Octane Render for Carrara (OR4C) Public Beta now released..

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  • laverdet_943f1f7da1laverdet_943f1f7da1 Posts: 252
    edited December 1969

    I don't understand, for the lights, the use if emitting shapes.. well, I understand of course to set a plane, with a lot of glow in its material, and I see in octane the emitted light... But I see also the plane... how to have like the lights in C8, objects emitting light, but invisible in the render??

  • Orion_UkOrion_Uk Posts: 231
    edited September 2014

    celmar said:
    I don't understand, for the lights, the use if emitting shapes.. well, I understand of course to set a plane, with a lot of glow in its material, and I see in octane the emitted light... But I see also the plane... how to have like the lights in C8, objects emitting light, but invisible in the render??

    Drop the opacity slider right down ;)

    You can also change the distribution (kinda how far the light travels from its source) which is helpful if you only want a small part of a room/desk (etc) to receive the light ;)

    Not exactly 'works of art' but these images (bottom one is a WIP!) give you a rough idea :)

    Test-2-.png
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    Opacity_right_up.PNG
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    Opacity_right_down.PNG
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    Distrubution_right_up.PNG
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    Distribution_down.PNG
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    Post edited by Orion_Uk on
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited September 2014

    I thought I'd share this one "Waiting for the Bus". It really taxed my 2GB GPU card to render this, in fact I needed to do two separate renders and combine them. It features a specially adjusted version of my English Village set together with A Curious Bus and Edwardian Suit with Retro Formalities textures. It only took around 5 mins to render each image though!

    WaitingForTheBusFinal.jpg
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    Post edited by PhilW on
  • DievansDievans Posts: 207
    edited December 1969

    PhilW said:
    I thought I'd share this one "Waiting for the Bus". It really taxed my 2GB GPU card to render this, in fact I needed to do two separate renders and combine them. It features a specially adjusted version of my English Village set together with A Curious Bus and Edwardian Suit with Retro Formalities textures. It only took around 5 mins to render each image though!

    Wow, that's great! There's a whole lot of detail there. Did you use an image environment and mesh light for the sun?

    Orion_Uk, thanks for the screenshots - very helpful!

  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969

    Quick question regarding scene memory, do things like morphs count towards the memory that taxes Octane?

    I've been exporting my scenes as .obj files from Carrara and rendering into Thea, and have been surprised that even large and relatively complex scenes don't seem to hit my 2GB (per my laptop's 745m GeForce NVidia card) limit, but then again these are just objects really, so a lot less memory than a fully morphed and filled with parameters/morphs figure like V4 or Genesis. So does anyone know if the various morphs count towards memory for the purposes of Octane rendering? I wouldn't think they would, but wanted to make sure.

    Also what happens when you accidentally go over the memory limit. Does it give an error message that you've exceeded filesize? Do a partial render? Render only black? Make your computer catch on fire and explode? Delete your DAZ account? Enquiring minds want to know :)

    I got my latest paycheck and have plenty of extra funds at the moment, so I'll probably be buying Octane for Carrara later on tonight or tomorrow. :)

  • DievansDievans Posts: 207
    edited December 1969

    Hey look! An obligatory bald figure with DOF :-). I really do like the implementation of this plugin - it seems much more tightly integrated than others.

    Jonstark, I'm curious about your question too. I think that only geometry and textures are sent to Octane, so the number of morphs wouldn't have any impact. I'm not sure how much of the geometry counts. In older versions of the standalone, it just refused to render at all if you exceeded your memory, but I think it's handled a little more elegantly in recent versions (like, some kind of message). That little bar in the lower right will fill up and tell you too.

    woman2.png
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  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    dievans said:
    PhilW said:
    I thought I'd share this one "Waiting for the Bus". It really taxed my 2GB GPU card to render this, in fact I needed to do two separate renders and combine them. It features a specially adjusted version of my English Village set together with A Curious Bus and Edwardian Suit with Retro Formalities textures. It only took around 5 mins to render each image though!

    Wow, that's great! There's a whole lot of detail there. Did you use an image environment and mesh light for the sun?

    Orion_Uk, thanks for the screenshots - very helpful!

    Octane has a sun and sky light system, which is linked to Carrara's realistic sky by the OR4C plugin and this was used for the lighting. The clouds are part of a spherical backdrop image.

