The OctaneRender for ArchiCAD plugin renders in both the OctaneRender Viewport, and in the ArchiCAD PhotoRendering. ArchiCAD PhotoRendering plugins are not able to share information with non- PhotoRendering plugins, so in order for the Octane plugin to use the same materials in both the OctaneRender Viewport and the PhotoRendering, the plugin ‘Caches’ all Octane materials (derived from ArchiCAD Surfaces) to disk.
The Caching process is normally very quick, however in some circumstances it may become time consuming. This may happen in:
Stage 1 – If Stage 1 is taking a long time, it is due to the ArchiCAD having too many materials (Surfaces). In this case, simply reduce the number of Surfaces in the scene. You may have too many Surfaces if you have imported multiple Libraries (so simply omit the un-needed Libraries).
Stage 2 – During Stage 2, the plugin will process every polygon from visible layers in the scene to build a complete list of materials. If you have millions of polygons, Stage 2 will take longer to execute than normal. Hot-linked projects will also slow Stage 2 (especially if the hot-linked file are on a network). Objects such as trees can also take a long time to process (due to all the leaves on the trees). If you have proxy objects in your scene, make sure you use low-polygon Objects as the proxy hosts, so that the Stage 2 caching process does not need to process more polygons than absolutely needed.
Enabling the Configuration option ‘Fast Cache’ may speed up the caching process.
In general, 95% of the caching process will be the plugin going through each polygon in the GDL objects searching for different materials.
If you turn on Fast Cache, the PhotoRendering gets the Octane materials from the currently open Viewport instead of loading them from disk. So, this is very quick (but obviously means you need to open the Viewport prior to using the PhotoRendering). It also means that when you open the Viewport it does not need to search every polygon to write to the cache file.
Note: When checked, you CANNOT render via the Octane PhotoRendering UNLESS the Octane Viewport is already open, however starting the plugin and loading the OctaneRender Viewport is quicker.
If you add anything to the ArchiCAD scene when the Setup window is open, you should close and reopen the plugin. Restart the plugin after changing this setting.