Open topic with navigation

Materials

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

• 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.
• Layered - Constructs complex materials that consist of a base layer and several material layers.
• Metallic - Similar to the Glossy materialUsed for shiny materials such as plastics or metals., except by default it exhibits more metal-like characteristics.
• Mix - Mixes any two MaterialThe representation of the surface or volume properties of an object. types.
• NodeGraph - Uses a version of the Octane Standalone NodeGraph Editor for designing materials.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Toon - Designs hand-drawn looking surfaces.
• 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^®.

You can access OctaneRender materials in the MaterialsA set of attributes or parameters that describe surface characteristics. window. Click on the + button and select Octane Material from the drop list (Figure 1).

Accessing Octane Materials from the Materials window.

Rhinoceros materials are converted to the above Octane materials as follows:

• If the Rhinoceros material “Emission color” is brighter than the “Emission Threshold” in the OctaneRender Options, the material will be converted to an Octane Diffuse materialUsed for dull, non-reflecting materials or mesh emitters. with a “texture emission” set to the color of the Rhinoceros emission color.
• Otherwise, if the Rhinoceros material “Transparency” is higher than the “Specular Transparency Threshold” in the OctaneRender Options, the material will be converted to an Octane specular material with a “index” set to the IOR of the Rhinoceros material. Smoothing and Fake Shadows will both be enabled.
• Otherwise, if the Rhinoceros material “Glossy Finish” > 0, the material will be converted to an Octane Glossy material. In this case, the Octane “roughness” is set to the inverse of the “Glossy Finish”, the “specular” is set to the default set in the OctaneRender Options, and the Index of Refraction is set to the Rhino IOR. The Opacity is set to the Rhino Transparency.
• Otherwise, the material will be converted to an Octane Diffuse material with the Opacity is set to the Rhino Transparency.

• To convert a Rhino (or other) material to an Octane material, use the Rhino Type option for that material and select Octane Material as the new type.

• You can convert ALL non-Octane materials used in the scene to Octane materials using the Convert All Materials To Octane Materials right-click option on the plugin Settings tab (figure 2).

  

Figure 2: Right-clicking in the OctaneRender Properties window to convert all materials to Octane.

Materials Panel Overview

Important: The OctaneRender plugin requires Rhino geometry items have materials assigned By Layer or By Object. Assigning materials By Parent may give unexpected results.

Materials Editing Tree

Each tree item represents an Octane node pin. Click on any item, and the edit options for that pin will appear in the Node Parameters box. You can change the node type by selecting a different node type in the Node Type pop-up control (only node types compatible with the selected Octane node pin will be available).

Right-click the tree for node copy/paste options. Copy will copy the currently selected node into the plugin clipboard. Only one node can be in the clipboard at any given time. Paste will paste the clipboard node into the currently selected tree node. The Paste option will only be available when the clipboard node is compatible with the currently select node pin.

Importing/Exporting Materials

At the top of the Octane Material panel are import menu options (figure 3).

Figure 3: Accessing the Import and Export options for Octane materials.

• LiveDB - This menu option allows you to load a material from the Octane LiveDB database into the currently selected material. More details can be found in the LiveDB topic.
• ORBXThe ORBX file format is the best way to transfer scene files from 3D Authoring software programs that use the Octane Plug-in such as Octane for Maya, Octane for Cinema 4D, or OctaneRender Standalone. This format is more efficient than FBX when working with Octane specific data as it provides a flexible, application independent format. ORBX is a container format that includes all animation data, models, textures etc. that is needed to transfer an Octane scene from one application to another.- Imports the material from an ORBX file. The ORBX file must have one single material not connected to a mesh in order for the import to work.
• LocalDb- Imports the material from an ORBX file contained in the Octane Standalone Local Db.
• Paste From Clipboard - Imports the material from the Windows clipboard (in XML format). You can paste into the clipboard from Octane Standalone by selecting a material and pressing Ctrl-C.

Export

Exports the current material to the Octane Local Db (in ORBX format).

Scale TexturesTextures are used to add details to a surface. Textures can be procedural or imported raster files.

This option scales all texture maps and procedural textures for the given material simultaneously.

Collapse

Closes the tree branch.

Reload Textures

Reloads texture maps from disk into Octane.

Open topic with navigation