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    Jonstark said:
    Quick question regarding scene memory, do things like morphs count towards the memory that taxes Octane?

    I've been exporting my scenes as .obj files from Carrara and rendering into Thea, and have been surprised that even large and relatively complex scenes don't seem to hit my 2GB (per my laptop's 745m GeForce NVidia card) limit, but then again these are just objects really, so a lot less memory than a fully morphed and filled with parameters/morphs figure like V4 or Genesis. So does anyone know if the various morphs count towards memory for the purposes of Octane rendering? I wouldn't think they would, but wanted to make sure.

    Also what happens when you accidentally go over the memory limit. Does it give an error message that you've exceeded filesize? Do a partial render? Render only black? Make your computer catch on fire and explode? Delete your DAZ account? Enquiring minds want to know :)

    I got my latest paycheck and have plenty of extra funds at the moment, so I'll probably be buying Octane for Carrara later on tonight or tomorrow. :)


    I am pretty sure that morphs don't count towards the GPU memory used, I think that the mesh is based on an export function in Carrara SDK, so it would be similar to exporting to OBJ (it might actually BE exporting to OBJ under the hood...). The things that contribute most to memory appear to be high res textures and trees.

    If you try to load a scene which is too large, the Octane viewport stays in a permanent state of "Updating" and you will need to close Carrara, so try to save before calling Octane if you think this might happen. This is not the most elegant of behaviours but I think that Sighman had an issue with trapping the error.

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,739
    edited December 1969

    For anyone interested - The Demo version of Octane Render for Carrara is now available!!
    You can find it here: https://render.otoy.com/downloads.php

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    dustrider said:
    For anyone interested - The Demo version of Octane Render for Carrara is now available!!
    You can find it here: https://render.otoy.com/downloads.php

    Good news! I think once people have tried it, they won't want to go back.

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,739
    edited December 1969

    PhilW said:
    dustrider said:
    For anyone interested - The Demo version of Octane Render for Carrara is now available!!
    You can find it here: https://render.otoy.com/downloads.php

    Good news! I think once people have tried it, they won't want to go back.

    It sure got me hooked once I tried it!!

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,739
    edited December 1969

    More info on the demo can be found here: http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=42313

  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited December 1969

    Okay, so I did it. I went ahead and invested the serious dough in a new video card that I really cannot afford, I also got Octane Render for Carrara which I also cannot afford. I'm in the process of setting everything up but I do have one question to toss out right now.

    In all of the Octane Render Galleries I see very few landscapes, and no images of volumetric clouds. Am I to assume that Octane doesn't do clouds just yet? I already know that every application does volumetrics differently, so it may be impossible to make them compatible. Just curious. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

  • SighmanSighman Posts: 56
    edited December 1969

    I will answer that with a qualified no. No you cannot render Carrara volumetrics with the plugin (yet). Octane does support volumetrics if you set it up 'manually' using the octane specular shader nodes. Some people have experimented with cloud layers with varying success and you will need to search the octane forums to find them. In all cases, rendering volumetrics can only be done using the path tracing and PMC kernels which means they will be slow to render to a noiseless image. The best alternative is to use the Carrara native renderer for volumetrics and merge it with an octane scene using photoshop or gimp.

    Maybe one of the expert artists here can post an example...

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,200
    edited September 2014

    OK grabbed it for a spin, prob should also read instructions sometime soon :lol:

    Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    Harpsburg is too large for my video card as a complete set, but by removing elements that couldn't be seen, I managed to get a render done. Funny thing is that it doesn't look hugely different from Howie's default renders, which shows how good he has set it up! It was faster though (15 mins in Octane vs 40 mins for the same scene in Carrara on Howie's settings), and the Octane version had stuff like rendered depth of field.

    Harpsburg_Test1.png
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  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
    edited December 1969

    STOP PRESS!

    CTRL-D replication has arrived!

    This scene almost makes my Carrara fall over but the Octane plug in handles it. (Quick test render as I have little time over the weekend).

    btw. Those houses in the backround are not a backdrop image. They are detailed houses. (some detail removed from the far ones to make it all fit).

    test_shot_000000.jpeg
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  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited December 1969

    That looks very good, Phil.

