Stand Alone Manual 2018

OctaneRender® Standalone Edition User Manual
Version 2018.1 — Manual publication date: 13 March 2019
Cover image: "The Crown" main title by Elastic , © 2018 Paramount Television and TNT Originals, INC.
All rights reserved. OctaneRender and OTOY and their logos are trademarks of OTOY, Incorporated.
http://render.otoy.com
Octane Standalone Edition Manual
Contents
Installation 1
Hardware Requirements 1
Looking To Buy A New GPU For OctaneRender®? 2
Software Requirements 2
Windows and Linux Requirements 2
macOS® Requirements 3
NVIDIA cuDNN Library File 3
Drivers 3
Downgrading Drivers 4
Windows 4
Linux 4
macOS® Installation 5
GNU Linux Installation 5
Windows Installation 5
Authentication and Internet Access 6
Creating an OTOY Account 14
HTTP Proxy Support 20
Hardware Options 22
3Dconnexion Space Navigator Support 25
NVLink On Consumer GPUs 26
Examples 28
Wacom Cintiq Support 31
Application Preferences 32
OctaneRender Dongle Setup for Offline Mode 34
OctaneRender Standalone Overview 40
Interface Layout 41
Customizing the Interface 42

Navigating the Viewport 44
The Render Viewport 61
The Node Inspector 63
The Graph Editor 67
The Scene Outliner 74
The Application Settings 76
The Controls Settings 79
The Devices Tab 81
The Out-of-Core Settings 83
The Geometry Import Settings 86
Render Passes Export Configuration 103
The Network Render Settings 105
The Shortcuts Tab 106
The Modules Tab 110
Working With Files and Geometry 112
Loading and Saving a Scene 112
The ORBX File Format 114
The Packager and the ORBX File 115
Importing and Exporting 119
Managing Geometry 122
Geometry Group 124
Object Layer Map 125
Material Map Node 126
Placement 127
Transforms 129
Plane 130
Scatter 132
Scene 137
Using Instances 139
Vectron 149
Applications Of The Vectron Primitive And SDF Surfaces 153
Volume SDF 157
Applications of SDF Surfaces and the Vectron Primitive 160
The Script Menu 163
Turntable Animation Script 163
Lua Scripting In Octane 165
Materials 173
Diffuse Material 177
Diffuse Material Parameters 178
Glossy Material 180
Glossy Material Parameters 181
Metallic Material 186
Mix Material 195
Portal Material 196
Specular Material 200
Specular Material Parameters 200
Toon Material 204
Toon Ramp 208
Universal Material 212
Mediums – Subsurface Scattering and Volumes 221
Absorption Medium 224
Absorption Parameters 224
Scattering Medium 225
Scattering Parameters 228
Materials Databases 228
LiveDB 228
LocalDB 231
Textures 234
Gaussian Spectrum 236
Gaussian Spectrum Parameters 236

Greyscale Color 237
OSL Texture 237
Example of an OSL Script for an OSL Texture Node 242
RGB Color 251
Image-Based Textures 251
Alpha Image 252
Alpha Image Parameters 253
Greyscale Image 254
Greyscale Image Parameters 256
Image Tiles Texture 256
RGB Image 260
Animated Image Textures 262
Procedural Textures 264
Checks 265
Marble 266
Marble Texture Parameters 268
Noise 268
Noise Texture Parameters 271
Ridged Fractal 272
Ridged Fractal Parameters 273
Saw, Sine, Triangle Wave 274
Turbulence 277
Turbulence Texture Parameters 279
Geometric Textures 279
Color Vertex Attribute 279
Dirt Texture 281
Dirt Texture Parameters 283
Falloff Map 283
Three modes of the Falloff Map 287
Falloff Map Parameters 289

Sample Node Graph Using The Falloff Texture Map 294
Greyscale Vertex Attribute 295
Instance Color 296
Instance Range 300
Polygon Side 304
Random Color Texture 306
W Coordinate 308
Mappings 312
Baking Texture 314
Triplanar Map 317
UVW Transform Texture 323
Operators 326
Add Texture 327
Clamp Texture 328
Color Correction 329
Comparison 330
Cosine Mix Texture 332
Gradient 334
Gradient Parameters 337
Invert 337
Mix Texture 338
Multiply Texture 340
Subtract Texture 342
Displacement 342
Displacement Parameters 345
Projections 346
Box 348
Cylindrical 349
Mesh UV 351
Perspective 351
Spherical 353
Triplanar 355
XYZ to UVW 357
OSL Projection Node 360
Transforms 364
2D Transformation 366
3D Rotation 367
3D Scale 367
3D Transformation 368
Transform Value 368
Lighting 370
Daylight Environment 371
Texture Environment 377
Planetary Environment 382
The Visible Environment 385
Mesh Emitters 387
Black Body 390
Black Body Emission Parameters 392
Texture Emission 395
Texture Emission Parameters 397
Portals 400
Spectron (Volumetric Procedural Light) 404
Rendering 406
Render Target Node 410
Render Kernel Types 415
Path Tracing Kernel 418
Path Tracing Parameters 420
PMC Kernel 424
PMC Kernel Parameters 426
Info Channel Kernel 429

Info Channel Kernel Parameters 431
Direct Lighting Kernel 435
Camera Nodes 444
Thin Lens 447
Panoramic 450
Baking Camera 453
OSL Camera Node 454
Camera Imager Settings 463
Object Layer Node 468
Post-Processing Node 472
The Post Processing Node Parameters 474
Sample Images with Post-Processing Applied 479
Film Settings Node 481
Parameters for the Film Settings Node 483
Texture Baking 484
Spectral AI Denoiser 490
Scene AI 495
AI Light 495
Light Linking And Light Exclusion 497
Cryptomatte 499
Direct Level Set Surface Rendering 501
Adaptive Sampling 503
BRDF Models 507
Rendering Animations 510
The Animation Settings Parameters 510
Deep Image Rendering 512
What Is A Deep Image? 512
Enabling Deep Image Rendering 512
Enabling Deep Image Rendering 513
Calculation of the Deep Bin Distribution 514

Limitations 515
Deep Render Passes 515
Render Passes 516
Beauty Passes 520
Denoiser Passes 525
Post-Processing Passes 526
Render Layer Passes 527
The Render Layer Passes 530
Lighting Passes 531
Info Passes 534
Other Attributes 535
Cryptomatte Passes 535
Material Passes 536
Render Job 538
Texture Render Job 539
Network Rendering Overview 540
Octane Network Rendering Feature and Licensing 544
Enabling The Network Rendering Feature 545
Troubleshooting Network Rendering Issues 556
Setting Up Scenes For Virtual Reality Headsets 557
Effects 566
Volume Mediums 567
The Volume Medium Parameters 571
Volume Fog Effects 575
Shadow Catcher 579
Hair and Fur 583
Toon Shading 593
Appendix 598
Troubleshooting 598
Issue 1. Cannot find driver for laptop or computer 599

Issue 2. OctaneRender® won't open due to "No CUDA Devices" Error Message 599
Issue 3. OctaneRender® won't open due to License Issues 599
Issue 4. OctaneRender® Crashes Loading a File 601
Issue 5. Render Looks Strange or Gives Unexpected Results 602
Issue 6. Navigation of Viewport is Slow/UI is Unresponsive 603
Issue 7. OctaneRender® works for a while then closes while rendering 604
Issue 8. Can't Change Settings or Save Renders in the Demo 605
Issue 9. Windows and the Nvidia driver see all available GPUs, but OctaneRender® does not 605
Issue 10. Additional Helpful Hints 606
Advanced Topics 606
Batch Rendering 606
Batch Render Settings 608
Launching Octane from the Command Line 610
Normal Maps and Bump Maps 618
Octane Modules 620
The Script Menu 622
Turntable Animation Script 623
Lua Scripting In Octane 625
OctaneRender® Compositing Extension for Photoshop CC 632
Uploading Images To The Samsung Gear VR 640
Camera Response Curves 645
OSL Implementation In Octane 651
Input Parameter Types 651
Octane-Specific Features And Extensions 653
String Handling In OSL Shaders 656
Color Handling In OSL Shaders 657
List Of String Constants 658
Supported OSL Shader Types 659
Supported And Unsupported Features 659
Glossary 661
Index 675
Installation
Image By Enrico Cerica
Hardware Requirements
OctaneRender® requires an NVIDIA® CUDA®-enabled video card. It runs on Kepler (e.g., GTX 680, GTX
690), Maxwell (GTX 7xx, GTX8xx, GTX9xx), PascalTM (GTX10xx), high-end GTX Titans, VoltaTM , and Turing
GPUs. Texture limits and differing power efficiency ratings also apply, depending on the GPU1 microar-
chitecture. GPUs from the GeForce line are clocked higher and render faster than the more expensive
Quadro® and Tesla GPUs.
GeForce® cards are fast and cost-effective, but have less VRAM than Quadro® and Tesla cards.
OctaneRender® scales well in a multi-GPU configuration, and can use different types of NVIDIA® cards at
1 The GPU is responsible for displaying graphical elements on a computer display. The GPU plays a key role in
the Octane rendering process as the CUDA cores are utilized during the rendering process.
1 — Installation
once, such as a GeForce® GTX 1080 combined with a Quadro ®6000. The official list of NVIDIA® CUDA®-
enabled products is located at https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus.
OctaneRender® does not require RTX, but it does render some scenes much faster when RT Core hardware is
present.
To use the engine's out-of-core features, we recommend using at least the following hardware:
l 8-Core CPU
l 16 GB RAM
l A CUDA®-enabled card with at least 2 GB VRAM
Looking To Buy A New GPU For OctaneRender®?

There are several things to consider when purchasing a new GPU. You’ll want to purchase a video card with
the largest amount of RAM (we suggest at least 2 GB VRAM), with the most amount of CUDA® cores for your
budget. Make sure your power supply can handle the new card as well. If you’re using a Mac®, make sure that
you purchase an Apple®-approved GPU.
To use the OctaneRender® denoiser features, you need additional memory to collect all necessary inform-
ation. As an example, a 4k render requires around 5 GB, while an 8k render requires around 20 GB. High-defin-
ition renders require around 0.5 GB.
Memory is also required for geometry, textures, post-processing buffers, and for other 3D modeling software,
so it's necessary to increase the system RAM along with about 450 MB VRAM on devices to run the denosier.
Use out-of-core features to move geometry and textures onto system memory to free up some space for the
denoiser on the device.
Software Requirements
Windows and Linux Requirements

To install OctaneRender® on Windows®, ensure that you have installed a suitable driver for your video card.
After this, you only have to run the installer.
OctaneRender® v2018.1 is a CUDA 9.1 application. It will require a current NVIDIA graphics driver of version
388.x or higher.
The latest video card drivers for Windows and Linux can be downloaded from http://www.n-
vidia.com/Download/index.aspx
2 — Installation
macOS® Requirements
The minimum supported version of the Mac operating system is 10.11.x.
CUDA driver 9.1 or higher is required for CUDA support on the following:
l macOS® 10.13 High Sierra (64-bit)
l macOS® 10.12 Sierra (64-bit)
l Mac® OS X® 10.11 El Capitan (64-bit)
For a complete list of Mac-compatible CUDA drivers, please refer and download from http://www.n-
vidia.com/object/mac-driver-archive.html.
NVIDIA cuDNN Library File

NVIDIA CuDNN is required to run since OctaneRender V4. Download the cuDNN library file from https://render-
.otoy.com/downloads/e5/c5/f2/20/cudnn64_7.dll
The library file should be placed in the either of these folders:
C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Local\OctaneRender\thirdparty\cudnn_7_4_1\
or
C:\Program Files\OTOY\[OctaneRender Enterprise 2018.1.x]\
Drivers
OctaneRender® V2018.1 requires an Nvidia driver supporting at least CUDA 9.1. On Windows and Linux, a
recent enough Nvidia driver (http://www.nvidia.com/download/index.aspx?) is necessary.
For Mac OS X and macOS versions, use the most suitable driver released from the Nvidia website
(http://www.nvidia.com/object/mac-driver-archive.html).
Failure to install these driver versions may result in stability problems. The OctaneRender Team cannot
provide support to users of different driver versions.
The CUDA driver is the part of the Nvidia driver stack to which Octane uses. On Linux and Windows it is part of
the Nvidia graphics driver, while on MAC systems it is a separate installation.
If you install any recent Nvidia graphics driver on Linux and Windows, it will install a CUDA driver that supports
CUDA 9.1. The CUDA Toolkit is only for development and does not have to be installed. The Toolkit does
include a graphic driver, however, it may not be the latest.
3 — Installation
Downgrading Drivers
Some drivers are initially released in beta state and may cause errors when running Octane. You can revert to
the previous driver by downgrading or installing an earlier but more suitable driver version.
Windows
After downloading a suitable driver from https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx, use
DDU to completely remove the installed driver then perform a clean installation of the preferred
driver.
Linux
A driver downgrade is complex on Linux systems and this should be done only when the cur-
rently installed driver is found to cause errors.
Note: On Linux systems, the current video driver needs to be uninstalled prior to
installing an earlier video driver version.
To determine the currently installed driver, find the nvidia-smi module and run it in command
line. Check linuxconfig.org for other options on how to determine the currently installed driver.
Also make sure to consult the files that came with the current driver to learn how it was installed.
If the current driver was installed using the apt command, the sudo apt-get purge
nvidia* command should remove all of the former drivers. Use apt commands only if
the current driver was installed through apt.
Download a suitable driver from https://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html then prepare to unin-
stall the current driver. To avoid issues, check the installation files of the current Nvidia driver for
the install/uninstall instructions as these will contain helpful commands such as:
$ sudo nvidia-installer --uninstall
Use the following command for more options:

$ nvidia-installer --advanced-options
Once uninstalled, reboot once before installing the preferred driver.
4 — Installation
macOS® Installation
The minimum supported version of the Mac operating system is 10.11.x.
CUDA driver 9.1 or higher is required for CUDA support on the following:
l macOS® 10.13 High Sierra (64-bit)
l macOS® 10.12 Sierra (64-bit)
l Mac® OS X® 10.11 El Capitan (64-bit)
For a complete list of Mac-compatible CUDA drivers, please refer and download from http://www.n-
vidia.com/object/mac-driver-archive.html.
After ensuring that the appropriate CUDA driver has been installed, and run the OctaneRender® SE .dmg
installer and enter the necessary User ID and Password. For more information about the User ID and Pass-
word, refer to the section on Authentication and Internet Access in this manual.
The Standalone Edition can have its own folder which can be placed in the standard applications folder or else-
where. The installer takes care of placing the information needed by plugins to another folder in the Library dir-
ectory which is hidden by Macintosh operating system by default.
GNU Linux Installation
To install OctaneRender® on GNU Linux (64-bit only) you will need a recent enough Nvidia driver which can be
downloaded from http://www.nvidia.com/download/index.aspx?.
OctaneRender® for Linux is built and tested on Ubuntu 10.04 using GCC 4.4.3. This will require linux install-
ations with glibc 2.11.1 (or higher) and libstdc++ of 4.4.3 or a linux distribution more recent than end of 2009
with a CUDA driver not lower than CUDA 9.1.
Windows Installation
5 — Installation
To install OctaneRender® on Windows, ensure that you have installed a suitable driver for your video card.
After this, you only have to run the installer.
OctaneRender® is a CUDA 9.1 application. It will require a current Nvidia graphics driver of version 388.x or
higher.
The latest video card driver can be downloaded from here:
For Windows and Linux: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx
Authentication and Internet Access
Before you can run Standalone or an Octane plug-in, you must be authorized by the Octane licensing system as
an Octane owner. When you are authorized, a license is sent to your machine and the application is allowed to
run.
Except for the demo versions, all OctaneRender® editions require authentication with its designated license
key and initially requires Internet access to launch. Upon launching OctaneRender®, Octane will request your
OTOY credentials and will attempt to retrieve an available license from the OctaneLive server.
With OctaneRender’s sign-on licensing system, there is no need to deal with the actual license keys.
The Octane Standalone Edition requires one available (deactivated) standalone license on OctaneLive, while
plug-ins require one available standalone license plus one available license for that specific plug-in. Standalone
licenses are bound to one machine, which means that the standalone license can be shared across multiple
plug-ins running on that machine. Also, you may run multiple instances of standalone or a plug-in on a single
machine using the same license.
The Octane License is released (deactivated) when the application is closed, similar to a floating license
scheme. In the case of Octane Standalone edition just the standalone license is released, while plug-ins will
release both Standalone and their respective license. In either case, licenses are just released if there is not
another instance of Octane Standalone or a plug-in making use of that specific license. Note the distinctions
below between just closing (or exiting) the applications as opposed to actually signing out of the applications.
Exiting or closing the application Signing Out

Standalone Releases the Standalone License Key, except Releases ALL Octane License Keys bound
Edition when there is a plug-in edition that is con- on that machine. If there are other
currently open and still bound to that Standalone instances of Octane still running, the user
License Key. will be asked to exit those before it can
sign out and release all Octane Licenses.
Plugin Edi- Releases the License Keys that the plugin is Releases ALL Octane License Keys bound
tion bound to. on that machine. If there are other
instances of Octane still running, the user
6 — Installation
This includes Standalone License Key, unless the will be asked to exit those before it can
Standalone Edition Application is currently open sign out and release all Octane Licenses.
or if there are other plugins currently open and
whose keys are still bound to the same Stan-
dalone License Key on the same machine.
As indicated above, deactivation via the Octane live licenses administration page is not necessary as this is
done automatically by the application. This allows you to use Octane somewhere else without explicitly releas-
ing (deactivating) any licenses. Note that for licenses currently in use by older versions you will still see the
'Deactivate' option as they need to be explicitly released.
If the application has closed abnormally and has not gone through the normal process of exiting, such as a
crash, there is a chance that the releasing mechanism is skipped and the license ends up not getting released.
If the same machine will be used subsequently to access the same keys, this is not a problem as the same keys
are still bound. The problem only arises when the user tries to use Octane on another machine as the keys
would still bound to the previous machine. In such cases, The Fail Safe Web Deactivation may be used to
unbound the key/(s).
Signing into the Octane Licensing System

You must be connected to the Internet before starting your Octane application for the first time as it involves
communication with the Octane licensing system. When you start the application, this sign-in screen will
appear.
7 — Installation
Type the user name and password you use when you log into your OTOY account through the Log In page
(pictured below) at https://account.otoy.com/sign_in, then click the Sign in button.
At this point, the single sign on and licensing system will pull a valid license key from your account on OTOY’s
secure server.
If Octane detects a connection problem, ensure that all communications via HTTPS (TCP port 443) are allowed
for the following:
l Standalone Edition
l Standalone Edition Daemon
l Your Octane Plugin Host Application if you are using an Octane Plugin Edition
8 — Installation
The above may require updating the firewall settings. If the issue persists, it is also advisable to check your
proxy settings. Please refer to the section on HTTP Proxy1 Support on this reference manual.
Upon successfully signing in, Octane will keep a session alive as long you run the standalone or the plug-in
application on a regular basis, so in most cases you should not have to sign into the Octane licensing system
again. This session will also allow users to link their local installation to other OTOY services such as Octane
Render Cloud (ORC).
Note: If Octane reports a connection problem during authentication, make sure that all HTTPS com-
munications on TCP port 443 are allowed for the following:
l The Standalone Edition,
l the Standalone Edition Daemon and,
l your Octane Plug-in Host Application if you are using an Octane Plug-in Edition.
You may have to update your firewall setting to do this. If the issue persists, check your proxy settings.
For more information on Octane proxy settings, refer to the "HTTP Proxy Support" on page 20 topic.
Offline Authentication and Offline Licensing Mode

Offline Authentication and Offline Licensing Mode is made possible using an offline license dongle so that you
can run your Octane applications regardless of whether your machine is connected to the Internet. However,
you will not be able to access the LiveDB asset database; an Internet connection is required for that.
You would initially process the dongle online via a machine that is connected to the internet. After you've
assigned your Octane license to the dongle via your online OTOY user account, you can then move the dongle
to the offline machine and use it to authenticate the Octane application without the internet connection. While
the dongle is in use on an offline machine, the Octane license assigned to that dongle is locked to that current
machine in offline licensing mode. The Octane offline license may not be used in any other machine until
Octane is manually signed out and the dongle is removed from the offline machine.
If you have run your application with offline licensing for a long time, the session will be automatically closed by
the licensing system after a period of time, after which you will need to refresh the dongle.
Note: When using offline licensing for long period of time with no internet connection or no usage, you
may find that Octane is asking you for credentials again. This is because Octane needs an active session
(for online licenses) with the license server or the dongle (if using offline licensing) in order to retrieve
1 An object saved as a separate file with the purpose of being reused in larger scenes. This is used to minimize
any addition to the total polygon count in the scene, especially if the scene requires the same object to appear
several times. If used in conjunction with instancing, Proxies help keep very large scenes from reaching poly-
gon limits and also keeps the relative file size of the main project file manageable.
9 — Installation
the new license and yours might have expired, so in order to retrieve or refresh the license from our
servers, your user information is required.
By default, Offline licensing mode is not recommended. For more information about the Offline licensing, you
must contact us at help@otoy.com.
Note: Existing Online Licenses may be converted to Offline Licenses, but once this happens those
respective licenses can no longer be used online.
Manually Signing Out of the Octane Licensing System

To close a session, go to the OctaneRender Authentication Management window by selecting
Account from the File menu, then click the Sign out button. This will close the current session and release
all licenses bound to the current machine. You must close all Octane applications before continuing to sign out.
Octane License Management

Licenses are managed in the following way for Octane applications:
l If you have the Standalone Edition you must have one Standalone license to run the application.
l For each Octane plugin you have, you must have a Standalone license and one license for that plugin to
run it.
l You only need one Standalone license to run any number of plugins on one machine. A separate Stan-
dalone license for each plug-in is not necessary.
10 — Installation
l You must have one Standalone license for each machine you run Octane products on.
l You can run any number of Standalone and Octane instances on one machine.
Fail-safe Web Deactivation (Unlocks)

Usually licenses are deactivated automatically when you shut down the Octane application normally. However,
when your machine has crashed and your application was not properly closed, the license may still be active on
your machine. In this case, you may be able to start and shut down the application again to release the license,
but similar, and more serious, scenarios are:
l The hard disk containing your Octane license data has crashed and you replace it.
l You erase the hard disk - for example, as part of a disk reformat or partition change.
l You change the network interface card and your network identification data changes for that machine.
l The Octane license data on your machine is corrupt.
In all of these situations, to the Octane licensing system your license is still active on that machine, but you and
the licensing system are no longer able to access the license data. However, you can still deactivate your
license using fail-safe web deactivation.
Note: Unlocking is only available for version 3 licenses or higher. You can deactivate version 2 licenses
instead.
You are only allowed to deactivate or unlock a license (both are referred to as “Unlocks” on the licensing page)
for a limited number of times over a given period. This number may change without notice in the future. You
can see how many “Unlocks” you have remaining on your OTOY account page.
To deactivate and unlock the license, click the Deactivate or Unlock button, depending on the version number
of the license. If you run out of Unlocks, you must contact us at help@otoy.com to request that we unlock your
license.
Authentication Using Version 2 and Earlier through the Licensing System
11 — Installation
Note: This information about version 2 of the licensing system is provided as background to the current
system only. Although you can run products licensed by version 2 and higher of the licensing system on
the same machine, we recommend that you use version 3 or 4.
In version 2 of the Octane licensing system, a license key (a combination of a 12-digit user ID and an alpha-
numeric password) are created and assigned to you by OTOY. You can find the keys assigned to you by log-
ging on to the Customer Area on the OctaneRender homepage using your OTOY credentials:
Once your account is activated, you must provide these authentication credentials each time you start your
Octane product.
Note: For licenses currently in use by older versions you will still see the Deactivate option as they
need to be explicitly released.
OctaneLive IP/URL White-listing
These are the URLs that Octane requires access to as part of the activation process:
12 — Installation
l account.otoy.com
l bridge.octanerender.com
l live.octanerender.com
As the services above use dynamic load-balancing, the IPs of these servers often change. If you are white-list-
ing by IP, you will need to redirect traffic through our gateway server at 52.1.219.88. You can do this by
either overriding the octanerender.com domain on your internal DNS server, or by setting the IP manually in
your machines hosts file.
Host file locations:
l Windows:
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
l Linux & Mac OSX:

/private/etc/hosts
Host file entries:

52.1.219.88 account.otoy.com
52.1.219.88 bridge.octanerender.com
52.1.219.88 live.octanerender.com
In case of difficulty, contact us here.
Unattended/Silent Authorization (Online Mode only)
An option to use an 'unattended authorization token' is also available. This allows OctaneRender® to activate in
Online Licensing mode without requiring users to enter in a username and password. This works by saving an
authorization file downloaded from our SSO system to every machine that needs to be able to run
OctaneRender®, in a user-agnostic directory. This authorization file can be configured to only be valid for
requests from a specific CIDR, preventing this file from being used outside your environment.
If the authorization file does not exist on a machine, you can still run OctaneRender® but you will need to enter
the username (or login email address) and password.
As this feature has security implications for the licenses in your account, you will need to contact support to
request that this feature be enabled for your account. As this feature is an extension of Online Licensing mode,
it requires an active internet connection to function. To request this feature, contact us here.
13 — Installation
Creating an OTOY Account
1. Click the sign-in button at the upper-right corner of the main OTOY web page at home.otoy.com.
2. Click Register a new account. Or, if you’re registering a Octane Unity plug-in, click the Unity but-
ton and you will be taken to a Unity page to create your account. When you have created your Unity
account, an OTOY account with the same user name and password will also be created automatically.
14 — Installation
3. Enter the information prompted in the Sign Up page that appears, then click the Register button.
4. In the Complete Registration form, enter the requested information in the User Information tab,
then click Continue.
15 — Installation
5. Enter the requested information in the Billing Information tab, then click Continue.
16 — Installation
6. The following step will depend on whether you have an Octane forum account.
a. If you do not have a forum account, one will be created for you at this time. Enter the password
for your forum account, type it again to confirm, then click Continue.
17 — Installation
b. If you do have a forum account, click I have a forum account, enter your forum account
password, then click Continue. Note that you can return to the account creation screen (the pre-
vious image) by clicking I don't have a forum account.
7. Click I am not a robot in the mCAPTCHA screen.
18 — Installation
Confirming that Your Octane Licenses are Current

The Licenses page shows the following licensing information about each of your purchased Octane applic-
ations.
Octane V2 Username - This is the user name generated by the Octane licensing system and sent to you if
you purchased this product before version 3. You only need to provide this user name if you are still running a
pre-version 3 Octane application; see "Creating an OTOY Account" on page 14 for more information. Other-
wise, you do not need to use or remember this user name.
Password - This is the password for your Octane application if it is earlier than version 3. If you are using a
version 3 Octane application you do not need to use this.
Version - The latest version of your Octane application.
Name/Last Active (UTC) - The last day and time-of-day the licensing system detected that your applic-
ation was run, in universal time.
19 — Installation
Unlocks Left - If you are running a version 3 Octane application, the number of times you can unlock this
product before you must contact Octane support at octanesupport@otoy.com to unlock it.
Status - The status of your license. The values of this field can be:
l Deactivated - You are not running the Octane application so the license is in an unused, or deac-
tivated, state.
l Deactivate - You are running the Octane application so the license is activated. If your application has
stopped unexpectedly, such as in a crash, the license may still be active. In this case, you will have to
manually deactivate the license; see The Fail-Safe Web Deactivation topic for more information.
l Locked - Your license is locked and you cannot run the application or unlock the license. You must con-
tact Octane support to unlock it.
l Unlock - Your license is locked. Click this field to unlock it.
Click the Download button on this page to download the latest Octane application and installer. Click the
Manual button to download the latest HTML5 version of the manual for the application.
If your OTOY account is active and the license is not locked you can sign into the Octane licensing system and
run your Octane application.
Note: Be sure to scroll to the licensing information at the bottom of this page for answers to common
questions about the licensing process.
HTTP Proxy Support
If you are running Octane behind an existing proxy, Octane will try to find the current setup of your proxy and
use it. Workarounds to bypass the proxy settings will not be valid.
If you are trying to setup your proxy for the first time or your proxy requires authentication, you may configure
it either by using your operating system proxy settings or environment variables.
Proxy Server1 configuration via system settings

This option allows OctaneRender to retrieve your system settings, the configuration will depend on your host
operating system:
1 A Proxy Server, also known as an application-level gateway, is an intermediary server between the local net-
work and the external servers from which a client is requesting a service. The external servers will only see
the network proxy server's IP address thus providing some degree of security and privacy. There are various
kinds of proxies, the most common are Web Proxies.
20 — Installation
For Windows:
On Windows Octane can obtain its proxy configuration from the following sources:
From Internet Explorer's LAN Settings: This configuration applies only to the current user. To change IE
proxy settings:
1. Press Win+R keys.
2. Enter inetcpl.cpl ,4 and click OK. You will see the Internet Properties window displayed.
3. Click LAN Settings.
4. Select the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box.
5. In the Address box, type the IP address of the proxy server.
6. In the Port box, type the port number.
If you have a dedicated proxy for HTTPS traffic, click on Advanced, uncheck Use the same proxy for all
protocols and specify proxy address and port for the Secure server type.
From the WinHTTP configuration: This configuration is system-wide and usually stored in the registry. It
can be managed using "netsh winhttp". For more information, please check Windows HTTP documentation
from Microsoft.
The proxy exceptions list is currently ignored.
Mac OSX:
OctaneRender reads the proxy settings stored in the system preferences. To change your proxy settings:
1. Open System Preferences.
2. Click Network.
3. Click Advanced ...
4. Select the Proxies tab.
5. You may choose to enable either Web proxy (HTTP) or Secure web proxy (HTTPS) depending
on your proxy type.
6. In the Web proxy server section, type the IP address of your server and port number.
Bypass proxy settings are currently not used by Octane.
Port numbers will default to 80 if using HTTP and 443 if using HTTPS if none is explicitly specified.
The proxy authentication through proxy settings is not supported on MAC systems. If your proxy requires user-
name and password, please refer to the following section about proxy configuration via environment variables.
Linux:
The proxy settings may vary between distributions so proxy configuration on Linux is just supported via envir-
onment variables.
21 — Installation
The proxy configuration via environment variables:

OctaneRender supports the following proxy environment variables:
https_proxy: Specifies a proxy server for HTTPS network traffic.
all_proxy: Specifies a proxy server for all network traffic.
These are commonly used environment variables for specifying proxy configuration, specially on Linux. From
Octane's perspective it's really up to you which one you decide to use, just take into account that this may
affect other applications which may also make use of them.
If one of these variables if found this will override your system's proxy preferences even if there's a configured
proxy already.
Note: Environment variables are case sensitive, even on Windows, for security reasons.
The accepted syntax for proxy environment variables is [protocol://][user:password@]proxyhost[:port]

As a way of example, you may expecify a proxy for HTTPS network traffic as https_proxy-
y=johndoe:mypass@127.0.1.50. This will tell Octane to use 127.0.1.50 as your proxy's address using the
default port 80 and authenticate as user "johndoe" with password "mypass".
Hardware Options
The options for adding GPU1 muscle to a computer depends on available PCI-E slots on the computer.
OctaneRender™ can handle 20 concurrent GPUs so long as they are correctly exposed as CUDA devices. It
does not need to be SLI-enabled to be able to detect additional GPUs in the machine and it is not recommended
for render engines — in fact, OctaneRender™ will run much better without it. OctaneRender™ will not know the
difference between GPUs accessible via the local area network, or in the local slots.
Single PCI-E Slot

If the computer has a single PCI-E slot, there are not many options to extend it for the sole purpose of ren-
dering. One could simply add a more powerful GPU as long as the power supply can provide enough power for
the new GPU. Dual-GPU, single-slot card solutions like the GTX 590, GTX 690, or the Titan Z may also be used
in this situation, assuming that the power supply is sufficient to power the video card.
22 — Installation
Two or more PCI-E Slot Motherboards

If the computer has two PCI-E slots the user is presented with many additional upgrade options. If the power
supply is sufficient, one GPU can be dedicated to the OS display while two or more GPUs can be used for ren-
dering. For the smoothest user experience with OctaneRender™, it is recommended to dedicate one GPU for
the display and OS to avoid slow and jerky interaction and navigation. The dedicated video card could be a
cheap, low-power card since it will not be used for rendering and it should be unticked (switched off) in CUDA
devices in the Device Manager/Preferences.
In this situation, it is best to have the rendering GPUs match in model and VRAM size. This allows multi-GPU
rendering but the OS interface may still be slowed as all the GPU processing power is dedicated to the ren-
dering process. In multi-GPU setups, the amount of RAM available to OctaneRender™ is not equal to the sum of
the RAM on the GPUs, but it is restricted to the GPU with the smallest amount of RAM. It is recommended that
you disable GPUs that don’t have enough RAM to allow for rendering large scenes that can fit in the RAM of the
remaining GPU.
23 — Installation
Networked Master and Slave Render Machines

If a local area network is available , the user is presented with many additional upgrade options — however,
this requires that each of the machines in the network that are to be used for slave rendering also have its own
designated Octane License.
Just like in a multi-GPU setup, it is best to have the GPU’s match in model and VRAM size. This allows multi-
GPU rendering but the OS interface may still be slowed as all the GPU processing power is dedicated to the ren-
dering process. The amount of RAM available to OctaneRender™ is not equal to the sum of the RAM on the
existing number of GPUs, but it is restricted to the GPU with the smallest amount of RAM. It is recommended
that you disable GPUs that don’t have enough RAM to allow for rendering large scenes that can fit in the RAM of
the remaining GPU.
24 — Installation
Multi-GPU setups, power supply, and energy consumption considerations

It is very important to use a suitable power supply when using multiple GPUs. For more info on what power sup-
ply is best for your case, visit http://www.nvidia.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html.
The differences in the microarchitecture of the cards should also be considered. For instance, the Kepler archi-
tecture cards have more memory and consume less power than Fermi GPUs, but are just as fast with
OctaneRender™. Newer cards in the Maxwell and Pascal series are also more power-efficient.
3Dconnexion Space Navigator Support
OctaneRender supports camera movement with a 3D mouse on all platforms. The movement is camera-cent-
ric; movements you make will be translated to camera movements.
Installation
25 — Installation
On Windows, no driver installation is required for it to work with OctaneRender and the installing the 3D mouse
is straightforward.
These are the instructions for Linux:
1. Install libmotif3 (or libmotif4 if that version is not available).
2. Get 3DxWare for Linux.
3. Install the driver, refer to the installation instructions in the package for details.
4. Start the driver (as root).
5. Start Octane, or if it is already running, lock and then unlock the viewport.
Should drivers be required for the 3D Mouse, the drivers may be downloaded from http://www.3d-
connexion.eu/service/drivers.html.
Setup
Make sure the correct drivers for your 3D mouse are installed. On Windows and Mac, your 3D mouse should
work after you plug in the 3D mouse. On Linux, you should make sure the driver is running before you start
OctaneRender. If you start the driver later, lock and unlock the viewport to detect the 3D mouse.
On Windows, the settings from the 3Dconnexion control panel have no effect. You can change the speed of the
movements and invert setting in the menu’s File > Preferences > Controls in OctaneRender.
Note: The speed of translation is also dependent on the distance between the camera position and tar-
get. Zoom with the mouse to change.
NVLink On Consumer GPUs
26 — Installation
NVLinkTM lets you double your GPU1 VRAM by combining two cards into one pool of fast shared (not mirrored)
memory. NVLinkTM only works with two cards, which both need to be Quadro® or Geforce® RTX cards (e.g.,
RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080). Ensure that you use the bridge over your cards (Figure 1), otherwise you may
experience a large performance drop.
Figure 1: Example of a 3-slot NVLinkTM Bridge connecting two Quadro® cards.
To use NVLinkTM with non-Quadro® GPUs, enable SLI mode from the NVIDIA® Control Panel.
To use NVLinkTM with Quadro® GPUs, set the GPUs as Tesla Compute Cluster (TCC) devices. You can do this
by invoking a command line window with administrative privileges and running the nvidia-smi command
within the NVSMI default folder. The default folder is located at C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Cor-
poration\NVSMI. The nvidia-smi generates a table that displays your GPUs and what mode they are
using (Figure 2).
27 — Installation
Figure 2: Table showing the devices in the machine, including the GPU ID and the mode of
each device
To change the mode, use the following syntax in the command line:
nvidia-smi -g {GPU_ID} -dm {0|1}
Where, 0 = WDDM and 1 = TCC.
Examples
This command switches the first Quadro® GPU to WDDM mode:
C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\nvidia-smi -g 0 -dm 0
This command switches the first Quadro® GPU to TCC mode:
C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\nvidia-smi -g 0 -dm 1
28 — Installation
When the devices are set and NVLink is installed, you can combine p2p video memory. This will be evident in
the OctaneRender®Devices tab under File > Preferences (Figure 3). The device's Preferences window
shows status info per device (Figure 4), not the total VRAM memory combined. OctaneRender® uses p2p when
the the primary device's VRAM is maxed out (Figure 7).
Figure 3: You can specify VRAM pooling peers for NVLinkTM-enabled devices
Figure 4: Device Info in the Preferences window shows info per device
29 — Installation
Figure 5: Setting the peers for the NVLinkTM-enabled devices
Figure 6: An example showing that device 1 is peered to device 2 and vice-versa
30 — Installation
Figure 7: P2P is used when the primary device's VRAM is maxed out
Note: You can't connect a display or monitor to the GPU adapters when the underlying devices are run-
ning in TCC mode. This causes unpredictable behavior, and may result in having to reboot the entire sys-
tem.
Wacom Cintiq Support
OctaneRender supports the Wacom Cintiq Tablet. Installing the tablet is straightforward provided the correct
drivers for the respective tablet model and operating systems.
For Windows 10 systems, ensure to disable the "Use Windows Ink" via the Wacom Tablet Properties window
(Figure 1).
31 — Installation
Figure 1: Uncheck the "Use Windows Ink" property.
Application Preferences
32 — Installation
Settings related the user interface, default material previews, file locations and file associations are managed
in the Applications Settings dialog box. To open the Application Settings Dialog, go to File > Preferences
> Application tab. The settings saved here will be uploaded to the user’s online account and will be available
if they log into another copy of OctaneRender™.
33 — Installation
When saving projects, Octane will need the specific location to store the project in a file system where these
resources may be represented by absolute or relative paths. An absolute, or full, path points to the same loc-
ation in a file system, regardless of the current working directory. To do that it includes the root directory.
Users have the option to save projects using a relative path which starts from some given working directory,
thus avoiding the need to provide the full absolute path.
OctaneRender sends statistical data to a server. The purpose for the data gathered is to understand how
Octane is used and therefore will help our development team in making informed decisions for future devel-
opments. The statistics gathered are anonymous and independent of the OctaneLive license server. These are
the types of events sent in the statistical data:
l ”SessionStart” and “SessionEnd” events which are just to indicate one Octane session.
l ”Render” event is sent if the rendering had progressed more than 30s or 1000 samples/pixel.
The events above are sent along with statistical information like the geometry size, kernel, GPU1 count, or
slave count.
The statistics are important, however users may choose to opt out and disable this facility. The statistics col-
lection facility can be disabled the through File > Preferences… > Application > Enable statistics.
The Render Cloud

The Render Cloud section is used in preparation for rendering through OctaneRender Cloud (ORC).
OctaneRender Dongle Setup for Offline Mode
You will need:

l Dongle
l DIT (Dongle Installer Tool)
l Computer connected to Internet
l Octane Standalone v3.08.3, v4, or v2018.1 and above
1. Add your plugin license to your dongle
34 — Installation
Your OctaneRender standalone license is assigned to your dongle, pending activation. If you want to work off-
line with your Octane plugin, you also need to assign the Octane plugin license to the dongle.
To assign your plugin license to the dongle, navigate to the Dongle tab in your OTOY account. Click Add
Licenses, and select the Octane plugin license. Next, click Assign to Dongle.
Figure 1: Information found at that Dongle tab in your OTOY account.
2. Download the Dongle Installer Tool

Download the Dongle Installer Tool by clicking Install Licenses. You can select Windows, macOS, or Linux
for the installer.
Figure 2: Adding licenses to the Dongle.
3. Run the Dongle Installer Tool
35 — Installation
Launch the Dongle Installer Tool, then log in with your OTOY credentials. Next, click the checkbox in the
Select column and click Install Selected. The installation may take a moment.
Figure 3: Window to enter your OTOY account credentials.
Figure 4: Installing the added licenses for offline use.
36 — Installation
4. Use the dongle with your offline machine

You can now remove the dongle and use it with your designated offline machine. To check if the dongle is work-
ing correctly, launch OctaneRender. When you click on File > Activation Status, you should see Octane
is activated using an Octane dongle. You can add OctaneRender plugin licenses to the dongle at a later
time by repeating steps 1 and 3 for each license.
Figure 5: Activation status of the Octane app without the persistent internet connection.
5. Updating your dongle

Dongles need to be updated using the Dongle Installer Utility every four months.
To update your dongle, run the Dongle Installer Tool, select the checkbox next to your dongle, and select
Install Selected. Your dongle is now updated.
37 — Installation
Figure 6: Click the "Install Selected" button to update the dongle.
Note: By default, using the dongle in Linux systems will require sudo permissions. In order to get
around this, copy the udev rules file, 99-senselock.rules, into the udev rules directory. The udev
rules directory is usually /etc/udev/rules.d however, this may vary across various Linux
38 — Installation
distributions. With the udev rules files in place, restart or force the udev daemon to reload the rules
(udevadm control --reload-rules). Refer to the Debian documentation at https://wiki.debi-
an.org/udev for more information.
39 — Installation
OctaneRender Standalone Overview
CUDA-Powered ATV OctaneRender Benchmark Scene by Jyrgen Aleksejev
40 — OctaneRender Standalone Overview

Interface Layout
The Render Viewport (fig. 2.1)

The render is constantly updated in the Render Viewport. The scene can be navigated in real-time. Adjust-
ments to materials, lights, and camera can be made and viewed interactively.
The Node Inspector (fig. 2.2)

The Node Inspector allows the user to make changes to the various settings in the scene, lighting, and material
nodes.
The Graph Editor (fig. 2.3)

The scene and materials are represented by nodes in OctaneRender. This allows for powerful material editing
as well. Don’t be scared. If you don’t know how to use nodes because great renders can still be produced
without needing to use them.
The Scene Outliner (fig. 2.4)

The Outliner allows the user to see an overview of all the elements in the scene and also allows them to use the
local and online node databases.

