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Materials Overview

There are several types of materials in OctaneRender^® that can apply to surfaces to achieve a variety of appearances and rendering effects.

• Clipping - Allows one object to become a clipping volume for other objects in a scene.
• Composite - Mixes several materials using masks.
• DiffuseAmount of diffusion, or the reflection of light photons at different angles from an uneven or granular surface. Used for dull, non-reflecting materials or mesh emitters. - Used for rough, non-reflecting materials, as well as light emitting meshes.
• GlossyThe measure of how well light is reflected from a surface in the specular direction, the amount and way in which the light is spread around the specular direction, and the change in specular reflection as the specular angle changes. Used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals. - Used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals.
• Hair - Designed for hair and fur objects.
• Layer - Constructs complex materials that consist of a base layer and several material layers.

• Metal - Similar to the Glossy materialUsed for shiny materials such as plastics or metals., except by default it exhibits more metal-like characteristics.
• Mixer - Mixes any two MaterialThe representation of the surface or volume properties of an object. types.
• Null - Used for mesh objects that should be invisible but contain a medium.
• PortalA technique that assists the render kernel with exterior light sources that illuminate interiors. In interior renderings with windows, it is difficult for the path tracer to find light from the outside environment and optimally render the scene. Portals are planes that are added to the scene with the Portal material applied to them. - Designates openings in scenes to allow the render kernel to better sample light from those areas.
• SpecularAmount of specular reflection, or the mirror-like reflection of light photons at the same angle. Used for transparent materials such as glass and water. - Used for transparent materials such as glass and water.
• Standard Surface - This material closely aligns with the Autodesk Standard Surface shader specification for cross-application interoperability.
• Toon - Designs hand-drawn looking surfaces.
• Toon Ramp - Controls shading on the model. To use this material, you also need to use Toon lighting in the scene.
• Universal - Brings substance maps and PBRA contemporary shading and rendering process that seeks to simplify shading characteristics while providing a more accurate representation of lighting in the real world. outputs into OctaneRender.
• Shadow CatcherThe Shadow Catcher can be used to create shadows cast by objects onto the surrounding background imagery. The shadows cast are not limited to simply a ground plane but can be cast onto other surfaces of varying shapes. - Captures shadows.

The material nodes have been transitioned to the MAT network, although the material types can still be accessed from the SHOP network. The preferred method is to access materials in a scene's MAT network. You can right-click or press the Tab key in the MAT work area and choose Octane > Octane Material Builder (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Accessing Octane materials from the MAT network window

This will create an Octane VOP NET where complex materials can be designed (Figure 2). All of the Octane material-related nodes can be found outside of the Octane VOP NET node but they are more difficult to locate at the top level of the MAT network due to being mixed with all other render engine nodes.

Figure 2: Accessing Octane-specific nodes from the MAT network window, inside an Octane VOP NET node

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