I have just posted the new build of the plugin - compiled against Octane 1.11, so it contains the new panoramic cameras, volumetic fog, additional post-processing effects, and a bunch of minor tweaks.  Details at render.otoy.com.

Paul

I have just posted the new build of the plugin - compiled against Octane 1.13.  The nicest enhancement is that Octane is now very friendly to people using just a single card of rendering and as the Windows dispaly adapter.   The other neat thing about this release is the ability to modify the diameter of the sun (to soften shadows) and change the sky color! 

Paul

I have just posted a very big update to the OctaneRender for Poser plugin (now at version 1.14a).  Pls see http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=32641 for details. 

I have also posted an experimental Mac build of the plugin.

Paul

Thanks Paul... and what a dream... so many new features... and I swear it runs faster... or... maybe I just love the plugin so much!

Attached Link: http://youtu.be/og65VflB4-Y

The Mac version of the plugin is also done and can be downloaded from the Otoy forums.

Paul

OctaneRender for Poser comes out of beta on the 15th July, so if you want the cheaper beta pricing, get in before then.  The Mac version is also now fully supported.

Octane 1.20 was release last week, and the Poser plugin will be updated to 1.20 in the next few days. 

Paul

Great news Paul... I think I've even forgotten how to setup a firefly render now.

Well I just missed the beta pricing by a couple of days.   So, before I take the plunge and invest in the pricier version I decided to try the demo.   Now, on the purchase page it clearly states that the poser plugin needs the stand alone version as well (unfortunately driving up the price even more)  but on the download page for the poser plugin demo no such mention is made.   Should I download the stand alone demo and the poser plugin demo?  Or just the poser plugin demo?

You need the license for the standalone. You do not need to download and install the standalone if you are going to use the plugin

So in your case demo licenses for both

Ok I downloaded both demos, the standalone and poser plugin.   Then I start Poser and I get this message:  " TypeError: attribute of type 'bool' is not callable"

Under the Render menu I do not have the Octane Render option.   Octane Render for Poser does show up in the Scripts menu but from reading the manual I'm supposed to have the Octane Render option in the Render menu as well as that's where everything is controlled.  The manual itself seems to be written for an earlier iteration of the plugin demo as it mentions a zip and placing a .dat file in the poser runtime whereas I downloaded an .exe file which installed itself after I pointed it to the PP2012 runtime.    Everything installs in the Python library.  Do I have to manually move any files somewhere else?

Quote - Ok I downloaded both demos, the standalone and poser plugin.   Then I start Poser and I get this message:  " TypeError: attribute of type 'bool' is not callable"

Under the Render menu I do not have the Octane Render option.   Octane Render for Poser does show up in the Scripts menu but from reading the manual I'm supposed to have the Octane Render option in the Render menu as well as that's where everything is controlled.  The manual itself seems to be written for an earlier iteration of the plugin demo as it mentions a zip and placing a .dat file in the poser runtime whereas I downloaded an .exe file which installed itself after I pointed it to the PP2012 runtime.    Everything installs in the Python library.  Do I have to manually move any files somewhere else?

 

The installer has replaced the zip file installation. That should work without you doing anything.

You have not mentioned it - but do you have the latest SR installed for PP2012?

the plugin uses the addon feature of Poser which was introduced in SR2 or SR3 (not sure which one).

And - do you have other plugins installed? Or are you using any other python scripts which are started automatically? Some cause a conflict with addons.

There is a file called octaneplugin.log which will tell you if the plugin has correctly loaded or where it has failed. It is located in Users/Appdata/Local/Temp/Poser Pro/10/

See at what point the plugin loading aborts

I'm on Win XP 32-bit Service pack 3.  My graphics card is a GeForce 9800GTX/9800GTX+ with the latest drivers.   I'm running Poser Pro 2012 with service release 3.1 and even DSON works without a hitch so I know I'm on the latest SR.   Could DSON be causing the problem?  I don't know if any python scripts start automatically.  How can I find that out? 

