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Thanks for the advice about my GTX 470 card. It's made me reassess whether to buy Octane. It's still a bit too expensive for me atm though.
http://www.maxunderground.com/octane_render_review
According to this review it's possible to use two CUDA cards without SLI. IOW, Octane can use the power of more than one card. Is this true? If so then I could add another CUDA card to my PC and use it with my GTX 470 for larger scenes with more textures.
It has to be the same kind of card with the same amount of memory. The newer cards can handle more textures. The 470 can't handle more textures. Keep in mind, identical calculations are done in both cards so they must work the same.
It has to be the same kind of card with the same amount of memory. The newer cards can handle more textures. The 470 can't handle more textures. Keep in mind, identical calculations are done in both cards so they must work the same.
a little correction ;)
the cards don't need to be the same (neither chip type, vram, nor pcie lanes). in theory you can mix any 4xx, 5xx, 6xx and 7xx cards; the point is (as you already - and correctly - stated) that the card with the least available vram limits the scene size. also mixing 4xx/5xx cards with 6xx/7xx cards might cause render problems because auf the different texture limit.
i'd say it is no problem to mix 4xx/5xx cards, as well as 6xx/7xx mixed configs should work flawlessly.
btw, the 580/3gb is still one of the best cards to get for octane, the only thing where 6xx/7xx cards help is the raised texture count limit. performance wise only the gtx titan is able to really beat a 580. and it should be noted, that the new gtx 780 still works with the gk104 chip (you may call it a re-branded 680), thus it is notably slower than the gtx titan, or, in other words, not much faster than a 580 (if at all)...
a little correction ;)
the cards don't need to be the same (neither chip type, vram, nor pcie lanes). in theory you can mix any 4xx, 5xx, 6xx and 7xx cards; the point is (as you already - and correctly - stated) that the card with the least available vram limits the scene size. also mixing 4xx/5xx cards with 6xx/7xx cards might cause render problems because auf the different texture limit.
i'd say it is no problem to mix 4xx/5xx cards, as well as 6xx/7xx mixed configs should work flawlessly.
btw, the 580/3gb is still one of the best cards to get for octane, the only thing where 6xx/7xx cards help is the raised texture count limit. performance wise only the gtx titan is able to really beat a 580. and it should be noted, that the new gtx 780 still works with the gk104 chip (you may call it a re-branded 680), thus it is notably slower than the gtx titan, or, in other words, not much faster than a 580 (if at all)...
Thanks for the specifics, t_3! Is animation working again in the DAZ plugin? I'm still saving for it and will be using it for animation.
in general: yes. at least i had no more complains after the last update.
being stuffed between octane and daz studio it is always a bit tricky to get anything done in the right order, to work around flaws here and there (and own bugs of course ;), and since things are still evolving, there are optimizations coming along with every update.
plus there are still some big features in the pipeline, like pre-building upcoming frames; means to do all the work that is needed to prepare rendering (and that is done on the cpu anyway) already while rendering the current frame, actually cutting down in between frame delays to zero (at least if the render time is longer than mesh building needs) - i'm still out to have the fastest of all the plugins around :)
another big step (planned to complete over the summer) is general octane parameter keyframing. this means it will be possible to animate every octane parameter (literally) using standard daz properties; thus also allowing 3rd party tools to access octane parameters while rendering out animations...
in general: yes. at least i had no more complains after the last update.
being stuffed between octane and daz studio it is always a bit tricky to get anything done in the right order, to work around flaws here and there (and own bugs of course ;), and since things are still evolving, there are optimizations coming along with every update.
plus there are still some big features in the pipeline, like pre-building upcoming frames; means to do all the work that is needed to prepare rendering (and that is done on the cpu anyway) already while rendering the current frame, actually cutting down in between frame delays to zero (at least if the render time is longer than mesh building needs) - i'm still out to have the fastest of all the plugins around :)
another big step (planned to complete over the summer) is general octane parameter keyframing. this means it will be possible to animate every octane parameter (literally) using standard daz properties; thus also allowing 3rd party tools to access octane parameters while rendering out animations...
Thanks for the info! Sounds good!!
If you are running multiple cards to render they each must have the same amount of VRAM. If you are using two cards, one for display only and one for render only, it doesn't matter as only one card will be involved in the rendering. If you have two cards rendering, both cards are doing the same calculations so they must have the same amount of VRAM to each hold the same data.
Thanks for the post. This is what I had been wondering about. I have been thinking about going with 3 Titan cards and wondering if that would give me 6 GBs of ram or 18 GBs of ram. If I understand you correctly, this answers the question. It's 6 GBs of ram. Not sure if that would be enough for some really complex sceens with lots of characters and a complex environment. Hmmm.... I think I'll have to think for a while and see what I can do.
Is there a way I can find out what the space needed is without investment (ie no need to actually have the cards to store it and a Octane license)? I know I wouldn't be able to actually do the render without those investments (else why would you ever put in the investment?). I just want to know what it would take to do a scene with, lets say, a complex environment (let's say something from Jack Tomlalin) and 20 characters for a 5760x1080 render. I'd love to see some kind of breakdown of an approximation of how much a character would need (I know is variable especially with clothes etc but a very rough estimate would be nice).
this is imo impossible to approximate in a serious way in general, but i have some rough numbers for you:
- rendering to 5760x1080 the film size is 120mb
- a default textured genesis (using color diffuse and grayscale bump maps), takes around 63mb vram;
- tomalin's baroque grandesque for example needs ~600mb.