Customizing the Interface
The windows for each pane in the OctaneRender interface may be rearranged (Graph Editor, Render Viewport,
Node Inspector, and Outliner). To customize the arrangement of these panes, click and drag the square at the
top-left corner of each pane (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Pane arrangement icon
Right-clicking the same square at the top left corner of each pane will invoke more options for rearranging the
workspace to customize the interface. Users may choose to undock the Render Viewport window to have a
wider view of it on a separate screen (Figure 2).

Figure 2
The toolbars for each pane of the OctaneRender interface are customizable as well. To customize the toolbars
of a particular pane, right-click on the square upper left icon for that pane and select the Customize toolbar
(Figure 3).

Figure 3
The dialog allows the user to place the toolbar to any edge of the respective area. It also allows the buttons to
be re-arranged, added, or removed.
Figure 4: Toolbar placement dialog
Navigating the Viewport
OctaneRender provides a unique, refreshing and exciting rendering experience due to the ability to interact
with the scene with final render quality. This interactivity allows for renders that might not be possible with tra-
ditional render engines. The user can continue to hunt for that perfect camera angle where all the reflections of
the lights are just right or they can continue to adjust the DOF1 in real-time.
Render Viewport Navigation

The Render Viewport can be manipulated like traditional 3D viewports with rotation, panning and zooming con-
trols. Navigation keys can be customized via the File->Preferences->Controls dialog. Because of this flex-
ibility, predefined navigation control schemes based on popular 3D software can be applied. Items in the
1 The distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image.
Although a lens can precisely focus at only one distance at a time, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on each
side of the focused distance, so that within the DOF, the unsharpness is imperceptible under normal viewing
conditions. source: wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field)

Controls tab also include settings for the camera multiplier, mouse presets, and scroll wheel actions. The
viewport mouse navigation controls can be inverted if preferred.
The default controls are the following:
The Render Viewport Icons
Recenter View
The Recenter View button centers the render view display area in the render viewport. This is useful if the
render view display area was moved and part of it is no longer visible or centered. This will recenter the render
view display area without affecting the current zoom level.
Camera Reset
The Camera Reset button allows the camera to be reset back to the original position. If the scene was just
created from an imported object, then the Camera Reset button will reset the camera position to the default
coordinates similar to when the object was just imported. If the scene was saved as an Octane Scene File, then
the camera would be reset to the position of the Octane Scene File.
Camera View

The Camera View button provides preset camera views of the scene in the render viewport.
Stop Render
This aborts the rendering process and frees all resources being used by the current scene.
Restart Render
Halts the current rendering process while keeping the loaded contents in memory and then automatically starts
the rendering process all over again at zero samples.
Pause Render
This will pause the rendering process without losing the currently rendered data and also keeping the contents
of the GPU1 ’s memory intact. Pausing the render is useful when there is a need to temporarily free the GPU
cores in order to run other GPU-intensive applications meanwhile with the intention of continuing the render
process later.
Start Render
Starts the rendering process from the point where it was paused.

Fit Rendered Image to Vieport Size
The viewport can scroll up and down to accommodate the current visible size of the rendered image. Enabling
this facility will adjust the resolution of the rendered image automatically to the current size of the viewport. If
this is enabled, the rendering will be restrarted every time the size of viewport window is adjusted since the res-
olution of the image will also change. This is disabled by default.
Focus Picking Mode
The Focus Picker tool helps navigating a scene that is very complex or that has become difficult to navigate.
To enter Focus Picking mode, click on the icon located under the Render Viewport. It is then used to click on
any part of the scene to make the point under the mouse pointer to become the focus of the camera. Right-click-
ing on the mouse when this is enabled invokes a context menu to allow picking of objects along the path of a
ray directly affecting that point in the scene.
White Balance Picking Mode
If this is enabled, the user will be able to select any part of the scene to see white point colors applicable to the
whole scene on the basis of a diffuse within the scene. This does not cause the render to be restarted, how-
ever, the current white point color will be used throughout the render. To restore the original balance used in
the scene, simply click on an empty part of the scene while still in this mode.
Material1 Picker
If this is enabled, the user will be able to select any part of the rendered scene to inspect the material applied to
it. Right-clicking on the mouse when this is enabled invokes a context menu to allow picking of materials
1 The representation of the surface or volume properties of an object.

applied to the objects along the path of a ray directly affecting that point in the scene. The material node is then
automatically invoked and appears on the node inspector pane.
Object Picker
If this is enabled, the user will be able to select particular objects in the rendered scene to be able to inspect its
attributes on the Node Inspector pane. Right-clicking on the mouse when this is enabled invokes a context
menu to allow picking of the objects along the path of a ray directly affecting that point in the scene. The
object’s node graph representation is also automatically selected on the graph editor pane.
Camera Target Zoom Picking
The Camera Target Zoom Picker tool helps navigating a scene that is very complex or that has become dif-
ficult to navigate. To enter Camera Target Zoom Picking, click on the icon located under the Render Viewport.
It is then used to click on any part of the scene to make the point under the mouse pointer to become the center
of rotation and zooming. A quick roll of the mouse wheel will cause the render to zoom into the newly selected
point. Right-clicking on the mouse when this is enabled invokes a context menu to allow picking of objects
along the path of a ray directly affecting that point in the scene.
Render Region Picking
The Render Region Picker tool allows users to specify a region in the viewport. This assists in view-
ing changes quickly and also allows more control to reduce noise in specific areas. To use
Render Region Picking, click on the icon located under the Render Viewport. Rectangular areas can now be
selected in the viewport to which the rendering will be restricted. A feathered border is placed around
the selected area. To disable this feature and return to rendering the whole image, click once
anywhere in the viewport. The samples rendered in this region are taken into account in the samples per
pixel statistics of the viewport. This represents the average samples per pixel over the full image.
Film Region Picking

The Film Region Picker tool allows users to specify a region in the scene to set new values for Region Start
and Region Size for Film Settings parameters which configures the render film. Although the resolution will
remain the same, the film region is the only part that is rendered. Users may reset the film region back to its
full size by double-clicking on the render viewport while the toggle is enabled.
Clay Mode Rendering Settings
Using Clay Rendering allows users to show the details of the model which are still in progress. This comes in
handy when users want to see details without the complex texturing that are already applied or when colors
and/or textures have yet to be applied.
Sub-sampling Settings
Using sub-sampling allows for smoother navigation of the scene by reducing the render resolution. In order to
improve navigation at the cost of visual quality, 2×2 or 4×4 sub-sampling settings can be adjusted by using the
checkerboard buttons under the Render Viewport. The reduced settings apply when the scene is being nav-
igated and then returns to the render settings after navigation has stopped. The following figures show the dif-
ference between navigating with no sub-sampling versus navigating with 4×4 sub-sampling.

No sub-sampling while navigating
4 x 4 sub-sampling while navigating
Render Priority Settings
This sets the priority for the active GPUs when the Use Priority option is enabled correspondingly on the
Devices preferences tab.

The render priority is necessary when a GPU is not dedicated to rendering but is also shared among different
processes in one machine. For example, a machine that only has one GPU, will share the GPU for processes
across the whole system including the Operating System. In this case, setting the Render Priority to LOW and
enabling Use Priority on Preferences > Devices for that single GPU, will be best for interactivity.
Copy Paste Preview Image
This copies the current rendered image to the clipboard in Low Dynamic Range1 format which can be pas-
ted on to different applications.
Save Current Render
This saves the current render to disk according to some specific file format. The choices are:
l 8- or 16-bit .PNG
l 16-bit or 32-bit tonemapped .EXR2
l 16-bit or 32-bit untonemapped .EXR
1 Image formats that have 8 bits per color channel such as the common image formats JPEG, PNG, GIF among
others.
2 Also known as OpenEXR. This image file format was developed by Industrial Light & Magic and provides a
High Dynamic Range image capable of storing deep image data on a frame-by-frame basis.

A .PNG file is not a high dynamic range image but it supports an alpha channel and allows for lossless image
compression, both of which are useful for large visualization stills or compositing. The EXR file format on the
other hand offers high dynamic-range which is useful in a linear workflow and maintaining quality with lossless
compression across pipelines in compositing projects. Octane can export 32-bit EXR files or half of that at 16
bits per channel which is more common because this takes less time to render without compromising the out-
put quality for most projects.
Render Passes1 Export
This invokes the Render Passes Export window.
Viewport Background Image
This allows users to place a background image on the render viewport. To see the background image, the Ker-
nel’s alpha channel should be enabled.
1 Render passes allow a rendered frame to be further broken down beyond the capabilities of Render Layers.
Render Passes vary among render engines but typically they allow an image to be separated into its fun-
damental visual components such as diffuse, ambient, specular, etc..

The background image is not rendered at all but is placed only for the purpose of streamlining the model
against a backplate that is later used in post.
Lock Viewport
This locks and unlocks the viewport controls. Locking the viewport controls help prevent accidental change or
restart of the render.
Object Control Alignment Mode
This specifies the coordinate system that is used while modifying placement and scatter nodes using handles
for rotation, scaling, and translation in the viewport. The user may choose to align with the world axis or with
the local axis while working with the gizmos for object controls.

Placement Translation Tool (Toggle Move Gizmo)
This provides the possibility to modify the translation of placement and scatter nodes using handles directly in
the viewport. The move tool allows movement along each axis or constrained to the plane defined by two axis
using different parts of the control. Since OctaneRender is not 3D-modeling software, this will not modify any
mesh geometry.

Placement Rotation Tool (Toggle Rotate Gizmo)
This provides the possibility to modify the rotation of placement and scatter nodes using handles directly in the
viewport. The rotation tool allows rotation around each of the axis via the axis rotation bands, a free rotation

via the inner orange circle and the rotation around the camera-object axis via the outer yellow circle. This tool
also allows you to rotate objects multiple times around the picked axis. Since OctaneRender is not 3D-modeling
software, this will not modify any mesh geometry.
Placement Scale Tool (Toggle Scale Gizmo)

This provides the possibility to adjust the scale of placement and scatter nodes using handles directly in the
viewport. The scale tool allows the scale along each axis by selecting one of the axis lines, constrained to two
axis by selecting one of the corners near the origin and the uniform scaling by selecting one of the axis end
handles. Since OctaneRender is not 3D-modeling software, this will not modify any mesh geometry.

Display World Coordinate
This displays a small representation of the world coordinate axis at the top left corner of the viewport.
Node Graph Editor Navigation

The Node Graph Editor can be scrolled with the mouse wheel when holding down the <CTRL> key (or CMD
key on Macintosh platforms). Like the Viewport, the Node Graph Editor also has panning and zooming controls:
l Select nodes: Left Mouse Button
l Pan: Right Mouse Button
l Zoom in/out: Mouse Wheel / Middle Mouse Button
When zoomed out a lot, connections cannot be edited although items can still be moved. When an item or a
node is dragged out of the node graph editor window, the node graph window is auto-panned to make that
node visible.

Multi-connect feature – This allows users to connect multiple nodes at a time. by holding down the
<CTRL> key (or CMD key on Macintosh platforms) while connecting some selected nodes to a pin on another
node. It is therefore inactive if only one connection is possible.
Connection cutter – This cuts off multiple connections by holding down the <CTRL> key (or CMD key on
Macintosh platforms) and then click-dragging with to form a line over the connections that are to be removed.

Search Dialog – Simultaneously pressing <CTRL> key + F key invokes the Search Dialog, which is used
to quickly find and select nodes and dynamic pins that contain the entered search string.

The Render Viewport
Figure 1: The Render Viewport

Information in the Render progress indicator includes the following:
Information included in the GPU1 quick information bar:

Right-clicking on the Render progress indicator and the GPU quick information bar invokes general statistics
affecting GPU resources:

The Render Viewport (Figure 1) is used to manipulate the scene interactively. Unlike traditional renderers,
Octane allows the user to adjust many aspects of the scene while maintaining a complete rendering envir-
onment. Horizontal and vertical scrollbars on the renderview allows viewing parts of the image that fall out of
the display area.
The Render Viewport contains buttons located at the bottom of the window (Figure 2) that allow the user to con-
trol several aspects of the render process.
Figure 2: Render Viewport Icons
The time slider becomes visible among the render viewport buttons when an alembic file containing a scene
with animated geometry is loaded.
The Node Inspector
An entire scene is actually just a group of nodes where each node has some attributes. In turn, each attribute
holds a value parameter depending on the type of data the attribute requires which may either be numerical,
boolean, modal, or even another node. You manipulate these attributes with the Node Inspector.
The Node Inspector (fig. 2.6) can change nearly every aspect of the render/scene in OctaneRender™. Nodes
that are selected in the Graph Editor are displayed in the Node Inspector where their values can be adjusted or

changed. When using the Material1 Picker, the currently selected material will also be displayed in the Node
Inspector. To reduce the clutter, this pane also provides a compact view of uncollapsed node pins.
The Node Inspector also includes quick buttons (fig. 2.7) that allow the user to quickly jump to the most com-
monly used nodes (RenderTarget, Camera, Resolution, Environment, Imager, Kernel, and Current Mesh). It
also has context menus allowing to copy, paste, and fill empty node pins.
The bottom of the Node Inspector window hosts the OctaneLive and Online status. (fig. 2.8).

Renaming Nodes
Individual nodes and node groups can be renamed through their respective node equivalent in the Node
Inspector pane.

Quick material previews

It is possible to enable quick previews of materials and textures inside the Node Inspector. These will be
rendered without interrupting the main render, and will update automatically when the material or texture is
changed. The scale of the material can be updated as well.
There is a choice of a preview on a sphere and a flat 2D preview. The scale of the object shown is cus-
tomizable, and users can choose default settings in the settings dialogue.
So as not to disrupt the current render, the material render icon on the nodegraph editor must be toggled off.

The Graph Editor
The Graph Editor allows the user to view the nodes associated with the current scene. The Render Target
encompasses all of the scene-related nodes: Camera, Environment, Visible Environment, the Geometry, Film
Settings which specifies the Resolution, Animation Settings, Kernel, Render Passes1 , Render Layer, Imager,
and Post Processing2 Nodes. Selecting a node in the Graph Editor will bring that node's settings up in the
Node Inspector along with its empty node pins. The user can fill empty node pins in the Graph Editor or the
Node Inspector. Placing the mouse cursor over a node pin will show the name of the material contained by that
pin.
2 Effects such as Bloom and Glare that are applied after a scene has been rendered.

The user can pan the node graph editor with the mouse by click-dragging the yellow area on the thumbnail pre-
view at the top left corner of the Graph Editor, likewise zooming can be adjusted by using the middle mouse
auto-scroll button.
Adding nodes in the graph editor

To add more nodes, right-click on an empty area to invoke the context menu with the node options list. After
selecting, the new node is placed on the cursor location.

Right-click on a node for a context menu

Right-clicking on a node invokes a context menu including the options ‘delete’ allowing you to delete all selec-
ted nodes, ‘save’ which saves the selected nodes as a macro file or in LiveDB, and ‘render’ (if available) which
will render the node under the cursor. The Group items option allows you to create a single group node that
will represent the nodes that were selected. Grouping nodes can be useful if you want to hide complex node
systems. Node pin connections are saved when saving multiple nodes. The context menu also includes Show
in Outliner which will quickly pick and select the respective node’s corresponding element in the Outliner.

Selecting multiple nodes

Start dragging in an empty area of the node graph editor to select multiple nodes with a box. Hold down the
<Shift> key to add the selection to the current selection. You can also add and remove nodes from the selec-
tion by holding Ctrl and clicking on a node. The node graph editor supports copy/paste operations with right
clicking on selected nodes to invoke a context menu of command options or by simple keyboard shortcuts
<Ctrl+C> for copy and <Ctrl+V> for paste. There are also application-wide shortcuts for cut, copy, paste and
delete commands which are placed in the application menu. Copying and pasting nodes will also duplicate con-
nections coming from other nodes to the copied nodes. Dropping of macro and mesh files on the nodegraph
editor is also possible.


Disconnecting nodes
Hold down the <Ctrl> key, then click with the left mouse button and cut between nodes to disconnect that
group of nodes.
Hiding complex node systems

For a clean and organized graph, nodes can be grouped together and represented by a single node initially
named “Node Graph”, this can be renamed through its node entry in Node Inspector pane. Double clicking on a
grouped node opens a new tab in the Graph Editor which will specifically show the graph of the constituent
nodes for that group. Grouped nodes can be further grouped together to create nested groups.

Internal graph and material previews

The Graph Editor also has buttons that allow the display of the internal material preview scene when a node is
selected.

The Scene Outliner
The Scene Outliner allows the user to view the current project in an outline format. This allows quick access to
any of the parameters and nodes of the scene. Selecting a parameter in the Outliner brings that node to focus in
the Node Inspector. The Scene Outliner also has context menus allowing to copy, paste, and fill empty node
pins.

The tabs in the Scene Outliner also allow the user to view the Local and Live Databases that can house any
macro that is created.
The Live Database (“Live DB” tab) allows instantaneous access to any macro that is uploaded from the entire
Octane community. This allows the user to save a new material to the database where it will be accessible by
every Octane user.
The Local Database (“Local DB” tab) can be found next to the LiveDB tab and users can set the root directory in
the application preferences to allow some simple asset management in Octane Standalone. Users can create
packages of nodes, node graphs, and node trees, and save them to a local drive along with thumbnails for easy
identification.
The views in any of the tabs in the Scene Outliner may be automatically collapsed or uncollapsed via these
icons:

Refresh button which allows quick updating of the local DB content:
The Application Settings
You can manage settings related to the user interface, default material previews, file locations, and file asso-
ciations in the Applications Settings dialog box. To open the Application Settings, go to the Application
tab by clicking on File, and then click onPreferences.


Figure 1: Preferences tab
When saving projects, OctaneRender® needs the specific location to store the project in a file system, where
these resources are represented by absolute or relative paths. An absolute or full path points to the same loc-
ation in a file system, regardless of the current working directory. To do that, it includes the root directory. You
have the option to save projects using a relative path, which starts from some given working directory, and
avoid the need to provide the full absolute path.
Developer Options
If you are developing Lua1 and OSL scripts for use with OctaneRender®, you can enable this section and spe-
cify paths to the OSL to include directories here so that OctaneRender® can locate the included files at compile
time. There should be one path per line. If a path begins with a tilde (`), the tilde expands to your home dir-
ectory.
Statistics
OctaneRender® sends statistical data to a server. The purpose for the data gathered is to understand how
OctaneRender® is used, which helps our development team make informed decisions for future developments.
The statistics gathered are anonymous and independent of the OctaneRender LiveTM license server. These are
the types of events sent in the statistical data:
l SessionStart and SessionEnd events, which indicate one OctaneRender® session.
l Render events are sent if the rendering progresses more than 30 seconds or 1000 samples/pixel.
The events above are sent along with statistical information like the geometry size, kernel, GPU2 count, and
slave count.
The statistics is important, but you can opt out and disable this feature by clicking File, then Preferences…,
followed by Application and then Enable Statistics.
The Render Cloud

The Render Cloud section prepares for rendering through OctaneRender Cloud® (ORC).
1 A scripting language that supports procedural, object-oriented, functional, and data-driven programming. It
can be used to extend Octane’s functionality.A scripting language that supports procedural, object-oriented,
functional, and data-driven programming. It can be used to extend Octane’s functionality.

Max Cores
This refers to the number of cores used to train OctaneRender®. By default, the limit is off, and all threads are
used. However, you can enable a limit up to 8 threads for the AI scene.
File Caching
This limits the disk space used for caching textures.
File Associations
Establishes the relationship between the specified file types to OctaneRender®. It registers and defines
OctaneRender® as the default program to open files with these file extensions.
The Controls Settings
Settings related to navigation and viewport control mappings are managed in the Applications Settings and
Controls Settings dialogs. To open the Dialog, go to the File -> Preferences -> Controls tab.


The Preset dropdown box allows the user to quickly set OctaneRender™ navigation to behave like a number
of common 3D modeling packages.
The actions of the scroll wheel when used within the Node Graph Editor pane can be set to either zoom or
scroll.
There are also viewport (camera) navigation modes (rotate and roll) and a few are renamed in the application
preferences.
l Orbit: Rotates the camera around the target position (called rotation before).
l Camera move: Moves that camera parallel to the image plane (called pan before).
l Camera dolly: Moves the camera forwards or backwards along the camera direction (called zoom
before).
l Camera rotate: Rotates the camera around the up vector and right vector (new).
l Camera roll: Rotates the camera around the camera direction (new).
The Devices Tab
OctaneRender® is a GPU1 -based render engine, and it is important to manage the GPUs in the system used
for rendering. This is done from the Devices tab. Under this tab, the GPUs supported by your computer
appear with checkboxes in a list. Unsupported GPUs are not shown.
The Devices tab displays the following:
l CUDA Driver - This shows the current CUDA® driver and runtime versions.
l Render - Select GPUs to use for rendering if more than one GPU is installed.
l Use Priority - This shows whether the device will use the priority indicated at the Render Viewport’s
Render Priority setting. The Use Priority option throttles down rendering on one or more GPUs to
improve system responsiveness, especially when rendering on a GPU used for the display.
l Tonemap - Enables the specific GPU to be used for tonemapping.
l Denoise - Enables the specific GPU to be used for denoising.
l Device Info - This shows the selected device's specifications.
l Device Memory Usage - This shows how the video card memory is allocated based on the current
scene's geometry, textures, render target, etc,


Figure 1: Devices tab
The Out-of-Core Settings


The Out-of-core feature allow users to use more textures and geometry than would fit in the graphic memory
(VRAM), by keeping them in the host memory (RAM). The data for rendering the scene needs to be sent to the
GPU1 while rendering so some tradeoff in the rendering speed is expected. This also means that as the CPU
accommodates requests to access the host memory, CPU usage will increase and any RAM occupied with out-
of-core data will not be available to other applications. This holds true also for the slave nodes if OctaneRender
Network Rendering2 feature is deployed. If out-of-core textures are not used, however, the rendering
speed is not affected.
The Out-of-core feature comes with another restriction; Out-of-core data must be stored in non-swappable
memory which is limited. So when the host memory is used up for out-of-core data, bad things will happen
since the system can not make room for other processes. Since out-of-core memory is shared between GPUs,
users also can not turn devices on or off while using the out-of-core feature.
Users can enable and configure the out-of-core memory system via the Application Preferences.
When using Out-Of-Core feature on slave nodes via the Octane Network Rendering Feature, enough RAM is
also required for the slaves. For net render slaves, users can specify the out-of-core memory options during
the installation of the daemon. When specifying this for the slaves, the out of core memory
amount should be entered in bytes, not Gbytes.
For example, if the master is rendering a large scene that has texture climbing up to 6GB, the out of core
memory amount to specify for the slaves during the installation of the slave daemon would look like this:
octane_slave.exe --net-master-address 192.168.xxx.xxx --net-master-port 21000
--out-of-core 6442450944
With the added support for Out of Core Geometry in Octane, a significant portion of the system memory may
be used for geometry data. Multiple GPUs may also be utilized in conjunction with the Out Of Core feature.
The parameter below allows you to balance the level to which textures and geometry data are evicted from
VRAM.
Enable Out-Of Core Data

This is a toggle to enable or disable this feature. When enabled, OOC will only ever be used when
a scene does not fit the VRAM.
2 The utilization of multiple CPUs or GPUs over a network to complete the rendering process.

System RAM Usage Limit [GB]

System RAM usage limit allows you to limit how much system memory Octane will use for out of
core geometry and textures. Once textures or geometry data is placed on this amount of RAM
and the OOC feature kicks in, this specific memory will not be accessible by the Operating Sys-
tem for other tasks.
GPU Head Room [MB]

Users can specify the amount of space reserved for other GPU users. Octane maximizes the
amount of memory up to the headroom limit specified here. Note that GPU memory is faster than
the system memory, therefore GPU Head Room tends to be set to a minimal level since it is prac-
tical to have the maximum amount of texture and geometry data fitted into the GPU VRAM.
The Geometry Import Settings
The Geometry Import preferences can be accessed from the File menu providing greater control of the
importing process by specifying how OctaneRender™ should handle materials, mesh geometry, and animation
on import.
This allows the user to customize the default settings for importing geometry modeled from various 3D applic-
ations. Geometry can either be a mesh represented by a wavefront OBJ file or an animated scene in the form
of alembic files and FBX1 files. If the scene geometry provides application render features such as the Hair fea-
ture, default values for this can be adjusted upon import into OctaneRender. The geometry import settings are
categorized into Alembic2 and Wavefront OBJ.
If the Edit settings before loading new geometry option is enabled, the Geometry Import Settings dialog
will be invoked every time a mesh object or an alembic scene is being loaded. This gives the user a chance to
check these settings and adjust them accordingly prior to loading. The user may prefer to place the settings as
default and disable this option so that the dialog is no longer invoked every time a mesh object or an alembic
scene is being loaded.
1 .fbx (Filmbox) is a proprietary file format developed by Kaydara and owned by Autodesk since 2006. It is
used to provide interoperability between digital content creation applications. As of Octane 3.07, a scene node
will also be available as an FBX file, allowing for quick and easy transport of assets from industry standard DCC
applications
2 An open format used to bake animated scenes for easy transfer between digital content creation tools.

The .OBJ Import Preferences


Length Unit —Tells OctaneRender the unit of measurement used in the geometry. The default unit is in
meters.
Polygon Winding Order —Tells OctaneRender which way to control the polygon normal input in the mesh
node and should be set in a way that the polygon normals align with the vertex normal. This alleviates prob-
lems which occur when the polygon normals are pointing in the opposite directs that the vertex normals (when
face and vertex normal are not aligned) which happens mostly with specular materials and/or when applying
displacement where the vertex/shading normals of displacement triangles are calculated during rendering
using the polygon normals.
Object Layers — This controls how object layer pins are created on the mesh node to control the discrete
objects.
Load Vertex Normals Object Smoothing — Allows the user to set preferences related to geometry
object smoothing including the option to load the vertex normals supplied by the geometry file.
Maximum Smoothing Angle — This sets the smoothing angle (degrees) for calculating Normals. Settting 0
will use the normals in the obj file and anything other than 0 will use that given smoothing angle set in Octane
Standalone to be used to calculate normals for the imported meshes. In any case if Octane has to calculate ver-
tex normals, set the maximum smoothing angle to 89, so it does not smooth straight angles.
Merge Unwelded Vertices — Smoothing and rounded edges requires watertight closed polygons, and like-
wise edges shared between surfaces. This option allows Octane to close polygons that are not watertight.
Mesh optimization may not be appropriate in all cases so this option is off by default.
Default Hair Thickness — This sets the value for the thickness of the polylines specific to hair primitives
which are stored in mesh nodes to simulate Hair render features.
Default Hair Gradient Interpolation — This allows users to specify the basis for the data generated in
applying color progression between colors in the gradient per strand of hair geometry. The interpolation could
either be based on the hair length or on the segment count.

Default Sphere Radius — Octane adapts the OBJ and Alembic standard for particles to import and export
particle sizes. This parameter sets the size for particles imported if Octane cannot locate the size or dimensions
data of the particles on import of the particle geometry.
Subdivide — This allows subdivision surface refinement specifically based on Pixar’s OpenSubDiv imple-
mentation.
Use Adaptive Subdivision — This is an option to use OpenSubdiv in adaptive mode. Note that Octane can
not render bicubic patches so it will render polygons instead. Tesselation will be finer around vertices which do
not have exactly 4 neighbouring faces, and around semi-sharp edges.
Subdivision Level — This allows the user to control the number of times (levels) the original version of the
mesh will be subdivided.
Subdivision Scheme — Users may select one of the OpenSubdiv subdivision scheme class which provides
the methods for computing the various sets of weights used to compute new vertices resulting from sub-
division.
l Catmull-Clark: A uniform refinement is applied to the faces of a mesh. It subdivides the mesh by the
same amount.
l Catmull-Clark (smooth variant): OpenSubdiv Catmull-Clark with a smoothed preview version of
the mesh.
l Loop: Subdivision scheme for triangular meshes where each recursively defined subdivision surface is
divided into smaller ones.
l Bilinear: Subdivision scheme where the limit surface goes through the existing vertices resulting in
only slightly softened edges but no drastic changes in shape.
Subdivision Sharpness — Controls the sharpness values for the crease at a vertex and around a vertex.
Crease sharpness values range from 0 (smooth) to 10 (infinitely sharp).
Vertex Data
Boundary Interpolation — Specifies the rule that control how boundary edges and vertices are inter-
polated.
l None: No boundary edge interpolation should occur; instead boundary faces are tagged as holes so
that the boundary edge-chain continues to support the adjacent interior faces but is not considered to be

part of the refined surface.

l Edge Only: All the boundary edge-chains are sharp creases; boundary vertices are not affected.
l Edge and Corner: All the boundary edge-chains are sharp creases and boundary vertices with
exactly one incident face are sharp corners.
Face-Varying Data
Face-varying data like UVs and Color Sets are used when discontinuities are required in the data over the sur-
face -- mostly commonly the seams between disjoint UV regions. Face-varying data can follow the same inter-
polation behavior as vertex data, or it can be constrained to interpolate linearly around selective features from
corners, boundaries, or the entire interior of the mesh.
Boundary Interpolation — Specifies the rule that control how face-varying data are interpolated.
l None: Bilinear interpolation (no smoothing), or smooth everywhere where the mesh is smooth.
l Corners Only: Sharpen only corners by linear interpolation.
l Edge and Corners: Same as “Corners Only” but does not infer the presence of corners where two
face-varying edges meet at a single face.
l Boundaries: Linear interpolation occurs along all boundary edges and corners
l All: Linear interpolation occurs everywhere in the boundaries and the interior
Propagate Corners — This is an option used only in conjunction with the "Edge and Corner" boundary inter-
polation. If this is enabled, all faces are checked to see if two of its adjacent edges are face-varying boundary
edges (edges incident to a vertex that is on a boundary). If so, those respective boundary edges will infer the
presence of corners. This results in a variation of the “Edge and Corner” boundary interpolation.
Import Smoothing Groups — Allows the user to set preferences related to material smoothing including
the option to load smoothgroups supplied by the geometry file.
Import Materials1 from MTL files — Determines whether OctaneRender imports any materials that were
stored in an MTL file associated to the particular OBJ file.
Import Material2 Types — Allows the user to specify what material types are imported.
Import Image Textures3 — Uses the image textures as specified in the MTL file and allows the user to
determine the data type of imported images providing more flexibility during the setup prior to rendering.
1 A set of attributes or parameters that describe surface characteristics.

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

Import Texture Types — Allows the user to specify what texture types are imported.
Glossy1 SpecularScale — Allows the user to adjust magnitude in which OctaneRender will interpret spec-
ular values in materials generated by 3rd-party applications.
Invert Opacity Values — Added option to invert opacity values because some 3D applications write them
inverted.
Invert Opacity Textures — Added option to invert opacity textures because some 3D applications write
them inverted.
RGB Color — Tells OctaneRender whether RGB colorspace are linear or sRGB.
Note: The reload button only reloads the geometry, users will need to delete the mesh node, change
the setting in the Geometry Import -> Wavefront OBJ tab and then import again.
The Alembic Import Preferences
1 The 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.


Length Unit — Tells OctaneRender the unit of measurement used in the geometry. The default unit is in
meters.
Polygon Winding Order — Tells OctaneRender which way to control the polygon normal input in the mesh
node and should be set in a way that the polygon normals align with the vertex normal. This alleviates prob-
lems which occur when the polygon normals are pointing in the opposite directs that the vertex normals (when
face and vertex normal are not aligned) which happens mostly with specular materials and/or when applying
displacement where the vertex/shading normals of displacement triangles are calculated during rendering
using the polygon normals.
Object Layers — This controls how object layer pins are created on the mesh node to control the discrete
objects.
Load Vertex Normals —Allows the user to set preferences related to geometry object smoothing including
the option to load the vertex normals supplied by the geometry file.
Maximum Smoothing Angle — This sets the smoothing angle (degrees) for calculating Normals. Setting 0
Standalone to be used to calculate normals for the imported meshes. In any case, if Octane has to calculate ver-
applying color progression between colors in the gradient per strand of hair geometry. The interpolation could
either be based on the hair length or on the segment count.

Subdivide — This allows subdivision surface refinement specifically based on Pixar’s OpenSubDiv imple-
mentation.
Use Adaptive Subdivision — This is an option to use OpenSubdiv in adaptive mode. Note that Octane can
not render bicubic patches, so it will render polygons instead. Tesselation will be finer around vertices which do
not have exactly 4 neighbouring faces, and around semi-sharp edges.
Subdivision Level — This allows the user to control the number of times (levels) the original version of the
Subdivision Scheme — Users may select one of the OpenSubdiv subdivision scheme class which provides
division.
same amount.
the mesh.
Subdivision Sharpness — Controls the sharpness values for the crease at a vertex and around a vertex.
Vertex Data
Boundary Interpolation — Specifies the rule that control how boundary edges and vertices are inter-
polated.

Face-Varying Data
l Boundaries: Linear interpolation occurs along all boundary edges and corners
l All: Linear interpolation occurs everywhere in the boundaries and the interior
Import geometry — Option to import the geometry from the Alembic file. This is on by default.
Import cameras — Option to load or not load camera objects from the Alembic file.
Create camera inputs — This option creates inputs for camera parameters which are not loaded from the
Alembic file for the purpose of later camera adjustments in the UI.
Merge materials with same name — Alembic files may represent each application of the same material
(or materials of the same name but of different meshes), this option will merge material representations that
have the same name.
Load object layers — Option to load the scene with object layers and create pins for the object layers.

Detect instances using checksums — Option to treat meshes in the Alembic files with the same check-
sums as instances. For old Alembic files which don’t explicitly store instancing, it is advisable to switch this on.
Subdivide all mesh — This subdivides all meshes in a geometry archive, rather than the ones marked as
subdivided.
The FBX Import Preferences


Length Unit— Tells OctaneRender the unit of measurement used in the geometry. The default unit is in
meters.
Object Layers— This controls how object layer pins are created on the mesh node to control the discrete
objects.
Load Vertex Normals— Allows the user to set preferences related to geometry object smoothing including
the option to load the vertex normals supplied by the geometry file.
Maximum Smoothing Angle — This sets the smoothing angle (degrees) for calculating Normals. Setting 0
Standalone to be used to calculate normals for the imported meshes. In any case if Octane has to calculate ver-
applying color progression between colors in the gradient per str[AB1] and of hair geometry. The interpolation
could either be based on the hair length or on the segment count.
Subdivision Level— This allows the user to control the number of times (levels) the original version of the

Subdivision Scheme— Users may select one of the OpenSubdiv subdivision scheme class which provides
division.
same amount.
the mesh.
Subdivision Sharpness— Controls the sharpness values for the crease at a vertex and around a vertex.
Vertex Data
Boundary Interpolation — Specifies the rule that control how boundary edges and corner vertices are inter-
polated.
Face-Varying Data

l Boundaries: Linear interpolation occurs along all boundary edges and corners.
l All: Linear interpolation occurs everywhere in the boundaries and the interior.
The VDB1 Import Preferences
Import scale — Tells OctaneRender the scale of measurement used in the volume file. The default unit is in
meters.
1 Dreamworks’ open-source C++ library housing the data structures and tools implementation for storing and
manipulating volume data, like smoke and other amorphous materials. The purpose of OpenVDB is mostly to
have an efficient way to store volumetric data in memory and on disk. It has evolved into a more general
toolkit that also lets you accomplish other things, such as fracturing volumes, converting meshes to volumes
and vice versa. However, it does not include a computational fluid dynamics solver, and therefore it cannot pro-
cedurally generate smoke or fire. OpenVDB is fully integrated as a library in OctaneRender. For more inform-
ation about OpenVDB, please see http://www.openvdb.org/.

Levelset Iso-value — Some volume datasets are known as “level sets” and are essentially an encoding to
store a thin “egg-shell” surface. Octane supports loading these volumes with a setting known as the “isovalue”
which allows users to set the thickness of this surface.
VDB Grid Mapping:

The VDB file usually has a grid interface through which voxel data can be managed. This section provides the
utility to map and define the grids in volume node representation (when imported into Octane) to match that of
the grid in the vdb file, which are the:
l Absorption 1 Grid
l Scattering2 Grid
l Emission Grid
Velocity Motion Blur3 — OctaneRender supports importing individual vector components to form velocity
vectors for volume motion blur. This section allows users to load three float channels and have OctaneRender
automatically convert it to a vec3 velocity grid.
The Triangle Limit— The Triangle Limit has been lifted for OctaneRender V3 to roughly about 76 million tri-
angles. Previous versions (OctaneRender v2.x) have this somewhere around 19.6 million triangles.
Note: This specifically pertains to triangles and not polygons, so if the project includes a 5 million poly-
gon scene, this may translate to about 10 million triangles. In the Standalone Edition, there is no facility
that will allow users to increase this limit as the polygon count is fairly dependent on the modelling applic-
ation being the source of the model. In the plugin versions, however, this triangle limit may be adjusted
through the configuration settings integrated in the host application.
Texture Import
1 Defines how fast light is absorbed while passing through a medium.

2 Defines how fast light gets scattered when traveling through the medium.
3 An optical phenomenon that occurs when a camera’s shutter opens and closes too slowly to capture move-
ment without recording a blurring of the subject.

The Texture Import preferences allow you to specify how HDR images should be exported into Octane’s native
image texture nodes. The best choice for the bit depth is usually to match the channel size that is being used for
rendering. In the case of Octane, a 16 bit channel size is used for rendering, thus it imports HDR images as 16-
bit float by default, as this usually saves system memory (RAM) used for HDR textures. However, you have
the choice to have Octane import HDR textures as 32-bit float.
The Automatic option will use the channel size of the file.
Render Passes Export Configuration
This tab provides users to set preferences for render passes and save and/or load those user-defined con-
figurations.