And here's what the octaneplugin.log says.   Towards the end is says Octane library failed to load but I don't know enough to understand at what point that happens and for what reason:

DEBUG:root:addon:init
DEBUG:root:Python Version : 2.7
DEBUG:root:Platform : win32
DEBUG:root:OS Architecture : 32bit
DEBUG:root:Poser Version : 9.0
DEBUG:root:Poser App Version : 9.0.3 .23027
DEBUG:root:Plugin Version : 1.16a6 *** DEMO ***
DEBUG:root:OctanePlugin.py = C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonaddonsOctaneRender for PoserOctaneWrapper.pyc
DEBUG:root:OctaneDefaults.py = C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonaddonsOctaneRender for PoserOctaneDefaults.py
DEBUG:root:Loading Octane library C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonaddonsOctaneRender for Poser32 DemoPoserOctane32_Demo.dll
DEBUG:root:Paths
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonaddonsOctaneRender for Poser32 Demo
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonPoserScripts
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonPoserScripts
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012python27.zip
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonDLLs
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonlib
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonlibplat-win
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonliblib-tk
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePython
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonlibsite-packages
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonlibsite-packageswx-2.9.1-msw
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonPoserScripts
DEBUG:root:C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonaddons
DEBUG:root:octane.dll: date/time = Sun May 26 09:56:14 2013, filesize = 8057344
DEBUG:root:PoserOctane.dll: date/time = Sun May 26 10:26:10 2013, filesize = 93184
DEBUG:root:octane.dat: date/time = Sun May 26 09:56:12 2013, filesize = 39076542
DEBUG:root:Current Directory = C:Program FilesSmith MicroPoser Pro 2012RuntimePythonaddonsOctaneRender for Poser32 Demo
DEBUG:root:Octane library failed to load
DEBUG:root:addon:load
DEBUG:root:init:objectsAdded
DEBUG:root:init:sceneDeleted
DEBUG:root:addon:unload

 Ok, I think I know what the problem is.

This installer makes the mistake of thinking that all installs of PP2012 are 64bit, so it installed the 64 bit version of the plugin. But you are running the 32bit bit version of Poser (since you are running om XP32). So it tries to load the wrong version.

The licensed version has already been updated and give you the choice of downloadint the 32bit or 64 bit version of the plugin. It looks like the demo version has not been updated yet.

From the log file you can see that "octane library failed to load" - it is trying the wrong version for you version of Poser (and OS)

I will email FaceOff about this and direct him to this thread as well

With regards to Reality - yes you can have both installed as addons if you have the latest releases of both reality and octane

Autoloading scripts - not sure how they do that. You can see it if tools are installed when you start up (widgets, python menus, etc). In some cases they can prevent the initialization of a plugin - which has not happened in your case

Great, thanks a lot for the help!   I hope face_off can update the plugin demo as I'd really prefer to try it before buying.  

I sent him an email. So I think he will respond as soon as he is able to

***Great, thanks a lot for the help!   I hope face_off can update the plugin demo as I'd really prefer to try it before buying. ***

As Wim said, an issue was identified with the 32 bit installer which is now fixed with the commercial release but I haven't updated the demo version yet.  Could I ask you to email me at paul at physicalc-software dot com, and I will send you a link to the new installer (prior to posting it on the Otoy site).

Thanks

Paul

Attached Link: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/36313045

Attached Link: http://youtu.be/RO_nkBefnJo

Paul

So 2-3 hours for entire animation? Not bad at all :)

Sorry if this has been ask before in this thread but if we're talking about dual cards the budget must be comparible with that of a KeysShot license, do you know how the two products compare (not that I'm considering that kind of budget but interested in the comparision)

Sorry if this has been ask before in this thread but if we're talking about dual cards the budget must be comparible with that of a KeysShot license, do you know how the two products compare (not that I'm considering that kind of budget but interested in the comparision)

My understanding is that Keyshot doesn't have an integrated plugin or Poser - so there is no way to render an animation through that renderer - so it's not a viable option for rendering animations.

My best guess is the hardware for this was in the $500-1000 range.  But at 30 secs per frame, you would expect that.

Paul

Quote - Thought this was a pretty impressive video by "Chopper" using Octane.  HD resolution, rendered at 30 seconds per frame (unsure on hardware - but likely to be multiple cards at that render speed).

Paul

30 seconds per frame...I realize there aren't a lot of polygons in the scene, but that's still freaking unbelievable.  Do you know what his typical samples/pixel was?  And what hardware exactly?