    Sci-Fi, that looks very good indeed.

    Okay, I have a few questions for silly beginners.

    1. How do I set the preferences so that the default kernel is Path Tracing?
    2. Why is it that my OR4C produces blurred images? If I take control of the camera in Octane it seems to go away, depending on the viewing angle.
    3. Why is it that I have a scene with a realistic sky yet I cannot see the sunlight affecting the Octane Render. Or if there is sunlight, it is directly above and not in the position I thought I left it in Carrara.

    In fact, I need a full explanation about how the atmospherics in Carrara relate to the Octane Render.

    Any advice and feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thnx.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,200
    edited December 1969

    I will ask here as well as Otoy forum because it gives me a place to post an image

    OK I installed the demo version to try it out, but what user ID and password do I use?
    my standalone one does not work so presume there is a beta demo ID
    I own the Daz studio version so also have a standalone license for 2X
    this is my activation window but it remains paused so presume not activated yet

    cap.png
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  • SighmanSighman Posts: 56
    edited December 1969

    Hi wendyluvscats and welcome.

    Just press play, you don't need a license.

    To disable pausing select Auto Start Render from the Preferences.

    AutoStart.png
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    Menu_Bar_-_Play.png
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  • SighmanSighman Posts: 56
    edited December 1969

    That looks very good, Phil.

    Sci-Fi, that looks very good indeed.

    Okay, I have a few questions for silly beginners.

    1. How do I set the preferences so that the default kernel is Path Tracing?
    2. Why is it that my OR4C produces blurred images? If I take control of the camera in Octane it seems to go away, depending on the viewing angle.
    3. Why is it that I have a scene with a realistic sky yet I cannot see the sunlight affecting the Octane Render. Or if there is sunlight, it is directly above and not in the position I thought I left it in Carrara.

    In fact, I need a full explanation about how the atmospherics in Carrara relate to the Octane Render.

    Any advice and feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thnx.

    Hi Rashad,

    1) Open the Octane Render Settings from the Octane Viewport. You can configure the Kernel there.
    2) Auto Focus works by focusing on the center of the image. If there is nothing there then there is nothing to focus on. You can also disable auto focus and select an object to focus on instead.
    3) I'm not sure, it should be working.

  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited December 1969

    Sighman said:
    That looks very good, Phil.

    Sci-Fi, that looks very good indeed.

    Okay, I have a few questions for silly beginners.

    1. How do I set the preferences so that the default kernel is Path Tracing?
    2. Why is it that my OR4C produces blurred images? If I take control of the camera in Octane it seems to go away, depending on the viewing angle.
    3. Why is it that I have a scene with a realistic sky yet I cannot see the sunlight affecting the Octane Render. Or if there is sunlight, it is directly above and not in the position I thought I left it in Carrara.

    In fact, I need a full explanation about how the atmospherics in Carrara relate to the Octane Render.

    Any advice and feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thnx.

    Hi Rashad,

    1) Open the Octane Render Settings from the Octane Viewport. You can configure the Kernel there.
    2) Auto Focus works by focusing on the center of the image. If there is nothing there then there is nothing to focus on. You can also disable auto focus and select an object to focus on instead.
    3) I'm not sure, it should be working.

    Sighman,
    Thanks for your assistance! So far here are the things I can report.

    1. In Octane Standalone I have the option to set the kernel as Path Tracing, but I do not find that this setting is retained in subsequent scenes when they are opened. I end up having to apply the setting each time I might still be failing to save my setting correctly. And indeed in Carrara, I find I have to manually set the kernel each time I open a new scene.

    2. It seems that once I have taken control over the Focus it seems to fix itself at least for the remainder of that session. However I suspect that this too will be a persistent problem with new scenes.

    3. There might be an issue with Octane reading sky information from scenes saved in Carrara7 and earlier. I;m not sure. But when I open scenes built originally in Carrara 8.5 the atmosphere and sunlight effects all seem to work. But in the older scene I was first testing on, the link indeed appeared to be broken.

    I'm literally only a few hours into studying this integration so it's possible I'm just going about things the wrong way. But in the instances where things are working I am very very satisfied. I've always loved Octane and I'm glad I've finally gotten on the Octane train.