The Embed Octane scene metadata in output image option allows metadata to be exported along with the
resulting images, the metadata may be used for further scene authoring via scripting with other applications
that are part of the Octane ecosystem.

The configuration is stored as a .json file.
The Network Render Settings
The network preferences work a bit different compared to the other settings, as these preferences can only be
edited when Network Rendering1 is disabled. Likewise, any changes on the network preferences are
updated only upon re-enabling Network Rendering. The Cancel button does not really have an effect in this
case. For a detailed overview of Network Rendering with OctaneRender, please refer to the Network Ren-
dering Overview topic.

The Shortcuts Tab

Users may specify shortcuts through the shortcut editor, File -> Preferences -> Shortcuts. All shortcuts
except the render shortcuts are global.


The above shows the initial default keystrokes and those commands that already have a shortcut. However,
these and all other commands in Octane Standalone can actually be configured to be invoked via shortcut key-
strokes.
Show all commands — Enable this option to make all available commands visible. Users may then choose
to configure all commands that are registered in Octane and not only those that already have a shortcut.
To modify an existing shortcut, select it and then press the key combination and then RETURN to set the new
shortcut.
To add a new shortcut, click the "+" button.
To delete a shortcut, select it, press DEL or BACKSPACE to delete the current content and then press RETURN
to confirm.
Note: The Render shortcuts will be processed only if the mouse is over the viewport.

The Modules Tab
This tab provides users access to third-party extensions or small pieces of software called Octane Modules that
add more functionality to OctaneRender. The Octane Modules are created by third-party developers through
Octane’s Module API. This makes way for other companies’ plugins to work with Octane, (i.e., Allegorithmic’s
Substance Source plugin). The term ‘modules” is used in order to avoid confusion with the term plugin which is
already used for integrations of OctaneRender into other 3D modelling host applications.


Working With Files and Geometry
Geometry can be imported into Octane Standalone using a mesh or scene node. An individual mesh object
should be exported from your 3D application using the OBJ file format. This is brought into your Octane scene
using the Geometry > Mesh option. To bring in a scene that contains multiple objects or animation you’ll
want to export as an alembic file (abc) and then import using the Geometry > Scene option.
Once the scene has been imported into Octane it should be connected to the render target. Multiple objects can
be combined using the Group node. If the object needs to be repositioned a placement node should be con-
nected between the object and the render target. The settings within the Placement node can be used to set the
position and a single mesh node can be connected to multiple placement nodes, each with its own settings, to
create many instances of the same object.
To determine how Octane renders OBJ meshes and Alembic1 scenes you can adjust the settings in the Import
tab of the Preferences. These settings can also be accessed for meshes by clicking on the wrench icon in the
Node Inspector when the mesh node is selected. Settings such as units, smoothing, and subdivision are found
in the Import options.
Loading and Saving a Scene

The ORBX2 File Format
Importing and Exporting
Managing Geometry
Loading and Saving a Scene
The OCS is a file format that is native to Octane. This file format stores all the settings relevant to the scene file
so that it can be opened and edited as needed. The OCS file format does not store the geometry, image
2 The 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 inde-
pendent 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.
112 — Working With Files and Geometry

textures, and other external files referenced by the scene, instead the nodes within an OCS file store the paths
to these scene elements. This means that files stored in the OCS format are small in terms of file size and easy
to store and manage. However it also means that links to files referenced by the OCS file can become broken if
the referenced files are moved, renamed, or deleted.
Octane also gives you the option of packaging the scene into the ORBX1 format which is also native to Octane.
ORBX packages all the referenced geometry, image textures, and other scene elements into a single file
format which can be used to move the entire scene easily without having to worry about breaking links to
external files. Working with ORBX files is covered in the article on the ORBX packager.
To save your scene, click on Save As… from the File menu (Figure 1). Use the dialog to choose a location on
your local drive to store the file and give it a unique name.
Figure 1: Use Save as in the File menu to save your Octane scene to your hard drive
To load or reload a scene, click on Open, use the file dialog to navigate to the location of the file on disc, and
select the .ocs file to open.
1 The 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 inde-

You can also drag and drop the OCS file from the folder window directly to the OctaneRender graphic user inter-
face.
Reloading Textures1, Images, and Objects

During the process of working on a scene some textures or objects may need to be reloaded or replaced. At
the top of any Object Node or Image Node the active path to that image or object is displayed. Click on the
load icon to the left of the path to choose a different file while keeping the rest of the scene intact. Click on the
circular arrow icon to reload the object or image (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Use The reload icon in the properties palette to reload objects or images
The ORBX File Format

OctaneRender allows you to create packages containing macro nodes (AKA node graphs) that store your
most used materials, textures, and emission node setups for use in other OctaneRender scenes. An .orbx
package stores all the geometry, materials, animation data, textures and everything else related to the scene
into a single archive file.
This feature replaces the older method of embedding images in .ocs files. Each .orbx package can then be
stored locally or even uploaded to the OctaneLive Database as a shared resource for other Octane users to
access. The .orbx file format can also be exported from applications such as Maya, Cinema 4D, or 3ds Max that
have the Octane plugin installed and licensed. This makes it possible to move scenes and materials from host
applications to Octane Standalone and the Octane Render Cloud.
The Packager and the ORBX File
This article covers exporting .orbx packages from Octane Standalone.
To create a .orbx package choose File > Save as Package.... as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Use the File menu option to save the scene as a ORBX1 package
The Packager stores selected macro nodes into an .orbx archive. The macro can be an entire scene, an indi-
vidual material or texture node setup, or simply a group of selected nodes. The .orbx archive is not com-
pressed so the files can become quite large.
1The 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 inde-

Creating a Node Graph and Storing it as a Package

This section takes you through the basics of creating an .orbx file from a Node Graph.
1. Add a Node Graph node by right- clicking on the Graph Editor and select Node Graph (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Create a Node Graph in the Octane Node editor
2. Build the scene inside the Node Graph by double-clicking the Node Graph node to open up the new tab
labeled Node Graph. Build the scene on the graph within this tab. Figure 3 shows the node graph of the
screws scene shown in Figure 1. Note that the Node Graph can be renamed by selecting it and double-click-
ing on its label in the Node Inspector. You can then type in a descriptive name. The node graph you which to
package can contain any type of Octane node or node graph.

Figure 3: The node graph for the screws scene is built within the Node Graph tab
3. Save the macro node as a Package. When you want to export the node graph choose File > Save as Pack-
age. Use the dialog box to select a location to store the .orbx file on your local drive.

All types of nodes and node groups can be saved to the hard disk as packages, including the connections
between them. The packaged node graph can be an entire scene made up of connected nodes, or a lighting set
up that you'd like to use in other Octane scene, or your favorite Octane materials.
Importing and Exporting
Prior to import, it is necessary to customize the default settings for importing the geometry modeled from vari-
ous 3D applications. This can be done through the OctaneRender’s Preferences > Import Settings tab
(Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Import tab in the Octane preferences
Importing The Scene

To import a scene into OctaneRender, move the mouse over the Graph Editor and right-click on it. This will
bring up the context menu with the node options list. Select Geometry >Scene to import an alembic file,
Geometry > Mesh to import an .obj file, or Geometry > Volume to import a .vdb file. Locate the expor-
ted file using the file dialog box. The scene will then be loaded and voxelized. Note that the appearance of the
file dialog box will differ depending on the operating system used (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Use the context menu on the Octane Graph editor to import scenes, geometry, or
volume files
If the scene has been previously loaded and saved as an .ocs file, select Geometry > Import to load the
.ocs file, this can also be used to load .ocm files which are material macros stored as individual files in the local
drive.
When the scene is loaded, it will be represented by a new node in the Graph Editor. Clicking on this new node
will start the scene rendering in the Render Viewport and will display all the materials associated with the scene
in the Node Inspector. Working with the nodes involves connecting the nodes to materials, camera and render
output nodes.

Each dot shaped connection pin at the top of the geometry node corresponds to a material in that scene. Like-
wise for all nodes, the identification of the node pins can be determined by hovering the mouse over the pin con-
nection (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Hold the mouse over the input pins to reveal the input type
Managing Geometry
Geometry can be imported into Octane standalone using a mesh or scene node. An individual mesh object
should be exported from your 3D application using the OBJ file format. This is brought into your Octane scene
using the Geometry > Mesh option. To bring in a scene that contains multiple objects or animation, you’ll
want to export as an alembic file (abc), and then import using the Geometry > Scene option. Please note
that, as of Octane 3.07, a scene node will also be available as an FBX1 file.
Once the scene has been imported into Octane, it should be connected to the render target. Multiple objects can
be combined using the Group node. If the object needs to be repositioned a placement node should be con-
nected between the object and the render target. The settings within the Placement node can be used to set the
position and a single mesh node can be connected to multiple placement nodes, each with its own settings, to
create many instances of the same object.
To determine how Octane renders OBJ meshes and Alembic2 scenes, you can adjust the settings in the
Import tab of the Preferences. These settings can also be accessed for meshes by clicking on the wrench icon
in the Node Inspector when the mesh node is selected. Settings such as units, smoothing, and subdivision are
found in the Import options.
applications

Figure 1: Managing Geometry is achieved by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor
Support for FBX And glTF

Octane supports loading FBX and glTF files. Both file formats load - similar to Alembic - as a geometry archive,
i.e. a node graph with lots of stuff inside and providing material and object layer input linkers as well as camera
and geometry output linkers.

Although support for bones was added, Octane does not support inverse kinematic (IK) animations. This
means it is necessary to convert any IK Animation to Forward Kinematic (FK) to make the FBX files work in
Octane.
Support for Bone Deformations

To support FBX and glTF, support for bone deformations was also added. Character animations can be stored a
lot more lightweight than if the deformed geometry would need to be baked, as in the case with Alembic.
Bone deformations are set up in the respective source 3D modeling applications, and are actually not editable
via the Octane Node Graph Editor. At this stage, the Bone Deformation node and the Joint node exists only for
the benefit of the FBX and gITF files and potential optimizations in the geometry compilation.
Geometry Group
A Geometry Group is used to collate individual geometry nodes to assemble a scene or parts of the scene. By
default, a Geometry group node has two inputs, and this number of inputs can be increased or decreased.
The Add Input button adds a new geometry input to the end. The Remove Input button removes the last
geometry input.

Object Layer Map
The Object Layer Node provides parameters that control an object’s visibility to the camera. This includes para-
meters to control both the object and the shadows it casts on other geometry around it. This provides a way for
users to modify the object visibility directly in the viewport at render time.
The Object Layer Map is connected to the Geometry Node so that an Object Layer Node can be used.

Material1 Map Nodes and Object Layer Map nodes can also be used to remap materials of FBX2 and Alem-
bic3 archives. Similar to instance nodes, the polygon count does not change substantially.
Material Map Node
The Material4 Map Node takes one geometry input and creates unfilled input pins equal to the number of
materials applied to the original geometry. It is used to for mapping multiple materials applied to each input of
geometry object to the control available in a Material Map Node. It retains the names of the materials used on
the original geometry it is connected to and allows for the connection of new materials on each of its material
input pins. Using a Material Map Node allows the user to retain all the original elements of the mesh or geo-
metry by making the material mapping changes only on the Material Map node.
The material map node can further be used as the input for a Placement node, a Scatter node, or a Geo-
metry Group node.

applications

Figure 1: A Material Map node with multiple materials connected to the input pins
Material Map nodes and Object Layer Map nodes can also be used to remap materials of FBX1 and Alembic2
archives. Similar to instance nodes, the polygon count does not change substantially.
Figure 2: A Material Map node used to remap an Alembic archive
Placement
The Placement node is used to put the geometry object in the right rotation and position via an internal Trans-
form.
applications

Figure 1: The Placement Node
Figure 2: Geometry Placement Node Inspector
The Placement node may be applied to the following:

l Mesh
l Object Layer Map

l Material1 Map
l Scatter Node
l Group Node
l Volume
Transforms
A Transform is the numerical representation of an instance of an Object geometry where the object may be
any of the following:
l Mesh
l Volume
l Placement Node
l Scatter Node
l Group Node
Single Transforms accessed via a Placement node may be applied to a Mesh, a Volume, a preceding Placement
node, or a Group node.
Figure 1: Transform Node Connected to a Placement Node

Figure 2: Result in Viewport of Transform Node Connected to Placement Node
When applied to a Scatter node, the number of transformed instances is virtually unlimited and are represented
as a list of transforms. Refer to the section on Scatter for information about the Scatter node.
Plane
OctaneRender supports infinite planes through the Plane primitive. Infinite planes are useful for working on
scale models allowing the camera to zoom out infinitely. It is applicable in space-expansive scenes like outer
space, oceans, and cityscapes, among others, and makes it possible to see the entire scope of a scene as it sits
on a vast and never ending terrain.

Figure 1: Image of terrain and plane in scene
The Plane primitive is represented by the Plane geometry node and may take a material input. You can add
up to 4 infinite planes to a scene using the Plane geometry node. The UV mapping is aligned with the X/-Z
coordinate axis, but you can also apply a transformation to the object using the Placement/Scatter nodes.
Displacement 1 mapping does not work on infinite planes.
1 The process of utilizing a 2D texture map to generate 3D surface relief. As opposed to bump and normal map-
ping, Displacement mapping does not only provide the illusion of depth but it effectively displaces the actual
geometric position of points over the textured surface.

Figure 2: Image of Plane in the Nodegraph
Scatter
The Scatter node creates multiple instances of its input. In this context it is important not to confuse the scat-
tering geometry node with the scattering medium node.
The power of the Scatter node is that it is extremely efficient and its possible to load an almost unlimited num-
ber of instances into OctaneRender. This is perfect for working with scenes that have large numbers of trees,
gravel, buildings, and other objects. Figure 1 shows a scene that uses Scatter nodes to place rocks and plants.

Figure 1: Scatter nodes are used to place a large number of rocks and trees
To use this feature, the original geometry that will be instanced must be imported into OctaneRender along
with a file that contains the data of each transform matrix that represents the linear transformation of each of
the instances. The resulting data in the Scatter node is a long list of values that tells OctaneRender how and
where to place each individual instance. The transform matrices (or “transforms” may be contained in a special
CSV file. These files are usually generated using plugins or scripts and a 3D app such as Maya or 3ds Max.
The scene in Figure 2 was created using the 3ds Max scatter plugins MultiScatter from iCube R&D, and Forest
Pack from iToo Software.
Using the Scatter Node

The first step is to set up the scene in the host 3d application (3ds Max, Maya, C4D, etc.) then use a particle sys-
tem or plugin to arrange the instances in the scene. Then export the instanced geometry (a single rock, tree,
blade of grass, etc.) as well as the CSV file which contains the transform of each instance.
In OctaneRender, the original mesh needs to be imported and then a Scatter node needs to be added to the
scene (Figure 2).

.
Figure 2: Add the Scatter node to the OctaneRender scene
The Instanced geometry is then connected to the Scatter node (Figure 3).
Figure 3: A Scatter node is connected to an imported Geometry node
Select the Scatter node and take a look at its attributes in the Node Inspector. Click on the drawer icon in the
upper left of the Scatter parameters and use the file browser to locate the CSV file exported from the host
application. Once this is connected the instanced geometry will be scattered throughout the scene (Figure 4).

Figure 4: The CSV file places instances of the teapot geometry throughout the scene
How Octane Reads A Single Transform

Each coordinate in a Scatter node represent the first three rows of a transformation matrix (the fourth is always
[0, 0, 0, 1]). Each coordinate therefore has 12 float values from a transform matrix and then a 13th value is
added to specify the Instance ID for that coordinate. The value for the Instance ID is user-defined, and this
may automatically be provided by the integrated plugins, or generated by a lua script, or explicitly placed by
the user through the transforms parameter of the scatter node or via a csv file. If there is no value provided for
the Instance ID, as in earlier versions of Octane (3.06.x), the Instance ID will be set to -1 by default.

For example the transform matrix for a 30° rotation around the Z axis looks like this:
The coordinate in the Scatter node should contain these 13 values:
For a translation:
The scatter node will contain these 13 values: 1 0 0 tx 0 1 0 ty 0 0 1 tz -1
As the elements in the transform matrix changes, each change will represent an individual transform. All the
transforms then have to be exported from modeling applications. The CSV file then needs to be loaded into the
Scatter node. Prior to loading the CSV file into OctaneRender, note the differences between the acceptable csv
structures for versions of OctaneRender.
The Evolution of Scatter Data in CSV Files

Users may format their own csv files so that these may be used for assigning Instance IDs to each of the Trans-
forms.

From v3.07, an enhanced CSV structure for the Scatter node is introduced to accommodate user-defined
Instance IDs set for each instance in a scatter node. The earlier structure is also supported however the
Instance IDs will be set to -1 in the older structure.
CSV structure version 1 (used in Octane v3.06.x and earlier versions): A Transform is generated from every 12
float values in the file.
Figure 6: Used in Octane V3.06.x and earlier versions, a CSV file containing four transforms
CSV structure version 2 (used in OctaneRender v3.07): Each row that represents a single Transform in
OctaneRender still has the 12 float values with one float value per column. However, this time it is required that
a header should be placed for each column and then a 13th column called “ID” should also be placed. Figure 7
shows a CSV file with 13 columns named M00, M01, M02, M03, M10, M11, M12, M13, M20, M21, M22, M23 and
ID.
Each header name, from M00 to M23, suggests that these are the float values that represents each necessary
element of the transform matrices. Each row is then used to regenerate each of the transforms in Octane and
the 13th column, called ID, is used to assign the user Instance ID for the transform represented by that row.
The data should be separated by a comma, tab or space.
Figure 7: Used in OctaneRender V3.07.x, a CSV file containing four transforms and the user
Instance ID per transform
Scene
Scene stands for the alembic scene. OctaneRender can import rigid body animations from alembic files.

To do this, either drag and drop the file into OctaneRender’s Graph Editor pane or create a Geometry >
Scene node in the Graph Editor to import an alembic file. If an alembic file is loaded directly, this will be the
raw scene from the modelling application excluding the materials. Loading an alembic file will load the geo-
metry’s animated vertices, animated transforms and also the camera paths.
Import settings for the alembic scene may be adjusted:
Figure 1: Import Settings for the alembic scene
When an alembic file is loaded in the Graph Editor, the time slider becomes visible along the Render Viewport
controls.
Figure 2: Screenshot of the Time Slider
Users may reload the alembic file if changes were made to it and re-exported into OctaneRender.
The alembic file may also contain one or more camera paths. A camera path should be connected to the cam-
era pin of the a RenderTarget node to make the octanecamera move along this camera path. The scale of the
scene can also be adjusted via a placement node in OctaneRender.

Figure 3: Modifying the Camera using the Placement Node
To modify materials used in the alembic scene, click on the alembic scene node on the Graph Editor to invoke
the node’s parameters at Node Inspector Pane and click on the Edit Settings Icon specifically within these
parameters.
Using Instances

Instancing1 an object means taking a single imported mesh object, such as an OBJ or an FBX2 , and then
making multiple copies, each of which can be placed in different parts of the scene. This saves an enormous
1 Instancing an object means taking a single imported mesh object, such as an OBJ or an FBX and making mul-
tiple copies, each of which can be placed in different parts of the scene. This saves an enormous amount of
computational resources because only a single object is loaded into the scene.
applications

amount of computational resources because only a single object is loaded into the scene. The relative position,
rotation and scale of each instance can then be altered by specifying parameters using a Placement node.
The Placement node creates the instance of its input geometry and any number of placement nodes can be con-
nected to a single piece of geometry. The instances can then be re positioned throughout the scene using the
Position node's translate, scale, and rotate parameters.
A Geometry Group node can be used to group all of the instances which is then connected to the Render
Target to be rendered in the scene. Geometry Group nodes can also be instanced using Placement nodes.
Instancing Example
To instance an object first use the pop-up menu in the node graph to load in a geometry file using a Mesh node
(Figure 1).

Figure 1: Use the pop-up menu to import a mesh object
Next add a placement node to the scene as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Add a Placement node to the scene
Connect the output of the Mesh node to the input of the Placement node, then connect the Placement node to
the Render Target as shown on the left side of Figure 3. You can copy and paste the Placement node to make
several instances of the Mesh node as shown on the right side of Figure 3.

Figure 3: Connect the mesh node to the Placement node (left). Copy and paste the Place-
ment node to make instances (right)
The Render Target node has a single input for the geometry, so the instances must be grouped. Use the pop-up
menu to create a Group node (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Add a Group node to the scene
To group all of the Placement nodes you'll need to add inputs to the Geometry group node. To do this, select
the Geometry group node and click on the Add input button in the Node Inspector (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Click on the Add input button to add input pins to the node
Add as many input nodes as you need to accommodate the instances created by the Placement nodes. To place
the instances in the scene use the Rotate, Scale, and Translate settings in the Node Inspector for each Place-
ment nodes (Figure 6).
Figure 6: The parameters for the Placement node
Rotation - is used to rotate the instance of the mesh on a specified axis.
Scale - is used to scale the instance of the mesh on a specified axis. To scale an instance in a non-uniform way
press the padlock button to unlock the three scale axis.
Translation – is used to move the instance of the mesh on a specified axis.

Figure 7 shows a graph of the geometry group, and Figure 8 shows the result after the translate, rotate, and
scale settings for each placement node has been adjusted.
Figure 7: The graph of the Placement nodes and Geometry group

Figure 8: The geometry is instanced and positioned using Placement nodes
To assign a different material to the instance add a Material1 Map node between each mesh node and the
Placement node, materials can then be connected to the Material map as shown in Figure 9. The Material map
node is found in the Geometry section of the pop-up menu. Figure 9 shows an example of different materials
applied to the instances. The Material map node overrides any materials applied to the original mesh object.

Figure 9: The Material Map node can be used to assign materials to instances of the geo-
metry
Vectron
Vectron (Vector-Polygon) is a Procedural uber primitive, providing infinite procedurally-generated scenes,

volumes, and geometry, which bypass meshes and volumes.

Vectrons have zero-memory footprints, driving increased efficiencies when compared to meshes or volumes
generated on CPUs. This enables Vectron to provide procedurally-generated scenes on the GPU1 without
using VRAM. Vectron provides tools in your workflow, and it helps render triangle-free geometry with
OctaneRender's built-in OSL (Open Shader Language2 ) support and OSL texture shaders.
Procedural primitives using OSL vector geometry nodes let you create complex shapes, surfaces, volumes,
warps, operators, and effects. By vectorizing meshes and volumes into Vectron objects, you can manipulate
Vectron nodes in new ways. Examples include: spheres, strands, sound waves, infinite planes, liquids,
clouds, oceans, flow field, and more.
Geometric Operators allow the Procedural OSL geometry node graph's workflow to follow the same struc-
ture as OSL texture node graphs with 4D mixing, blending, and boundary operator nodes for skinning,
Metaballs, and procedural resurfacing. Boolean operations are also enabled in Vectrons.
To start using the Vectron primitive, click on Geometry , then select Vectron to create a Vectron in the
Graph Editor (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Creating a Vectron node in the Graph Editor
2 A shading language developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks. There are multiple render engines that utilize
OSL as it is particularly suited for physically-based renderers.

The initial Vectron node generates a Sphere object with four default pins:
l Geometry Material1 - Material for the Vectron object.
l Bounds - Bounds of the Procedural geometry in meters. These affect the geometry's shape, since they
calculate pixels that can appear within those bounds in the XYZ plane. Bounds values that are less than
the radius are cut off (Figure 2).
l Radius - The Vectron's radius.
l Translate - The Vectron object's translation.
Figure 2: Bound values
The Vectron node has an OSL script with the following lines of code:
#include <octane-oslintrin.h>
shader Vectron(
float radius = 1 [[float min = 0, float slidermax = 1e4,

float sliderexponent = 4]],
vector translate = 0,
output _sdf out = _SDFDEF)

out.dist = distance(P, translate) - radius;
To edit the OSL script, select the node from the Node Graph Editor window, and then click the Open In
Editor icon in the Node Inspector window (Figure 3). Then recompile the script to view the new shape of
the Vectron object (Figure 4), and manipulate the new node's attributes generated by the script.
Figure 3: The Open In Editor icon
Figure 4: The Compile icon

Figure 5: A Vectron node with a modified OSL script
You can download the example of the Vectron node in Figure 5 to see it in action here: VectronSphere.orbx
You can also download a collection of Vectron examples here: Fun_With_Vectron (4).orbx
Applications Of The Vectron Primitive And SDF Surfaces

OctaneRender® will render defined SDF surfaces using OSL shaders without the need to convert them to a
mesh first. You can change the surfaces with input variables without having to wait for any processing, and you

can also create networks of set operations such as unions, subtractions, intersection, and their smooth variants
- none of which need to be meshed before rendering, and all compiled using OSL.
Figure 6: Example of OSL shaders with input variables to manipulate the shape of Vectron
objects

Figure 7: Example a more complex network of set operations (unions, subtractions, inter-
section, and their smooth variants)

Figure 8: Samples from shadertoy being fed into the OSL vectron geometry node
Figure 9: An example of an SDF smooth union with a Mix material1 implemented as part of
the union
1Used to mix any two material types.

Volume SDF
The Volume SDF node acts as a placeholder for volume geometry (.vdb). It is different from a simple
Volume node, which depends on traditional triangulated volumetric shaders. The Volume SDF node rebuilds a
Signed Distance Field (SDF) based on the surface level sets defined in the .vdb file, and recreates the math-
ematical description of the geometry instead.
The new Volume SDF takes the same resolution as the original volume, but these can feed into OSL shaders,
which can allow the Volume SDF to take on an infinite resolution and even appended with procedural effects
(Figure 3).
To use the Volume SDF node, right-click on the Nodegraph Editor, then click on Geometry, followed by
VolumeSDF. This invokes the operating system's File Explorer to let you select and import the volume .vdb
file as a Volume SDF in OctaneRender®.

Figure 1: Adding the Volume SDF node to the scene

Figure 2: Comparison of the original Volume node and the Volume SDF node

Figure 3: A modified OSL texture node that adds procedural effects to level set surfaces
Applications of SDF Surfaces and the Vectron Primitive
Figure 4: An example of an SDF smooth union with a material mix implemented as part of
the union

OctaneRender® will render SDF surfaces defined using OSL shaders without the need to first convert them to a
mesh. You can change the surfaces with input variables without having to wait for any processing, and you can
also create networks of set operations such as unions, subtractions, intersection, and their smooth variants -
none of which need to be meshed before rendering, and all are compiled using OSL.
Figure 5: Example of OSL shaders with input variables to manipulate the shape of Vectron
objects

Figure 6: Example a more complex network of set operations (unions, subtractions, inter-
section, and their smooth variants)
You can download the example of the VolumeSDF Node in Figure 4 here: sdf-union-material4.orbx

The Script Menu
The Script menu contains some pre-coded scripts which are ready to use. If nedeed, you can also improve
these scripts through Octane's LUA script editor or any text editor.
Figure 1: The Script Menu items.
Turntable Animation Script
The Turntable Animation script is used to automatically render out images that are later pieced
together to form a turntable animation. You'll need to supply the animation settings.
163 — The Script Menu

Figure 2: The Tirntable Animation settings window.
The Duration and number of Frames are directly associated such that these will re-adjust when
the other is changed. The shutter speed creates the motion blur effect, it specifies the shutter
time percentage relative to the duration of a single frame. Shutter Time controls how much time
the shutter stays open. You can set this parameter to any value above 100%.

Figure 3: In the example above, 50 frames is specficed after which the rendered
images are saved into the output directory specified.
Lua Scripting In Octane
Lua1 scripting in OctaneRender allows user to create their own scripts to automate workflows or augment cer-
tain procedures. Animation scripts store their settings per project instead of globally in the applications set-
tings.
The script Editor is used to create, edit and save new scripts or open existing scripts for editing.
Detailed documentation about the available API modules is provided through the Lua API browser, the doc-
umentation is also available as an HTML page via our HTML documentation script page.
For those who are new to Lua, check out Programming in Lua online: http://www.lua.org/pil/contents.html.
Below are practical facts about Lua Scripting2 in OctaneRender:

l The Lua script output scrolls automatically when more text is printed.
l The Lua editor displays line numbers.
l Uses of the Lua API:
l basic animation support, so camera motion blur can be set from LUA
l Tables with all available node types, pin types etc.
l disconnecting nodes
l Root graph creation, so scripts can create and render nodes without changing the current project
l Windows created with Lua automatically pop up to the front.
l Users are prompted to save the current script upon exiting OctaneRender
l The Lua output can be copied to the clipboard.

Using the LUA API Browser
The Octane API exposes a single table called octane. You can find this table in the documentation as the Octane
module.
The octane table contains all the other modules such as octane.gui which is the gui module in the API browser.
Now let’s have a closer look at the gui module. The Members column lists three kinds of items: Functions, Prop-
erties, and Constants.
The items listed under Constants are other tables which, in turn, contain constants which can be used as func-
tion arguments. All these values can be seen listed in the Description column. So octane.gui.componentType is
a table, and octane.gui.componentType.BUTTON is the number 2:

All the constants listed in the octane module are a special case because these are also available directly in the
octane table itself. Therefore both octane.attributeId.A_COLOR and octane.A_COLOR are the number 28:

The items under Functions describe all the functions in a module. The create item describes a function in the gui
module, the function call looks like this: octane.gui.create(table). Functions in Lua have a number of para-
meters and a number of return values, this one is simple: it has one parameter, and one return value.

The description of parameters and return values follows the following pattern: it gives the type, and some
name (this can be a user-defined arbitrary name in the user script). The single parameter is listed as table
PROPS_GUI_COMPONENT, so it should get a table as argument. The name is chosen to refer to an item under
Properties below. The return value is listed as being a component. This is a custom type defined by Octane.
The items under Properties are different, these are not actually present in the API, but these are descriptions of
information that have to be sent to a function, or information that have to be returned from a function.

A lot of functions in the Lua API Browser return a table. For example, using octane.gui.getProperties to get the
properties of a GUI component returns a table containing information about the object that has just been cre-
ated. The contents of the table depends on the type of the component, but it is described by one of the items
here. if you create a slider you will get a table with information described by the PROPS_GUI_SLIDER item. You
can also find all the other component types here.

A lot of functions also take a single argument which is a table. octane.gui.create is such a function. These tables
are also described here. For this function these are the same descriptions as the ones returned from
octane.gui.getProperties.
Simultaneously pressing <CTRL> key + F key while in the LUA API browser invokes the Search Dialog, which
is used to quickly find and select nodes and dynamic pins that contain the entered search string.


Materials
There are nine types of materials in OctaneRender that can be applied to surfaces to achieve a variety of sur-
face appearances and rendering effects.
l Diffuse1 - Used for rough, non-reflecting materials, as well as light emitting meshes.
l Glossy2 - Used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals.
l Metallic - Similar to the Glossy material3 except, by default, it exhibits more metal-like char-
acteristics.
l Mix - Used to mix any two material types.
l Portal4 - Used to designate openings in scenes to allow the render kernel to better sample light from
those areas.
l Specular5 - Used for transparent materials such as glass and water.
l Toon - Used to design hand-drawn looking surfaces.
l Toon Ramp - Controls shading on the model. To use this material, you also need to use Toon lighting
in the scene.
l Universal - Brings substance maps and PBR6 outputs into OctaneRender.
OctaneRender materials can be accessed by right-clicking in the Nodegraph editor and navigating to the
Materials7 category (Figure 1). Choose one of the materials and click in the graph to add the materiel to an
OctaneRender scene. Once added, it can be connected to a Mesh node and edited to simulate the desired sur-
face quality.
1 Amount 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.
3 Used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals.
4 A technique that assists the render kernel with exterior light sources that illuminate interiors. In interior ren-
derings 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.
5 Amount of specular reflection, or the mirror-like reflection of light photons at the same angle. Used for trans-
parent materials such as glass and water.
6 A contemporary shading and rendering process that seeks to simplify shading characteristics while providing
a more accurate representation of lighting in the real world.
173 — Materials
Figure 1: Material1 nodes can be added directly to the node graph from the
Materials section of the pop-up menu
Select a Material in an OctaneRender scene

There are several ways to select a material node to an OctaneRender scene. Once selected, the parameters of
the material can be edited in the Node inspector window.
1The representation of the surface or volume properties of an object.
174 — Materials
A material in the OctaneRender scene can be selected by clicking on the material node in the Scene Outliner
as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Material nodes can be selected in the Outliner
Another way to select a material is to select the Mesh Node and then locate the material in the Node
Inspector (Figure 3).
175 — Materials
Figure 3: Access a material's parameters by selecting the associated mesh and

opening the Node Editor
You can also select a material by choosing the Material Picker and selecting the associated mesh in the
Render Viewport (Figure 4).
176 — Materials
Figure 4: Use the Material Picker to select materials directly in the Render View-
port
Diffuse Material
The Diffuse1 material is used for dull, non-reflecting materials or light emitting surfaces. Diffuse material2
simulates a rough surface that reflects light back into the environment in all directions. Specular3 highlights
and reflections do not appear on diffuse surfaces.
2 Used for dull, non-reflecting materials or mesh emitters.
177 — Materials
Figure 1: The OctaneRender® Diffuse material
Diffuse Material Parameters
l Diffuse- Provides color to the material. This is also known as base color or albedo. You can set Diffuse
color by using a value, or connecting a texture (Procedural or Image).
l Roughness - Determines the spread of highlights on the surface. A high Roughness value or light color
can simulate very rough surfaces such as sand paper or clay. You can set Roughness using a value, or
by connecting a texture (procedural or image-based). A roughness value of 1 (white color) creates a dif-
fuse sheen along the edges of the surface, simulating the look of crushed velvet.
l Bump- Creates fine details on the material’s surface using a Procedural or Image texture. Typically a
Greyscale image texture connects to this parameter - light areas of the texture give the appearance of
protruding bumps, and dark areas create the appearance of indentation. You can adjust the strength of
the bump map by setting the Power or Gamma1 values on the Image texture node. These attributes
are covered in more detail under the Texture category.
l Normal- Creates the look of fine detail on the surface. A Normal map is a special type of image texture
that uses red, green, and blue color values to perturb the normals of the surface at render time, thus giv-
ing the appearance of added detail. They can be more accurate than Bump maps, but require specific
software, such as ZBrush®, Mudbox ®, Substance Designer, xNormalTM , or others to generate. To load
1 The function or attribute used to code or decode luminance for common displays. The computer graphics
industry has set a standard gamma setting of 2.2 making it the most common default for 3D modelling and ren-
dering applications.
178 — Materials
a full color Normal map, set the Normal channel to the RGB Image data type. Note that Normal maps
take precedence over Bump maps, so you cannot use a Normal map and a Bump map at the same time.
l Displacement 1- Adjusts the height of the vertices of a surface at render time using a texture map. Dis-
placement maps differ from Bump or Normal maps in that the geometry is altered by the texture, as
opposed to just creating the appearance of detail. Displacement mapping is more computationally
expensive than using a Bump or Normal map, but the results are more realistic, especially along the sil-
houette of the surface. Displacement only works with the Texture Image node, and the displaced
mesh must have UV Texture coordinates. Other OctaneRender Texture nodes, such as Turbulence
or Marble, will not work with Displacement. Displacement mapping is covered in more detail under the
Texture Overview category.
l Opacity- Determines which parts of the surface are visible in the render. Dark values indicate trans-
parent areas, and light values indicate opaque areas. Values in between light and dark create the look
of semi-transparent areas. You can lower the opacity value to fade the overall visibility of an object, or
you can use a Texture map to vary the opacity across the surface. For example, if you want to make a
simple polygon plane look like a leaf, you would connect a black-and-white image of the leaf’s silhouette
to the Opacity channel of the Diffuse shader. When using an Image texture map, set the Data Type
to Alpha Image if the image has an alpha channel, or Grayscale Image for black-and-white
images, to load an image for setting the transparency. To invert the transparency regions, use the
image's Invert checkbox.
l Smooth- Smooths out the transition between surface normals. If this option is disabled, the edges
between the polygons of the surface appear sharp, giving the surface a faceted look. If this option is
enabled, then the edges between the polygons blend together.
l Rounded Edges Radius- This parameter automatically bevels the edges of the surface at render
time, without the need to alter or subdivide the geometry. Using this option enhances the realism of
objects by eliminating overly sharp edges. The value refers to the radius of the rounded edge - higher
values for this setting produce rounder edges.
l Transmission 2- Uses a color or texture that is mixed with the material’s Diffuse color, and is most
noticeable in areas affected by indirect lighting.
l Medium- OctaneRender has three types of mediums to create translucent surfaces:
o Absorption 3 Medium- Produces the appearance of a material that absorbs light while passing
through a surface. The resulting color depends on the distance that light travels through the
material. The Texture Overview category provides more detail about Absorption.
o Scattering4 Medium- Similar to the Absorption medium, but with an additional option for sim-
ulating subsurface scattering. Subsurface scattering is the phenomena that gives human skin and
2 A surface characteristic that determines if light may pass through a surface volume.
179 — Materials
similar organic surfaces their characteristic glow under certain lighting conditions. It's a major
component for creating the look of realistic skin. The Texture Overview category provides more
detail about scattering.
o Volume Medium 1 - Adds color and other qualities to a VDB2 file. VDBs are a generic volume
format for creating effects such as smoke, fog, vapor, and similar gaseous objects. VDBs can
consist of a single frame, or an animated sequence. 3D software packages like Houdini generate
and export VDBs. You can also download VDB files at http://www.openvdb.org/download/.
l Emission- Also known as a Mesh emitter, this creates a surface that emits light. To activate an emis-
sion, connect the Emission input of the Diffuse material to either a Blackbody or a Texture emission
map. The Textures3 Overview and the Mesh Emitters (under Lighting Overview) categories cover
maps in more detail.
l Shadow Catcher4- Converts the material into a Shadow Catcher, which is only visible in areas that
are in shadows. All other areas are transparent in the render.
Glossy Material
The Glossy5 material is used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals.
1 A shading system designed to render volumes such as smoke and fog.

4 The 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 vary-
ing shapes.
180 — Materials
Figure 1: The OctaneRender® Glossy material1
Glossy Material Parameters
l Diffuse2- Gives the material its color, which is referred to as base color or albedo. You can set Diffuse
color by using a value, or by connecting a texture (procedural or image-based).
l Specularity- Determines the intensity for specular reflections on the surface. This parameter accepts
color, values, or textures. In most cases, specular highlights are white or colorless. However, to sim-
ulate metallic surfaces, you should tint the specular color using a color similar to the Diffuse parameter,
like the bright yellow-orange highlights seen on a polished copper kettle. A Glossy node with a black Dif-
fuse color, a Roughness of 0, and an Index of 0 produces a perfect mirror (Figure 2).
l BRDF Model- The BRDF (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function) determines the amount of
light that a material reflects when light falls on it. For Glossy materials, you can choose from four BRDF
models. Specific geometric properties (the micro-facet distribution) of the surface affects each BRDF,
which describes the surface's microscopic shape (i.e. micro-facet normals) and scales the brightness of
the BRDF's reflections. Refer to the topic on BRDF Models for more information.
1Used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals.

