C4D Octane User Documentation

The OctaneRender® Composite Material is a more advanced version of the Octane Mix Material, now deprecated, which is limited to just two materials. The composite material allows you to set how many materials can be composited together for a final output as a single material, while properly conserving energy — or more information on energy conservation, go here. (The composite material is a renamed version of the blend material found in older versions of Octane.)

Convert Mix Materials to Sub Materials

Select a Mix Material in the Cinema 4D Material Manager, then go to Live Viewer window > Materials > Convert Material and choose Convert Material. A new Composite Material will be created and the contributing materials will be converted to sub-materials.

Creating Sub Materials

To directly create a sub material from scratch, go to Node Editor > Create > Sub material menu option. This action will place a sub material into the workspace. Alternatively, click on the Sub material button in the Octane Node Editor and drag into the workspace. 

First go to materials in the Live Viewer menu and open the Node editor. Prepare a setup as seen in the image below (go to this section for the Node Editor details). Create three sub materials right from the node menu at the top left. Select these sub nodes and go to the basic tab in the settings window and set the material types to glossy. 

In the illustration above, first the "Material 1" and "Material 2" materials are mixed with the "Float 1" texture. If a value is given to the "Float 2" texture, it will be mixed with "Input 1" and "Input 2" and the result will be remixed with "Input 3" material. You can adjust which material will be mixed by "Float" texture nodes assigned to mask slots. Any texture type can be used in the mask slot. 

Composite Material Settings

To use Composite Material, select "Composite Material" from the Live Viewer's Materials menu. Use the options from the node editor or from the Material attribute panel, as shown in the illustration below.

Number of Materials

This option sets the number of materials to mix together. 

Material Slots

Enable and disable connected sub materials by using the check boxes to the right of the material slot label. When the Number of materials is increased in the edit box, new material slots will appear in the section below.

As new material slots are added, tabs will appear above the shader ball. It is necessary to assign sub materials to the slots. When a tab is selected without a currently assigned material, the Add material button will appear, as shown below Click the button to add the sub-material to the scene.

Use Displacement

Displacement maps can be used with the Blend Material. Any grayscale image or procedural texture can be used from the "Add Displacement" option on the right. Displacements are discussed here.