you select "Thin" as the hair thickness in the Model Room.
2. Due to the thin setting in the model room; in the Original hair shader, I usually need to make certain that root and tip thickness are both 100%. It creates a fuller looking hair without ever looking too thick.
3. When it comes to Wave, it is best to lower the tip amplitude to 0. If you do not then you might well encounter nastly fly away hairs when they are cut in the model room. The root amplitude can be as high as ever, just the tip needs to be minimal for the hair to appear to fall naturally.
4. While the OR4C is generally quite stable, I have encountered several crashes when dealing with certain things. One thing the OR4C doesnt like is changes to grouping while the OR4C is open even if it isnt actively rendering. If for example you had an object in a group, the simple act of ungrouping can cause the dreaded "An Error has Occurred" forcing you to quit Carrara. I suggest saving often and do not be surpsied if you encounter a crash or tow as you streamline your workflow. If you can remember to do so it might be wise to close the OR4C before ungrouping, then restart the Or4Conce you have finished editing the groups.
5. Lastly, and this goes a little bit backward toward things discussed earlier in this post... when working in the Model Room on the hair it is my suggestion that you PAUSE the OR4C otherwise Carrara will slow to a crawl as it tries to implement every single change you make while in the model room. Because any and all changes to geometry require that the entire scene mesh be recompiled in Octane, this can get tiresome. But momentraily pausing the OR4C will avoid this.
Best of luck and welcome aboard. I suspect you will be very pleased with your new software and how well it works with Carrara. Fun fun!