181 — Materials
Beckmann
Octane 3.07
Ward
GGX
Figure 24: The four BRDF Models applicable to Glossy materials
l Roughness - Determines how much Specular1 reflection spreads across the surface - also known as
reflection blur. This parameter accepts a value, color, or texture map (Procedural or Image). A value
of 0 simulates a perfect, smooth reflective surface like a mirror. Increasing the value simulates micro-
facets in the surface, which causes reflective highlights to spread. To create a worn plastic look,
increase the Roughness value.
182 — Materials
l Anisotropy - Controls the material's reflectance uniformity. Reflectance changes based on surface ori-
entation or rotation is anisotropic. If the reflectance is uniform in all directions and doesn't change based
on the surface's orientation or rotation, then it is isotropic. This parameter's default value is 0, which
sets the metallic material as isotropic. Non-zero values mean the material exhibits anisotropic reflect-
ance, where -1 is horizontal and 1 is vertical.
Figure 35: Anisotropic roughness exemplified in materials like brushed metal

l Rotation- The rotation of the anisotropic Specular reflection channel.
l Sheen- The material's sheen color.
l Sheen Roughness- Roughness channel for the sheen present on Metallic and Glossy materials.
l Index of Refraction- Determines the reflection strength on the surface based on Fresnel's law. With
a value greater than 1, reflection is strongest on the surface parts that turn away from the viewer's
angle (grazing angles), while the reflection appears weaker on the surface parts perpendicular to the
viewing angle. This results in a more realistic-looking surface. With a value lower than 1, the Fresnel
effect is disabled, and the reflection color appears as a uniform color across the highlight. The Specular
channel's color determines the reflective highlight's color.
In the following examples, the six balls have a roughness of 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0 (left to right) and
only the Specular value and Index of Refraction parameters are modified for each rendered image (see
Figure 3).
183 — Materials
184 — Materials
Figure 43: Spheres rendered using different settings for specular and index
l Bump- Creates fine details on material surfaces using a Procedural or Image texture. When you con-
nect a Grayscale image texture to this parameter, light areas appear as protruding bumps, and dark
areas appear as indentations. You can adjust the Bump map strength by setting the Power or
Gamma1 values on the Grayscale image texture node. The Texture Overview category covers these
attributes in more detail.
l Normal- Creates the look of fine detail on the surface. A Normal map is a special type of image texture
software, such as ZBrush®, Mudbox ®, Substance Designer, xNormalTM , or others to generate. to load
l Displacement 2- Adjusts surface vertices' height at render time using a Texture map. Displacement
maps differ from Bump or Normal maps by having the texture alter the geometry, as opposed to cre-
ating the appearance of detail on the surface. Displacement mapping is more computationally expens-
ive than Bump or Normal mapping, but results are more realistic, especially along the surface
silhouette. The Texture Overview category covers Displacement mapping in more detail.
l Opacity- Determines what surface parts are visible in the render. Dark values indicate transparent
areas, and light values indicate opaque areas. Values between light and dark create the look of semi-
transparent areas. You can lower the Opacity value to fade the object's overall visibility, or you can use
a Texture map to vary the surface's opacity. For example, if you want to make a simple polygon plane
look like a leaf, you connect a black-and-white image of the leaf's silhouette to the Diffuse shader's Opa-
city channel. When you use an Image texture map, set the Data type to Alpha image if the image has
an alpha channel, or Grayscale image for black-and-white images, to load an image for setting trans-
parency. Use the image's Invert checkbox to invert the transparency regions.
l Smooth- Smooths out the transition between surface normals. When disabled, the edges between sur-
face polygons appear sharp, giving the surface a faceted look. when enabled, the edges between poly-
gons blend together.
l Rounded Edges Radius- Bevels the surface edges automatically at render time, without the need to
alter or subdivide the geometry. This option enhances object realism by eliminating sharp edges.
Higher values produce rounder edges.
l Film Width- Simulates the look of thin film material on a surface, like creating a rainbow color effect
185 — Materials
that appears on an oil slick's surface. Larger values increase the effect's strength.
l Film IOR- Controls the film Index of Refraction. This option adjusts the visible colors in the film.
Metallic Material
Metallic materials are highly reflective materials that have colored reflections (highlights) that come off at dif-
ferent wavelengths and its reflections are propagated by a full color specular map.
Figure 1: Metallic materials have full-colored reflections
OctaneRender has a Glossy1 material node, which by default emulates a diffuse surface with a clear coat.
This works well for plastics. A Metallic material works similar to a Glossy material2 , but the way the chan-
nels are combined is more suitable to model metals.
2 Used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals.
186 — Materials
Figure 2: Left: without Fresnel effect; Right: with Fresnel effect
187 — Materials
Figure 3: The attributes the Metallic Material1 Node
188 — Materials
Attributes of the Metallic Material Node
Diffuse1
This is the diffuse texture for the reflection channel.
Specular2 Color
This is the specular reflection channel which determines the metallic color. If the index of reflection is set to a
value > 0, then the brightness of this color is adjusted so it matches the Fresnel equations.
Specular Map
This controls the blend between the diffuse and metallic reflection. The metal node has a diffuse and a specular
channel. The mix between those two channels is explicitly controlled via a third texture input, usually called a
specular map.
Figure 4: From left to right: Specular only, Specular and Diffuse with Specular map, visu-
alisation of the Specular map
BRDF Model (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function)

The BRDF is a function that determines the amount of light reflected from a material when light falls on it. For
Metallic materials, there are four applicable BRDF Models to choose from. Each BRDF is effected by a specific
189 — Materials
geometric property - the microfacet distribution - of the surface which describes the microscopic shape (i.e.
microfacet normals) of that surface and serves as a function to scale the brightness of the reflections in the
BRDF. Refer to the topic on BRDF Models for more information.
Beckmann
Octane 3.07
Ward
GGX
Figure 5: The four BRDF Models applicable to Metallic materials
Roughness
This refers to the roughness of the Specular reflection channel.
190 — Materials
Anisotropy
This controls the uniformity of the material’s reflectance. If the reflectance changes based on the orientation or
the rotation of the surface, it is said to be Anisotropic. And likewise, if the reflectance is uniform in all dir-
ections and does not change based on the orientation or the rotation of the surface, it is said to be Isotropic.
By default, this attribute is 0, and sets the Metallic material initially as Isotropic. Non-zero values mean that the
material will exhibit Anisotropic reflectance, where -1 is horizontal and 1 is vertical.
Rotation
This refers to the rotation of the anisotropic specular reflection channel.
Sheen
This is the color of the subtle lustre on the surface of the material.
Sheen Roughness
This is the roughness channel for the sheen that is present on metallic and glossy materials.
IOR Mode
This controls the Complex IOR settings of the Metallic material. By default, metals use the Schlick approx-
imation for the Fresnel effect. For a more precise falloff, a complex IOR can be entered (commonly known as n
and k values). When a complex IOR is set up, the metallic color will get scaled so the brightness matches the
Fresnel falloff for that IOR.
191 — Materials
Figure 7: Left: Chrome (n = 2.710, k=4.178); right: Aluminum (n = 0.930, k=6.294)
Metallic Reflection Mode

This changes how the reflectivity is calculated.
l Artistic - Uses only the Specular color.
l IOR + color - uses the Specular color and adjusts the brightness using the IOR.
l RGB IOR - uses only the three IOR values (for 650nm, 550nm and 450 nm) and ignores
the Specular color.
Index of Refraction
Complex-valued index of refraction (n-k*i) controlling the Fresnel effect of the specular reflec-
tion where n is the refractive index and k is the attenuation or extinction coefficient. For RGB
mode, the IOR for red light (650nm).
Index of Refraction (green)

For RGB mode, the IOR for red light (550nm).
Index of Refraction (blue)

For RGB mode, the IOR for red light (450nm).
192 — Materials
Bump
This is the Bump channel, which is used to simulate a relief using a greyscale texture interpreted as a height
map.
Normal
This is the Normal channel, which is used to distort normals based on an RGB image.
Displacement 1
This is the Displacement channel, which is used to create highly detailed geometry with a low memory foot-
print.
Opacity
This is the Opacity channel, which controls the transparency of the toon material via greyscale texture.
Smooth
This is a boolean value to enable or disable normal interpolation. If normal interpolation is disabled, triangle
meshes will appear faceted.
Rounded Edges Radius

This is the radius of the rounded edges that are rendered as a shading effect.
Film Width
Film Width simulates the look of a thin film of material on the surface. This is useful when you want to create an
effect such as the rainbow colors that appear on the surface of an oil slick. Larger values increase the strength
of the effect.
Film IOR
193 — Materials
The Film IOR controls the Index of Refraction of the thin film, use this option to adjust the colors visible in the
film.
194 — Materials
Mix Material
The Mix material mixes any two material types, including other Mix materials1 . It accepts any two material
nodes as inputs, and you control the mix amount by a value, color, or texture. Figure 1 shows a white glossy
material mixed with a red specular material using the default value of 0.5 (or 50%) as input for the Amount
parameter.
Figure 1: A Mix material is used to mix a glossy and specular materials together
Figure 2 shows the result of the same Mix material setup with a Checks texture used an input for the Amount
parameter.
1 Used to mix any two material types.
195 — Materials
Figure 2: A Mix material mixing Glossy1 and Specular2 materials together and using a
Checks texture to control the mix amount
Portal Material
Portal3 Materials4 are a used to optimize the rendering of light sources, they accomplish this by helping the
render kernel find important light sources in the scene. For example, in the case of interior scenes illuminated
by an outside light source that comes in through windows, it can be difficult for the path tracer to optimize the
light as it enters the interior environment. To help the path tracer find these light sources a polygon plane can
1The measure of how well light is reflected from a surface in the specular direction, the amount and way in
2Amount of specular reflection, or the mirror-like reflection of light photons at the same angle. Used for trans-
196 — Materials
be placed outside the window and then a Portal Material1 can be applied to the plane, thus creating a “portal
plane” (AKA Portals). This set-up will improve the quality of the light and increase the efficiency of the render.
In Figure 1 (modeled in Maya), a room is being prepared with a small, single window. This would be a difficult
scene to light with a sun/sky or HDRI2 file with no lighting on the interior of the room.
A single plane was placed over the window (highlighted in green) with the normal for the plane facing into the
room (yellow arrow).
Figure 1: A plane is placed outside an opening in a polygon room, this plane will serve as a
surface for the portal material
Portal nodes can be accessed by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the Materials cat-
egory then choosing Portal.

2 An image which presents more than 8 bit per color channel unlike most common image formats.
197 — Materials
Figure 2: The Portal material is found in the Materials section of the pop-up window
To set up a scene using Portal Materials it is important to make sure that every window or opening in the envir-
onment is covered by a portal plane. It will not work if only one window has a portal over it when all other win-
dows do not have a portal over them. And the normal direction of the portal plane should be facing inwards
towards the interior or the scene will not render properly. Portal planes should not be blocked by other geo-
metry such as a glass surface. Objects with the Portal material applied will not be visible in the rendering as
geometry.
198 — Materials
It is best to try to use the least amount of geometry for portals, eg only a few simple rectangular planes are
best, dense geometry used for portal planes can slow down rendering. It is possible to use a single piece of
portal geometry to cover several openings such as multiple windows on a single wall however if the geometry
is too large that can reduce rendering efficiency. Its important to strike a balance between coverage of open-
ings and the size of the geometry that uses the portal material.
The Portal Material option should be used with the Pathtracing and PMC kernels, it will not work when ren-
dering with the Direct Light kernel.
The two images in Figure 3 show the results of rendering without and with a portal material. The scene shows
a glass sphere rendered in a room lit by light coming through a window. The scene is rendered using 500
samples. Notice the first image, that does not have a portal plane placed over the opening, is noisier than the
second image which does use a portal plane.
Figure 3: Two images rendered without and with a portal plane. Notice that the second
image has less noise thanks to the use of a portal plane
199 — Materials
Specular Material
The Specular1 material creates transparent materials like glass and water.
Figure 1: The OctaneRender® Specular material2
Specular Material Parameters
l Reflection - Determines surface reflection strength. Lower values increase the ability to transmit light
through the object volume. Reflection and Index of Refraction work close together to tune Specular
material reflectivity.
l Transmission 3 - Controls how light passes through a transparent surface. Transmission and Index of
Refraction work close together to control surface transparency, and Transmission accepts color or tex-
ture input. A value of 1 lets light pass through the surface, making it transparent. To create a mirror sur-
face, set this parameter to a black color, and set Index of refraction to 0 (Figure 2). To create colored
glass, change the color to something other than white or black. Transmission is different than Opacity -
2Used for transparent materials such as glass and water.
200 — Materials
Transmission controls transparency, while Opacity controls surface visibility. You can use Transmission
to create reflective glass surfaces, and then use Opacity to create a hole in the surface.
l BRDF Model- The BRDF (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function) determines the amount of
light that a material reflects when light falls on it. For Specular materials, you can choose from three
BRDF models. Specific geometric properties (the micro-facet distribution) of the surface affects each
BRDF, which describes the surface's microscopic shape (i.e. micro-facet normals) and scales the bright-
ness of the BRDF's reflections. Refer to the topic on BRDF Models for more information.
Beckmann
Octane 3.07
GGX
Figure 4: The three BRDF Models applicable to Specular materials
201 — Materials
l Roughness - Simulates the micro-facets effect in the surface, which blurs surface reflections and sur-
face transparency. To create a translucent plastic look, you make a surface with a white or light-colored
Transmission color and a Roughness value greater than 0. This parameter accepts a color value or tex-
ture (Procedural or Image) - you'll want to use an alpha image or value. Hue information won't affect
Roughness.
l Anisotropy - Controls the material's reflectance uniformity. Reflectance changes based on surface ori-
entation or rotation is anisotropic. If the reflectance is uniform in all directions and doesn't change based
on the surface's orientation or rotation, then it is isotropic. This parameter's default value is 0, which
sets the metallic material as isotropic. Non-zero values mean the material exhibits anisotropic reflect-
ance, where -1 is horizontal and 1 is vertical.
l Rotation - The rotation of the anisotropic Specular reflection channel.

l Index of Refraction - Describes the change in the speed of light as it passes through a medium. As
light photons move through surfaces like water, they slow down and change direction. This change
appears as the object distorting on the other side of the water's surface. A vacuum's Index of Refraction
(IOR) is 1, and water's IOR is 1.33, meaning light travels 1.33 times faster through a vacuum than
water. Most transparent surfaces' IOR is accessible on the internet. Knowing a surface's correct IOR is
important for replicating a surface's look in OctaneRender.
l Dispersion Coefficient - Increasing this value increases the coloration amount and dispersion in the
object's transmission and in caustics.
l Bump - Creates fine details on material surfaces using a Procedural or Image texture. When you
connect a Grayscale image texture to this parameter, light areas appear as protruding bumps, and
dark areas appear as indentations. You can adjust the Bump map strength by setting the Power or
Gamma1 values on the Grayscale image texture node. The Texture Overview category covers these
attributes in more detail.
202 — Materials
l Normal - Creates the look of fine detail on the surface. A Normal map is a special type of image texture
software, such as ZBrush®, Mudbox ®, Substance Designer, xNormalTM , or others to generate. to load
l Displacement 1 - Adjusts surface vertices' height at render time using a Texture map. Displacement
maps differ from Bump or Normal maps by having the texture alter the geometry, as opposed to cre-
ating the appearance of detail on the surface. Displacement mapping is more computationally expens-
ive than Bump or Normal mapping, but results are more realistic, especially along the surface
silhouette. The Texture Overview category covers Displacement mapping in more detail.
l Opacity - Determines what surface parts are visible in the render. Dark values indicate transparent
areas, and light values indicate opaque areas. Values between light and dark create the look of semi-
transparent areas. You can lower the Opacity value to fade the object's overall visibility, or you can use
a Texture map to vary the surface's opacity. For example, if you want to make a simple polygon plane
look like a leaf, you connect a black-and-white image of the leaf's silhouette to the Diffuse2 shader's
Opacity channel. When you use an Image texture map, set the Data type to Alpha image if the image
has an alpha channel, or Grayscale image for black-and-white images, to load an image for setting
transparency. Use the image's Invert checkbox to invert the transparency regions.
l Smooth - Smooths out the transition between surface normals. When disabled, the edges between sur-
face polygons appear sharp, giving the surface a faceted look. when enabled, the edges between poly-
gons blend together.
l Rounded Edges Radius - Bevels the surface edges automatically at render time, without the need to
alter or subdivide the geometry. This option enhances object realism by eliminating sharp edges.
Higher values produce rounder edges.
l Medium - OctaneRender has two mediums you can use to create translucent surfaces: Absorption 3
and Scattering4. To use these mediums, connect the Specular material's Medium input to one of these
Medium nodes:
o Absorption Medium - Produces the appearance of a material that absorbs light while passing
through a surface. The resulting color depends on the distance that light travels through the
material. The Texture Overview category provides more detail about Absorption.
o Scattering Medium - Similar to the Absorption medium, but with an additional option for sim-
ulating subsurface scattering. Subsurface scattering is the phenomena that gives human skin and
203 — Materials
similar organic surfaces their characteristic glow under certain lighting conditions. It's a major
component for creating the look of realistic skin. The Texture Overview category provides more
detail about scattering.
o Volume Medium 1 - Adds color and other qualities to a VDB2 file. VDBs are a generic volume
format for creating effects such as smoke, fog, vapor, and similar gaseous objects. VDBs can
consist of a single frame, or an animated sequence. 3D software packages like Houdini generate
and export VDBs. You can also download VDB files at http://www.openvdb.org/download/.
l Fake Shadows - Activates the Architectural glass option for all meshes sharing that material. When
enabled, Specular materials exhibit Architectural glass characteristics with its transparent feature, allow-
ing light to illuminate enclosed spaces or frame an exterior view.
l Affect Alpha - This option lets refractions affect the alpha channel, as long as you enable the alpha
channel in the Kernel settings.
l Film Width - Simulates the look of thin film material on a surface, like creating a rainbow color effect
that appears on an oil slick's surface. Larger values increase the effect's strength.
l Film IOR- Controls the film Index of Refraction. This option adjusts the visible colors in the film.
Toon Material
This is a type of material that have shadows and highlights appear as blocks of color and results in a flat image
of less number of shading colors along with a distinct-colored ink used for outlines and contour lines. The Toon
material is used for creating Toon shaders and emulates the style of a cartoon on a two dimensional illus-
tration. Toon materials require a Toon Lighting Mode in order to work. They can also accept a Toon Ramp to
add a color range for the shader’s diffuse channel (albedo color) or to the shader’s specular channel (Figure 2).

204 — Materials
Figure 1: The attributes of a Toon Material1 Node
Figure 2: A Toon Ramp is connected to the diffuse ramp input pin of a Toon Material node
Attributes of the Toon Material Node
205 — Materials
Diffuse1
This is the Diffuse reflection channel, or the albedo value of the toon shader.
Specular2
This is the Specular reflection channel, which behaves like a coating on top of the Diffuse layer and creates a
highlight on the surface dependending on the incident light angle and the camera’s viewpoint. A value of 0
means there is no highlight at all.
Roughness
This is the roughness of the Specular reflection channel. The appearance of the Toon Shading’s Specular reflec-
tion becomes more prevalent as the roughness of the Specular reflection channels decreases.
Toon Lighting Mode

Since Toon Lighting is required for Toon materials to work, this attribute is used to define where the toon light-
ing is drawn from, this could either be from the camera direction or from OctaneRender Toon Lights. If Toon
Lights is the selected mode, Toon materials will need either a Toon Point Light or a Toon Directional Light
included in the scene in order to work (Figure 4).
Figure 3: The Toon Lighting mode selection attribute
206 — Materials
Figure 4: If Toon Lights is the selected Toon Lighting Mode, a Toon Light node
must be present in the scene in order for Toon Materials1 to work
Toon Diffuse Ramp

This is the color/float range that defines how the toon shading’s albedo value (or diffuse color) will vary over a
surface.
Toon Specular Ramp

This is the color/float range that defines how the toon shading’s specular value will vary over a surface.
Bump
This is the Bump channel, which is used to simulate a relief using a greyscale texture interpreted as a height
map.
Normal
1A set of attributes or parameters that describe surface characteristics.
207 — Materials
This is the Normal channel, which is used to distort normals based on an RGB image.
Displacement 1
This is the Displacement channel, which is used to create highly detailed geometry with a low memory foot-
print.
Outline Color
This is the color used for the outline and contour edges of the surface.
Outline Thickness
This is a float value to define and propagate the outline and contour edges used in the toon shading. A thickness
of 0.0 means there is no appearance of any outline for that surface.
Opacity
This is the Opacity channel, which controls the transparency of the toon material via greyscale texture.
Smooth
This is a boolean value to enable or disable normal interpolation. If normal interpolation is disabled, triangle
meshes will appear “facetted”.
Rounded Edges Radius

This is the radius of the rounded edges that are rendered as a shading effect.
For more information on how to use the Toon Material, refer to Toon Shading in this documentation.
Toon Ramp
208 — Materials
The Toon Ramp is used to control the amount of detail in toon shading. It provides the positions for mapping
a range of colors to the Toon material’s Diffuse1 channel or Specular2 channel, and the resulting color
range is based on the hue set by that respective channel. You can add more positions to increase the number of
colors in the range. The Toon Ramp is applied to the Toon Diffuse Ramp or Toon Specular Ramp of a Toon
material node (Figure 3).
209 — Materials
Figure 1: To invoke a Toon Ramp node, right click the Nodegraph editor and select
Materials1 > Mappings > Toon Ramp
Figure 2: Example of a Toon Ramp
210 — Materials
Figure 3: The Toon Ramp in Figure 1 is applied to the Toon Diffuse Ramp attribute of a Toon
Material1 node
Figure 4: The resulting range of the albedo value with a Toon Ramp applied
The Attributes Of A Toon Ramp
Interpolation
This determines how the colors are blended.
Figure 4: Constant Interpolation
211 — Materials
Figure 5: Linear Interpolation
Figure 6: Cubic Interpolation
Start Value
This is the output value at the position 0.
End Value
This is the output value at the position 1.0.
Position 1
A position that initially sets the boundary between the Start Value and the End Value.
Value 1
The output value at position 1.
Universal Material
The Universal material is used to get substance maps and PBR1 outputs into OctaneRender. Substance
Painter and other engines map perfectly to this material.
1 A contemporary shading and rendering process that seeks to simplify shading characteristics while providing
a more accurate representation of lighting in the real world.
212 — Materials
This material blends between dielectric and metallic with a metallic parameter 0 to 1. When compared to other
materials, the Universal material is equivalent to the Metallic material when the Universal material's Metallic
attribute is set to 1.0, while it is equivalent to the Glossy1 material when the Universal material's metallic
attribute is set to 0.0.
The Universal material is designed such that it follows after the workflow in the PBR model, since the Metallic
material falls short of the metallic maps and roughness maps that are commonly derived from Substance
Painter and other tools. It handles dielectric material (diffuse and glossy BRDF) and also metallic material
(glossy BRDF) with assumed IOR or custom IOR for both dielectric and metallic surfaces.
Material2 IOR in the base layer of Universal materials is also not limited to scalar values, and this can be con-
trolled procedurally with texture type nodes and OSL shaders connected to a new IOR texture input pin.
Figure 1: Example of coatings made possible by the the Universal material
213 — Materials
Figure 2: Basic and complex materials can be created procedurally using a Universal Mater-
ial.
You can also import the BaseColor maps, Height maps, Normal maps, Occlusion maps and other texture maps
for a scene that have been derived from major 3D painting software into OctaneRender and then re-link these
texture maps to the corresponding pins of the Universal Material node (Figure 3). The Universal Material node
will blend the glossy material and the metallic material depending on the settings of the metallic input. You can
then begin to adjust the settings of each texture in greater detail. For example, you can place real world IOR
values of metallic objects as part of the IOR metallic input channels (Red, Green and Blue) of the Universal
Material (Figure 4).
Figure 3: Relinking texture maps to the corresponding pins of the Universal Material.
214 — Materials
Figure 4: Placing real world IOR values of metallic objects as part of the IOR metallic input
channels (Red, Green and Blue) of the Universal Material.
215 — Materials
216 — Materials
Figure 5: The Universal Material Node.
The Base Layer Attributes
Transmission 1 - This is the transmission channel controlling the light passing the surface of
the material (via refraction).
Albedo - This provides the base color of the material.
Metallic - This adjusts how metallic the material appears. It blends between dieclectric and
metallic material.
BSDF Model - The BRDF is a function that determines the amount of light reflected from a
material when light falls on it. Each BRDF is effected by a specific geometric property - the micro-
facet distribution - of the surface which describes the microscopic shape (i.e. microfacet nor-
mals) of that surface and serves as a function to scale the brightness of the reflections in the
BRDF. Refer to the topic on "BRDF Models" on page 507 for more information.
The Specular2 Layer Attributes
Specular - This determines the color of the glossy reflection for dielectric materials. If the index
of reflection is set to a value greater than 0, then the brightness of this color is adjusted so that it
matches the Fresnel equations.
Roughness - This pertains to the roughness of the specular reflection and the transmission
channel.
Anisotropy - This is the anisotropy of the specular and transmissive material:
l -1 = Horizontal
l 1 = Vertical
l 0 = Isotropy
Rotation - This adjusts the rotation of the anisotropic specular reflection and transmission chan-
nel.
Attributes affecting the Index Of Refraction
Dielectric IOR - This is the Index Of Refraction which controls the Fresnel effect of the
217 — Materials
specular reflection or transmission. By default, if 1/IOR map is empty, then the dielectric spec-
ular layer uses this IOR value.
Dielectric 1/IOR map - This is the Index Of Refraction map. Each texel represents 1/IOR.
This is empty by default, therefore the material would use Dielectric IOR field as the default
Index Of Refraction. If this is not empty, this will override the Index Of Refraction set by the
Dielectric IOR.
Metallic reflection - This channel changes how the reflectivity is calculated for a metallic
material:
l Default: This will use only the albedo color.
l IOR+color: This will use the albedo color and further adjusts the brightness using the
IOR.
l RGB IOR: This is the most commonly used calculation and it uses only the 3 IOR values
(for 650, 550 and 450nm) ignoring the albedo color.
Metallic IOR - Complex-valued Index Of Refraction (n-k*i) which controls the Fresnel effect of
the specular reflection for metallic materials. For RGB mode, this serves as the Index Of Refrac-
tion for the red light (650nm).
Metallic IOR (Green) - For RGB mode, this is the Index Of Refraction for the green light
(550nm).
Metallic IOR (Blue) - For RGB mode, this is the Index Of Refraction for the blue light
(450nm).
Coating Layer Attributes
Coating - This sets the coating color of the material.

Coating Roughness - This adjusts the roughness of the coating layer.
Coating IOR - This sets the Index Of Refraction of the coating material.
Thin Film Layer Attributes
Film Width - This sets the thickness of the film coating.

Film IOR - This sets the Index Of Refraction of the film coating.
Sheen Layer Attributes
Sheen - This sets the sheen color of the material.
218 — Materials
Sheen Roughness - This adjusts the roughness of the sheen channel.
Transmission Properties
Dispersion Coefficient - This is the coefficient B parameter of the Cauchy Dispersion Model
where normal dispersion is derived through the relationship between the Index Of Refraction
and the wavelength of light passing through transparent materials.
Medium - This is an option to add a medium inside the transparent material.
Opacity - This is the opacity channel that controls the degree of transparency for the material
via a greyscale texture.
Fake Shadows - If enabled, light will be traced directly through the material during the shadow
calculation, ignoring refraction.
Affect Alpha - If enabled, this allows the Universal Material's refractions affect the alpha chan-
nel.
Geometric Properties
Bump - This is used to simulate a relief using a greyscale texture interpreted as a height map.
Normal - This channel is used to distort normals using an RGB image.
Displacement 1 - This channel accepts displacement maps to allow the universal material to
have more detailed geometry without adding overhead to hardware memory.
Smooth - If disabled, normal interpolation will be disabled and triangle meshes will appear
"facetted". This is enabled by default.
Rounded Edges Radius - This adjusts the radius of rounded edges that are rendered as shad-
ing effect.
The Universal Material can also be used to create self-illuminated materials and shadow catchers.
Emission - This allows the universal material to emit light by plugging in a Black body emission or a Texture
emission.
219 — Materials
Shadow Catcher1 - This switches the material to a shadow catcher. If enabled, the material will be trans-
parent unless these is some direct shadow cast onto the material, which will make it less transparent depend-
ing on the shadow strength.
Figure 6: The yellow glossy material is the result of a Universal Material node.
ing shapes.
220 — Materials
Figure 7: Typical node graph with a Universal Material mapped to a sphere geometry via a
Material Map node.
Mediums – Subsurface Scattering and Volumes
OctaneRender® supports participating media inside objects. These settings are stored in Medium nodes,
which are attached to the corresponding input pin of Diffuse1 or Specular2 material nodes.
There are three types of Medium nodes:
221 — Materials
l Scattering1 - Has parameters for Absorption 2, Scattering, and Emission.

l Absorption - A simple version with only Absorption parameters.
l Volume - See the Effects Overview section for more details.
To render with Medium nodes, the Path Tracing or PMC render kernels are the best choices. You can render
mediums using the Direct Light kernel, but only if the Medium node is connected to Diffuse material, and if
you set the kernel's Diffuse mode to GI.
To add a Medium node to a scene, right-click anywhere in the Nodegraph Editor window and select
Medium from the pop-up menu (Figure 1). Choose the type of node you want to use. You should connect
Absorption and Scattering mediums to the Medium input of the Diffuse or Specular material. Volume mediums
can connect to VDB3 file inputs. Schlick Phase Function and Volume Gradient are special nodes that
modify the other Medium nodes.
222 — Materials
223 — Materials
Figure 1: Select the Medium node from the pop-up menu when you right-click in the Node-
graph Editor
There are some things to keep in mind about using Mediums1 with Meshes and Specular materials:
Meshes
Medium nodes should only be added to materials you've applied to meshes that define a closed volume. A
single-sided plane will not work. For example, a plane representing a leaf will not work properly if a material
with a medium is applied to it. The one exception is a plane representing the ground: OctaneRender treats the
ground plane as an infinitely deep surface.
Specular Materials2
Specular materials are the best choice when using a Medium node. When using a Specular material3 , set
the value of the Reflection parameter to a low value because only the part of the spectrum that is not reflec-
ted can enter the object for scattering. If you set Reflection to 1, all light reflects regardless of the Trans-
mission 4 value. If Reflection is set to 0, all light transmits through the surface, but the result is an unnatural
appearance. Reflection values of 0.1 - 0.2 are good starting points.
Absorption Medium
Absorption Parameters
l Absorption 5 - Controlled by Absorption color, which defines how fast a medium absorbs light passing
through it. A 0.0 or black value means no absorption. Higher values result in faster light absorption. The
specified color in the Absorption parameter produces its complimentary color in the rendering (Figure
1). The Absorption texture is multiplied by the Density parameter. This allows setting a wide range of
values.
1 The behavior of light inside a surface volume described by scatter, absorption, and transmission char-
acteristics.
3 Used for transparent materials such as glass and water.
224 — Materials
Figure 1: Specifying a blue hue in the Absorption parameter absorbs blue more quickly, thus
giving the object an orange appearance
l Volume Step Length - Depending on the surface, you may need to adjust this parameter. The
default value is 4, but if the volume is smaller than this, you need to decrease the Step Length. Decreas-
ing this value decreases render speed, and increasing the value causes the ray marching algorithm to
take longer steps. If the Step Length exceeds the volume's dimensions, then the ray marching algorithm
takes a single step through the whole volume. To get the most accurate results, keep the Step Length as
small as possible.
l Invert Absorption - Inverts the Absorption color so that the Absorption channel becomes a Trans-
parency channel. This helps visualize the effect of the specified color, since a neutral background shin-
ing through the medium appears in that approximate color.
Scattering Medium
225 — Materials
The Scattering1 medium node helps create the look of subsurface scattering. Subsurface scattering is the
phenomena where light rays enter a surface, are scattered within the material of surface, and then exit the sur-
face (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Subsurface scattering is the key to creating the look of realistic human skin and
other organic surfaces
226 — Materials
Figure 2: The Scattering node parameters
227 — Materials
Scattering Parameters
l Density - This parameter multiplies against Scattering.

l Volume Step Length - Depending on the surface, you may need to adjust this parameter. The
default value is 4, but if the volume is smaller than this, you need to decrease the Step Length. Decreas-
ing this value decreases render speed, and increasing the value causes the ray marching algorithm to
take longer steps. If the Step Length exceeds the volume's dimensions, then the ray marching algorithm
takes a single step through the whole volume. To get the most accurate results, keep the Step Length as
small as possible.
l Absorption 1 - Controlled by Absorption color, which defines how fast a medium absorbs light passing
through it. A 0.0 or black value means no absorption. Higher values result in faster light absorption. The
specified color in the Absorption parameter produces its complimentary color in the rendering (Figure
1). The Absorption texture is multiplied by the Density parameter. This allows setting a wide range of
values.
l Scattering - Determines how fast light scatters as it moves through a surface. High values mean that
light scatters sooner as it enters a surface, and low values mean that light passes deeper into the sur-
face before scattering. A 0 value disables Scattering.
l Phase - Controls light direction as it scatters through the surface. A 0 value results in light scattering
equally in all directions; a positive value results in forward scattering, where photons continue the same
approximate direction as when they enter the surface; and a negative value results in backwards scat-
tering, where light moves through the surface in the same direction, but opposite to the angle that they
entered the surface (this is known as backscattering).
l Emission - Attaches an Emission node to the Emission input pin. When you connect an Emission
node to a Medium node, it defines emission inside the volume instead of on the object's surface. In this
case, Power controls how fast a ray's radiance increases while traveling through the volume; it doesn't
represent total power. It's not multiplied with the Scale parameter. This effect works best with large,
not-too-bright objects - small, bright objects create lots of noise.
Materials Databases
OctaneRender Standalone provides two types of material databases. The LiveDB is an extensive database
with pre-built materials available for download. The LocalDB is a place on a local system where materials can
be stored for later use.
LiveDB
228 — Materials
The LiveDB is OctaneRender’s asset database. This stores not only materials but groups of nodes and even
whole scenes shared by the OctaneRender Community and the OctaneRender Team. The asset database
makes it easier for moving groups of nodes, scenes and assets across a myriad of OctaneRender plugins as
well as Standalone scenes.
Most materials contain textures with images. The associated images are downloaded and saved to disk in a
cache folder and the material name will be automatically added to the path. You can see the loaction of the
folder by selecting an image associated with a LiveDB file and looking at the top of the Node Inspector (Figure
1).
Figure 1: Images downloaded with LiveDB assets are stored in a cache folder
The Octane Render LiveDB can be found in the Scene Outliner as a tab. To download one of the Live DB
assets, open the LiveDB tab in the Scene Outliner, right-click over the node you want to use and choose
Copy. Right-click in the node editor and choose Paste art the bottom of the pop-up menu to paste the node
into your scene. You can examine the contents of the downloaded node by double-clicking on the pasted node
graph icon. Figure 2 illustrates this process.
229 — Materials
Figure 2: Paste nodes from the Live DB into your Octane scene
To save/upload an OctaneRender node to the LiveDB create a Nodegraph from the objects in your scene that
you'd like to upload, right-click on the new Nodegraph in the NodegraphEditor and choose Save... From the
drop-down menu, choose LiveDB. The menu offers options for naming and saving the Nodegraph to an exist-
ing category as well as the option to add comments and credit (Figure 3).
230 — Materials
Figure 3: The options for uploading OctaneRender assets to the LiveDB
LocalDB
OctaneRender's Local DB is similar to the LiveDB in that it can be accessed through the tab in the Outliner.
Instead of storing the files on the cloud, LocalDB stores the files locally. To save an OctaneRender Nodegraph
to the LocalDB, select it in the Nodegraph Editor and choose "Save..." From the Pop-up menu, choose
LocalDB as the Location. You can set the other options such as category and description using this pop-up (Fig-
ure 1).
231 — Materials
Figure 1: The LocalDB options
To create a thumbnail image, right click over the node in the LocalDB list and choose Make Thumbnail. A
pop-up will open with controls for customizing the thumbnail (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Create a thumbnail for your LocalDB files
232 — Materials
You can set the location on your hard drive where the LocalDB files are stored using the fields in the Applic-
ations tab of the Preferences (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Set the location of the LocalDB in the Applications tab of the preferences
233 — Materials
Textures
The Texture types allow for creating very flexible materials. The Texture nodes can be accessed by right-
clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the Textures1 category (Figure 1).
l The top level contains numerous color and texture types.
l Generators sub-category: Generator textures are used to actually create or modulate other textures.
They are greyscale.
l Mappings sub-category: Mappings are nodes that allow mixing and manipulation of other Texture
nodes.
234 — Textures
Figure 1: Texture nodes are organized into categories which can be accessed through the
pop-up menu
235 — Textures
Gaussian Spectrum
This output uses a Gaussian distribution spectrum. Wavelength sets the center of the spectrum, and Width
sets the curve width. The narrower the Width, the more pure and saturated the color (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The parameters of the Gaussian Spectrum texture in the Node Inspector
Gaussian Spectrum Parameters
l Wavelength - This represents the mean wavelength approximation between 380 nm – 720 nm (with
a range from 0 - 1). Lower values appear bluish, and higher values (around 700 nm) appear reddish.
236 — Textures
l Width - When set to 0, almost no color is visible. When set to 1, the color spreads thin over a large
space, and the texture appears faint.
l Power - The texture brightness.
Greyscale Color
The Greyscale Color node generates a float value, which node networks use as an input. When connected to
a Color input, the result is a greyscale color, with 0 being equivalent to black, and 1 being equivalent to white
(Figure 1).
Figure 1: Parameters for the Greyscale Color texture
OSL Texture
237 — Textures
The OSL texture node is a scriptable node that lets you write scripts using OSL (Open Shader Language1 )
to define arbitrary texture types and create customized OctaneRender® materials and shaders. To learn about
the generic OSL standard, please read the OSL Readme and PDF documentation.
Figure 1: Selecting the OSL Texture node from the pop-up context menu of the Node Graph
Editor pane
An OSL script is written into the OSL texture node from the Script Editor window. Click on the Pencil icon to
go to the Script Editor window. If the script exists as an external .osl file, insert the .osl file into the node
238 — Textures
through the Load icon. You can edit any existing file used within an OSL texture node. To refresh a file with the
edits, reload the file via the Reload icon.
Figure 2: Reload icon
The OSL texture requires one output color. One OSL texture node is one OSL compilation unit, which contains
only one shader. The OSL texture node has one Output attribute pin that connects to the Texture input pin of
other Texture nodes (like Turbulence), or to the Texture input pin of Octane materials (like Diffuse1).
Note: Multiple outputs for OSL textures are not yet supported.
OctaneRender® supports most of the texturing functions (like Textures2 or Noises) in the OSL Specification.
When you invoke an OSL texture, it comes with an initial script with a declaration component that bares one out-
put variable, which represents a color. The initial script’s function body then initializes the color to black based
on the standard RGB color mode. You can customize the script to create a customized OSL texture shader. A
custom script may have many variables, some of which may require user input through the Input nodes. So
depending on the custom script, the OSL texture may have an input of 0, or many Input nodes.
239 — Textures
Figure 2: An OSL texture node’s initial script containing an OSL program code to calculate
the output color
Figure 3: The Compile button
The example in Figure 4 below shows an OSL shader that adds two RGB textures.
Shader Add (
color a = 0,
color b = 0,
output color c = 0)
240 — Textures
c = a + b;
The script’s declaration component has three variables, two are input variables of Input Type color, and
the third one is the required output represented by a variable of Output Type color. The OSL Input/Out-
put Type color corresponds to an Octane Texture attribute node. The script’s function body adds the two
input parameters and places the result into the output variable.
For a list of OSL variable declaration Input/Output types in the OSL dpecification that OctaneRender® supports,
refer to the Appendix topic on OSL Implementation in OctaneRender®. To learn more about scripting within
OctaneRender® using OSL, refer to The Octane OSL Guide.
Figure 4: An example of an OSL Texture node with an OSL script to add two Input texture
nodes and send the result to one output
Once the OSL texture is available, it is plugged into the texture input pin of an OctaneRender® Material1
node. Similar to other procedural texture types, it can replace its own initial attributes with other applicable tex-
ture types in the course of the texturing process. For example, the OctaneRender® Texture attribute in Figure
3 is an RGB Color texture at first, but you can change it to any applicable OctaneRender® texture from its rep-
resentation on the Inspector node to further customize the OSL shader (Figure 5).
241 — Textures
Figure 5: Changing the input node to customize the OSL shader
To learn more about the OSL implementation in OctaneRender®, refer to the Appendix for more OSL-related
topics.
Note: When using OSL, you should ensure that shaders never lock up or run for a long time. This may
cause the system to freeze, or the display driver resets. Some operations, like out-of-bounds array
access, may cause kernel crashes.
Example of an OSL Script for an OSL Texture Node
This is an example of a shader with a few different inputs with meta data. The script below creates the Man-
delbrot Set shader.
// The obvious piece of programmer art in any OSL intro is a Mandelbrot shader
shader Mandelbrot(
output color c = 0,
242 — Textures
int maxcount = 100
[[int min=1, int max=20000, int sliderexponent=4,
string label = "Max iterations",
string help = "Maximal amount of iterations (z = z² +

c)"]],
int outputScale = 100
[[int min=1, int max=20000, int sliderexponent=4,
string label = "Iterations scale factor",
string help = "Amount of iterations mapped to white"]],
float gamma = 1.0
[[float min=0.1, float max=10, int sliderexponent=4,
string label = "Gamma1",
string help = "Gamma value applied to the gradient"]],
point projection = 0
[[string label = "Projection"]],
matrix xform = matrix(.33333, 0, 0, -.5, 0, .33333, 0, -.33333, 0,