    So far I love GPU rendering.

    Thanks for your assistance

  • SighmanSighman Posts: 56
    edited December 1969


    1. In Octane Standalone I have the option to set the kernel as Path Tracing, but I do not find that this setting is retained in subsequent scenes when they are opened. I end up having to apply the setting each time I might still be failing to save my setting correctly. And indeed in Carrara, I find I have to manually set the kernel each time I open a new scene.

    Render Settings are not saved as part of the scene file (yet). They need to be saved and loaded separately using the Load/Save Render Target buttons on the OVP. See the documentation.


    2. It seems that once I have taken control over the Focus it seems to fix itself at least for the remainder of that session. However I suspect that this too will be a persistent problem with new scenes.

    Focus settings 'should' be saved with the scene file. They are not part of the Render Target settings. You may need to set your focus from within Carrara rather than the OVP to work around this issue (for now).

    3. There might be an issue with Octane reading sky information from scenes saved in Carrara7 and earlier. I;m not sure. But when I open scenes built originally in Carrara 8.5 the atmosphere and sunlight effects all seem to work. But in the older scene I was first testing on, the link indeed appeared to be broken.

    That could be the issue. I would need an old scene to test with before I could make a fix. I don't have a copy Carrara 7 so I can't create one myself.
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited September 2014

    This scene uses the Realistic Sky and was created in Carrara 7.2 Pro. You may run into issues with some of the included stuff as it makes heavy use of the surface replicators, volumetric clouds and procedural shaders, but if you just want the sky, then you can ditch the other stuff.
    http://www.ShareCG.com/v/69697/gallery/5/3D-Model/Fantasy-Village-terrain

    Post edited by evilproducer on
  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited September 2014

    Sighman

    Thanks. I am sort of getting there. Here is a screen shot of my current issue.

    In this case it is a scene created fully in Carrara 8.5. The screen shot shows the Carrara render on the left and the Octane render on the right. There are a few issues of concern for me.
    1. The Carrara render has haze, the Octane render does not.
    2. The Carrara render has softened shadows, the Octane Render does not.
    3. Also, the Infinite Plane isn't infinite in Octane.

    This is especially vexing because it looks like it works for Phil W's test of Harpwood. What am I doing wrong?

    Again, any feedback you can offer is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

    Evilproducer,

    Thanks for that link. I'll certainly end up giving it a whirl to see what comes of it in Octane!

    Edit: Sorry, forgot to upload the actual image. Here it goes. Thanks again.

    Octane_Render_Issues_1.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 562K
    Post edited by Rashad Carter on
  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,739
    edited December 1969

    Sighman

    Thanks. I am sort of getting there. Here is a screen shot of my current issue.

    In this case it is a scene created fully in Carrara 8.5. The screen shot shows the Carrara render on the left and the Octane render on the right. There are a few issues of concern for me.
    1. The Carrara render has haze, the Octane render does not.
    2. The Carrara render has softened shadows, the Octane Render does not.
    3. Also, the Infinite Plane isn't infinite in Octane.

    This is especially vexing because it looks like it works for Phil W's test of Harpwood. What am I doing wrong?

    Again, any feedback you can offer is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

    Evilproducer,

    Thanks for that link. I'll certainly end up giving it a whirl to see what comes of it in Octane!

    Edit: Sorry, forgot to upload the actual image. Here it goes. Thanks again.


    Hi Rashad,
    Just some quit answers - hope they help.
    1. For haze you can use a volumetric shader in Octane. Use something like a box primative to enclose your shader, just make sure you have the camera setbup outside your enclosure (do a google search for Octane volumetrics and you should be able to find out how to set it up - sorry I'm on a small tablet right now).
    2. To soften shadows, if your using the octane sunlight, increase the sun size, with mesh lights, increase the mesh size.
    3. Sorry, not at the computer to give it a try.

    Hope this helps a little.

  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,799
    edited December 1969

    dustrider said:
    Sighman

    Thanks. I am sort of getting there. Here is a screen shot of my current issue.

    In this case it is a scene created fully in Carrara 8.5. The screen shot shows the Carrara render on the left and the Octane render on the right. There are a few issues of concern for me.
    1. The Carrara render has haze, the Octane render does not.
    2. The Carrara render has softened shadows, the Octane Render does not.
    3. Also, the Infinite Plane isn't infinite in Octane.