Quote - > Quote - Thought this was a pretty impressive video by "Chopper" using Octane.  HD resolution, rendered at 30 seconds per frame (unsure on hardware - but likely to be multiple cards at that render speed).

Paul

30 seconds per frame...I realize there aren't a lot of polygons in the scene, but that's still freaking unbelievable.  Do you know what his typical samples/pixel was?  And what hardware exactly?

Not too long ago he mentioned het had 2xGTX780i and 1xGTX680i in the machine.

He has not mentioned samples/pixels. But that varies depending on the materials in the scene itself. Some scenes are perfectly fine with 500 samples, others need 8000. 

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Thought this was a pretty impressive video by "Chopper" using Octane.  HD resolution, rendered at 30 seconds per frame (unsure on hardware - but likely to be multiple cards at that render speed).

Paul

30 seconds per frame...I realize there aren't a lot of polygons in the scene, but that's still freaking unbelievable.  Do you know what his typical samples/pixel was?  And what hardware exactly?

Not too long ago he mentioned het had 2xGTX780i and 1xGTX680i in the machine.

He has not mentioned samples/pixels. But that varies depending on the materials in the scene itself. Some scenes are perfectly fine with 500 samples, others need 8000. 

Well, that explains it. :)

It's clearly a Victoria 4 model, looks like it has SSS and possibly falloff map applied to the skin.  On my PC, 30 seconds would probably give me 60-100 samples/pixel at that resolution, so I was wondering what he got...I'm guessing more than 60-100 ;)

He is using a variation of the REDSPEC shaders which is a sophisticated SSS shader.

The samples/pixel comparision is a very tricky one. Let me give you an example.

If you take a V4 with a complex shader (like v4) I get around 400-500 samples/pixel in a scene like that (720p, no closeup), 30 seconds, but in a video I probably need less.

If I were to put her in a glass bottle it would drop down to 200-300 samples/seconds and I would need more samples and I would probably need around 500 if I turn on hotpixel removal so that would make it a minute

If I would use PMC instead of path tracing I would get around 70 samples/second but I might need only 100 to get a good result with the glass bottle (with some caustic blur added)

If I were doing a closeup, I will get lower number of samples, but I could get by with a lower number.

What I found is that the number of samples needed really depends on the amount of available light (more is faster) and how much light needs to travel through specular materials. A light in a glass bulb will need a lot more samples as one without the bulb.

These estimated times are for my machine which has a dual titan for gpu rendering, so pretty fast as well. With a single 780 double the amount of time needed.

Interesting and helpful, thanks!

Attached Link: http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=38655

Paul

Quote - Pretty big news announced today.....the OctaneRender engine is now free for students.  See the link above for details.

Paul

Very cool!  Although, as a graduate student, I wish I'd waited for this instead of blowing $$$ on the standalone a few months ago :).  (Assuming the student license would also "count" for the Poser plugin)

(Assuming the student license would also "count" for the Poser plugin)

No - students get Standalone at no cost, but still pay or the plugin.

Paul

I meant, since the plugin requires a standalone license, does the student version "count" as a standalone license for that purpose?  Irrelevant for me now, but maybe for future reference...

Yes - if you purchase the plug, you don't need to purchase Standalone too - so a big cost reduction.

Attached Link: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/prnewswire/press_releases/California/2014/03/25/NY90317

Paul

Attached Link: http://render.otoy.com/newsblog/

Paul

Any dates yet? Including a renewed Poser plugin I presume? Displacement and hair support are very very welcome.
Announcements are for "2nd half of 2014" which sounds like XMas to me.

Abstrax indicated a first beta release in April in the forums.  I am playing with the Poser plugin 2.0 at the moment :-)

just found this thread. does poser2octane work with EZSkin? Or is there an EZSkin edition to make nice octane shaders?

my own findings, in a nutshell: most surface properties which can be managed via the Simple interface are supported, about every property which cannot be managed that way and needs the Advanced interface explicitely, is hardly supported. The only node that is supported well is image_map.

This holds for all external renderers, whether they are Vue, Reality/LuxRender or Octane, or other ones. In general, geometries transfer well but cameras lights and materials have to be reconsidered, and preferrably redone and optimized to get real quality out. External renderers are not "just another firefly".

just my opinion.