0, .33333, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1)
[[string label = "UV transform", int dim = 2]],
int smooth = 0
[[string widget="checkBox",
string label = "Smooth gradient",
string help = "Smooth out the gradient outside the Man-

delbrot set"]]
1The function or attribute used to code or decode luminance for common displays. The computer graphics
243 — Textures
point p = transform(1 / xform, projection);
float cx = (p[0]-.5);
float cy = (p[1]-.5);
float x = cx;
float y = cy;
float prevRR = 0;
float rr = x*x + y*y;
int count = 0;
while (rr < 4 && count < maxcount)
count += 1;
// z = z² + c
float x2 = x*x - y*y + cx;
y = 2*x*y + cy;
x = x2;
prevRR = rr;
rr = x*x + y*y;
if (count < maxcount)
float h = (float)count;
if (smooth)
h = h + (4 - prevRR) / (rr - prevRR);
c = pow(h / outputScale, gamma);
244 — Textures
c = min(c, .999);
else
c = 1.0;
The Mandelbrot Set Shader

First, what is the Mandelbrot set? The Mandelbrot set is a famous example of a fractal in mathematics, it is one
of the first images generated in computer graphics that displayed a fractal geometric shape. It showed how
visual complexity can be created from simple rules and that a "degree of order" is actually present in things
that are typically considered as messy or chaotic (i.e., like clouds or shorelines).
The computer graphic image was created by applying the common fractal equation Zn+1=Zn2+c to each pixel
in an iterative process. In that equation, c and z are complex numbers and n is zero or a positive integer (nat-
ural number). Starting with z0=0, c is in the Mandelbrot set if the absolute value of zn never becomes larger
than a certain number (that number depends on c), no matter how large n gets. The resulting image became
known as the Mandelbrot Set (Figure 1).
245 — Textures
Figure 1: The Mandelbrot set
Therefore, the purpose of the Mandelbrot Set Shader is to recreate the Mandelbrot set fractal procedurally via
an OSL script and allow the resulting image to be displayed on a surface when the shader is used on a material
for that surface (Figure 2).
246 — Textures
Figure 2: The Mandelbrot Set displayed on the surface of a cube
247 — Textures
Figure 3: The Mandelbrot Set Shader is plugged into the texture input pin of a Gradient
node
Dissecting the Code
Figure 4: The Mandelbrot Shader implemented via an Octane OSL Texture node
248 — Textures
249 — Textures
The Declaration Component
Line 1: This is a note for viewers of the code, it is ignored by the compiler.
Line 3: This names the OSL Texture node
Line 4: An OSL Texture requires one output attribute, so this is provided by the declaration of the
variable c which is of OSL I/O type “color“ corresponding to an Octane Texture Attrib-
ute node.
Lines 5 - 8: This declares input of OSL I/O type “int” corresponding to an Octane Int attrib-
ute node (1D-value)
Lines 9 - 12: This declares input of OSL I/O type “int” corresponding to an Octane Int
attribute node (1D-value)
250 — Textures
The Function Body Component
Line 27: Gets a point. This implements the usual UV transform + projection inputs of Octane tex-
ture nodes.
Lines 28-34: A few more local variables to hold values needed in the function body. The variable
P holds the pixel value which is taken from the transform matrix provided through Line 19.
Lines 35-44: These are the iterations that results in a fractal shape. Each iteration is checked
Lines 46-59 : This outputs the value 1.0 if the iteration doesn't diverge. This outputs < 1.0 if the
iteration diverged at some point.
RGB Color
The RGB Color texture outputs the color specified in the color parameters (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The RGB Color texture parameters in the Node Inspector
Image-Based Textures
251 — Textures
Image-based textures can be used by themselves or in combination with the Mapping textures to create sur-
faces. There are four image-based textures in OctaneRender:
l Alpha Image
l Greyscale Image
l Image Tiles Texture
l RGB Image and Animated Image Textures1
Alpha Image
The Alpha Image texture utilizes the image's native alpha channel to provide transparency. This texture only
accepts PNG, TIF, and EXR2 images (Figure 1).
252 — Textures
Figure 1: The Alpha Image parameters in the Node Inspector
Alpha Image Parameters
l Power - Controls image brightness. Lowering the value makes the image look darker.
l Gamma1 - Controls input image luminance, and tunes or color-corrects images if needed.
l Invert - Inverts the texture values.
l UV Transform - Positions, rotates, and scales the surface texture.
253 — Textures
l Projection - Accepts OctaneRender® Projection nodes. If nothing is connected to this input, the
Image texture uses the surface's UV texture coordinates by default. This also changes the UV set if the
original surface contains more than one UV set. For more details, see the Octane "Projections" on
page 346 section of this manual.
l Border Mode - Sets the behavior of the space around the image if it doesn't cover the entire geo-
metry. Wrap Around is the default behavior, which repeats the image in the areas outside the image's
coverage. If you set this parameter to White Color or Black Color, the area outside the image turns
to white or black, respectively.
Greyscale Image
The Greyscale Image converts an RGB image to grayscale. This can conserve RAM when using a color
image as an input for Bump or Opacity channels of an OctaneRender® material. The Invert checkbox
inverts the image (useful for Bump and Opacity maps). Figure 1 shows the parameters for the Greyscale tex-
ture.
254 — Textures
Figure 1: Greyscale image parameters in the Node Inspector
The Channel Format (Figure 2) indicates the preferred channel format for loading the image. This is ignored
for 8-bit images. This also selects the texture bit depth of High Dynamic Resolution (HDR) images in Envir-
onment textures.
255 — Textures
Figure 2: The Import Settings shortcut
Greyscale Image Parameters
l Power- Controls image brightness. Lower values cause the image to appear darker. When used as a
Bump map, this setting alters the bump height on the surface.
l Gamma1 - Controls the input image luminance, and it also tunes or color-corrects the image.
l Invert - Inverts the texture values.
l Transform - Positions, rotates, and scales the surface texture.
l Projection - Accepts OctaneRender Projection nodes. If nothing is connected to this input, the
original surface contains more than one UV set. For more details, see the OctaneRender Projection
Node section of this manual.
Image Tiles Texture
This is used to set up a tile grid similar to UDIM image tiles.
256 — Textures
Figure 1: To begin creating the grid, click on the Load Images icon to select and load images
into the grid
257 — Textures
258 — Textures
Figure 2: Use pattern is an option to use a filename pattern to quickly select files
Figure 3: A basic scene graph using Image Tiles texture
259 — Textures
Figure 4: Image Tiles texture with four tiled images applied on a sphere without a mesh UV
RGB Image
RGB Image textures connect an external image file to any material parameters that accept a Texture map
(Figure 1).
260 — Textures
Figure 1: The RGB Image node is used to import a PNG image into the Diffuse1 pin of a Dif-
fuse material2
To create an icon of the image, click on the eyeball icon in the upper-right corner of the Node inspector. The
drawer icon replaces the image, the circular arrow reloads the image, and the film strip icon loads an animated
sequence.
The RGB Image texture converts all images to three-channel images, including greyscale images. To use
memory resources efficiently, only use the RGB Image texture for color inputs. For Greyscale channels such as
Bump, use the Greyscale Image texture.
1Amount of diffusion, or the reflection of light photons at different angles from an uneven or granular surface.
2Used for dull, non-reflecting materials or mesh emitters.
261 — Textures
Use the Import settings button (Figure 2) to indicate the preferred channel format for loading the image.
This is ignored for 8-bit images. You can also use this for explicitly selecting the texture bit depth of High
Dynamic Resolution images in Environment textures.
Figure 2: The import settings shortcut
l Power - Controls image brightness. Lowering the value makes the image look darker.
l Gamma1 - Controls input image luminance, and tunes or color-corrects images if needed.
l Transform - Positions, rotates, and scales the surface texture.
l Invert - Inverts the image's color values.
l Projection - Accepts OctaneRender® Projection nodes. If nothing is connected to this input, the
original surface contains more than one UV set. For more details, see the Octane Projection Node sec-
tion of this manual.
Animated Image Textures
OctaneRender® implements animated image textures by animating the file name attribute in the Image tex-
ture nodes. To set it up, click the Animation button in the Node Inspector pane.
262 — Textures
This opens the Assign New Texture Animation window. From there, you can add the sequence of image
files by clicking on the Add Files button.
263 — Textures
To specify how the animation runs through the file sequence, you can specify an Animation Mode. The fol-
lowing modes are available:
l Once - Runs through the sequence once.
l Loop - Runs through the sequence and repeats it indefinitely.
l Ping-Pong - Runs through the sequence from beginning to end, then from the end back to the begin-
ning, and repeats the sequence indefinitely.
To control the duration and speed of the animation sequence, you can adjust the following parameters:
l Frames Per File - Sets the number of frames to display each image of the sequence. The Fram-
erate is defined in the time slider of the Render viewport - i.e., it comes from the project. It's dis-
played in the dialog just for convenience.
l Total Frames - Adjusts the total number of frames to play the animation sequence.
When you save a project as a package, all of the specified images in the sequence are stored in the package,
too. After opening this package, you can still remove an image from the sequence and change its order, but
you cannot add new files from the file system. This is a limitation of the animated file name attribution (i.e., this
avoids having files coming from multiple packages or from the file system in the same sequence).
Procedural Textures
Procedural Textures1 are a category of textures used to generate patterns that can be used by themselves
or in combination with the Mapping and Color textures to create common surface effects. This is a very
memory efficient way to generate patterns as the calculations require less memory than loading bitmap
images. Procedurals can be used to create rock and marble surfaces, chequered or wooden textures, bump
maps and other advanced materials with minimal impact to GPU2 memory. It is advantageous to explore cre-
ating materials using these textures before resorting to image-based textures:
l Checks
l Marble
l Noise
l Ridged Fractal
l Saw Wave
l Sine Wave
l Triangle Wave
l Turbulence
264 — Textures
Checks
The Checks Procedural texture is useful for making stripes, checker board and grid patterns. The parameters
consist of UVW transform and Projection inputs (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The parameters of the Checks texture
You can use the UVW Transform and Projection parameters to edit the pattern's position and scale (Figure 2).
265 — Textures
Figure 2: Checks example with X,Y,Z scaled in the UVW Transform parameter
Marble
The Marble node is a Procedural texture that can create marble-like noise. It is similar to a Turbulence
texture, but more fine-tuned to create marble-like patterns. Figure 1 shows a Marble texture connected to the
Diffuse1 channel of an OctaneRender® material.
266 — Textures
Figure 1: The Marble texture creates a Procedural noise pattern
267 — Textures
Figure 2: The Marble texture parameters
Marble Texture Parameters
l Power - A multiplier that controls the texture's overall brightness.

l Offset - Sets the texture position in 3D space.
l Omega - Controls detail in the underlying fractal pattern.
l Variance - Randomizes the Marble pattern.
l UVW Transform - Positions, scales, and rotates the surface texture.
l Projection - Sets how the texture projects onto the surface.
Noise
The Noise texture generates four different types of Procedural noise, and the settings give you the ability to
produce a wide variety of noise effects. The four types of noise are:
l Perlin
l Turbulence
l Circular
l Chips
268 — Textures
Figure 1: A comparison of the four different noise types
Figure 2 shows the Noise texture connected to the Diffuse1 channel of a Diffuse material. Figure 3 shows
the settings that generate this noise pattern.
269 — Textures
Figure 2
270 — Textures
Figure 3: The Noise parameters in the Node Inspector
Noise Texture Parameters
l Noise Type - Select from four different noise generators.

l Octaves - Sets the noise detail's scale.
l Omega - Controls the fractal pattern detail.
271 — Textures
l Projection - Sets how the texture projects onto the surface.

l Invert - Inverts the Noise texture values.
l Gamma1 - Adjust the Noise texture's luminance values.
l Contrast - Adjusts the Noise detail sharpness.
Ridged Fractal
The Ridged Fractal node produces a fractal pattern in grayscale format. In Figure 1, the Ridged Fractal
node has been connected to a Diffuse material2 's Diffuse3 pin. Note that the UVW Transform scale (S.X,
S.Y, S.Z) values have been significantly lowered for the pattern to emerge on the surface.
272 — Textures
Figure 1: A Ridged Fractal texture is connected to a Diffuse material, and also used as input
for a Baking texture for Procedural displacement
Ridged Fractal Parameters
Power
Controls the overall brightness of the texture.
Ridge Height
This specifies the height of the elevated parts of the fractal pattern.
Octaves
Controls the amount of detail in the texture.
Omega
This specifies the difference per interval.
273 — Textures
Lacunarity
Controls the size of the gaps in the fractal pattern.
UVW Transform
Controls position, scale, and rotation of the texture on the surface.
Projection
Determines how the texture is projected onto the surface.
Saw, Sine, Triangle Wave
The Sine Wave, Saw Wave, and Triangle Wave textures can create various banding or striped patterns.
You can adjust the position, scale, and rotation of the patterns in the UVW Transform parameter. Figure 1
shows a comparison of the Sine, Saw, and Triangle Waves, respectively. The Offset parameter can shift the
position of the surface pattern.
Figure 1: A comparison of the Sine, Saw, and Triangle Wave textures
274 — Textures
You can create interesting effects by using one of the wave textures as an input for another Procedural tex-
ture. Figure 2 shows the result of using a Sine Wave as the input for the Offset of a Turbulence texture.
275 — Textures
276 — Textures
Figure 2 : A Sine Wave controls the Offset of a Turbulence texture
Turbulence
The Turbulence texture generates a Procedural noise texture that has a different quality than the Noise
texture. Figure 1 shows the Turbulence texture connected to a Diffuse1 material's Diffuse channel.
277 — Textures
278 — Textures
Turbulence Texture Parameters
l Power - Controls overall texture brightness.

l Offset - Shifts the Turbulence pattern in 3D space.
l Octaves - Sets the noise detail's scale.
l Omega - Controls fractal pattern detail.
l Projection - Determines how the texture projects onto the surface.
l Use Turbulence - Toggles the turbulent noise calculation, which multiplies against procedural noise.
l Invert - Inverts the Noise texture values.
l Gamma1 - Adjusts the Noise texture's luminance values.
Geometric Textures
Geometric Textures2 are a category of textures used to generate geometric patterns that can be used by
themselves or in combination with the Mapping and Color textures to create surface effects. The patterns
they produce are the result of geometric algorithms. This is a very memory efficient way to generate geo-
metric patterns as the calculations require less memory than loading bitmap images. These are also used to
create bump maps and other advanced materials with minimal impact to GPU3 memory. It is therefore advant-
ageous to explore creating materials using these textures before resorting to image based textures.
l Dirt Texture
l Falloff Map
l Instance Color
l Instance Range
l Polygon Side
l Random Color Texture
l W Coordinate
Color Vertex Attribute
279 — Textures
OctaneRender® uses vertex colors or other vertex attributes while rendering materials. OctaneRender® auto-
matically loads and interpolates both real numbers and colors over the scene's triangles and sends them to the
OSL shaders.
Figure 1: The Color Vertex attribute
280 — Textures
Figure 2: Color Vertex samples
Dirt Texture
The Dirt texture can create different shading effects based on ambient occlusion calculations. This texture is
useful for simulating dirt, dust, or wear and tear, as well as blending textures based on the recesses of a sur-
face.
Users often connect the Dirt texture to the Diffuse1, Bump, or Transmission 2 inputs of an OctaneRender®
material.
Figure 1 shows the result of connecting two RGB Spectrum textures to the inputs of a Mix texture, which is
then connected to the Diffuse pin of a Material3 node. The Dirt texture alters the Mix amount.
281 — Textures
282 — Textures
Figure 1: The Dirt texture node used to determine the Mix amount for two RGB Color nodes
Dirt Texture Parameters
l Strength - Controls the Dirt intensity across the geometry surface.

l Details - Controls the Details intensity.
l Radius - Controls the dirt spread across the model's surface from the recessed parts towards the
exposed parts.
l Tolerance - Reduces black edges on rough tessellated meshes.
l Invert Normal - Reverses the Dirt texture effect based on the normal surface direction.
Falloff Map
The Falloff Map texture controls material blending, depending on the viewing angle of the material's geo-
metry.
283 — Textures
284 — Textures
285 — Textures
The angle between the Eye Ray and the Shading Normal is mapped from [0°, 90°] to [0, 1]. For values lar-
ger than 1, the Falloff node does a gamma correction using the Falloff Skew Factor as an exponent.
OctaneRender® uses the Skew Factor to interpolate between the spectral shades resulting from the Min-
imum Value and Maximum Value parameters, which are based on the first and second inputs of a Mix
node.
You can use the Falloff Map to control the blending amount of a Mix node. The Mix node can either be Mix Tex-
ture or Mix Material1.
286 — Textures
When using the Falloff Map, the Falloff node controls the Amount parameter of the Mix node.
Three modes of the Falloff Map
l Normal vs. Eye Ray: This is the default mode where OctaneRender calculates the falloff from the
angle between the Surface Normal and the Eye Ray. This mode is often used for reflections. The Falloff
color range affects faces directly in front of the view, and gradually falls at angled faces towards the
sides as it falls away from the straight-on viewing angle. The Falloff Direction parameter does not
apply.
(Skew
287 — Textures
factor = 1; Direction does not apply)

l Normal vs. Vector 90deg: OctaneRender calculates the falloff from the angle between the Surface
Normal and the specified direction vector, maxing out at 90 degrees. This is similar to the default mode,
except that it maintains the effect of the color range according to the Falloff Direction parameter.
(Skew
factor = 1; Direction x=1)
l Normal vs. Vector 180deg: OctaneRender calculates the falloff from the angle between the Surface
Normal and the specified direction vector, maxing out at 180 degrees. This provides a wider color range
from the Minimum to the Maximum Values, and maintains the effect of the color range according to the
Falloff Direction parameter.
(Skew
factor = 1; Direction x=1)
288 — Textures
Falloff Map Parameters
l Minimum Value - The visible material on the surface facing the camera. A value of 0 displays the
material connected to Material pin 2, and a value of 1 displays the material connected to Material pin 1.
l Maximum Value - Determines what material displays towards the grazing angles. A value of 0 dis-
plays the material connected to Material pin 2, and a value of 1 displays the material connected to Mater-
ial pin 1.
l Falloff Skew Factor - Balances the Normal and Grazing angles' influence. Low values result in
stronger Grazing angle influence - any textures that the Maximum Value controls cover more surface.
High values result in stronger Normal angle influence - any textures that the Minimum Value controls
cover more surface.
In the figure below, a red Diffuse material1 connects to the Mix material2 's first Material pin, and a white
Diffuse3 material connects to the second Material pin. The Falloff map then connects to the Mix material's
Amount pin.

2 Used to mix any two material types.
289 — Textures
A Falloff texture controlling the Mix amount of a Mix material blending two Diffuse mater-
ials
A value of 0.1 leads to almost complete coverage by the grazing value regardless of viewing angle, whereas a
value of 15 leads to almost complete coverage by the Normal value. This parameter's default setting is 6.
290 — Textures
While the index value on Glossy1 and Specular2 nodes corresponds to a real world Index of Refraction
(IOR) value on dielectric materials like plastic and glass (OctaneRender doesn't yet support metals and Bezier
curves), the Falloff node works differently because of this Falloff Skew Factor.
If set to 1, then the value is proportional to the angle between the Normal and the Camera Ray (i.e. if view
angle is 45°, then the value is 0.5).
If the value is larger than 1, then it applies a power curve to the angle.
If the value is smaller than 1, then it inverts the skew factor, and mirrors the power curve.
l falloff ≤ 1 : y = x falloff
l falloff ≥ 1 : y = 1 – (1 – x) (1 / falloff )
Falloff Direction
This is used by the Normal vs. Vector 90deg and Normal vs. Vector 180deg modes. For most materials, the
Fresnel effect (the default mode) is often correct, while Falloff Direction applies for exceptional cases, which
can adjust relative to the camera. Changing the object rotation will not change the Falloff Direction orientation.
You can approximate the behavior of glass with a Skew Factor of 8.0 and a Normal value of 0.034.
291 — Textures
You can also use the Falloff Map for other things, like the input for glass opacity. Falloff is useful for car shaders
(at 90 degrees, it should have the desired color and in less somewhat darker, but at the same time a bit more
reflective), water shaders (tends to be more reflective to low angles of incidence), and fabrics like velvet
(tends to become almost white at low angles). It is also useful for some metals to simulate some coating
effects.
<-Image
without Falloff
292 — Textures
<-Image
with Falloff
293 — Textures
Sample Node Graph Using The Falloff Texture Map
294 — Textures
Greyscale Vertex Attribute
OctaneRender® uses Greyscale Vertex attributes while rendering materials. OctaneRender® automatically
loads and interpolates real numbers and greyscale shades over the triangles in the scene and provides them to
the OSL shaders.
295 — Textures
Figure 1: The Greyscale Vertex Attribute
Instance Color
The Instance Color texture holds an image, and prepares each pixel of the image for mapping to geometric
instance IDs.
Just as a Lua1 script or any of the OctaneRender® plug-ins are able to generate instances of an object, these
same processes can also assign an ID to each of the instances generated, which results in a grid of instance
IDs. You can then assign colors to each instance ID via Texture (in this case with an image in the Instance
Color texture), and match the IDs with pixels of the image, starting at the bottom-left and moving up to the top-
right.
For the example below, there are 10 x 10 instances, and since a Lua script assigns IDs to each instance,
OctaneRender generates 100 IDs.
296 — Textures
Figure 1: A cube and 99 instances of the same cube are shown here, forming a 10 x 10 grid
of cubes
You can plug an image with 10 x 10 pixels into the Instance Color texture to match these dimensions.
OctaneRender maps each pixel and assigns them to the instance IDs.
297 — Textures
298 — Textures
You can also use an existing image's dimensions as the basis for creating the instances. You can create the
instances and assign an ID to each instance by a Lua script, or by an OctaneRender plug-in or any other stand-
ard object scatter plug-ins supported by OctaneRender. Below is one example of the possibilities using expli-
citly-defined IDs in conjunction with the Instance Color texture.
Since OctaneRender stores the colors as a texture, this option is more flexible compared to storing the colors
directly with the geometry since it allows you to specify more than one color per instance.
299 — Textures
Instance Range
The Instance Range texture holds a greyscale color with the Maximum ID range of 0 to whatever figure
you enter in this parameter, and OctaneRender® prepares this range to map it to geometric instance IDs.
Figure 1: Parameters of the Instance Range texture node
Just as a Lua1 script or any of the OctaneRender plug-ins are able to generate instances of an object, these
same processes can also assign an ID to each generated instance, which results in a grid of instance IDs. You
can then assign colors to each instance ID via Texture (in this case with an image in the Instance Color tex-
ture), and match the IDs with pixels of the image, starting at the bottom-left and moving up to the top-right. For
the example below, there are 10 x 10 instances that a Lua script assigns IDs to each instance, generating 100
IDs. To map the range, the Maximum ID attribute must match the number of generated IDs - 100 in this case.
300 — Textures
301 — Textures
You can use other mapping textures, such as the Gradient texture, in conjunction with the Instance Range to
create some interesting variations.
302 — Textures
303 — Textures
Since OctaneRender stores the colors as a texture, this option is more flexible compared to storing the colors
directly with the geometry, since it allows you to specify more than one color per instance.
Polygon Side
304 — Textures
The Polygon Side node assigns black or white values based on the normal direction of a polygon object. This
is useful for assigning different textures or materials to different sides of a polygon object. Figure 1 shows how
a Polygon Side node controls the amount of a Mixtexture (green and red RGB Color textures are connected
to the Mix texture).
Figure 1: A Polygon Side texture controls the Mix texture blending amount, which blends
green and red RGB Spectrum textures
305 — Textures
Figure 2: The Diffuse material1 parameters in the Node Inspector
The result connects to the OctaneRender® material's Diffuse2 channel, which applies to a twisted polygon.
Figure 3 shows a rendering of the twisted geometry. This technique is useful for creating a leaf or butterfly
wing with different colors or materials applied to each side.
Figure 3: A twisted surface with a red texture mapped to one side of the polygon and a
green texture mapped to the other
Random Color Texture
The Random Color texture generates a random float value that creates color variations on instances of geo-
metry connected to a single OctaneRender® material. Figure 1 shows a number of instances of the
OctaneRender logo geometry. A single Diffuse3 material applies to all of the instances. Each instance has a
random shade because the Random Color texture node connects to the material's Diffuse channel.

306 — Textures
Figure 2 shows a graph of the network. OctaneRender creates these instances by connecting the Geometry
node to multiple Placement nodes. The Random Color texture is useful when importing baked particle sim-
ulations that contain thousands of instances. OctaneRender can apply a single material to the instances, and
the Random Color texture can connect to different channels of the material to create variations in the instance
shading. The Random Color texture has a single parameter - Random Seed. Changing this value shifts the
random output of the texture.
Figure 1: Several instances of the same geometry have random shading after connecting a
Random Color texture to the instance's Material1
307 — Textures
Figure 2: A graph of the geometry instances network
W Coordinate
The W Coordinate texture can access the OctaneRender® W Coordinate System, which provides the means
to place Gradients on hair geometry. The hair geometry stores an inherent Hair Gradient Interpolation
along with hair data exported from common 3D modeling applications. W is an attribute of the Mesh node,
which defines a coordinate for every hair vertex per strand. This attribute is loaded from an Alembic1 file
input. However, if the attribute is not in the Alembic file, OctaneRender creates the coordinates automatically
per strand. OctaneRender uses the resulting vertex coordinates to distribute a gradient per strand, and the
gradient interpolation is based on settings in the Import tab of the Preferences pane.
It takes into account basis of the Interpolation set in the Import tab.
308 — Textures
To use the W attribute to apply gradient colors to the hair data, you must plug a W Coordinate texture as the
Input of an OctaneRender Gradient . This tells OctaneRender to render the inputs as a Gradient mapping,
and OctaneRender uses the specified Gradient interpolation to distribute the gradient. This is based on either
the hair length or the segment count per strand, depending on what is set in the Import tab for hair geometry.
309 — Textures
For example, if the hair strand has 3 segments, and each of the hair segments have a different length, the Hair
Length option distributes the W evenly from root to tip. Segment Count distributes the W independent of
the segment lengths, so the first segment goes from 0 to 1/3, the second segment goes from 1/3 to 2/3, and
the last segment goes from 2/3 to 1.
310 — Textures
311 — Textures
Hair Segment Interpolation Hair Length Interpolation
Mappings
The Mapping node category contains nodes that can be used to alter or adjust both Procedural and impor-
ted texture maps. Mapping is found as a subsection of the Textures1 section of the pop-up menu (Figure 1).
312 — Textures
313 — Textures
Figure 1: Mappings are a subcategory of Textures
Baking Texture
This texture allows you to bake an arbitrary texture into an image and make use of Procedural textures in dis-
placement mapping. The baking uses the texture preview system, and then the texture appears like an image
texture to the rest of the system. The baking is done whenever an input changes, and baking is calculated on-
the-fly. The internal image is not stored in the project, so it needs recalculating whenever you load the project.
You can access the Baking texture node by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and selecting Baking
Texture from the Textures1 menu item (Figure 1).
314 — Textures
315 — Textures
Figure 1: Selecting the Baking Texture node from the pop-up context menu of the Node-
graph Editor
With this Texture node, you can utilize the full power of Procedural textures and combine them with Dis-
placement 1, which makes it easy to create alien landscapes like this:
In OctaneRender®, Displacement cannot utilize a Procedural texture map. This Texture node provides a way
to bake Procedural textures into an image to use as a Displacement map.
In the following example, Displacement uses the Turbulence procedural texture by connecting it to the Bak-
ing texture node before connecting it to the Displacement node (Figure 2).
316 — Textures
Figure 2: The Turbulence node used for Displacement by filtering it through the Baking tex-
ture node
Triplanar Map
The Triplanar Map texture works in conjunction with a Triplanar projection. The Triplanar projection takes
the coordinates in world or object space and it picks the projection axis, depending on the active axis of the Tri-
planar Map. This gives a quick way to map a texture on any object, and presents the possibility for texture
transforms local to each projection axis. The Triplanar Map has six input pins representing the positive and neg-
ative X, Y, and Z planes. The same or different Texture nodes can map to each of these input pins.
317 — Textures
The Triplanar Map and the Triplanar projection are mapping a Check texture and an impor-
ted texture to different projection planes of an object
318 — Textures
This texture maps the samples of multiple textures along three planes — x, y, and z — in world space or object
space coordinates, and blends them to create one seamless texture. In most cases, and depending on the com-
plexity of the model, it generally allow users to map textures without having a UV-mapped mesh.
319 — Textures
The Triplanar Map divides a material map into six areas corresponding to the x, -x, y, -y, z, and -z axes. Ini-
tially, a texture would cover the entire surface of the object, but the triplanar mapping confines visibility of the
texture map onto the corresponding axes that are active for that texture. The illustration below compares an
image without the triplanar mapping versus one that is plugged into the Positive X and Positive Y axis pins
of a Triplanar Map node.
320 — Textures
The Triplanar projection can localize the projection of the texture to a corresponding plane and allow texture
UV transforms relative to that projection axis.
321 — Textures
322 — Textures
You can adjust the Triplanar Map's Blend Angle and Blend Cube Transform parameters to soften the
seams.
UVW Transform Texture
The UVW Transform texture takes an Input Texture and applies a map to transform the Input Texture’s
UV layout on top of the its own UV coordinate transformation.
323 — Textures
It is also applied to the input texture’s UVW Transform parameter, and this concept becomes more useful
when used in conjunction with other mapping textures to combine different scales/orientations/translations of
that same texture to create a larger detail range.
324 — Textures
The UVW Transform texture can be used in conjunction with other mapping textures like the Triplanar Map
texture, Mix texture, Cosine Mix texture, logical texture maps like Comparison, or arithmetic texture maps
like Add, Subtract, and Multiply.
325 — Textures
Here is an example where there is a need to combine different scales/orientations/translations of the same tex-
ture to create a larger detail without creating obvious patterns:
Operators
Operators are a category of textures used to generate patterns as a result of a mathematical function. These
can then be used by themselves or in combination with the Mapping and Color textures to create surface
326 — Textures
effects that are very memory efficient compared to direct loading of bitmap images. These are also used to cre-
ate bump maps and other advanced materials with minimal impact to GPU1 memory.
l Add Texture
l Clamp Texture
l Color Correction
l Comparison
l Cosine Mix Texture
l Gradient
l Invert
l Mix Texture
l Multiply Texture
l Subtract Texture
Add Texture
The Add Texture node adds two textures together. The calculation is similar to the Add layer mode used in
Photoshop® that adds the color values of two layers (Figure 1).
327 — Textures
Figure 1: Add Texture adds a red color to a Turbulence texture. The result is that the dark
parts of the turbulence pattern are tinted red
Clamp Texture
The Clamp texture provides a minimum and maximum value to clamp the values of an incoming texture map.
In the example shown in Figure 1, the material on the left has the Turbulence texture connected to the
Diffuse1 channel of a Diffuse material. The material on the right shows the same Turbulence texture
passing through a Clamp texture, and then connected to the Diffuse channel of another Diffuse material2 .
The Clamp values are set to a minimum of 0.1 and maximum of 0.3. The result has a lot less contrast than the
material on the left.
328 — Textures
Figure 1: The Clamp texture alters the values of a turbulence texture
Color Correction
The Color Correction node adjusts image map attributes such as Brightness, Hue, Saturation,
Gamma1, and Contrast (Figure 1).
329 — Textures
Figure 1: The Color Correction node alters the RGB Color node's Hue and Brightness values
before connecting to the Diffuse1 pin on a Diffuse material2
Comparison
The Comparison node offers you the ability to use a logical comparison operator as a way to combine tex-
tures. The node takes four inputs: the first two inputs are the textures for comparison. The second two inputs
are the result of the comparison. (Figure 1).
330 — Textures
Figure 1: The various input pins for the Comparison node: (1) Input 1, (2) Input 2, (3) If
A<B, (4) If A>=B
This is a conditional Texture node for altering a given texture (input A) based on another texture (input B). In
its simplest form, the Comparison node is used to select between two alternative textures at render time.
In the example below, the result will be black since inputs A and B are the same, and it evaluates to "true" for
the second condition.
331 — Textures
Cosine Mix Texture
The Cosine Mix texture mixes two textures together according to a cosine wave. In Figure 1, a Checks tex-
ture combines with a Marble texture using a Cosine Mix texture, and then it connects to the Diffuse1 channel
of a Diffuse material. It is very similar to the Mix texture, but the difference between the Cosine mix texture
and the Mix texture is more apparent when the Mix Amount parameter is shifted towards 0 or 1.
332 — Textures
333 — Textures
Figure 1: A Marble texture is blended with a Checks texture using the Cosine Mix texture
The parameters of the Cosine Mix texture consist of the inputs for the two textures, and the Mix Amount para-
meter. The Mix Amount parameter accepts a float value or any texture that outputs a float, such as a Grey-
scale Image texture.
Gradient
The Gradient texture produces a gradient blend between colors. It accepts an input to determine how the
gradient maps to the surface. In Figure 1, a gradient that goes from green to red connects to the Diffuse1
channel of an OctaneRender® material. OctaneRender maps the gradient using a Falloff map, resulting in the
reddish color of the gradient being more visible on the edges of the surface that face away from the camera,
and the green color appearing on the parts of the surface that face the camera. Figure 2 shows the Gradient tex-
ture in the Node Inspector.
334 — Textures
335 — Textures
Figure 1: A Falloff map is mapping a colored gradient to a surface
Figure 2: The parameters of the Gradient texture in the Node Inspector
336 — Textures
Gradient Parameters
l Gradient - Determines the gradient's colors. Use the + and - buttons to add or remove gradient mark-
ers. Each new marker creates an arrow and a new color input option. You can place the color on dif-
ferent parts of the gradient by dragging the marker around.
l Interpolation - Select Constant, Linear, or Cubic to determine the color-blending rate from one
marker to the next.
l Input Texture - Determines how the color maps to the surface.
l Start Value, End Value - Use the color swatches or RGB values to set the gradient's starting and end-
ing colors.
Invert
The Invert texture can be used to reverse the colors or values in a Texture map or Procedural map. In Fig-
ure 1, the Invert Texture node flips the black and white areas of a Checks texture.
337 — Textures
Figure 1: An Invert texture reverses the color values on a Checks texture
Mix Texture
The Mix texture mixes two textures together. In Figure 1, a Marble texture combines with a RGB Color tex-
ture using the Mix texture that's connected to the diffuse component of an OctaneRender® material. By
default,a float value controls the Amount. A value of 0 means the First Texture is visible, and a value of 1
means the Second Texture is visible. Values in between blend the two textures together in a linear fashion.
The Mix texture is similar to the Cosine Mix texture, except for the behavior of the mix slider. In Figure 1, the
Mix Amount is controlled with a Sine Wave texture.
338 — Textures
339 — Textures
Figure 1: A yellow color is mixed with a Marble texture, and the mix amount is controlled by
a Sine Wave texture
Multiply Texture
The Multiply texture multiplies the values of textures or colors together in an overlay fashion. Figure 1 shows
a yellow RGB Color texture multiplied with a Marble texture.
340 — Textures
341 — Textures
Figure 1 : A yellow RGB Color texture is multiplied against a Marble texture, and the result
is connected to the Diffuse1 channel of a Diffuse material2
Subtract Texture
The Subtract texture subtracts the value of one texture from another, similar to the Subtract layer mode in
Photoshop®. Figure 1 shows a graph of the Subtract texture used to subtract a Marble texture from a yellow
RGB Color texture.
Figure 1: The subtraction of a yellow RGB Color texture from a Marble texture results in a
blue color
Displacement
342 — Textures
Displacement 1 mapping utilizes a 2D texture map in order to generate 3D surface relief. As opposed to
Bump and Normal mapping, Displacement mapping not only provides the illusion of depth, but it also dis-
places point positions over the surface based on light and dark values of the Displacement texture. The
OctaneRender® Displacement node controls how the texture displaces the surface. Displacement mapping
requires a UV projection for the object with the displacement. Models created in other 3D applications
(ZBrush®, Mudbox ®, Maya®, etc.) need UV texture coordinates, and the Displacement map texture should
match the model's UV layout. Procedural textures will not work for Displacement in OctaneRender - only
Image textures will work, thus, procedural textures will need to be baked prior using a "Baking Texture" on
page 314.
You can find the Displacement node by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the Dis-
placement category (Figure 1).
Note: Motion Blur2 with Displacement is currently not supported.
343 — Textures
Figure 1: Creating a Displacement texture
The Displacement node connects to the Displacement input pin of a Material1 node. The Displacement
texture (typically a Grayscale Image node) then connects to the Texture pin of the Displacement node (Fig-
ure 2).
344 — Textures
Figure 2: A Material graph with Displacement applied to a Mesh
Displacement Parameters
l Texture - This slot provides the Displacement map path. Displacement maps are image textures gen-
erated in programs like ZBrush, 3D Coat, Substance Designer, or Photoshop®.
345 — Textures
l Mid Level - Defines the Displacement shift in texture value range. Set this value to 0.5 for image tex-
tures that use 50% to represent no displacement, or for images (such as 32-bit EXRs) that use black to
represent no displacement, set this value to 0. If you use a digital sculpting program like ZBrush to gen-
erate Displacement, you can get the best results by setting Mid Level in the sculpting program to 0.5
when it generates Displacement, and then set the Displacement node's Mid Level value to 0.5.
l Level Of Detail - Adjusts map detail quality. Higher values reduce artifacts seen in shadows cast on
the Displacement surface and brings out finer details, but it increases render time.
l Height - Controls Displacement strength.
l Displacement Direction - Lets you choose different Displacement vectors.
l Filter Type - Selects the Displacement map filter.
l Filter Radius - Adjusts the number of nearest pixels to use for filtering. Higher values result in
smoother Displacement maps. This parameter is valid if you enable a Box or Gaussian filter.
Note: Calculating Displacement geometry places additional GPU1 load. High or low Dis-
placement values (Height) causes issues and GPU errors. Displacement mapping emphasizes
details in the scene's textural aspects rather than major features that the geometry (e.g., rugged
terrains, large crevices) should provide. You can't use Displacement and a Normal map together
on the same material - this results in rendering artifacts on the material. This also applies to
Bump maps, but the digital artifacts are less pronounced.
Projections
Projection nodes can add or edit existing UV mapping coordinates of a texture map. These nodes do not alter
the actual 3D model's UV coordinates - they simply apply a new UV projection to its connected texture in the
Nodegraph Editor (Figure 1).
346 — Textures
347 — Textures
Figure 1: Accessing the Projection nodes in the Nodegraph Editor
Box
The Box projection is an extension of XYZ To UVW mapping - the projection of the planes of the cube are
based on the normal direction of the surface. Box projection provides a quick way to map a texture on any
object without too much distortion. However, the seams between the projection planes of the box may be vis-
ible in the render, depending on the shape of the surface (Figure 1).
348 — Textures
Figure 1: The result of using Box projection applied to a Checks texture node
Cylindrical
349 — Textures
Cylindrical projection wraps texture maps on a surface with a cylindrical shape. Cylindrical projection
provides a quick way to map a texture on roughly cylindrical-shaped surfaces without too much distortion.
However, the seams of the texture may be visible in the render, depending on the shape of the surface (Figure
1).
Figure 1: The result of using Cylindrical projection with the Checks texture node
350 — Textures
This projection performs cylindrical mapping where the U coordinate is the longitude, and the Y coordinate is
the world space Y coordinate. For Images, the mapping on the Y axis maps the image to the [-1, 1] interval.
For Procedural textures, the W coordinate is the distance from the Y axis. For points on the ground plane
(Y=0), cylindrical and spherical mappings now map to the same points on the images, or what would be the
equator on spherical mapping.
Figure 2: Cylindrical projections on a box, cylinder, and sphere
Mesh UV
The Mesh UV projection uses the mesh's UV coordinates to map the texture to the surface. This is the default
behavior for all textures, so in many cases, it's unnecessary to use a Projection node when mapping a tex-
ture based on UVs.
This projection applies a spherical mapping for Environment textures and IES1 light distributions. For more
control over the projection (mainly rotation), use the Spherical projection in these cases.
Perspective
1 An IES light is the lighting information representing the real-world lighting values for specific light fixtures. For
more information, visit http://www.ies.org/lighting/.
351 — Textures
Perspective mapping takes the world space coordinates and divides the X and Y coordinates by the Z coordin-
ate (Figure 1). This is a useful way to model a projector (i.e., by using a texture with this projection as the dis-
tribution, with black border mode). You can also use it for camera mapping.
The same change as the other projections applies here: the image is mapped to (-1, -1) – (1, 1), so by default,
offsets are not needed to use this mapping for projectors or camera mapping.
Figure 1: The Perspective projection node orienting a Checks texture
352 — Textures
This projection takes the world space coordinates and divides the X and Y coordinates by the Z coordinate. This
is useful if you want to model a projector (i.e., use a texture with this projection as the distribution, with black
border mode). It is also useful for camera mapping. The image is mapped to (-1, -1) – (1, 1), so by default, an
offset is not necessary to use this mapping for projectors or camera mapping.
Figure 2: Perspective projection applied to a box, cylinder, and sphere
Spherical
The Spherical projection is used for Environment textures and IES1 light distributions. It performs lat-
itude-longitude mapping for the U and V coordinates. When used with Procedural textures, the W coordinate
is the distance from the origin (Figure 1).
353 — Textures
Figure 1: The Spherical projection used with the Checks procedural texture
When using an Image texture to light a scene with the OctaneRender® Environment node, spherical map-
ping combined with a Transforms node allows for the rotation and translation of the environment sphere's
texture.
354 — Textures
This projection is mostly used for Environment textures and IES light distributions. It performs latitude-lon-
gitude mapping for the U and V coordinates, and for Procedural textures, the W coordinate is the distance
from the origin. To rotate a texture image (e.g., an HDR image) around a vertical axis, switch the projection of
the texture environment image to Spherical and rotate it via the Y axis through the Sphere Trans-
formation sliders.
Figure 2: Spherical projection applied to a box, cylinder, and sphere
Triplanar
The Triplanar projection works in conjunction with a Triplanar map. It takes the coordinates in world or
object space and will pick the projection axis depending on the active axis of the Triplanar map node. This
gives a quick way to map a texture on any object, and presents the possibility for texture transforms local to
each projection axis. The Triplanar map node has six input pins representing the positive and negative X, Y,
and Z planes. You can map the same or different texture nodes to each of these input pins. (Figure 1).
355 — Textures
Figure 1: The Triplanar map and the Triplanar projection map a Check texture and an impor-
ted texture to an object's different projection planes
356 — Textures
Figure 2: Triplanar projection applied to a box, cylinder, and sphere
XYZ to UVW
XYZ To UVW is also known as planar projection or flat mapping. This mapping type takes the coordinates in
world or object space and uses them as UVW coordinates. For images, only the X and Y coordinates are rel-
evant, which are mapped to U and V. In other words, the images use flat mapping projected along the Z axis.
XYZ To UVW results differ depending on whether it is applied to a Procedural texture or an imported texture.
In Figure 1, a procedural texture using XYZ To UVW is oriented in a similar fashion to Box projection. In Figure
2, an imported texture using XYZ To UVW is oriented in a planar fashion.
357 — Textures
Figure 1: XYZ To UVW projection applied to a Procedural texture map
358 — Textures
Figure 2: XYZ to UVW projection applied to an imported texture map
XYZ To UVW maps image textures to the (-1, -1) - (1, 1) range. Rotating the mapping around the Z axis rotates
the image around the center, as the UVW rotation would do. Octane uses the object coordinate space in a way
that the texture projection is in a coordinate space local to each instance. If UV mapping is required, you can
apply a transformation in UV space (translation/scale/rotation) via the UV Transform pin.
359 — Textures
Figure 3: XYZ To UVW projection applied to a box, cylinder, and sphere
OSL Projection Node
The OSL Projection node is a scriptable node where users write OSL (Open Shader Language1 ) scripts
using the to define arbitrary projection types. It works similar to an OSL Texture node but connects to a pro-
jection input. OSL is a standard created by Sony Imageworks. To learn about the generic OSL standard, inform-
ation is provided from the OSL Readme and PDF documentation.
360 — Textures
Figure 1: Right-click on the Node Graph Editor pane and select Projections1 > OSL Pro-
jection node from the pop-up context menu
1Methods for orienting 2D texture maps onto 3D surfaces.
361 — Textures
Figure 2: An OSL Projection node is connected to the projection input pin of an Image tex-
ture node
The customized OSL script is written into the OSL Projection node to create custom camera types. To edit the
script, click on the pencil icon to go to the script editor window. If the script exists as an external .osl file, insert
the .osl file into the node through the load icon. Any existing file already used within an Osl Camera node may
be edited. To refresh the file and use the edits, reload the file via the reload icon.
362 — Textures
Figure 3: The script editor window showing the initial script of the OSL Projection node
When an OSL Projection node is invoked in Octane’s node system, the node is provided with an initial OSL
script (Figure 3):
Shader OslProjection (
output point uvw = 0)
uvw = point(u, v, 0);
The initial script’s declaration component includes one required output variable with output type point. The
OSL I/O type “point“ corresponds to an Octane projection attribute node (Box, Mesh UV, Spherical,
Cylindrical...).
A projection shader must have one output of a point-like type. All global variables have the same meaning as
within texture shaders. The output value specifies a texture coordinate.
363 — Textures
For a list of OSL variable declaration Input/Output types in the OSL Specification that Octane supports,
refer to the Appendix topic on OSL Implementation in Octane. To learn more about scripting within Octane
using the Open Shader Language refer to The Octane OSL Guide.
Transforms
Transforms provide control over the texture map placement on object surfaces. Most Projection and Gen-
erator nodes offer similar controls, but the Transform nodes provide an additional level of control for texture
placement. The values in a Transform node are multiplied by the identical values in a Projection or Generator
node. Note that you can also use the Transform nodes to control geometry object placement in a scene.
You can access the Transform nodes by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and pointing to the Trans-
forms menu item (Figure 1).
364 — Textures
Figure 1: Accessing the Transforms list in the Nodegraph Editor
Transforms are usually paired with a Projection node in order to place a texture map on an object's surface
(Figure 2).
365 — Textures
Figure 2: A 2D Transform node paired with a Box projection to orient a Checks texture
2D Transformation
The 2D Transformation node provides scale and translation parameters for x and y, but not z. The Rota-
tion parameter rotates around the z axis, or perpendicular to the object’s surface (Figure 1).
366 — Textures
Figure 1: The 2D Transformation node’s parameters
3D Rotation
The 3D Rotation transform controls rotational values on the x, y, and z axes. It also allows you to change the
rotation order (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The 3D Rotation node’s parameters
3D Scale
The 3D Scale node provides parameters for controlling the x, y, and z values for a texture map's scale on the
surface of an object (Figure 1).
367 — Textures
Figure 1: The 3D Scale node’s parameters
3D Transformation
The 3D Transformation node has parameters for Rotation, Scale, and Translation on all three axes.
There is also a parameter for selecting different axes combinations for the Rotation Order (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The 3D Transformation node’s parameters
Transform Value
The Transform Value node is similar to the 3D Transformation node, except it does not provide any input
pins (Figure 1).
368 — Textures
Figure 1: The Transform Value node does not have input pins
369 — Textures
Lighting
Lighting in OctaneRender Standalone is generated using either an environment (Daylight or Texture envir-
onment) node or by connecting an emissive Diffuse1 texture to geometry. Using an IES2 light profile texture
geometry can be shaded to behave like a physical light in the scene.
By default all light you see in a an Octane scene when you first add geometry is generated by a white texture.
When you add an environment node to the Octane scene and connect it to the render target it will override the
white light. Adding a black texture environment to the scene will create a dark environment. You can then add
geometry with emissive textures or a high dynamic range texture (or both) to light the scene. Figure 1 shows
an object lit using an emissive texture applied to a polygon plane. A black texture environment is used to black
out the background lighting.
370 — Lighting
Figure 1: An object is lit using an emissive texture applied to a polygon plane
The articles ion this section cover the nodes that are used to light a typical Octane scene.
Daylight Environment
The Daylight Environment system simulates an outdoor lighting setup using real-world parameters. It can
be accessed by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the Environments category then
choosing Daylight (Figure 1).
371 — Lighting
Figure 1: Create a Daylight environment node
Switching to use the Daylight Environment is straightforward through the Current Environment preview:
372 — Lighting
Figure 2: Changing the environment to the Octane Daylight System
The Octane Daylight System's Node Parameters are as follows (Figure 2):
373 — Lighting
Figure 3: The Daylight Texture parameters in the Node Editor
Longitude / Latitude
These parameters can be set to get realistic sun settings for the specified geographic location.
374 — Lighting
Month / Day / GMT Offset / Local Time