- adding 20 genesis with 10 different mat sets took a little above 2gb (no hair, using full res maps, but diffuse/bump only).
if you use lots of maps in full res, or adding specular maps all over, numbers go up pretty quick; also since there is a limit in color/gray maps count, a scene of this size needs to be carefully planned and optimized. i.e. - if you have 20 figures in a scene you most probably don't need 4k maps all over.
as soon the plugin supports instancing this will of course flat out and should allow very big scenes (even allowing different materials for instances, what studio isn't capable of); until then 6gb is still plenty to play with, and usually there is always room for optimization...
Stonemasons TinPanAlley rendered in OcDS in 15 sec
Love the wet alley look.
The linked video stream provides more information on
- The plans for Octane Render 1.5
- The OctaneRender Cloud Edition
- Brigade - Game Engine
- LightStage - facial- and motion-capture device
and how they all may be used together.
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"The Convergence of Cinema and Games: From Performance Capture to Final Render"
Presented by Jules Urbach, Otoy @ SIGGRAPH 2013
Link to stream:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/36313045
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And last but not least the video gives you also a glimpse of the future:
3D Holograms by the Pico Projector Array.
Hi,
Seems conflict with DreamLight's Light Dome Pro-R.
LDP-R doesn't start rendering if octane render plugin is installed.
(octane render plugin's version is 1.0.111.2049.)
Does anybody have same problem?
I believe there were some issues in the earlier beta versions of the plugin that may have been resolved by now.
Try the current version of the plugin OcDS UPDATE v1.0.113.2313.
The next v1.0.120 version of the DS plugin may resolve quite a lot of things as well.
If you are a registered on the Otoy Forum this link should lead to a thread you can subscribe to in order to get notified about new updates:
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=30137
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I forgot to check Otoy Forum.
After updating to the latest version, LDP-R works correctly.
Thanks lot.
tetsu
I believe there were some issues in the earlier beta versions of the plugin that may have been resolved by now.
Try the current version of the plugin OcDS UPDATE v1.0.113.2313.
The next v1.0.120 version of the DS plugin may resolve quite a lot of things as well.
If you are a registered on the Otoy Forum this link should lead to a thread you can subscribe to in order to get notified about new updates:
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=30137
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are the Octane users all posting over at the Otoy forum?
I bought it the other day and would like to pick brains of others here too.
among more familiar faces.
figuring out lots as I go but still find perplexing issues.
partly because I am not a terribly experienced DAZ studio user as such.
a Carraraite but quite happy with Carrara's render engine
hate 3Delight but love DS smoothing and HDmorphs so Octane was best solution for that.
and very pleased with results so far.
OK questions
can I change the environment HDRI to another, and how
I use many in Carrara IBL
I can make textures on light props emitters but can I make sky domes emitters, seem to just wash out all over.
the node editor puzzles me as much as shadermixer (am excited Carrara plugin uses Carrara's excellent texture room, will prob buy later for that alone) so unsure how to add stuff like SSS to existing skin textures and the database one did not like me at all, bricks and nodes never do what I want or connect in a way that my thick head can fathom, really need simple brain dead tutorials.
Texture atlas did not want to play well with Octane.
was my idea to reduce map numbers and enable more in scene but executing the idea proved difficult.
only exporting reimporting Texture atlased obj's to use seems viable for scenery and DS needs a shadermixer material I patched together for Xfrog plants to use alpha channels in texures, which seems to carry over to Octane fortunately.
my material very iffy though, not a shadermixer whiz, just use others tutorials adapted
Lemme see if I can help here ... answers may be a bit sketchy as I don't have Octane in this computer, so be warned!
HDRI maps - yep, under Environments tab there is a drop down list of 'settings' which allow you to pick Sunlight, HDRI or None for the base lighting environment. Picking HDRI allows you to, then, select a .exr or .hdr (amongst other types?) from a file browse list (ig you click the right button!)
With light emitters you have a variety of settings which allow control of strength of light (at least 2?), which probably will help with using a skydome as light source. And if you are, remember to set overall environment type to None (or HDRI) to stop the Sun from being used.
The NGE is out of my comfort zone a little, too! There's at least one pesron delving into SSS textures, primarily for skin.
Not sure how Texture Atlas does it's thing, so not sure why it may not play nice - if you end up with modified maps attached to surfaces in DS then I'd like to think that poking one of OcDS's 'reload maps' buttons would bring them into Octane.
As with any different render engine Octane does not handle different shaders too elegantly if they are at variance from the 'norm'. One thing I have seen is the Opacity being set to -1 (instead of 1) for non-standard shaders.
ah the right button click, that is why I missed it
a HDRI is preferred to a SkyDome by me anyway
I am thinking illuminating a SkyDome is much like using anything glows in Carrara, too big and the shadows are not defined properly.
and not the most efficient way to do it either.