    This is especially vexing because it looks like it works for Phil W's test of Harpwood. What am I doing wrong?

    Again, any feedback you can offer is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

    Evilproducer,

    Thanks for that link. I'll certainly end up giving it a whirl to see what comes of it in Octane!

    Edit: Sorry, forgot to upload the actual image. Here it goes. Thanks again.


    Hi Rashad,
    Just some quit answers - hope they help.
    1. For haze you can use a volumetric shader in Octane. Use something like a box primative to enclose your shader, just make sure you have the camera setbup outside your enclosure (do a google search for Octane volumetrics and you should be able to find out how to set it up - sorry I'm on a small tablet right now).
    2. To soften shadows, if your using the octane sunlight, increase the sun size, with mesh lights, increase the mesh size.
    3. Sorry, not at the computer to give it a try.

    Hope this helps a little.

    Dustrider,

    Thanks a huge bunch! Okay, I increased the sun size up from 1 to 10 and indeed the shadows are now soft as expected. That's one hurdle fully overcome.

    For my tastes, the OR4C Plug-in is AMAZING!!!!!! It still has some distance to go however, and I think it still too soon to say with any confidence that this plug in is fully integrated.

    What this plug in needs to do is to leave the user needing to make as few adjustments from within Octane as possible. I shouldn't need any understanding of Octane to use this plug-in, I should find my Carrara knowledge is what I'll need most.

    If this thread is being observed by any of the developers or people who are in contact with the developers here are a couple of things I'd like to see.

    1. Fully Integrated Atmospherics via Sky / Realistic Sky
    A. If I soften the shadows in Carrara (Sun / Distant ), they should automatically be softened to the same degree in Octane. I do not
    see why these parameters are not already linked. What I suggest is to overlay Carrara renders of the sunspot with
    Octane renders of the same sun spot to determine the relationship between the scale settings applied in Carrara and the
    Sun Size settings in Octane. This should be more or less doable without too much effort from programming.
    B. Haze settings applied in Carrara need to be translated automatically to Octane somehow. If this means that an invisible
    box has to be created under the hood that will then allow itself to be affected by the haze settings in Carrara then so be it.
    Haze is an essential scene effect, without it everything looks small and close to the camera.

    That's it so far. Since I primarily render landscapes I really need the atmospheric parameters to be fully integrated as humanly possible. I have yet to experiment much with the materials and other lights. I will report my finding and questions.

    I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight!!!!!

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,200
    edited December 1969

    well I finally got it to work :lol:
    does NOT like a single carrara tree on my PC but had no issues with the Monastery of which I rendered an animation of in DAZ studio using the plugin for that I own so figured it should work.
    Yet I hear you guys are doing Howie Farkes scenes.
    it chokes for me on one tree sadly, must be something limiting about my PC

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    well I finally got it to work :lol:
    does NOT like a single carrara tree on my PC but had no issues with the Monastery of which I rendered an animation of in DAZ studio using the plugin for that I own so figured it should work.
    Yet I hear you guys are doing Howie Farkes scenes.
    it chokes for me on one tree sadly, must be something limiting about my PC

    Phil did say it wasn't easy!

    Phil also said it has one layer of instancing at the moment (which I assume is how the rest of the 3D world refers to replicators). A tree replicates the leaves and branches, so thinking at least two levels there, also add to that, that Howie has trees in replicators.... so you may need to export the tree as a mesh object and place them in manually.

    I don't have the plugin or expect to, so I'm basically regurgitating what I've read, so take it for what it's worth. ;-)

  • magaremotomagaremoto Posts: 1,227
    edited December 1969

    a simple landscape scene freely downloadable to test octane potentials; with my old geforce GT 640 (2 GB vram) I guess I will have to give up nevertheless I'm going to give it a deep try. About Carrara render here are some numbers:
    42 min. render time with an i7 - 3350x1440 resol.
    12470 instances
    802656 facets each tree

    you can dload the original airplane here: http://colacola.se/
    and the tree here: http://www.evermotion.org/downloads

    http://www.adrive.com/public/kcSgMC/mount.zip

    mount.jpg
    2000 x 860 - 328K
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