These parameters can be used to accurately place the sun in the sky according to the date / time for the sun at
the current longitude / latitude
Interactive Map
The map can be used to interactively set the geographic location of the scene. This can allow the user to adjust
the position of the sun by simply dragging the cross hairs around on the map (Figure 3).
Figure 3: An interactive map can be used to set the location of the scene relative to the sun-
light
Turbidity
The Turbidity can be used to adjust the sharpness of the sun lights shadows. A low value creates sharp shad-
ows (like on a sunny day) and a higher value diffuses the shadows similarly to a cloudy day.
Power
The Power slider can be used to adjust the strength of the light. This can affect overall contrast and exposure
level of the image.
North Offset
The North offset slider can be used to adjust the actual North direction of the scene. This is useful for Archi-
tecture Visualization to ensure the direction of the sun is accurate to the scene.
Daylight Model (old/new/Nishita Light Mode)
375 — Lighting
This specifies which daylight model to be used as the current environment. The old daylight model lights a
scene with basic spectral radiance as the sun moves over the horizon at a relative distance from the object.
The new daylight model is used to simulate full spectrum daylight providing more sky color variation as the sun
moves along and bearing shorter rays as the sun moves closer to the normal plane. The Nishita Light Mode
implements atmospheric scattering based on the Nishita Sky Model and displays the variations of color which
are optical effects caused by the particles in the atmosphere.
Note: The Nishita Sky does not work with sky color and sunset color given that it is a physically based
model.
Sky Color/Sunset Color

These settings are used by the new daylight model to customize the spectral shade of light. This can affect over-
all mood expressed by the image.
Sun Size
This allows users to control the sun radius in the daylight environment.
Sky Texture
This allows users to connect a texture that will be used as the background and ensures that objects in the scene
accurately reflect it.
Importance Sampling
This toggles the importance sampling of the sky texture – similar to the importance sampling in the texture
environment.
Medium
This parameter can accept an Absorption 1 , Scattering2 , or Volume medium node to create volume/fog
effects across the scene. More information can be found in the Volume Fog Effects article under the Effects
Overview category.

376 — Lighting
Medium Radius
Adjusts the scale of the medium.
Texture Environment
The Texture environment affects the illumination and color of the environment. This node can be used to add
a HDRI1 environment texture to the scene for illumination. It can be accessed by right-clicking in the Node-
graph Editor and navigating to the Environments category then choosing Texture Environment (Figure
1).
377 — Lighting
Figure 1: The Texture environment can be created using the pop-up menu
The Texture - RGB Color can be scaled from white to black as a uniform color for scene illumination (Figure
2).
378 — Lighting
Figure 2: Texture is used to shade the background illumination
A High Dynamic Range Image1 (HDRI) map can be used as a texture environment. To use an HDRI file
as the environment, a RGB Image node must be connected to the Texture pin on the Texture Envir-
onment node. You will then be prompted to load the image file (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Load an RGB image as the texture
379 — Lighting
The following parameters are used to adjust the look of the lighting created by the HDRI image. Since the tex-
ture environment uses an RGB Image texture, these settings are the same as those found in the RGB Image
node.
Image Power
Increasing this value makes the scene brighter. Its a good idea to leave this set to 1 and use the Power setting
of the Texture Environment node to make the lighting brighter or dimmer.
Image Gamma1
Controls the luminance of the HDRI file.
Image Invert
Inverts the color values of the HDRI Image. In the case of using the image to light the scene, this is not often
very useful.
UV Transform
This controls how textures are mapped through the application of a matrix texture coordinate. To adjust the
rotation of the HDRI image to light the scene its usually a better idea to use the Projection settings.
Projection
Allows the user to specify mapping modes (or texture projections) to supplement texture transforms. The
spherical, cylindrical, flat, box, and perspective mapping modes allows extensive manipulation of the UV trans-
forms and world space coordinates used in image textures, procedural textures and camera mapping. For
Environment Maps, the Spherical Projection mode is commonly used. To make it easier to rotate the texture
set the Sphere Transformation to 3D rotation and adjust the Angles settings.
Border Mode
Provides one tile of the image, with the option to set adjacent tiles as mirror images of each other.
The following parameters are used to adjust the degree of illumination of the environment map as it is applied
on the scene:
380 — Lighting
Power
Use this setting to change the brightness of the illumination created by the HDRI image.
Importance Sampling
Enables quicker convergence (noise reduction) for HRDI images by applying importance to certain areas of the
HDRI so as to sample rays that resolve to the important areas more often than unimportant areas.
In some cases, shadows cast when using an HDR image in the Texture Environment node are too soft. In
these situations is is advantageous to combine the HDR image using the Daylight Environment node
instead of using the Texture Environment (Figure 5). Figure 6 shows a comparison between using the Texture
environment to light a scene and using Daylight Environment with an HDR image as the Sky texture.
381 — Lighting
Figure 5: Using a Daylight Environment node with an HDRI image as the Sky Texture can
create better looking shadows that using the Texture Environment
Figure 6: Comparison of shadow quality between Texture Environment only (Left) and Day-
light Environment with a sky texture (right)
Planetary Environment
The Planetary environment is a flexible Nishita Sky model. It is useful when rendering scenes seen from
outer space. For its effects to be visible, the camera has to have a very high altitude as it moves out into outer
space to view the expansive horizon of the planetary body. It takes into account the conditions within and bey-
ond the atmosphere of a planetary body (like Earth) and its surroundings in space. Instead of a single ground
color and a sky or sunset color, there is a planetary surface that reflects and emits light. This node extends the
environment's medium (volume rendering and subsurface scattering) with an atmospheric scattering through
the planetary body's atmosphere. Here, the atmosphere is perceived as a layer of gas surrounding a planetary
mass. It is held in place because of gravity, so as the light travels into atmosphere either from the outer layer
to the ground or from a light source within the atmosphere, then the atmosphere's density is sampled along the
ray at regular intervals, resulting in an amount of scattering based on the atmosphere's density. This atmo-
spheric scattering is based on the Nishita Sky model, which displays the variations of color that are optical
effects caused by the particles in the atmosphere.
This environment is not connected to the camera, and this allows you to zoom the camera view of the objects
in and out of the scene without affecting the position of the environment in the scene. It gathers optical depth
(transmittance) from the sun position, so if the sun position is greater than 0.0f on the y-axis (upward dir-
ection), then it will be colored. If you put it below horizon (i.e. sun position less than 0.0f on the t-axis), then it
won't gather transmittance, making it invisible.
382 — Lighting
Figure 1: Image rendered using the Planetary Environment with the camera set at a very
high altitude
Altitude
The camera's altitude. Set this to a very high value in order to view the expansive horizon of the planetary
body.
Star Field
Texture to convey star fields behind the planet.
Latitude
The latitude coordinate of the camera's current position.
Longitude
The longitude coordinate of the camera's current position.
Ground Albedo
The surface texture map on the planet.
383 — Lighting
Ground Reflection
The specular texture map on the planet.
Ground Glossiness
The planetary glossiness.
Ground Emission
The surface texture map on the planet at nighttime.
Ground Normal Map

Normal map on the planet.
Ground Elevation
Elevation map on the planet.
Figure 2: Image rendered using the Planetary environment with a starfield
384 — Lighting
The Visible Environment
Environment Maps may be specified as either an environment for lighting and an environment for the back-
ground. Apart from having an HDR image to light the environment, users may also specify a different envir-
onment for the background and would most likely prefer to see that background also in reflections.
If specified, this environment is used for reflections, refractions and all camera rays that leave the scene and
the regular environment is used only for the direct light calculation.
The visible environment overrides the normal environment in some specific use cases, giving more control
over the final look of the render. If a medium is configured in the environment, the medium will be ignored
when the environment is used as a visible environment.
Environment nodes (both daylight and texture environment) have extra options controlling the behaviour of the
environment when used as the visible environment. When the node is used as a normal environment, these
options are ignored.
l Backplate: The visible environment will be used as a backplate image.
l Reflections: The visible environment will override the normal environment when calculating reflec-
tions for specular and glossy materials.
l Refractions: The visible environment will override the normal environment when calculating refrac-
tions for specular materials.
In the example renders below, the same daylight environment is used for both environments except that the
normal environment is at noon while the visible environment is at sunset.
385 — Lighting
386 — Lighting
Mesh Emitters
A Mesh Emitter is a polygon object that emits light into a scene. This is possible by applying a Diffuse1
material to the Mesh object, and then connecting a Black Body2 or Texture emission node to the Diffuse
material3 's Emission channel (Figure 1).
Figure 1: A light-emitting Diffuse material
2 An opaque object that emits thermal radiation. In Octane, this is used to designate illumination properties for
mesh emitters.
387 — Lighting
In order to use a Mesh as a light source, first apply a Diffuse material to the surface, then connect an Emission
node to the Emission pin. There are two types of Emissions1 :
Black Body Emission

The Black Body emission type uses Color Temperature (in Kelvin) and Power to control the light's color
and intensity, respectively.
Texture Emission
This allows any valid Texture type to set the light intensity. You can use this emission to create interesting
effects, such as TV screens, by using an Image texture as the source.
You can access both Emission types by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the Emis-
sion category (Figure 2).
1 The process by which a Black body or Texture is used to emit light from a surface.
388 — Lighting
Figure 2: Emission nodes are added to the OctaneRender® scene using the pop-up menu
389 — Lighting
Note: When opening scenes built with previous versions V3.06 and below, you will need to adjust some
values in the emission nodes due to significant changes and improvements built in recent versions affect-
ing these nodes.
Black Body
The Black Body1 emission uses Temperature (in Kelvin) and Power to control the color and intensity of
the light, respectively. You can access the Black Body emission by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor
and navigating to the Emission category (Figure 1).
mesh emitters.
390 — Lighting
Figure 1: Emission nodes are added to the OctaneRender® scene using the pop-up menu
391 — Lighting
Black Body Emission Parameters
Figure 2: The Blackbody emission parameters
l Texture - Sets the light source's efficiency. You can set this to a value or texture. Keep in mind that
real-world lights aren't 100% efficient at delivering power at their specified wattage - a 100-watt light
bulb doesn't deliver 100 watts of light. This parameter enters the real-world values.
l Power - The light source's wattage. You should set each light to their real-world wattage - for
example, set a desk lamp to 25 watts, a ceiling lamp to 100 watts, and an LED light to 0.25 watts.
l Surface Brightness - Causes emitters to keep a constant Surface Brightness, independent of the
emitter surface area.
l Keep Instance Power - Enabling this option with Surface Brightness disabled and Uniform Scaling
applied to the object causes Power to remain constant.
392 — Lighting
l Double Sided - Allows emitters to emit light from the front and back sides.
l Temperature - The temperature (in Kelvin) of the Black Body emission's light.
l Normalize - Ensures all normal vectors have the same length for the Black Body emission - this keeps
the emitted light's luminance constant if the temperature varies. this is enabled by default.
l Distribution - Controls the light pattern. You can set this to a Greyscale or RGB image so that you
can load an Image texture or IES1 file. the Image texture's Projection nodes adjust the light's ori-
entation and direction.
l Sampling Rate - Choose what light sources receive more samples.
l Light Pass ID - The Light Pass ID captures the respective emitter's contribution.
l Visible On Diffuse2 - Enables light source visibility on diffuse surfaces. It allows you to enable or dis-
able the ability for Black Body emission's or Texture emission's light sources to cast illumination or shad-
ows on diffuse objects. Disabling this option disables emission - it's invisible in diffuse reflections, but is
still visible on specular reflections. It's also excluded from the Direct light calculation. This option is
393 — Lighting
enabled by default.
l Visible On Specular1 - Enables the light source's visibility on specular surfaces, and allows you to
hide emitters on specular reflections/refractions. This is enabled by default.
l Transparent Emission - Allows light sources to cast illumination on diffuse objects, even if the light
source is on transparent material.
394 — Lighting
l Cast Shadows - Enables light sources to cast light and shadows on diffuse surfaces, letting you dis-
able direct light shadows for Mesh emitters. To make this option work, the Direct light calculation must
include the emitter (the sampling rate must be greater than 0). This option is enabled by default.
Texture Emission
The Texture emission allows any valid Texture node to set the light intensity. You can use this to create inter-
esting effects, such as TV screens, by using an Image texture as the source. You can access the Texture emis-
sion by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the Emission category (Figure 1).
395 — Lighting
Figure 1: Accessing Emission nodes using the pop-up menu
396 — Lighting
Texture Emission Parameters
Figure 2: Texture emission parameters
l Texture - Sets the light source's efficiency. You can set this to a value or texture. Keep in mind that
real-world lights aren't 100% efficient at delivering power at their specified wattage - a 100-watt light
bulb doesn't deliver 100 watts of light. This parameter enters the real-world values.
l Power - The light source's wattage. You should set each light to their real-world wattage - for
example, set a desk lamp to 25 watts, a ceiling lamp to 100 watts, and an LED light to 0.25 watts.
l Surface Brightness - Causes emitters to keep a constant Surface Brightness, independent of the
emitter surface area.
l Keep Instance Power - Enabling this option with Surface Brightness disabled and Uniform Scaling
applied to the object causes Power to remain constant.
397 — Lighting
l Double Sided - Allows emitters to emit light from the front and back sides.
l Distribution - Controls the light pattern. You can set this to a Greyscale or RGB image so that you
can load an Image texture or IES1 file. the Image texture's Projection nodes adjust the light's ori-
entation and direction.
l Sampling Rate - Choose what light sources receive more samples.
l Light Pass ID - The Light Pass ID captures the respective emitter's contribution.
l Visible On Diffuse2 - Enables light source visibility on diffuse surfaces. It allows you to enable or dis-
able the ability for Black Body3 emission's or Texture emission's light sources to cast illumination or
shadows on diffuse objects. Disabling this option disables emission - it's invisible in diffuse reflections,
but is still visible on specular reflections. It's also excluded from the Direct light calculation. This option
mesh emitters.
398 — Lighting
is enabled by default.
l Visible On Specular1 - Visible On Specular - Enables the light source's visibility on specular sur-
faces, and allows you to hide emitters on specular reflections/refractions. This is enabled by default.
l Transparent Emission - Allows light sources to cast illumination on diffuse objects, even if the light
source is on transparent material.
399 — Lighting
l Cast Shadows - Enables light sources to cast light and shadows on diffuse surfaces, letting you dis-
able direct light shadows for Mesh emitters. To make this option work, the Direct light calculation must
include the emitter (the sampling rate must be greater than 0). This option is enabled by default.
Portals
Portal1 are a used to optimize the rendering of light sources, they accomplish this by helping the render ker-
nel find important light sources in the scene. For example, in the case of interior scenes illuminated by an out-
side light source that comes in through windows, it can be difficult for the path tracer to optimize the light as it
enters the interior environment. To help the path tracer find these light sources a polygon plane can be placed
outside the window and then a Portal Material2 can be applied to the plane, thus creating a portal plane (AKA
Portals). This set-up will improve the quality of the light and increase the efficiency of the render.
In Figure 1 (modeled in Maya), a room is being prepared with a small, single window. This would be a difficult
scene to light with a sun/sky or HDRI3 file with no lighting on the interior of the room.
A single plane was placed over the window (highlighted in green) with the normal for the plane facing into the
room (yellow arrow).
400 — Lighting
Figure 1: A plane is placed outside an opening in a polygon room, this plane will serve as a
surface for the portal material
Portal nodes can be accessed by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the Materials1 cat-
egory then choosing Portal.
401 — Lighting
Figure 2: The Portal material is found in the Materials section of the pop-up window
To set up a scene using Portal Materials it is important to make sure that every window or opening in the
environment is covered by a portal plane. It will not work if only one window has a portal over it when all other
windows do not have a portal over them. And the normal direction of the portal plane should be facing inwards
towards the interior or the scene will not render properly. Portal planes should not be blocked by other geo-
metry such as a glass surface. Objects with the Portal material applied will not be visible in the rendering as
geometry.
402 — Lighting
It is best to try to use the least amount of geometry for portals, eg only a few simple rectangular planes are
best, dense geometry used for portal planes can slow down rendering. It is possible to use a single piece of
portal geometry to cover several openings such as multiple windows on a single wall however if the geometry
is too large that can reduce rendering efficiency. Its important to strike a balance between coverage of open-
ings and the size of the geometry that uses the portal material.
The Portal Material option should be used with the Pathtracing and PMC kernels, it will not work when ren-
dering with the Direct Light kernel.
The two images in Figure 3 show the results of rendering without and with a portal material. The scene shows
a glass sphere rendered in a room lit by light coming through a window. The scene is rendered using 500
samples. Notice the first image, that does not have a portal plane placed over the opening, is noisier than the
second image which does use a portal plane.
Figure 3: Two images rendered without and with a portal plane. Notice that the second
image has less noise thanks to the use of a portal plane
403 — Lighting
Spectron (Volumetric Procedural Light)
Spectron is a procedural lighting system that lets you create procedurally-driven volumetric lighting - like
spot lights - with blockers, barn doors, gels (in the Distribution pin) and more.
Spectron is exposed as a Procedural light node type, which you can use for quick volumetric effects and spot
light generation (Figure 2).
To start using Spectron procedural lighting, click on Lights, followed by Volumetric Spotlight in the Graph
Editor (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Creating a Volumetric Spotlight in the Graph Editor
404 — Lighting
Figure 2: Example of a Volumetric Spotlight
405 — Lighting
Rendering
The articles in this section describe in detail the key nodes and settings that will help you use OctaneRender.
However, before delving into more complex render setups with OctaneRender, this article will take you
through the basics of Octane using a simple scene as an example.
1. Import a scene by moving the mouse over the Graph Editor. Right-click to bring up the context menu
with the node options list. Select Geometry >Scene to import an alembic file, or Geometry >
Mesh to import a wavefront obj file (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Import geometry into the Octane scene
406 — Rendering
Or if you have downloaded sample .orbx scenes, right-click on the Nodegraph Editor, select Import
and choose the ORBX1 file to load into OctaneRender (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Alternatively you can import an Octane ORBX file
407 — Rendering
2. Place a Render Target node to the scene node by invoking the Graph Editor’s context menu again. This
time select Render target (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Add a Render Target node
3. Connect the scene node to the Render Target node by click-dragging with the right mouse button from
output pin of the scene node to the geometry input pin of the Render Target node.
408 — Rendering
Figure 4: Connect the output of the scene into the Render Target node
4. To start rendering and seeing previews in the render Viewport, select the Render Target node in the
Graph Editor or in the Outliner (Figure 5).
409 — Rendering
Figure 5: Rendering in the Viewport begins when the Render Target node is selected
Render Target Node
The Render Target is the node that is referenced as an output point for the rendered scene. It offers power-
ful flexibility especially when setting up advanced scenes as it hooks up to everything that forms part of the
scene including the geometry, materials, environment, camera, and the render kernel. Multiple Render Tar-
gets allows for various scene configurations within the same file.
The Render Target node can be accessed by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and choosing Render Tar-
get (Figure 1).
410 — Rendering
Figure 1: Use the Pop-up menu to add a Render Target node to the scene
The RenderTarget node provides the set of default parameters listed below. Each parameter has an associated
pin for connecting appropriate nodes.
l Camera
l Resolution
l Environment
l Geometry
l Kernel
l Render Layer
l Render Passes1
411 — Rendering
l Imager
l Post Processing1
Figure 2: The input connections for the Render Target node
The Mesh node pin can accept geometry such as a polygon mesh (.obj), or an alembic scene (.abc). It can
also accept geometry groups and instances.
The image resolution for each preview Render Target can be set through its Resolution node in the Node
Inspector.
Each Render Target also has a default Kernel and this will be visible in the Node Inspector while that particular
Render Target is selected. For more information regarding Kernels2, refer to the specific Kernel articles in the
Rendering Overview section.
Appropriate node connections are shown below. Using specific nodes instead of simply adjusting the default
Render Target parameters offers greater flexibility and customization (Figure 3).
2 By definition, this is the central or most important part of something. In Octane, the Kernels are the heart of
the render engine.
412 — Rendering
Figure 3: Connecting nodes to the Render Target is a good way to customize the render out-
put
The following examples illustrate how multiple Render Targets can be connected to the same scene. In the fig-
ure 4, the Render Target node is active and it has different F-stop, Environment Power, and camera place-
ment than the second example shown in figure 5 where the Render Target (2) node is active.
413 — Rendering
Figure 4: The render preview shows the result generated when the first Render Target is
selected
414 — Rendering
Figure 5: The render preview shows the result generated when the second Render Target is
selected
Render Kernel Types
There are four types of Render Kernels1 in OctaneRender: Direct Lighting, Info Channels, PMC, and
Path Tracing. The Kernels can be accessed by clicking on the Render Target node in the Nodegraph
Editor and choosing the Kernel type from the Kernel parameter. under the Render Settings rollout (Figure
1).
the render engine.
415 — Rendering
Figure 1: Kernel Types are found in the parameters for the Render Target
A Kernel node can also be placed in the Nodegraph editor and connected to the Kernel pin on a Render Tar-
get node (Figure 2).
416 — Rendering
Figure 2: Another way to choose a Kernel type is to add a Render Kernel node to the graph
and manually connect it to the Render Target
The Kernel node can be accessed by right-clicking in the Nodegraph editor and choosing the Kernels category
(Figure 3).
417 — Rendering
Figure 3: Add a Render Kernel node using the pop-up menu in the node graph
Path Tracing Kernel
The Path Tracing and PMC render kernels are the best choice for rendering photorealistic images. The
increase in quality does come with the cost of increased render times. Path Tracing may have difficulty ren-
dering scenes that use small light sources, and may not render proper caustics properly. In these situations,
the PMC render kernel is the better choice. Testing renders using each of the render kernels is the best way to
determine what kernel is the best choice for a given scene. Figure 1 shows the Path Tracing settings in the
Node Inspector.
418 — Rendering
419 — Rendering
Figure 1: Path Tracing settings in the Node Inspector
Path Tracing Parameters

Max. Samples
Sets the maximum number of samples per pixel before the rendering process stops. Higher values result in
cleaner renders. There is no rule as to how many samples per pixel are required for a good render - it depends
on the scene's content and complexity.
Diffuse1 Depth
The maximum number of times a ray can bounce off of a diffuse or very rough surface. Higher values mean
higher render times, but more realistic results. For outdoor renders, a good setting is around 4. For lighting
interiors with natural light from the sun and sky, you need settings of 8 or higher. In the real world, the max-
imum diffuse bounces would not exceed 16. It is possible to use a value higher than 16, but this is not neces-
sary.
Specular2 Depth
Controls the number of times a ray can refract before dying. Higher valuesmean higher render times, but more
color bleeding and more details in transparent materials. Low numbers can introduce artifacts or turn some
refractions into pure black.
Ray Epsilon
Is the distance between the geometry and the light ray when calculating ray intersections for lighting and shad-
owing. Larger values push rays away from the geometry surface. Lower values are more accurate, but cause
artifacts on large or distant objects. Ray Epsilon is similar to ray tracing bias in other rendering engines. Adjust
Ray Epsilon to reduce artifacts in large-scale scenes.
Filter Size
Sets the filter size in terms of pixels. This can improve aliasing artifacts in the render. However, if the filter is
set too high, the image becomes blurry.
420 — Rendering
Alpha Shadow
Allows any object with transparency (Specular materials, materials with Opacity settings and Alpha Chan-
nels) to cast a shadow instead of behaving as a solid object.
Caustic Blur
Reduces noise in caustic light patterns. High values result is softn caustic patterns (see Figure 2).
GI Clamp
Clamps the contribution for each path to the specified value. By reducing the GI Clamp value, you can reduce
the amount of fireflies caused by sparse but very strong contributing paths. Reducing this value reduces noise
by removing energy (see Figure 3).
Irradiance Mode
This renders the first surface as a white Diffuse material. Irradiance Mode works similar to Clay Mode, but it
applies to the first bounce. It disables the Bump channel and makes samples that are blocked by back faces
transparent.
Alpha Channel1
This option removes background images or colors created by the SunSky environment node from the
rendered image while not affecting any lighting cast by the environment. This is useful if you want to composite
the render over another image without the background being present. Objects appearing in the RGB channels
have a bleeding edge, which appears as noise artifacts. These edges are not included in the Alpha Channel
itself.
Keep Environment
Used in conjunction with the Alpha Channel setting. It makes the background visible in the rendered image
while simulataneously keeping the Alpha Channel.
Light
1 A greyscale image used to determine which areas of a texture map are opaque and which areas are trans-
parent.
421 — Rendering
This section provides options to use the "Light Linking And Light Exclusion" on page 497 capabilities of
OctaneRender® and the AI Light lighting algorithm for light sampling in scenes with complex lighting. For more
information about the AI Light algorithm and its attributes, refer to the AI Light topic in this manual.
Path Termination Power

This parameter lets you tweak samples/second vs. convergence (how fast noise vanishes). Increasing this
value causes the kernels to keep paths shorter and spend less time on dark areas, which means they stay
noisy longer, but it also increases samples/second. Reducing this value causes kernels to trace longer paths on
average and spend more time on dark areas. In short, high values increase the render speed, but they may
lead to higher noise in dark areas.
Coherent Ratio
Increasing this value increases the render speed, but it also introduces low-frequency noise or blotches. Elim-
inating the blotchy appearance requires a few hundred or a few thousand samples per pixel to go away,
depending on the contents of the scene. Figure 4 shows a render comparison using different Coherent Ratio set-
tings.
Static Noise
Keeps noise patterns static between rendered frames in a sequence. The noise is static as long as the same
GPU1 architecture is used for rendering. Different architectures produce different numerical errors, which
manifest as small differences in the noise pattern.
Parallel Samples
Controls how many samples OctaneRender® calculates in parallel. Smaller values require less memory to
store the sample's state, but increase render time. High values require more memory, but reduce render time.
The change in performance depends on the scene and the GPU architecture.
Max Tile Samples

Controls the number of samples per pixel that OctaneRender® will render before storing the result in the
render buffer. A higher number means that results arrive less often in the film buffer.
Minimize Net Traffic
422 — Rendering
Distributes the same tile to the net render slaves until OctaneRender® reaches the max samples/pixel for that
tile, and then it distributes the next tile to slaves when enabled. This option doesn't affect work done by local
GPUs. A slave can merge all of its results into the same cached tile until the master switches to a different tile.
Adaptive Sampling1
This section provides options to use the Adaptive Sampling capabilities of OctaneRender®, especially in scenes
with complex lighting. For more information, see the Adaptive Sampling topic in this manual.
Deep Image2
Enables deep pixel image rendering for deep image compositing. It is covered in the Deep Image Rendering
topic of this manual.
Deep Render Passes3

Includes render passes for deep image pixels.
Maximum Depth Samples

This is used when Deep Image Rendering is enabled. It sets the maximum number of depth samples per pixel.
For more details, read the Deep Image Rendering section of this manual.
Depth Tolerance
This is used when Deep Image Rendering is enabled. OctaneRender® merges depth samples whose relative
depth difference falls below this tolerance value. This is covered in the Deep Image Rendering section of this
manual.
Toon Shadow Ambient

This is the ambient modifier of Toon Shadowing.
1 A method of sampling that determines if areas of a rendering require more sampling than other areas instead
of sampling the entire rendering equally.
2 Renders frames with multiple depth samples in addition to typical color and opacity channels.
423 — Rendering
Emulate Old Volume Behavior

This is for previous scenes with Volume geometry that were set up using the former volume rendering system
in earlier versions of OctaneRender®. When enabled, older scenes built with earlier versions render with the
former volume rendering system. When disabled, OctaneRender® will render volumes using the new volume
rendering system, and you need to set up any pre-existing volumes again in order to render correctly. This is
disabled by default, assuming that there no pre-existing volumes in the scene.
PMC Kernel
The PMC kernel is a custom mutating, unbiased kernel designed for GPU1 rendering. Rendering with PMC cre-
ates physically accurate lighting and caustic effects to produce the highest quality results, but it can also take
the most time to render, depending on the scene. Figure 1 shows the PMC settings in the Node Inspector.
424 — Rendering
425 — Rendering
Figure 1: The PMC settings in the OctaneRender tab
PMC Kernel Parameters

Max Samples
Sets the maximum number of samples per pixel before the rendering process stops. Higher values produce
on the content and complexity of the scene.
Diffuse1 Depth
The maximum number of times a ray can bounce, reflect, or refract off of a diffuse or very rough surface.
Higher values mean higher render times, but more realistic results. For outdoor renders, a good setting is
around 4. For lighting interiors with natural light like the sun and the sky, you need higher values such as 8 or
more. In the real world, the maximum diffuse bounces would not exceed 16 - it is possible to use a value higher
than 16, but this is not necessary.
Specular2 Depth
Controls the number of times a ray refracts before dying. Higher values mean higher render times, but more
color bleeding and more details in transparent materials. Low values introduce artifacts or turn some refrac-
tions into pure black.
Ray Epsilon
The distance between the geometry and the light ray when calculating ray intersections for lighting and shad-
owing. Larger values push rays away from the geometry surface. Lower values are more accurate, but can
cause artifacts on large or distant objects. Ray Epsilon is similar to ray tracing bias in other rendering engines.
Adjust Ray Epsilon to reduce artifacts in large-scale scenes.
Filter Size
Sets the filter size in terms of pixels. This can improve aliasing artifacts in the render. However, if the filter is
set too high, the image becomes blurry.
426 — Rendering
Alpha Shadows
Allows any object with transparency (Specular materials, materials with Opacity settings and Alpha Chan-
nels) to cast a shadow instead of behaving as a solid object.
Caustic Blur
Reduces noise in caustic light patterns. High values result is softness in the caustic patterns (see Figure 2).
GI Clamp
Clamps the contribution for each path to the specified value. By reducing the GI Clamp value, you reduce the
amount of fireflies caused by sparse but very strong contributing paths. Reducing this value reduces noise by
removing energy (Figure 3).
Irradiance Mode
This renders the first surface as a white Diffuse material1 . Irradiance Mode works similar to Clay Mode, but
it applies to just the first bounce. It disables the Bump channel and makes samples that are blocked by back-
faces transparent.
Volume Step Length

This is the step length used for marching through volumes.
Alpha Channel2
rendered image while not affecting any lighting cast by the environment. This is useful if you want to composite
the render over another image without having the background present. Objects appearing in the RGB chan-
nels have a bleeding edge, which appears as noise artifacts. However, these edges are not included in the
Alpha Channel itself.
Keep Environment

parent.
427 — Rendering
while simultaneously keeping the Alpha Channel.
Light
Provides options to use the "Light Linking And Light Exclusion" on page 497 capabilities of OctaneRender®, and
the AI Light algorithm for light sampling in scenes with complex lighting. For more information about the AI
Light algorithm and its attributes, refer to the AI Light topic in this manual.

