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OctaneRender^®-Specific Materials

The OctaneRender^®-specific material types provide greater flexibility than the Standard Unity^® materials. To add an OctaneRender material to an asset in Unity, you must first right-click anywhere in the Assets window, then go to the Create category and select MaterialThe representation of the surface or volume properties of an object. (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Creating a new Material by right-clicking in the Project Assets window

Next, click on the New Material from the Assets window.

From the new material's Inspector window (Figure 2), click on the Shader dropdown, then choose Octane, and then PBR Override.

Figure 2: Changing the Shader type to Octane PBR Override

After you make your selection, the parameters in the material’s Inspector window changes to reflect the Octane PBR Override parameters.

You can build and edit the OctaneRender-specific material with the OctaneVR Nodegraph Editor. Clicking the View Source button in the material’s Inspector window opens the OctaneVR^® window (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Opening the OctaneVR window by clicking on the View Source button

When you open the OctaneVR window, there is a single node available in OctaneVR’s Nodegraph Editor. The Material Out node connects the various OctaneRender-specific Materials to Unity's Materials (Figure 4).

Figure 4: The Material Out node available in the OctaneVR Nodegraph Editor

There are eight material types available in OctaneVR (and Unity):

• 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. - Creates rough, non-reflecting materials, as well as light emitting meshes.
• Glossy - Use for shiny materials such as plastics or metals.
• Metallic - These are highly reflective materials with colored reflections (highlights). Similar to glossy material, but more suited to model metals.
• Mix -  Mixes any two material types.
• Portal -  Designate 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.
• Toon - This material has shadows and highlights appear as blocks of color, creating a flatter-looking image that emulates the style of a cartoon in two-dimensional illustrations.
• Universal - Brings substance maps and PBR outputs into OctaneRender.

You can access these materials by right-clicking in the OctaneVR Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the Materials category (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Right-clicking in the OctaneVR Nodegraph Editor to access the OctaneRender material types

Once you select a material type, you need to connect its output pin to the Input pin on Material Out. Unity then updates the material (Figure 6). For more information on how to work with materials in the OctaneVR window, please refer to the OctaneRender Standalone documentation available on the OTOY^® website.

Figure 6: Connecting input and output pins on material nodes

Note: Much of the material functionality available in the OctaneVR window will be directly integrated into Unity’s interface with future releases.

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