Texture atlas is possibly overwriting itself in DAZ I never have actually rendered with it in DAZ 3Delight either, always used it on exports where it saves out new maps, rather like LIE where I need to grab the tdmake tiffs from temp to save out for iClone , I believe Octane hates LIE so may be similar issue.
I do not want to bombard you with too many ideas but focus on three points that may help for the start
@ Octane Render for DAZ Studio Plugin Forum Search Function
I attached a screenshot at the end of this post showing the OcDS texture tab.
You can find some more information possibly useful for new users in this FAQ / tutorial:
FAQ - Loading and converting DAZ Studio materials
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=41543#p198153
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@ Using light emitters & adjusting overall scene brightness
The trick with light emitters is to lower the power settings of the emiiters to a lower value in a way that
- when using the blackbody emission the white color does not blow out
- when using texture emission the textures have the proper brighness you want
now the overall brightness of the scene is much too dark but do not worry about this.
go to the Camera Imager in the render settings tab and adjust Exposure or F-Stop to raise the overall brightness of the whole scene to the level you want.
You can also use ISO to adjust the scene brightness but that may add some postproduction noise.
You can find more information how this works in the standalone manual:
http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Standalone_2_0/?page_id=411
This technique of adjusting the power levels of the emitters and the Exposure and F-stop settings in the Camera Imager is the same in the standalone and all the plugins.
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Hope that helps you get started.
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Some additional workflows combining HDRI and direct light of the daylight environment may become possible with a next stable version of the plugin.
If you want you can always use the up to date standalone version of OctaneRender to access the latest features.
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I do not recall an issue with LIE and OcDS, beyond NOT shutting DS down to ensure the temp directory where the tiffs are stored being cleared down.
OK the sparklies, aliasing maybe
longer render times do not remove, seem related to using emiters
bearing in mind I use short render times for animation not over a minute per frame if I can avoid it
but this particular scene after 10 mins a frame looks exactly the same as 60 secs, those sparklies not resolving.
Hi Wendy,
Not sure what you mean with sparkles... If you referring to the noise (especially to the right), that looks like DoF to me (Depths of field). Try to increase the Octane Render f-Stop and set the focus point in the center of the field of view (Unless you want the DoF effect).
The render time does not mean much, how many samples did you have after 60 sec and after 10 min? Did it maybe reach max samples? A scene like that would likely need less than 1 minute a frame on my system. What render kernel are you using?
Ciao
TD
I reduced textures on Andrey Petrosky's forest superior but when I saved it they were all full size again
nonetheless the demanding blighter actually rendered fine at one minute a frame for 3 frames but then just stopped?????
maybe I ran out of VRAM, there was not terribly much left at 99%
prob a set I should give a miss for octane anyway.
Odd
-100 scaling does not work in octane
They are called "Fireflies" and they show up in most physical render engines. It's what happens when the virtual "photons" (whatever) just keep bouncing around and never resolve. What you have to do to get rid of them is kind of an art form.
First off make sure that the diffuse value of any colors you use are below 90% and try to avoid color values above say... RGB 225. Very few things are pure colors in reality, and it screws up these types of renderers because when something reflects all photons of a particular spectrum they never resolve.
Crank up the roughness value of the glossy materials in the scene. Again very few things in reality reflect 100% of photons.
If all else fails enclose your scene in a flat black cube. Since black absorbs all photons it may allow some of the fireflies to be absorbed.
Like I said it's an art.
Has there been any recent developments with the Octane DS plug in? I still had it on the backburner of my mind for when the beta finishes.
Nobody knows for sure. The programmer of the plugin refuses to communicate with his customers and the last update for the beta was 6 months ago. At the moment, the plugin has no animation and you can not store your materials in your own presets. Things, which worked with the first version of the plugin. But that version was very unstable. The current beta seems to stable, but without animation and other things, it is useless for greater projects.
Some people want their money back, and some people say, the next update is nearly there. But no word from Otoy and nothing from the programmer.
Ugh. Okay, thanks. I was wondering since I stopped keeping track a month or two ago.
If you have carrara the carrara one is very good and the developer Sighman is active in the forums.
I recommend it to anyone it is excellent.
I have OrDS 1.2 which does animation and do use it too but no incentive to upgrade as long as the latest beta has animation broken but for people who render still scenes I guess it is ok but you could alternatively just do obj export and use the standalone for that too.
I am hoping T-3 does work on the plugin further as if it is ever fixed I may still upgrade to the next DS one.
I have the alembic exporter for DS too which will export an animated sequence to the standalone, this is a possible alternative but you need to apply textures copied from an obj export and camera animation does not export with it.
Anyone else having problems logging in to the Octane Render forums? It's reporting too many connections.
UPDATE: Everything seems back to normal now.
Question... Has anyone heard from the developer of the plug in? It doesn't look like he has logged in here since March. And there is no sign of him on the other forum either.
There appears to be a new team working on this. Last update by Tugspx was the most promising and least vague of any so far. Apparently the next release was being developed for DS 4.8, and now that that's out of beta, we might see an update for OcDS soon.