This parameter provides a system to tweak samples/second vs. convergence (how fast noise vanishes).
Increasing this value causes the kernels to keep paths shorter and spend less time on dark areas, which means
they stay noisy longer, but it increases the samples/second. Reducing this value causes kernels to trace longer
paths on average and spend more time on dark areas. In short, high values increases the render speed, but
may create more noise in dark areas.
Exploration Strength
Specifies how long the kernel investigates good paths before it tries to find a new path. Low values create a
noisy image, while higher values create a splotchy image.
Direct Light Importance

Causes the kernel to prioritize ray tracing paths with indirect light. Imagine sunlight coming through a window
to create a bright spot on the floor. When Direct Light Importance has a value of 1, the kernel samples this
area more and reduces noise around the bright spot. If you reduce the Direct Light Importance value, the PMC
kernel reduces its efforts to sample that bright area and focuses on more problematic areas that are harder to
render, such as areas with more indirect lighting.
Max Rejects
Controls the render bias. Reducing this value results in more bias, but shorter render times. In rendering ter-
minology, biased renders introduce slight blurring and other less accurate computational techniques in order to
reduce render time.
Parallellism
428 — Rendering
Controls how many samples are calculated in parallel. Smaller values require less memory to store the
sample's state, but increases render time. High values require more memory, but reduces render time. The
change in performance depends on the scene and the GPU architecture.
Work Chunk Size

The number of work blocks (512K samples each) done per kernel run. Increasing this value increases the
memory requirement on the system, but does not affect memory usage, and may increase render speed.
Toon Shadow Ambient


This is for previous scenes with Volume geometry that have been set up using the former volume rendering
system in earlier versions of OctaneRender®. When enabled, older scenes built with earlier versions render
using the former volume rendering system. When disabled, Octanerender® will render volumes using the new
volume rendering system, and any pre-existing volumes need to be set up again in order to render correctly.
This is disabled by default, assuming that there are no pre-existing volumes in the scene.
Info Channel Kernel
The Info Channel kernel creates false color images of the scene containing various types of information
about the scene. In scenes where the environment is visible, you should enable the Alpha Channel. Figure 1
shows the Info Channel settings in the Node Inspector.
429 — Rendering
Figure 1: The Info Channel settings in the OctaneRender® settings
430 — Rendering
Info Channel Kernel Parameters

Max Samples
This sets the maximum number of samples per pixel before the rendering process stops. Higher values result
in cleaner renders. There is no rule as to how many samples per pixel are required for a good render, it
depends on the content and complexity of the scene being rendered.
Info Channel Type

This parameter specifies the various passes that the compositing process can render and use.
l Geometric Normals - The vectors perpendicular to the triangle faces of the mesh.
l Smooth Normals - Shows information on the integrity of the model's geometry in terms of the nor-
mals perpendicular to the smooth underlying surface of the mesh.
l Shading Normals - The interpolated normals used for shading. This does not take into account the
object's Bump map. The result is less faceted and smoother than Geometric normals.
l Tangent (Local) Normals - A color shows the Tangent (Local) Normal in tangent space at the pos-
ition hit by the camera ray.
l Z-depth - An image that's shaded based on the distance between the objects in the scene and the pos-
ition of the rendering camera.
l Position - A color-coded image that shows the position of the objects in the scene, often used in com-
positing to help position 3D-rendered images from different renders.
l Texture Coordinates - A color-coded image showing a Gradient map based on the direction of the
object’s UV texture coordinates.
l Texture Tangent - The first tangent vector. This determines the Normal map distortion's ori-
entation.
l Motion Vector - This renders the 2D Motion vector in screen space. The x-coordinate shows pixels
set in motion to the right (stored in the Red channel), while the y-coordinate shows pixels in the up
motion (stored in the Green channel).
l Material1 ID - Every material assigned in the scene is represented as a separate color.
l Object Layer ID - A color-coded image, each object is colored based on their Object Layer ID set-
tings. The Layer ID setting is found in the Octane Attributes section in the object’s Shape node tab.
l Object Layer Color - Shows the color specified in the Object Layer node.
l Baking Group ID - Every Baking Group ID assigned in the scene is represented as a separate color.
l Light Pass ID - Every Light Pass ID assigned in the scene is represented as a separate color
431 — Rendering
l Render Layer ID - A color-coded image, each object is colored based on their Object Layer ID set-
tings. The Layer ID setting is found in the Octane Attributes section in the object’s Shape node tab.
Render layers are covered in more detail in the Render Layers1 section of this manual.
l Render Layer Mask - A mask that's rendered based on an object’s Layer ID and render layer mem-
bership. Render layers are covered in more detail in the Render Layers section of this manual.
l Wireframe - Triangles outlined in black represent the mesh.
l Ambient Occlusion (AO) - A render that's shaded using ambient occlusion calculations. Recessed
areas of the surfaces are shaded darker than their surroundings.
l Opacity - An Opacity render mask that's based on the object's Opacity map.
l Roughness - Based on the material roughness at the camera ray's hit point.
l Index of Refraction (IOR) - Based on the material Index Of Refraction at the camera ray's hit point.
l Diffuse2 Filter - Shows the diffuse texture color of the scene's Diffuse and Glossy3 materials.
l Reflection Filter - Shows the reflection texture color of the scene's Specular4 and Glossy materials.
l Refraction Filter - Shows the refraction texture color of the scene's Specular materials.
l Transmission 5 Filter - Shows the transmission texture color of the scene's Diffuse materials.
Ray Epsilon
owing. Larger values push rays away from the geometry surface. Lower values are more accurate, but can
cause artifacts on large or distant objects. Ray Epsilon is similar to ray tracing bias in other rendering engines.
Adjust Ray Epsilon to reduce artifacts in large-scale scenes.
Filter Size
This sets the filter size in terms of pixels. This can improve aliasing artifacts in the render. However, if the filter
is set too high, the image becomes blurry.
1 Render layers allow users to separate their scene geometry into parts, where one part is meant to be visible
and the rest of the other parts “capture” the side effects of the visible geometry. The layers allow different
objects to be rendered into separate images where, in turn, some normal render passes may be applied. The
Render layers are meant for compositing and not to hide parts of the scene.
432 — Rendering
AO distance
This sets the maximum distance of the ambient occlusion shading's spread.
AO Alpha Shadows
This takes the surface opacity as determined by its shader into account when rendering with the Ambient Occlu-
sion info channel.
Opacity Threshold
While checking Opacity channels, the geometry with an Opacity value greater than or equal to this para-
meter's value is treated as opaque.
Z-Depth 1 Max
This determines the maximum depth as shown in the shading of the Z-Depth info channel pass.
UV Max
This sets the maximum value shown for the texture coordinates.
UV Coordinate Selection
This specifies the set of UV coordinates to use.
Bump And Normal Mapping

Toggle to enable Bump and Normal map rendering in images created with Info Channel renders.
Wireframe Backface Highlighting

Toggle to enable backface highlighting in the Wireframe channel.
Alpha Channel2
1 A measure of object distances from the camera typically represented as a grayscale image.
parent.
433 — Rendering
Enables direct lighting through Opacity maps. If disabled, ray tracing is faster, but it renders incorrect shadows
for alpha-mapped geometry or Specular materials with Fake Shadows enabled.
Parallel Samples
Controls how many samples are calculated in parallel. Small values require less memory to store the sample's
state, but increases render time. High values require more memory, but reduce render time. The change in per-
formance depends on the scene, the GPU1 architecture, and the number of shader processors contained on
the GPU.
Maximum Tile Samples

This controls the number of samples per pixel that OctaneRender® will render until it takes the result and
stores it in the frame buffer. A higher value means that results arrive less often in the frame buffer, but reduces
the CPU overhead during rendering.

If enabled, OctaneRender® distributes the same tile to the net render slaves until it reaches the max
samples/pixel, and then it distributes the next tile to slaves. This option doesn't affect work done by local GPUs.
A slave can merge all of its results into the same cached tile until the master switches to a different tile. You
should set the maximum samples/pixel to a reasonable value, or else the network rendering focuses on the
first tile for a long time.
Deep Image2
Enables deep pixel image rendering for deep image compositing. It is covered in more detail in the Deep Image
Rendering topic of this manual.
Deep Render Passes3

434 — Rendering

This is used when Deep Image Rendering is enabled. It sets the maximum number of depth samples per pixel,
and is covered in more detail in the Deep Image Rendering section of this manual.
Depth Tolerance
This is used when Deep Image Rendering is enabled. The depth samples with a relative depth difference below
this value are merged together. This is covered in more detail in the Deep Image Rendering section of this
manual.
Direct Lighting Kernel
The Direct Light kernel is used for faster preview rendering. Direct Lighting is not unbiased and will not yield
photorealistic results, but because of its speed, it is ideal for rendering animations or stills, depending on the
demands of the project. Figure 1 shows the Direct Lighting settings in the Node Inspector.
435 — Rendering
436 — Rendering
Figure 1: The Direct Lighting settings in the Node Inspector
Max. Samples
Sets the maximum number of samples per pixel before the rendering process stops. Higher values result in
on the content and complexity of the scene being rendered.
Global Illumination Mode

There are three types of Global Illumination modes in the Direct Lighting kernel:
l None
Includes direct lighting from the sun or area lights. Shadowed areas receive no contribution and will be
black.
l Ambient Occlusion
Standard ambient occlusion. This mode provides realistic images, but offers no color bleeding.
l Diffuse1
This gives a GI quality that is in between Ambient Occlusion and Path Tracing, but without
caustics. The advantage is much faster rendering than Path Tracing and PMC. It is similar in some
ways to brute force indirect GI in other engines.
Specular2 Depth
Controls the number of times a ray refracts before dying. Higher numbers mean higher render times, but more
color bleeding and more details in transparent materials. Low numbers introduce artifacts or turn some refrac-
tions into pure black.
Examples of various Specular Depths using the Direct Lighting kernel with GI Mode set to None are shown in
Figure 2.
437 — Rendering
Figure 2: A comparison of renderings using different Specular Depth settings
438 — Rendering
Glossy1 Depth
Controls the number of times a ray reflects before dying. Higher numbers mean higher render times. Low num-
bers (under 4) can introduce artifacts, or turn some reflections into pure black.
Diffuse Depth
Gives the maximum number of diffuse reflections if GI Mode is set to Diffuse.
Ray Epsilon
owing. Larger values push rays away from the geometry surface. Lower values are more accurate, but cause
artifacts on large or distant objects. Ray Epsilon is similar to ray tracing bias in other rendering engines. Adjust
Ray Epsilon to reduce artifacts in large-scale scenes.
Filter Size
Sets the filter size in terms of pixels. This improves aliasing artifacts in the render. However, if the filter is set
too high, the image can become blurry.
AO Distance
Is the distance of the ambient occlusion shadowing spread in units. This setting provides realistic results,
depending on the scale of the objects in the scene. Small values are more appropriate for small objects like
toys, and larger values are more appropriate for something like a house (Figure 3).
439 — Rendering
Figure 3: AO Distance settings comparison
AO Ambient Texture
440 — Rendering
Specifies an Ambient Occlusion texture, which is used for the AO calculation instead of the environment. If AO
Ambient Texture is off, the environment is used instead. This gets rid of the blue tint on white walls caused by
the blue sky (like Octane Day Light).
Alpha Shadows
This enables direct light through Opacity maps. If disabled, ray tracing is faster, but it renders incorrect shad-
ows for alpha-mapped geometry or Specular materials with fake shadows enabled. Alpha Shadows allows
any object with transparency (Specular materials, materials with Opacity settings, and Alpha Channels) to
cast a shadow instead of behaving as a solid object.
Irradiance Mode
This renders the first surface as a white Diffuse material. Irradiance Mode is similar to Clay Mode, but it
applies to just the first bounce. It disables the Bump channel and makes samples that are blocked by back
faces transparent.
Alpha Channel1
rendered image while not affecting any lighting cast by the environment. This is useful if the you want to com-
posite the render over another image without the background being present. Objects appearing in the RGB
channels have a bleeding edge, which appear as noise artifacts, but these edges are not included in the Alpha
Channel itself.
Keep Environment
while also keeping the Alpha Channel.
Light
This section provides options to use the "Light Linking And Light Exclusion" on page 497 capabilities of
OctaneRender®, and the AI Light lighting algorithm for light sampling in scenes with complex lighting. For more
information about the AI Light algorithm and its attributes, refer to the AI Light topic in this manual.
parent.
441 — Rendering
This parameter provides a system to tweak samples/second vs. convergence (how fast noise vanishes).
Higher values cause the kernels to keep paths shorter and spend less time on dark areas, which means they
stay noisy longer, but it increases the samples/second. Lower values cause kernels to trace longer paths on
average and spend more time on dark areas. In short, high values increases the render speed, but lead to
higher noise in dark areas.
Coherent Ratio
Increasing this value increases the render speed, but it introduces low-frequency noise or blotches. Eliminating
the blotchy appearance requires a few hundred or even a few thousand samples per pixel to go away, depend-
ing on the scene's contents.
Static Noise
Keeps noise patterns static between rendered frames in a sequence. Note that the noise is static as long as the
same GPU1 architecture is used for rendering. Different architectures produce different numerical errors,
which manifest as small differences in the noise pattern.
Parallel Samples
Controls how many samples are calculated in parallel. Smaller values require less memory to store the
sample's state, but causes slower renders. High values require more memory, but reduce the render time. The
change in performance depends on the scene and the GPU architecture.
Maximum Tile Samples

Controls the number of samples per pixel that OctaneRender® will render before storing the result in the
render buffer. Higher values mean that results arrive less often in the film buffer.

Distributes the same tile to the net render slaves until OctaneRender® reaches the max samples/pixel for that
tile, and then it distributes the next tile to slaves. This option doesn't affect work done by local GPUs. A slave
can merge all of its results into the same cached tile until the master switches to a different tile.
442 — Rendering
Adaptive Sampling1
This section provides options to use the Adaptive Sampling capabilities of OctaneRender®, especially in scenes
with complex lighting. For more information, refer to the Adaptive Sampling topic in this manual.
Deep Image2
Enables deep pixel image rendering for deep image compositing. It is covered in the Deep Image Rendering
topic of this manual.
Deep Render Passes3


When Deep Image Rendering is enabled, this sets the maximum number of depth samples per pixel. It is
described in more detail in the Deep Image Rendering section of this manual.
Depth Tolerance
When Deep Image Rendering is enabled, OctaneRender® merges the depth samples whose relative depth dif-
ference falls below this value. This is covered in the Deep Image Rendering section of this manual.
Toon Shadow Ambient


This is for previous scenes with Volume geometry that are set up using the former volume rendering system in
earlier versions of OctaneRender®. When enabled, older scenes built with earlier versions render using the
former volume rendering system. When disabled, OctaneRender® renders volumes using the new volume ren-
443 — Rendering
dering system, and any pre-existing volumes must be set up again in order to render correctly. This is disabled
by default, assuming that there no pre-existing volumes in the scene.
Camera Nodes
In OctaneRender, a default camera is always present in a scene. Additionally, there are three types of camera
nodes that can be added to the Nodegraph Editor. The primary camera node type is the Thin Lens Cam-
era. Camera nodes are connected to the Camera input pin on a Render Target node (Figure 1). There can
be multiple camera nodes present in the Nodegraph Editor thus allowing for multiple camera locations from
which to render a scene.
Figure 1: A Thin Lens Camera node is connected to the Camera input pin on a Render Tar-
get node
444 — Rendering
Camera node attributes can be accessed without adding a Camera node to the scene by clicking on the Cur-
rent Camera icon in the Node Inspector (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Access camera settings by clicking on the camera icon in the Node Inspector
Otherwise, Camera nodes can be accessed by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and choosing Cameras.
These nodes can then be connected to the Camera pin of a Render Target node (Figure 3).
445 — Rendering
Figure 3: Use the pop-up menu to add Camera nodes
There are three types of camera nodes available for adjusting the camera settings: Thin Lens Camera, Pan-
oramic Camera, and the Baking Camera (Figure 4).
Figure 4: There are three types of cameras available in OctaneRender
446 — Rendering
Thin Lens
Figure 1: The parameters of the Thin Lens camera in the Node Inspector
Orthographic
If enabled, the camera will render an orthographic view. If disabled, the camera will show a perspective view.
Sensor Width/Focal Length/F-stop

These allow you to control the Field of View1 (FOV2 ) and Depth of Field3 (DOF4 ) similar to a real-world
camera.
Sensor Width
1 The area that is visible to a camera lens usually measured in millimeters. A wide angle lens provides a larger
field of view and a telephoto lens provides a narrow field of view.
447 — Rendering
The width of the sensor or film in millimeters.
Focal Length
The focal length of the lens in millimeters.
F-stop
This is the aperture to focal length ratio.
Field of View
This sets the horizontal field of view for the camera in the scene, measured in degrees. When choosing a large
value, more of the scene can be seen in the camera. A smaller value will reduce the amount visible through the
camera.
Scale of View
This sets the width of the orthographic view of the camera, the units used is in meters.
Pixel Aspect Ratio

This allows you to stretch or squash the Depth of Field disc and render to a non-square pixel format (like NTSC
or PAL).
Aperture1
The aperture is the radius of the lens opening of the camera used in the scene, measured in centimeters. Choos-
ing a low value will have a wide depth of field where everything is in focus. Choosing a high value will create a
shallow depth of field (DOF) where objects in the foreground and background will be out of focus.
Aperture Aspect Ratio

This allows users to stretch/squash the Depth of Field disc.
Aperture edge
1 Determines how much light enters a camera lens. A large aperture produces a narrow depth of field and a
small aperture produces a wide depth of field.
448 — Rendering
This controls aperture edge detection at all points within the aperture. The lower values will give more pro-
nounced edges to out of focus objects affected by the a shallow depth of field (DOF) such as objects in the fore-
ground and background. The aperture edge modifies the bokeh effect of the depth of field. A high value
increases the contrast towards the edge.
Auto-Focus
If enabled, the focus will be kept on the closest visible surface at the center of the image, regardless of the aper-
ture, the aperture edge, and focal depth values. This setting is on by default.
Focal Depth
The depth of the plane in focus, measured in meters. If you are having trouble seeing a result when you adjust
this setting, double-check to make sure that Auto-Focus is enabled. Auto-Focus will override the Focal Depth
setting.
Near Clip Depth

Distance from the camera to the near clipping plane, measured in meters.
Lens Shift
This is useful for architectural rendering, when users want to render images of tall buildings/structures from a
similar height as the human eye, but keep the vertical lines parallel.
Distortion
This adjusts the spherical and cylindrical distortion. The rendered image displays the entire sphere and uses
equidistant cylindrical projection also known as lat-long projection.
Position
The X,Y,and Z position of the camera in the scene.
Target
This is the target position where the camera is pointed in the scene.
Up-Vector
This is the up direction of the camera in the scene. By default this is in the Y-direction (0,1,0).
449 — Rendering
Perspective Correction
If Up-Vector is vertical, enabling this option keeps vertical lines parallel.
Stereo Mode
Users can enable stereo mode and choose whether to use off-axis or parallel stereo camera projections.
Stereo Output
This specifies the output rendered in stereo mode.
l Left: Render only the image for the left eye
l Right: Render only the image for the right eye
l Side-by-side: Renders the scene as a pair of two-dimensional images
l Anaglyphic: When active, the render will be able to be viewed with Red / Blue 3D glasses
l Over-under: The pair of two dimensional images is placed one above the other for special viewers
Eye Distance
This is the distance between the left and the right eye in stereo mode, measured in meters.
Left Stereo Filter / Right Stereo Filter

The left and right filter colors used to create the anaglyphic stereo affect in the render.
Panoramic
450 — Rendering
Figure 1: The parameters of the Panoramic camera in the Node Inspector
Projection
Specifies the panoramic projection that should be used, with the option of either a Spherical Camera Lens or a
Cylindrical Camera Lens. Single-face cube map projections are available allowing users to render only one face
of the cube. This is useful for animation overlays in stereo panorama renderings.
Horizontal Field of View1

The horizontal field of view in degrees. This sets the x coordinate for horizontal field of view of the camera in
the scene. This is ignored when cube mapping is used.
Vertical Field of View

The vertical field of view in degrees. This sets the y coordinate for the vertical field of view of the camera in the
scene. This is ignored when cube mapping is used.
Position
The position of the camera in the scene in world space.
Target
This is the target position where the camera is pointed to in the scene.
451 — Rendering
Up-Vector
This is the up direction of the camera in the scene. By default this is in the Y-direction (0,1,0).
Keep upright
If enabled, the panoramic camera is always oriented towards the horizon and the up-vector will stay in its
default direction (vertical) at (0,1,0).
Near Clip Depth

Distance from the camera to the near clipping plane, measured in meters.
Stereo Output
Users can enable stereo mode and specify which of the following stereo output to render:
l Left: Render only the image for the left eye
l Right: Render only the image for the right eye
l Side-by-side: Renders the scene as a pair of two-dimensional images
l Anaglyphic: When active, the render will be able to be viewed with Red / Blue 3D glasses
l Over-under: The pair of two dimensional images is placed one above the other for special viewers
Eye Distance
This is the distance between the left and the right eye in stereo mode, measured in meters.
Eye Distance Falloff

This controls how quickly the eye distance gets reduced towards the poles. This is to reduce eye strain at the
poles when the panorama is viewed through a head-mounted display.
Pano Blackout Latitude

This is the +/- latitude at which the panorama gets cut off when stereo rendering is enabled. This defines the
minimum latitude (in spherical camera coordinates) at which the rendering is ‘blacked out”. The area with
higher latitudes will be blacked out.
Left Stereo Filter / Right Stereo Filter

The left and right filter colors used to create the anaglyphic stereo affect in the render.
452 — Rendering
Baking Camera
Figure 1: The parameters of the Baking camera in the Node Inspector
Baking Group ID
Specifies which group ID should be baked. By default all objects belong to the default baking group number 1.
UV Set
This determines the UV coordinates to use for baking.
Revert Baking
If checked, the camera directions are flipped.
Padding Size
This is the number of pixels added to the UV map edges.
The padding size is specified in pixels. The default padding size is set to 4 pixels, being 0 the minimum and 16
the maximum size.
453 — Rendering
Figure 2: A comparison of different padding settings in the baking camera
Padding Edge Noise Tolerance

Optionally, an edge noise tolerance can be specified, which assists in removing hot pixels appearing near the
UV edges. Values close to 1 do not remove any hot pixels while values near 0 will attempt to remove them all.
UV Region Minimum
Coordinates in UV Space for the origin of the bounding region for baking.
UV Region Size
This is the size in UV space of the bounding region for baking.
Use Baking Position

When enabled, the position for baking "position-dependent" artifacts is used.
Position
This is the camera position for "position-dependent" artifacts such as reflections, etc.
Backface Culling
This determines whether to bake back-facing geometry.
OSL Camera Node
454 — Rendering
The OSL Camera node is a scriptable node. Custom camera types for any purpose (such as VR1 warping)
may be created through OSL scripts. It is a very flexible camera primarily used to match the rendering to the
existing footage. One OSL Camera is one OSL compilation unit which contains only one shader thus it has only
one output attribute pin that connects to the camera input pin of a Render Target node. OSL (Open Shader
Language2 ) is a standard created by Sony Imageworks. To learn about the generic OSL standard, inform-
ation is provided from the OSL Readme and PDF documentation.
1 Immersively engaging and experiencing depth perception in a three dimensional scene through stereo vision
goggles and head-mounted displays.
455 — Rendering
Figure 1: Right-click on the Node Graph Editor pane and select the Cameras > OSL Camera
node from the pop-up context menu
456 — Rendering
Figure 2: An OslCamera node is connected to the camera input pin of a RenderTarget node
The inherent attributes of an OSL Camera node includes its position, target, up-vector (orientation) and stereo-
related parameters. This means the moment you invoke an OSL Camera node, it automatically supports view-
port controls, camera motion blur and stereo rendering (Figure 3).
457 — Rendering
Figure 3: The inherent attributes of the OSL Camera node
The customized OSL script is written into the OSL Camera node to create custom camera types. To edit the
script, click on the pencil icon to go to the script editor window. If the script exists as an external .osl file, insert
the .osl file into the node through the load icon. Any existing file already used within an OSL Camera node may
be edited. To refresh the file and use the edits, reload the file via the reload icon.
Figure 4: The script editor window showing the initial script of the OSL Camera node
458 — Rendering
Figure 5: Click on the Compile button to compile the script. Compilation messages will dis-
play below the script window
When an OSL Camera node is invoked in OctaneRender’s node system, the node is provided with an initial OSL
script (Figure 4):
Shader OslCamera (
output point pos = 0,
output vector dir = 0,
output float tMax = 1.0/0.0)
pos = P;
vector right = cross (I, N);
dir = I + right*(u-.5) + N*(v-.5);
The initial script’s declaration component includes the three required output presented as variables with out-
put types point, vector and float respectively. Each OSL I/O type corresponds to an Octane attrib-
ute:
“point“ corresponds to an Octane projection attribute node (Box, Mesh UV, Spherical, Cylindrical...)
“vector“ corresponds to an Octane float attribute node (X, Y, Z)
“float“ corresponds to an Octane float attribute node (1D-value)
refer to the Appendix topic on OSL Implementation in Octane.
459 — Rendering
The three required output variables in the initial script’s declaration represents a camera ray’s position, dir-
ection and maximal depth. The initial script’s function body then initializes the position and orientation of the
OslCamera shader using OSL global variables P, I, and N which defines any standard camera’s eye, direction
and up vectors respectively. To further control the position and orientation of the camera shader, you have two
options:
l Option 1: Customize the script using OSL language global variables P, I and N.
l Option 2: Transform a point or a vector from camera space to world space.
You can create any camera type by customizing the script. Depending on the custom script, the resulting OSL
shader may have more input type variables that appear as additional input pins on the OSL Camera node that
represents it.
The OSL Camera Output Variables
The camera shader has 3 outputs representing a ray (note that the names are arbitrary):
point pos = Ray position:

This is often set to P, but it may be set to other points to implement depth of field1 , or a near
clipping plane
vector dir = Ray direction:

The render engine will take care of normalizing this vector if needed.
float tMax = Maximum ray tracing depth:

Measured along the direction of dir. May be used to implement a far clipping plane.
Set to 1.0/0.0 (infinity) to disable far clipping.
460 — Rendering
If tMax is 0, or if dir has 0 length, the returned ray is considered invalid, and the renderer will not perform
any path tracing for this sample.
Accessing The OSL Camera Position
Like other camera types, OSL Camera nodes have static input pins which define the position and orientation of
the camera. It is not mandatory for your camera shader to use this position, but if it does your camera auto-
matically supports motion blur and stereo rendering.
Within camera shaders, the position and orientation of the camera is available via the standard global variables
defined by OSL:
point P: Camera position
vector I: Camera direction (sometimes called *forward*)
normal N: vector, perpendicular to I
461 — Rendering
float u, float v: Coordinates on the film plane, mapped to the unit square. (0, 0) is at the bottom-left
corner. These coordinates can be fetched via getattribute("hit:uv", uv) and via the UV projection node.
Alternatively, the camera position is also available via the "camera" coordinate space. This is usually an
orthonormal coordinate space. Without transform the camera is looking along the -Z axis with the +Y axis as
up-vector, i.e. the axes are defined as:
+X: Right vector

+Y: Up vector
–Z: Camera direction
You can create your own custom camera using an OSL Camera node. As a starting point, below is a basic OSL
implementation of a thin lens camera:
shader OslCamera(
float FocalLength = 1 [[ float min = 0.1, float max = 1000, float

sliderexponent = 4]],
output point pos = 0,
output vector dir = 0,
output float tMax = 1.0/0.0)
float pa;
int res[2];
getattribute("camera:pixelaspect", pa);
getattribute("camera:resolution", res);
float u1 = 2 * (u - .5);
float v1 = 2 * (v - .5) * pa * res[1] / res[0];
pos = P;
vector right = cross(I, N);
dir = 2*FocalLength * I + v1 * N + u1 * right;
462 — Rendering
dir = transform("camera", "world", dir);
refer to the Appendix topic on OSL Implementation in Octane. To learn more about scripting within Octane
using the Open Shader Language refer to The Octane OSL Guide.
Camera Imager Settings
The Camera Imager setting provide useful parameters for post-rendering adjustments. To adjust the Imager
select the Imager Node in the Graph Editor or select the Current Imager icon in the Node Inspector (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The Camera Imager button on the Node Inspector toolbar
463 — Rendering
Figure 2: The Camera Imager parameters
Exposure
Controls the exposure of the scene. Smaller values will create a dark scene while higher values will brighten
the scene. Note also that exposure has no effect on any of the render layer passes.
Highlight Compression
This reduces burned out highlights by compressing them and reducing their contrast.
Order
464 — Rendering
This defines the order in which the Response curve, the Gamma1 and the Custom LUT is applied on the
scene. Typically, 3D LUTs are defined for sRGB input values, i.e. you usually want to apply the custom LUT
last, but there might also be 3D look-up tables for linear input data in which case you might want to apply the
custom LUT first.
Response Curve
The use of measured camera response curves can be selected. Octane also has response curves that repro-
duces the rendering neutrally on a normal display. The “sRGB", "Gamma 2.2" and "Gamma 1.8" are applicable
for most displays that either use sRGB or simply apply a gamma of 2.2 or 1.8.
Note: The most common response curve is "sRGB", hence this is also the default setting in the Camera
Imager Node. Since this option did not exist in earlier versions of Octane, any scene with a response
curve "sRGB" in the imager settings will fall back to "linear/off" in older versions.
For examples of all the camera responses, see the Appendix topic on Camera Response Curve.
Neutral response
If enabled, the camera response curve doesn't tint the render result anymore. In the following example (figure
3), the left image is the material ball rendered with no response curve and gamma set to 2.2. The center image
uses the Agfacolor HDC 200 curve and a gamma of 1. The right image shows the same curve with "neutral
response" enabled.
465 — Rendering
Figure 3: Adjusting the Neutral Response curve
Gamma
This adjusts the gamma of the render and controls the overall brightness of an image. Images which are not
properly corrected can look either bleached out, or too dark. Varying the amount of gamma correction changes
not only the brightness, but also the ratios of red to green to blue.
Custom LUT
This allows you to specify any standard or user-defined 3D Lookup Table (.cube file) for Octane to map one
color space to another. If this attribute is set, the custom LUT is applied in the order specified through the
Order attribute.
White Point
Specifies the color used to adjust the tint to produce and simulate the relative temperature cast throughout the
image by different light sources. The white point is white by default, acting as a white balance which helps
achieve the most accurate colors possible.
Vignetting
Adjusting this parameter increases the amount of darkening in the corners of the render. Used sparingly, it can
greatly increase the realism of the render. Note also that vignet is not applied to any of the beauty passes
except the main pass.
Saturation
Adjusts the amount of color saturation of the render.
466 — Rendering
Hot Pixel Removal

The Hot Pixel Removal slider is used to remove the bright pixels (fireflies) during the rendering process. While
many of the pixels can disappear if the render is allowed to progress, the Hot Pixel Removal feature allows the
bright pixels to be removed at a much lower Sample per Pixel.
Pre-Multiplied Alpha
Checking the Pre-multiplied Alpha button multiplies any transparency value of the output pixel by the pixels
color.
sRGB Color Picker Space

To invoke the sRGB Color Picker Space, click on the colored square found in the diffuse sliders in the Node
Inspector to show a panel of colors that allows easier color picking.
Disable Partial Alpha

Option to make pixels that are partially transparent (alpha > 0) fully opaque.
Dithering
Adds random noise which removes banding in very clean images.
Saturate To White
When the sun is too bright , it can create multicolored reflections. Increasing this value will change the colors to
white. This is also applicable to all sources of light. Fully saturated parts of the render can be pushed towards
pure white with this option. This helps avoid large patches of fully saturated colors caused by over-bright light
sources such as very bright colored emitters or reflected sunlight off colored surfaces.
Minimum Display Samples

This is minimum amount of samples that is calculated before the image is displayed. This feature can sig-
nificantly reduce the noise when navigating and is useful for real-time walkthroughs. When using multiple
GPUs, it’s recommended to set this value as a multiple of the number of available GPUs for rendering, e.g. if
you’re rendering with 4 GPUs, set this value at 4 or 8.
Maximum Tonemap Interval
467 — Rendering
Maximum interval between tonemaps in seconds.
The Camera Imager also allows control of the Spectral AI Denoiser. With the Denoiser’s tiling and multi-
GPU1 support, the Octane engine can denoise any resolution up to Octane’s maximum while only consuming
approximately 450MB per device. Refer to the section on Spectral AI Denoiser.
Object Layer Node
The Object Layer Node provides parameters that including parameters to control the object’s baking set-
tings. This also includes other parameters to control both the object and the shadows it casts on other geo-
metry. This provides a way for users to modify the object visibility directly in the viewport at render time
(Figure 1).
Figure 1: Object layer parameters in the Node Inspector
Render Layer ID
This specifies which layer the object will be placed. The value provided assigns the object to the corresponding
render layer, this is the first render layer by default.
468 — Rendering
General visibility
This controls the level of visibility for both the object and its shadow.
Camera Visibility
The Camera Visibility parameter takes a boolean value to specify whether the object is visible to the camera.
This is enabled by default.
Shadow Visibility
The Shadow Visibility parameter takes a boolean value to specify whether the shadow cast by the object is vis-
ible to the camera. This is enabled by default.
Random Color Seed

This specifies the start point to initialize the color after which random colors are generated. This is zero by
default when random colors are currently not in use.
Color
This is the color that is used for the assigned object when it is rendered in the object render layer pass.
Baking Group ID
This specifies which baking group the object belongs to. The value provided assigns the object to the cor-
responding baking, this is the first baking group by default.
Baking UV Transform
This tells the Baking Camera how to project the UV sets of the object layer affecting the way the UVs from that
object layer are projected into the UV space when rendered using the baking camera. The value specified as
baking UV transform will be used by the baking camera to place all UVs that belong to the geometry in that
object layer in the UV space. This allows users to be able to bake entire scene light-maps, including all render
passes in one single render without any additional compositing.
In some cases, when a geometry object is imported into the Standalone Edition, an Object Layer may already
present.
469 — Rendering
In cases where the geometry is imported has no Object Layer present, the Object Layer can be set up by cre-
ating an Object Layer Map which allows the parameters of the Object Layer to be mapped to the geometry
object. The Object Layer Map must first be connected to the Geometry node as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: An object layer map node connects the geometry with the Object Layer node
The Object Layer node can be accessed by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and choosing Object
Layer (Figure 3).
470 — Rendering
Figure 3: Object layer nodes are created using the pop-up menu in the node graph
The Object Layer Map node can be accessed by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the
Geometry category then choosing Object Layer Map.
471 — Rendering
Figure 4: Object layer map nodes are created using the pop-up menu in the node graph
Post-Processing Node
The Post-Processing parameters can be accessed directly from the Node Inspector window without adding
and connecting a specific Post-Processing node to the scene (Figure 1).
472 — Rendering
Figure 1: Post process settings can be accessed by clicking on the icon next to the Node
Inspector
Otherwise, a Post-Processing node can be added by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to
the Render Settings category and choosing Post Processing1 (Figure 2).
473 — Rendering
Figure 2: Add a post-processing node using the pop-up menu in the node graph
The Post Processing Node Parameters
Figure 3: The post-process parameters in the Node Inspector
474 — Rendering
Enable
This is a boolean value used to enable or disable post-processing effects on the resulting render. Post-pro-
cessing is disabled by default.
Bloom Power
Controls the size and intensity of the halo around the sun, light source, or reflective glossy materials.
Glare Power
Controls the size and intensity of the glare originating from reflective glossy materials.
Glare Ray Amount

Controls the number of visible rays radiated or reflected.
Glare Rotation Angle

This is used to adjust the rotation of the glare relative to the object. A glare angle of -90 and 90 results to one
main horizontal glare and a glare angle of 0 results to one main vertical glare.
Glare Blur
Controls the sharpness of the glare. Smaller values will result to a crisp linear glare and this is softened as the
value is set higher.
Spectral Intensity
Used to adjust the intensity distribution of the rays across a source. This affects the strength or weakness
(brightness) of the radiant energy.
Spectral Shift
Used to adjust the displacement of the spectrum as the frequency of light emitted from a source changes. The
shift is evident by a color change, similar to the Doppler Effect.
Usage Examples:
475 — Rendering
Figure 4: Bloom Power: 0.0010 Glare Power: 0.0010 Glare Ray Amount: 1 Glare Rotation
Angle: -90 Glare Blur: 0.0010
Figure 5: Bloom Power: 50 Glare Power: 0.0010 Glare Ray Amount: 1 Glare Rotation Angle: -
90 Glare Blur: 0.0010
476 — Rendering
Figure 6: Bloom Power: 50 Glare Power: 20 Glare Ray Amount: 1 Glare Rotation Angle: -90
Glare Blur: 0.0010
Glare Blur: 0.0010
Glare Blur: 0.0010
477 — Rendering
Glare Blur: 0.0900
478 — Rendering
Sample Images with Post-Processing Applied
479 — Rendering
480 — Rendering
Figure 10: Renders using post-process effects
Film Settings Node
The Film Settings parameters can be accessed directly from the Node Inspector window without adding and
connecting a specific Film Settings node to the scene (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Film settings can be accessed by clicking on the icon next to the Node Inspector
Otherwise, a Film Settings node can be added by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the
Render Settings category and choosing Film Settings (Figure 2).
481 — Rendering
Figure 2: Add a Film Settings node using the pop-up menu in the Node graph
The Film Settings Node Parameters
482 — Rendering
Figure 3: The film settings parameters in the Node Inspector
Parameters for the Film Settings Node
Resolution
This value determines the rendering resolution of the scene.
Region Rendering
Interactive Region Rendering
Interactive region rendering may be started at any time during the course of rendering a scene,
even after the maximum samples/pixel have been reached. It will continue rendering up to
256000 region samples/pixel or until stopped. Any samples calculated for the interactive render
region are counted separately (in squared brackets) and not added to the samples statistics of
the film.
483 — Rendering
Figure 4: Interactive region rendering
Non-Interactive Region Rendering
Sometimes users may just need to (re-)render a subsection of the whole frame and only up to
the maximum samples settings of the kernel node. For this, the region start and region size may
be used to define a region where everything else gets rendered black and will stop at the max.
samples setting:
Figure 5: Non-interactive region rendering
Texture Baking
484 — Rendering
Texture Baking1 is a process in which scene lighting is "baked" into a texture map based on an object's UV
texture coordinates. The resulting texture can then be mapped back onto the surface to create realistic lighting
in a real-time rendering environment. This technique is frequently used in game engines and virtual reality for
creating realistic environments.
In Octane, texture baking is implemented as a special type of camera known as a "Baking" camera, which, in
contrast to to the thin lens and panoramic cameras, has one position and direction per sample. The way these
are calculated depends on the input UV geometry and the actual geometry being baked.
For each sample, the camera calculates the geometry position and normal then generates a ray that points
towards it, using the same direction as the normal, from a distance of the configured kernel’s ray epsilon. Once
calculated, the ray is traced in the same way as it would usually do with other types of camera. Figure 1 shows
how lighting is baked onto a model of a planet.
Figure 1: Lighting is baked onto a model of a planet using a texture baking camera
Mesh Requirements for Baking
1 A process in which scene lighting is "baked" into a texture map based on an object's UV texture coordinates.
The resulting texture can then be mapped back onto the surface to create realistic lighting in a real-time ren-
dering environment. This technique is frequently used in game engines and virtual reality for creating realistic
environments with minimal rendering overhead.
485 — Rendering
In order for a mesh to be used for texture baking it should be setup to fulfill the following requirements:
1. The mesh should contain at least one UV set. In the case of Alembic1 , up to 3 sets can be used.
2. Overlapping UVs should be eliminated. Overlapping UVs occur when more than one pmesh or mesh
component share the same UV texture coordinates. Otherwise you may find artifacts due to overlapping
geometry. Figure 1 shows an example of overlapping UV texture coordinates in Maya's UV editor.
Figure 2: Overlapping UVs as shown in Maya's UV editor
486 — Rendering
Setting up a Texture Baking camera