There are skin shaders available with similar features as ezskin: You load your poser materials as normal. The plugin makes a simple conversion (diffuse, specular, bump and transparency maps). Then you apply the shader in the plugin with "import all materials for this figure/while retaining texture maps) and you will have your skin with the SSS and other settings. So pretty much what EZSkin does.

Some shaders cannot be translated since there is no equivalend function available or where the implementation does not require it or needs a complete different approach (like glass and water). There are plenty of materials in the LiveDB database which can replace those shaders. 

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2521624

Attached Link: http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=40378

In Summary, Octane 2 has:

• Displacement Mapping

• Motion Blur

• Dynamic Hair Support

• Subdivision Surfaces

• Render Region (this is awesome!)

• Network Rendering

Paul

got it. Paul, thanks again for all the effort !

How long will the upgrade for Poser be free? My internet access for my 3d Pc is down at the moment.

How long will the upgrade for Poser be free? My internet access for my 3d Pc is down at the moment.

I'm not sure - but my best guess is a few weeks.

Paul

This is great.

Thanks for the heads up and effort, Paul :D

Anyone considering upgrading should take a look at this thread first:

http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=40385

ough. But v1.5 is much faster than v1.2 so we can bear some drawback. Otherwise I have to overclock my things even more, or we have to figure out how we can have both versions in parallel. I do want displacements and dynamic hair though...

The 2.0 render clears up quicker as the 1.5 render so you may not need as many samples. 

I never noticed a serious slow down with 2.0, but I have not rendered the same scenes in both 1.5 and 2.0. So it is difficult to tell how much slower it is. The new features may have an influence on the render speed as well .

I am happy with 2.0. Features like improved IES lights, simultaneous Daylight with HDRI maps, motion blur  and displacement are well worth it for me.

How do you all like Otoy's customer service?

I contacted Otoy twice and their response was quick and fixed the problems and questions I had.

Paul (FaceOff - developer of the Poser plugin) - has always been very responsive and quick to fix problems - both on the Otoy forums and y email

That is my experience

Quote - Anyone considering upgrading should take a look at this thread first:

http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=40385

I upgraded to 2.0, I think the reports of it being slower may just be from people looking at Ms/sec, not at image resolution speed. 

I've done some very unscientific testing, and I'm getting anywhere from 10-21% slow down in Ms/sec, but the images are clearing up much faster. Even with the loss in speed, my renders are reaching the stopping point for quality in about 1/3 to 3/4 the time required with 1.5. But I haven't tried a lot of complex SSS shaders, I have been using direct light, path tracing, and PMC, al with similar results. 

Of course, your mileage may vary depending on scene complexity and the gpu/#of GPU involved. My simple system pales in comparison to the people who are reporting major slow downs - mine is a laptop running a Geforce 670M (Fermi). Maybe there is a performance hit on multi-gpu systems that I'm not experiencing, but for me, I'm quite happy with the performance of 2.0 - slower, but faster.

Anyone considering upgrading should take a look at this thread first:

There are also a lot of changes internal to the plugin which have changed the structure of how the Octane nodes are connected.  So not much point comparing speeds.  Most people have reported that images are becoming noise-free with fewing samples (and less time) though (due to the changes in how emitters are managed). And if speed is an issue, cloud rendering is just around the corner.

There are other positive things to come from the changes above - for example when you have "Live Update" on, the plugin is not recreating mesh nodes and reloading the geometry any more - it's only updating the vertex and normal positions - so that is way faster.  Similarly when rendering animations - only the vertex and normal positions are updated each frame - not the entire mesh.  Also, you can load the level 0 subd of the Poser mesh now and subd inside Octane, with initial tests on Andy showing a 2-3 x times scene load time reduction.  The changes also mean you can Network Render, and when you change part of your Octane scene (the camera position for example), only the camera coord change gets sent to the slave PC, so it is updated almost instantly in a lot of cases.  And finally, the node structure changes mean that you can export animations to Alembic format (wrapped inside the OCS/ORBX Octane format) - so scene assets (figure and their animations) can be exports and mix/matched inside Octane Standalone.  Whilst this won't mean a lot to the hobbist, it is critical for studio who use this workflow.

Paul