The simplest way to start is to create a copy of the scene's Render Target node and switch its camera to a bak-
ing camera (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Set the Camera type to Baking Camera
Baking Group ID
Specifies which baking group should be baked. By default all objects belong to the default baking group number
1. New baking groups can be arranged by making use of object layers or object layer maps similar to the way
render layers work.
UV set
Determines which UV set to use for baking.
Revert Baking
If checked, the camera directions are flipped. This allows the mesh to be used to render the rest of the scene.
Padding
487 — Rendering
Padding extends the colors of the texture beyond the borders of the UV shells which helps to avoid the appear-
ance of black lines on the model when the baked textures are mapped back to the surface later on.
The padding size is specified in pixels. The default padding size is set to 4 pixels. Optionally, an edge noise tol-
erance can be specified, which allows removing hot pixels appearing near the edge of the UV geometry. Values
close to 1 do not remove any hot pixels while those closer to 0 will try to remove them all (Figure 4).
Figure 4: A comparison of different padding settings
UV Region
Specifies the area that the baking camera takes into account. This can be used to pan and zoom the camera in
case your UV geometry is not within the [0,0]->[1,1] region.
Use Baking Position

If a baking position is used, camera rays will be traced from the specified coordinates in world space instead of
using the mesh surface as reference. This is useful when baking position-dependent artifacts such as the ones
produced by glossy or specular materials.
Baking Groups
In order to tell the baking camera which geometry to bake, the geometry should be connected to the baking
render target and, in the case of having multiple objects and baking groups, the right baking group ID should
be selected in the baking camera. For example if you wanted to bake the lighting of a room into the textures for
the walls (provided the walls do not have overlapping UVs) you would set the camera's Baking Group ID to
2 and the Baking Group ID of each of the walls to 2 as well. Then you can render by selecting the Baking
render target node and save the resulting image. Then if you wanted a separate texture for the floor you would
set the Baking Group ID of the floor to 3 and the Baking Group ID of the camera to 3 as well and then
render and so on until all the textures for the items in the room have been baked. Each time you bake a texture
you would save out the image and then use the image as part of a texture map for the object as part of a shad-
ing network.
488 — Rendering
The example below illustrates the a minimal baking configuration node graph:
Figure 5: A basic texture baking arrangement
Note that render layers, passes, imager settings, etc. can be used in the same fashion as with other types of
cameras, allowing extracting lighting and material information (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Any of the Octane render passes can be baked into textures
489 — Rendering
Baking Tips
l Set your kernel’s filter size to 1.0 as baking does not usually need much anti-aliasing.
l Set Imager’s response to “Linear/Off” to disable specific camera response curves.
Spectral AI Denoiser
The Spectral AI Denoiser allows you to render noise-free images with the Path Tracing kernel in a frac-
tion of the time. The denoiser is not trained for the PMC kernel.
To use the denoiser, enable this feature from the Camera Imager node under the Spectral AI Denoiser
rollout (Figure 1). With the denoiser’s tiling and multi-GPU1 support, the OctaneRender® engine can denoise
any resolution up to OctaneRender’s maximum while consuming about 450 MB per device.
The denoiser is trained to denoise volumes and volume passes. Volumetric passes have very low frequency
details, so don't use the Volumetric AI Denoiser with less than 1000 samples if you want to preserve details for
final render quality that would resemble a 2K to 10K sample render of the scene.
490 — Rendering
Figure 1: To enable and access attributes of the AI Denoiser, go to the Camera Imager set-
tings.
Enable Denoising
491 — Rendering
Enables the Spectral AI Denoiser, which denoises some beauty passes - including the main beauty pass - and
writes the outputs into separate render passes.
Denoise Volumes
If enabled, the Spectral AI Denoiser denoises volumes in the scene. Otherwise, volumes are not denoised by
default.
Denoise on Completion
If Enabled, beauty passes are denoised once at the end of a render. You should disable this option while ren-
dering with an interactive region.
Minimum Denoiser Samples

The minimum number of samples per pixel until the denoiser kicks in. This is only valid when the Denoise On
Completion option is disabled.
Maximum Denoiser Interval

Maximum interval between denoiser runs in seconds. This is only valid when the Denoise On Completion
option is disabled. The Denoise Interval tells the denoiser to run when OctaneRender® reaches this value. It is
used for Interactive Render Region, which renders up to 1 million or until stopped. For this reason,
OctaneRender® provides the option to denoise periodically.
Blend
A value between 0.f - 1.f blends the original image into the denoiser output. 0.f results in a fully-denoised
image, and 1.f results in an unaltered image. Intermediate values produce a blend of the denoised image and
the original image.
To see the denoised result, enable the Spectral AI Denoiser in the Camera Imager Settings, then select
DeMain. When using render passes, select one of the Denoiser Passes among the render passes at the bot-
tom of the Render Viewport.
492 — Rendering
Figure 2: Clicking on DeMain
493 — Rendering
Figure 3: Devices tab
494 — Rendering
When exporting frame sequences through Batch Render, the process runs each frame in the Viewport and the
frame appears denoised, but the exported images are not denoised unless the Save The Denoised Beauty
Instead Of The Main Beauty Pass checkbox is enabled.
Note: The denoiser requires the latest NVIDIA® driver version 388 or higher, and this must be rein-
stalled in custom mode as a clean install.
Scene AI
Scene AI is a feature the models visibility of surfaces to get maximum speed even for Out-of-core geometry.
Scene AI brings you much faster scene loading times, and a dramatic improvement in viewport interactivity.
You are able to position and modify geometry in real time, even in scenes with several millions of triangles. Ver-
tex animation with constant topology is updated in real time in complex scenes, as you move the time slider.
Using the gizmos in the viewport on massive scenes is also in real time.
AI Light
AI Light is a lighting algorithm in Octane implemented so that there is no difference in the resulting rendered
image for unbiased rendering. It is designed to learn the scene that it is rendering and improve its sampling
strategy over the course of rendering the image. However, note that GI clamp is a biased clamping method
used to reduce fireflies, therefore it is possible the use of GI clamp can result in slightly different brightness in
parts of the image between the old light sampling and AI Light.
Octane’s Artificially Intelligent Light provides a great improvement in light sampling, especially in scenes that
have many lights with localised distributions. As a learning system, AI Light improves as more samples are
rendered. The learning is all done in the renderer, it is fully unbiased and tracks emissive points live and in real
time. When used with Adaptive Sampling1 , AI Light gets even better, since it will learn that other lights
become more important, as some pixels are no longer sampled.
495 — Rendering
Figure 1: AI Light controls are accessed via the Light section of the Kernel settings.
AI Light
This enables AI lighting. AI Light option is useful when the scene has complex lighting, for example a large
scene with a lot of lights individually affecting a small local area in direct light coupled with the light emitters
having a lot of polygons.
AI Light Update
Enables dynamic AI light update. This adaptively updates the light selection in direct light sampling, to help
learn the current scene and where the lights are in that scene. For example, in cases where there is a wall com-
pletely occluding the light (thus, the light has no effect in the given camera angle/position), AI Light Update will
understand that it does not need to sample this light.
AI Light Strength
This is used by the Direct Lighting Kernel to adjust the strength for dynamic AI light update.
496 — Rendering
Figure 2: A test scene containing 1247 emitting quads - without AI Light on the left, and AI
Light enabled on the right, for a total of 50 samples per pixel
Note: Scenes rendered using versions V3.x.x and earlier, will not have AI light attributes, thus these
attributes will need to be explicitly set in the Kernel settings when the scenes are opened in Octane by
enabling AI Light update.
Light Linking And Light Exclusion
With light IDs set in the emitter nodes, you can exclude them by material in object layers, and also globally in
the kernel settings. Octane has 8 light IDs, and you can also choose whether to enable the sun and envir-
onment separately.
Given a base scene with a number of emitters:
497 — Rendering
Figure 1: A basic scene with a number of emitters
Figure 2: Users can suppress the highlight of the emitter on selected spheres, while keep-
ing the ground lighting and shadows resulting from the extra emitter
498 — Rendering
Light Linking And Light Exclusion settings are found under the Light section in the Kernel Settings (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Light Linking and Light Exclusion controls are accessed via the Light section of
the Kernel settings.
Light ID Action (Action to be taken on selected light IDs)

Light IDs (Light ID specified)
Light Linking Invert
These are used by Light Linking and Light Exclusion features for Emitter Nodes. Light IDs can also be
enabled/disabled globally in the Kernel Settings. The Light Linking Invert option will invert the light linking beha-
vior for selected light IDs.
Global Light Exclusion

With the same light IDs used by light linking, you can enable or disable the light IDs globally through the Ker-
nel Settings.
Cryptomatte
499 — Rendering
Cryptomatte is an open-source standard used to encode accurate mattes to use later on for compositing. This
technique isolates the pixel coverage of a rendered scene according to properties such as materials, object
names, and others for the purpose of adjusting these properties separately in post.
The Cryptomatte feature is exposed in OctaneRender® as a render pass. When enabled, the Cryptomatte pass
contains the masks for all of the scene's object layers or materials. The masks have correct anti-aliasing, tak-
ing into account features like Motion Blur and Depth Of Field.
The resulting files are usually in .EXR1 format.
Figure 1: Main Beauty pass (left) and a Crymptomatte pass (right)
Figure 2: Cryptomatte is exposed in OctaneRender® as a render pass
500 — Rendering
Cryptomatte use in post-processing enables you to select one or more materials, or objects, for further
enhancement or refinement. This is useful in production environments with separate departments handling con-
tent creation and compositing.
To find more information about Cyrptomatte implementation in OctaneRender®, proceed to the topic on "Cryp-
tomatte Passes" on page 535 in this manual.
Direct Level Set Surface Rendering
OctaneRender® can render level set surfaces, including those from VDBs, without first converting them to
meshes.
Below is a rendering of the famed XYZRGB Dragon based on the level set surfaces (Figure 1) made available
by the original scanned range sets.
Figure 1: Level set surface rendering of the XYZRGB Dragon
501 — Rendering
Figure 2: Level set surface rendering of the VDB1 level sets of the Stanford Bunny
The level sets also work with Vectron, which allows you to add Procedural effects over surfaces defined by
VDB level sets (Figure 3 and Figure 4).
Figure 3: A modified OSL texture that adds Procedural effects to level set surfaces
1Dreamworks’ open-source C++ library housing the data structures and tools implementation for storing and
502 — Rendering
Figure 4: An example of a Procedural displacement added on surfaces defined by VDB level

sets
Adaptive Sampling
In order to understand Adaptive Sampling1 , we need to look at an image as a group of pixels that may be
recursively subdivided into sub-pixels. For example, we are rendering a cloud and we look at one pixel of that
cloud:
503 — Rendering
Below is a closer look at the pixel, which we now divide on several levels:
Looking at the above, some areas on the third level specifically L3a, L3b and L3c do not need any more ren-
dering, and as L3d is further divided on a fourth level, L4a will also finish rendering earlier than the rest of the
areas in the fourth level.
With this concept in mind, rendering may be able to adapt accordingly depending on the nearest subpixel and
therefore cuts the rendertime because the engine is able to stop rendering on areas which no longer need to be
rendered thus, freeing more gpu power to render on pixels that still need to be rendered. If this was done for
504 — Rendering
each pixel concurrently, there would be a considerable drop in render time especially towards the later half of
the overall estimated time of completion.
In Octane, Adaptive Sampling disables sampling for pixels that have reached a specified noise level. This
allows you to bump up the maximum samples quite high (even more than 30,000) and then rely on the adapt-
ive sampling to figure out which pixels actually need that many samples and which don't.
This feature is mostly useful in scenes that have areas that are a lot more noisy than other areas. It will not
help if your whole image is just one noisy mess. Adaptive sampling is possible only for direct lighting and the
path tracing kernels.
The settings in the direct lighting and path tracing kernel nodes are:
l Adaptive sampling: Enables adaptive sampling.
l Noise threshold: Specifies the smallest relative noise level. When the noise estimate of a pixel
becomes less than this value, sampling will be switched off for this pixel. Good values are in the range of
0.01 - 0.03. The default is 0.02, which is pretty clean.
l Min. adaptive samples: Specifies the minimum samples that must have been calculated before
adaptive sampling kicks in. The reason for this option is the fact that the noise estimate of a pixel is just
an estimate with a fairly large initial error. The higher you set the noise threshold, the higher you should
also set min. samples, to avoid artifacts.
l Pixel grouping: Specifies the number of pixels that are handled together. Only if all pixels of a group
have reached the noise level, sampling will stop for all of these pixels.
l Expected Exposure: The expected exposure should be approximately the same value as the expos-
ure in the image or 0 to ignore these settings. The default value is 0. This parameter is used by Adaptive
Sampling to determine the pixels that are bright and those that are dark - which depends on the expos-
ure setting in the Octane Imager. If the value is not 0, Adaptive Sampling will tweak/reduce the noise
estimate of very dark areas of the image. It also will also increase the minimum adaptive samples limit
for very dark areas, because very dark areas tend to find paths to light sources irregularly resulting to
an otherwise overly optimistic noise estimate.
505 — Rendering
To visualize the progress you can enable the noise pass in the render passes node. The pass is only calculated
when adaptive sampling is enabled. The green pixels in that pass mark those pixels that have reached the spe-
cified noise limit. This mask is re-calculated every time a new result is blended into the film buffer.
506 — Rendering
To allow tweaking the adaptive sampling parameters, these parameters will not restart rendering:
l Noise threshold
l Min. adaptive samples
l Expected exposure
l Noise pass
BRDF Models
The microfacet BRDFs were originally implemented as part of the OSL materials to support the default micro-
facet BRDF closures in OSL. They are also useful to have for importing materials from other applications
because microfacet models (especially GGX) is quite widely adopted across different applications. With the
BRDF models integrated in the Octane core, a much similar look in importing materials is achieved.
The original Octane BRDF is done by doing the BRDF sampling based on the light direction. In the additional
BRDF models, the BRDF sampling is done based on the microfacet normal. These microfacet models try to
mimic the roughness of a surface, reconstructing the bumpiness of a surface at the microgeometry level, thus
enabling the render core to achieve material properties like "glossy fresnel", which reduces fresnel effect at
grazing angle for high roughness surfaces. These additional models also allow for anisotropic roughness, which
help simulate anisotropic surface reflectance.
The most obvious difference between the three additional microfacet models are the specular highlight lobe,
defined by the microfacet NDF (normal distribution function), the roughness controls the lobe size using this
NDF, similar to how Octane's existing BRDF works (albeit without NDF). Generally speaking, the Ward BRDF
behaves similar to the Beckmann BRDF model, but is considered to be cheaper to evaluate. While GGX is dif-
ferent visually compared to the two and is known for a longer specular tail.
507 — Rendering
Figure 1: Comparison of microfacet BRDFs at roughness = 0.2
At roughness = 0.2, the difference between Ward and Beckmann aren't that big, while GGX's lobe is quite dif-
ferent. GGX's lobe tends to have a longer tail near the end of the specular highlight compared to both Ward and
Beckmann BRDF.
Figure 2: Comparison of microfacet BRDFs at roughness = 0.5
At roughness = 0.5, the difference between Ward and Beckmann are still very similar, while GGX's lobe
remains to be very different from the two. Just as the above case, GGX's specular highlight spreads out more
due to the longer tail, thus appears to be brighter in areas around the reflection of the direct light.
To see why this is the case, below is a logarithmic graph of GGX's NDF and Beckmann's NDF given their rough-
ness (0.2) with varying angle of surface normal and microfacet normal. This shows the teal curve (GGX) has a
higher NDF value once the angle between surface normal and microfacet normal is greater than 37.5 degrees
508 — Rendering
and never really gets down to 0, unlike the Beckmann's NDF, which goes to 0 before reaching 45 degrees (Fig-
ure 3).
Figure 3: Logarithmic graph of NDF at roughness = 0.2, X-axis represents the angle
between surface normal and microfacet normal (half vector), Y-axis represents the log-
arithmic of the resulting NDF
For the sake of comparison at a different roughness level, below is the same graph but with roughness = 0.5.
The main difference here is that both BRDFs now have a less bright but a wider specular highlight lobe, how-
ever this does not change the fact that the GGX's specular tail is longer than the Beckmann, as its NDF never
goes to 0 in the hemisphere, while Beckmann's specular tail quickly goes to 0 after 45 degrees (Figure 4).
509 — Rendering
Figure 4: Logarithmic graph of NDF at roughness = 0.5, X-axis represents the angle
between surface normal and microfacet normal (half vector), Y-axis represents the log-
arithmic of the resulting NDF
A more detailed explanation is found at the original paper of GGX by Walter et al.
Rendering Animations
The Animation Settings Node is used to control the shutter interval.The value is relative to the frame time
which is set in the time slider via the FPS option.
The Animation Settings parameters can be accessed directly from the Node Inspector window without
adding and connecting a specific Animation Settings node to the scene (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The Animation Settings node button
The Animation Settings Parameters
l FPS - Specifies the number of frames per second, where a frame is a different rendered image, each
processed and shown consecutively to simulate motion within a scene.
l Time - This specifies the shutter time percentage relative to the duration of a single frame, and it con-
trols how much time the shutter stays open. You can set this to any value above 100% manually.
l Shutter Alignment - Specifies how the shutter interval is aligned to the current time. This determ-
ines when the camera shutter is triggered. The options are Before, Symmetrical, or After, and they
apply to each frame thereafter relative to the given frame rate (Figure 2).
510 — Rendering
Figure 2: Illustrating After, Before, and Symmetrical Shutter Alignment
l Shutter Time - This specifies the shutter time percentage relative to the duration of a single frame.
Shutter Time controls how much time the shutter stays open. You can set this parameter to any value
above 100%.
l Subframe Start/Subframe End - Specifies the approach, in terms of proportion (%) to simulate the
camera’s shutter speed for that particular frame. OctaneRender uses Subframe Start and End per-
centages to render only a portion of a particular frame. If the scene has a lot of motion blur,
OctaneRender uses these parameters to render only a piece of that motion blur. Values of 0% and
100% render the whole frame (default).
Note: Motion Blur1 with Displacement 2 is currently not supported.
511 — Rendering
Deep Image Rendering
The goal of Deep Image1 Rendering is to improve the compositing workflow by storing Z-depth with
samples. It works best in scenarios where traditional compositing fails, like masking out overlapping objects,
working with images that have depth-of-field or motion blur, or compositing footage in rendered volumes.
Most major compositing applications now support deep image compositing. The disadvantage of deep image
rendering is the large amounts of memory required to render and store deep images.
The standard output format is OpenEXR.
What Is A Deep Image?

Instead of having single rGBA values for a pixel, a deep image stores multiple rGBA channel values per pixel
together with a front and back Z-depth (Z and ZBack channels, respectively). This tuple (R, G, B, A, Z, ZBack)
is called a deep sample. Deep samples come in two flavors: point samples, which have a front depth specified
(Z >= ZBack) and volume samples, which have a front and a back depth (Z < ZBack). Hard surfaces visible
through a pixel are point samples, and visible volumes are volume samples. From these samples, two func-
tions can be calculated: A(Z) and C(Z), representing the alpha and color of the pixel not further away than Z.
These two functions are the basis of depth compositing, and allow you to compose footage together at any dis-
tance Z instead of just composing image A over image B. These functions are calculated by the compositing
application. OctaneRender® just calculates the samples. You can read a more thorough explanation here,
along with "Interpreting OpenEXR Deep Pixels" and "Theory of OpenEXR Deep Samples".
Enabling Deep Image Rendering

You can enable deep image rendering by selecting the Deep Image checkbox from the Kernel node. The
Path Tracing and Direct Lighting kernels support deep image rendering(Figure 1).
512 — Rendering
Figure 1: Deep Image checkbox
For a typical scene, the GPU1 renders thousands of samples per pixel. However, VRAM is limited, so it's neces-
sary to manage the number of samples stored. Two parameters are provided for this purpose.
l Deep Render Passes2 - Includes render passes for deep image pixels.
l Max. Depth Samples - Specifies an upper limit for the number of deep samples we can store per
pixel.
Depth tolerance specifies a merge tolerance - i.e., when two samples have a relative depth difference
within the depth tolerance, they merge.
Enabling Deep Image Rendering
513 — Rendering
You can enable deep image rendering by clicking the Deep Image checkbox from the Kernel node. The ker-
nels that support it are Path Tracing, Direct Lighting, and Info Channel.
Figure 1: Deep Image1 checkbox
For a typical scene, the GPU2 renders thousands of samples per pixel. However, VRAM is limited, so it's neces-
sary to manage the number of samples stored. Two parameters are provided for this purpose:
l Max. Depth Samples - Specifies an upper limit for the number of deep samples we can store per
pixel.
l Depth Tolerance - Specifies a merge tolerance, i.e., when two samples have a relative depth dif-
ference within the depth tolerance, they merge.
Calculation of the Deep Bin Distribution

The maximum number of samples per deep pixel is 32, but we don't throw away all the other samples. When
we start rendering, we collect a number of seed samples, which is a multiple of Max. Depth Samples. With
these seed samples, we calculate a deep bin distribution, which is a good set of bins characterizing the various
1Renders frames with multiple depth samples in addition to typical color and opacity channels.
514 — Rendering
depth depths of the pixel's samples. There is an upper limit of 32 bins, and the bins are non-overlapping. When
we render thousands of samples, each sample that overlaps with a bin is accumulated into that bin. Until this
distribution is created, you can't save the render result ,and the Deep Image option in the Save Image drop-
down is disabled.
Limitations
Using deep bins is just an approximation, and there are limitations to this approach. When rendering deep
volumes (meaning a large Z extend), it might be that there aren't enough bins to represent this volume all the
way to the end. What happens is that the volume cuts off in the back. You can see this if you display the deep
pixels as a point cloud in Nuke®. You can still use this volume for compositing, but up to where the first pixel is
cut off. If there aren't enough bins for all visible surfaces, some surfaces can be invisible in some pixels. This
situation is more problematic, and the best option is to re-render the scene with a bigger upper limit for the
deep samples.
After creating the deep bin distribution, you need to upload it onto the devices for the whole render film. Even
with tiled rendering, deep image rendering can use a lot of VRAM, so don't be surprised if the devices fail when
starting the render. The amount of buffers required on the device can be too big for the configuration - check to
log to make sure. The only thing you can do here is reduce the Max Deep Samples or the resolution.
Here is an example project and a deep OpenEXR file rendered with it:
deep-image-example.zip
Deep Render Passes
Deep render passes work with Deep Image1 rendering in the Direct Lighting and the Path Tracing ker-
nels. When enabled, all render passes enabled in the Render Passes2 node are written to the deep pixel
channels. By default, only the beauty pass is written.
Note: Enabling this feature can use a lot of VRAM, especially if you are rendering a large image.
515 — Rendering
Figure 1. Deep Render passes are enabled through the Kernel node
Render Passes
OctaneRender’s Render Passes1 allow users to segregate the different aspects of the scene, respectively
rendering each aspect across multiple images. This is particularly useful in fine-tuning projects, compositing,
and creating remarkably detailed and photorealistic images.
The Render Passes parameters can be accessed directly from the Node Inspector window without adding and
connecting a specific Render Passes node to the scene (Figure 1).
516 — Rendering
Figure 1: Access Render Passes using the icon next to the Node Inspector
Otherwise, a Render Pass node can be added by right-clicking in the Nodegraph Editor and navigating to the
Render Settings category and choosing Render Passes.
517 — Rendering
Figure 2: Add a Render Passes node using the Pop-up menu
The passes are classified as either of the following:

l Beauty pass
l Post-Processing pass
l Render Layer pass
l Lighting pass
l Info pass
The classification groups together each respective pass where it would contribute to achieve the same render
results when compositing in post. Figure 3 illustrates this.
Beauty Pass: Post-Processing Pass: Lighting Pass:
518 — Rendering
Figure 3: This diagram illustrates how render passes are rendered from Octane and used to
build a composite
The Render passes are exposed via a new pin in the Render Target node which you can connect with a
Render Passes node. In the render passes node you can then enable render passes you want to render. In
the render view you can then select the pass you want to view.
To instruct OctaneRender to include a particular pass, enable it through the node inspector. Each enabled pass
will have its own tab in the render viewport and only those changes in the render passes node that require a
restart will restart rendering.
519 — Rendering
Beauty Passes
Beauty Passes provide a rendered view of different aspects lighting the scene such as shadows, highlights,
reflections, illumination, and color. Beauty passes are rendered together with the main beauty pass. Each one
of these requires its own frame buffer that needs to be stored in addition to the main frame buffer. Beauty
Passes include:
l Raw
l Emitters
l Environment
l Diffuse1
l Diffuse Direct
l Diffuse Indirect
l Diffuse Filter
l Reflection
l Reflection Direct
l Reflection Indirect
l Reflection Filter
l Refraction
l Refraction Filter
l Transmission 2
l Transmission Filter
l Subsurface Scattering3
l Shadow pass
l Irradiance
l Light Direction
l Volume
l Volume Mask
l Volume Emission
l Volume Z-depth Front
l Volume Z-depth Back
l Noise pass
520 — Rendering
Raw rendering allows more control over the final look in post-production. Toggling raw passes does not restart
the render. Figure 1 shows the beauty passes selected in the Render Passes1 settings.
Figure 1: The Beauty passes are activated in the Render Passes settings
These passes can be composited together by multiplying the raw pass with its matching filter pass:
l Diffuse = diffuse_filter * diffuse_raw
l Reflection = reflection_filter * reflection_raw
l Refraction = refraction_filter * refraction_raw
l Transmission = transmission_filter * transmission_raw
Figure 2 shows what a sample composition looks like in Nuke using the above passes.
521 — Rendering
Figure 2: A sample composition in Nuke using the above passes
To get a good result, make sure that all images are saved as HDR EXR1 files with linear color space (i.e.,
gamma is 1 and linear camera response).
522 — Rendering
523 — Rendering
Figure 3: Reassembling the basic Beauty passes with the additive blend mode in third-party
compositing applications
Shadow Pass
This pass contains all direct light shadows that are calculated on the first path bounce. The pass includes sun
light provided by the Daylight Environment node. The Shadow pass excludes the sky light (a.k.a Octane Sun-
+Sky environment) or texture environment if the texture environment does not consist of an image. If the
environment node contains a sky light or texture environment that is contributed by an image texture, the pass
takes the value in the Environment node's Importance Sampling attribute into account. Make sure to enable
Importance Sampling in the Environment node to include the sky light or texture environment in the Shadow
pass.
Figure 4: A scene with an Octane Sun+Sky environment is rendered with a Shadow pass
twice for comparison. The resulting passes with Importance sampling enable and disabled
are compared
Noise Pass
This pass is used to observe the rendering progress through the noise estimate value when Adaptive Samp-
ling1 is used with the Path Tracing or Direct Light Kernels2 . A pixel is treated as "noisy" if the noise level is
higher than the given threshold. When the noise estimate for a pixel becomes less than the given noise
threshold, the value is a green color which also switches off sampling for that pixel and tells the rendering pro-
cess to concentrate on other areas.
This pass shows which pixels have noise lowered down to the specified noise threshold as the rendering pro-
gresses. Note that Adaptive sampling considers all attributes of nodes in the scene such as Environment Import-
the render engine.
524 — Rendering
ance Sampling, and this will be evident in the progress of the noise pass (Figure 5). If Adaptive Sampling is not
enabled, the noise estimate value is black.
Figure 5: A scene with an Octane Sun+Sky environment is rendered with a Noise pass. The
progress of the noise passes with Importance sampling enable and disabled are compared
Denoiser Passes
Denoiser passes are used by the Spectral AI Denoiser to render denoised images of a scene while also isolating
different aspects of it.
525 — Rendering
Post-Processing Passes
Post Processing1 Passes provide a view of the post processing effects in the scene. If the post processing
node is enabled and a post-processing effect is applied in the scene, the post processing render pass negates
these effects and separates it from the main pass. Users may also specify whether the environment should be
included in the post-processing pass of not. Figure 1 shows how the original render and the post-process pass
can be combined together in compositing software.
526 — Rendering
Figure 1: The Post Process pass can be combined withe the original render of the scene
Render Layer Passes
Render layers allow users to separate their scene geometry into parts, where one part is meant to be visible
and the rest of the parts “capture” the side effects of the visible geometry on it. The layers allow different
objects to be rendered into separate images where in turn some normal render passes may be applied.
The Render layers are meant for compositing and not to hide parts of the scene itself. In the scene, users
would either disconnect the geometry (so it does not render) or use the general visibility in the Object Layer
node.
527 — Rendering
To set up a scene for rendering in layers, an Object Layer Map node is used to connect an Object node to
an Object Layer node, where one can assign the layer ID for that object (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Render layers are created by assigning render layer IDs to the nodes you wish to
isolate
With the Layer ID for objects in the scene assigned, users may proceed to specifying the active render layer.
This can be done through the active Render Layer node, which connects the active layer to the Render Tar-
get (Figure 2).
528 — Rendering
Figure 2: The attributes for the Render layer node
Mode
This determines the visibility mode that should be used to render layers.
• Normal – The beauty passes contain the active layer only and the render layer passes (shadows, reflec-
tions...) record the side-effects of the active render layer for those samples/pixels that are not obstructed by
the active render layer. Beauty passes will be transparent for those pixels which are covered by objects on the
inactive layers, even if the is an object on the active layer behind the foreground object.
• Hide inactive layers – All geometry that is not on an active layer will be made invisible and no side effects will
be recorded in the render layer passes, i.e. the render layer passes will be empty.
• Only side effects – Similar to ‘Normal’, with the exception that the active layer will be made invisible to the
camera, i.e. the beauty passes will be empty. The render layer passes (shadows, reflections...) still record the
side effects of the active render layer. This is useful to capture all side effects without the active layer obstruct-
ing those.
• Hide from cameras – Similar to ‘Hide inactive layers’, all geometry that is not on an active layer will be made
invisible but side effects (shadows, reflections...) will be recorded in the render layer passes.
529 — Rendering
The main beauty pass will render only this active layer and cut out everything else, users can also choose to
invert everything by toggling Invert in the render layer node. The real power of the render layer feature is in
the shadow and reflection layer passes, where the “side effects” of the render layer are captured. They allow
users to compose the render layer on some background with shadows and reflections.
OctaneRender distinguishes shadows as either of two shadow types: “black shadows” and “colored shadows”.
Black shadows are caused by opaque materials or specular materials that do not have the “fake shadow”
option enabled. They are what the matte material is capturing and can be composed using normal alpha blend-
ing.
Colored shadows are shadows that are cast by specular materials with the “fake shadow” option enabled (Fig-
ure 3).
Figure 3: The shadow settings for render layers
The Render Layer Passes
Shadows
Combines black shadows (in the alpha channel) with colored shadows (in the RGB channels) in a single image.
The blend mode is multiply.
530 — Rendering
Black Shadows
Captures black shadows, this pass only uses the alpha channel and should be composited via the normal blend
mode (regular alpha blending).
Colored Shadows
Captures colored shadows cast by objects on the active layer geometry. Only objects with a specular material
with fake shadows enabled can cast colored shadows. This pass doesn’t have an alpha channel and should be
composed in via the multiply blend mode.
Reflections
Captures light reflected off of objects on the active layer on objects on the non-active layers. This pass
respects the materials so the look of the reflections really depends on the materials used.
Lighting Passes
A Lighting Pass isolates the contribution of a light source. Each light pass behaves as if all the other lights in
the scene are switched off. The individual light passes can be added together to recreate the original render in
post or to further adjust the individual contributions of each light during post. The light passes available are:
l Ambient light: Captures ambient light either from the sky in a daylight environment or from the tex-
ture in a texture environment.
l Sunlight: Captures the light contribution of the sun. Only useful when a daylight environment is con-
figured.
l Light Pass 1-8: Light passes 1 to 8 capture the contribution from mesh emitters. Emitters (both tex-
ture and blackbody) have a light pass ID pin assigning an emitter to a light pass. It’s possible to assign
multiple emitters to the same light pass. If nothing is configured, all emitters contribute to light pass 1.
To use light passes in OctaneRender, each light emitter needs to be identified and mapped to the desired light
pass. This can be done by assigning the Light Pass ID in each of the emission nodes that are in the scene (Fig-
ure 1).
531 — Rendering
Figure 1: Assign Light pass ID in the emission nodes
532 — Rendering
Figure 2: A diagram illustrates how to set up light pass for emission nodes
To actually see the passes, make sure to enable the lighting passes according to the existing IDs that have
been assigned (Figure 3).
533 — Rendering
Figure 3: Enable the Lighting passes corresponding to the Light pass IDs activated in the
emission nodes
Info Passes
The Info Pass provides a view of the effects of the normals, UVs, and geometric data provided in the scene.
The info passes are rendered one at a time. The maximum samples (Max samples) for Info passes can be
adjusted without affecting the maximum samples set toward the final rendered image. Info Passes include the
following:
l Geometric Normal
l Vertex Normal
l Shading Normal
l Tangent Normal
l Z-Depth 1
l Position
l UV Coordinates
l Texture Tangent
l Motion Vector
l Material2 ID
l Object ID
l Texture Tangent
l Motion Vector
l Baking Group ID
l Light Pass ID
l Render Layer ID
l Render Layer Mask
l Wireframe
l Ambient Occlusion
1 A measure of object distances from the camera typically represented as a grayscale image.
534 — Rendering
Other Attributes
Distributed Ray Tracing

This is an option to enable z-depth and motion blur in the render passes. If this is enabled, the motion blur and
DOF1 are sampled.
Baking Group ID
Specifies which baking group should be baked. By default all objects belong to the default baking group number
1. New baking groups can be arranged making use of object layers or object layer maps similar to the way
render layers work.
Cryptomatte Passes
The Cryptomatte Passes work with the Direct Light and Path Tracing kernels to render Cryptomattes
for use in compositing. They are rendered one at a time, and they contain the masks for all object layers or
materials in a scene. The masks also have correct anti-aliasing, and they take into account other features such
as Motion Blur2, Transparency, and Depth Of Field3.
OctaneRender® generates Cryptomatte Passes according to the following IDs:
l Cryptomatte Bins - This is the amount of Cryptomatte bins to render. When a render starts,
OctaneRender® collects a number of seed samples, which calculate a Cryptomatte bin distribution.
These sets of bins characterize the pixel samples' properties.
l Cryptomatte Seed Factor - This is the amount of samples to use for seeding Cryptomatte. This gets
multiplied by the amount of bins. Low values result in pitting artifacts at feathered edges, while large val-
ues result in artifacts in places with coverage for lots of different IDs.
l CryptoInstanceID - The Cryptomatte channel is based on instance IDs.
535 — Rendering
l CryptoMaterialNodeName - The Cryptomatte channel is based on the names of the existing Mater-
ial nodes in the scene.
l CryptoMaterialNode - The Cryptomatte channel is based on distinct Material1 nodes.
l CryptoMaterialPinName - The Cryptomatte channel is based on the names of the existing Mater-
ial pins in the scene.
l CryptoObjectNodeName - The Cryptomatte channel is based on the names of the existing Object
nodes in the scene.
l CryptoObjectNode - The Cryptomatte channel is based on distinct Object nodes.
l CryptoObjectPinName - The Cryptomatte channel is based on the names of the existing Object
pins in the scene.
Figure 1: A Crymptomatte Pass render based on the names of the existing Object nodes in
the scene
Material Passes
536 — Rendering
Material1 Passes include all characteristics associated with scene materials. They include the following:
l Opacity
l Roughness
l Index of Refraction
l Diffuse2 Filter
l Reflection Filter
l Refraction Filter
l Transmission 3 Filter
In Figure 1, the Roughness material pass has been activated and its result are displayed in the Render view-
port.

537 — Rendering
Figure 1: The Roughness material pass is visible in the render view
Render Job
Render Job nodes takes a Render Target and renders it according to a routine set instructions from pre-built
scripts or even a user-customized script. Some specific Render Job nodes are also used to feed render output
data back into Octane scene graph. The output data may come from Integrated Octane plugin editions running
on specific third-party modelling and rendering host applications.
538 — Rendering
Figure 1: The Render Job options selected from the pop-up context menu of the Node Graph
Editor pane
Texture Render Job
Texture Render Job renders a rendertarget into an image that can be used by other render targets. This is a
workaround for the limitation that Octane can render only one rendertarget at a time and there is also no sys-
tem in place to render rendertargets as inputs of other rendertargets. Users have to run the texture render job
first prior to using its result in a meaningful way.
539 — Rendering
Figure 1: A typical usage of the Texture Render Job in the Node Graph Editor pane
Network Rendering Overview
Network rendering allows additional GPUs in other computers to be utilized in rendering images. OctaneRender
distributes compiled render data and not scene data, so no file management is required by the user. Con-
ceptually it is similar to working with additional GPUs by allowing the distributed rendering of single images
over multiple computers connected through a fast local area network. Network rendering requires a master
and one or more slaves on different computers. The OctaneRender instance that drives the rendering is
referred as the “master” and the OctaneRender instances that are helping are referred as the rendering
“slaves”.
Since an OctaneRender slave currently requires an activated Standalone license, it is advisable to run the Stan-
dalone first to activate a Standalone license on that computer, if necessary. It is best to copy the whole folder of
the released archive onto the slave computer. Also ensure that the master and the slave are not blocked by the
Operating System firewall or any firewalls in the network. This can be done, for example, by turning off the fire-
wall for home/work networks on the master. If that does not help, also try switching off the firewall on the
slave computer for home/work networks.
Master, Slaves and Daemons
540 — Rendering
The Standalone version or the octane.exe act as master and a special console version of OctaneRender,
octane_slave.exe, can run on other computers as slaves. Of course, they should be all on different computers
or they would have to share the same GPUs. Running the slave on the same computer as the master is point-
less.
The OctaneRender network render slave is fairly dumb and all the render data processing is actually done on
the master side. The slave does not need to have a powerful CPU at all, but the slave is of course required to
have enough memory (RAM) to store the render data plus some render results. The operating systems of the
slaves can also be different since the communication between the machines is cross platform. No data is stored
on the slaves’ discs, it all happens 100% in memory.
Each time network rendering is required, the slave process has to be launched on the slave machines. The
slave daemon makes the control of the slaves more practical, as slave daemon can be set up to be launched at
every start up of the operating system of each machine in the network. The daemon is the little program that
starts a slave process on the machine (on request by a master), monitors it and stops it (on request by a mas-
ter). Monitoring means making sure that a running slave sends a regular “heartbeat” to the daemon and if that
doesn’t happen it will try to stop the slave gracefully and if that does not work, it kills the process. The daemon
runs all the time and starts/stops a slave process if a master requests it. The daemon also listens for the “heart-
beat” of the slave to check if the slave process is still running at all. This slave daemon eliminates the need to
launch the slave process manually on each computer each time rendering is required on the slave.
541 — Rendering
The Standalone Edition’s network rendering feature is also useful while using a Plugin Edition:
Octane’s licenses are per machine where any machine can become either master or slave.
Setting Up The Slave Daemon

To set up the daemon, simply run the batch script _install_daemon.bat on the slave computer. During the
setup, it will ask which port the daemon should listen to for master requests. After that, the daemon will be res-
ident on that machine and it will be active at all times.
When a daemon is invoked by a master, the slave is quickly launched to get some information about the num-
ber of GPUs, version, bitness, etc. and then closed again. After that there is no slave process running. So the
daemon just sits there and waits for masters (there could be multiple masters in the local network) to detect it,
by scanning the complete local network in regular intervals. The daemon should appear in the daemon list of
the network preferences of the masters. If it does not, it can have the following reasons:
l The network rendering in the master is not enabled.
l The daemon is listening on a different port than the master is scanning.
l The daemon is in a different subnet than the master is scanning. If you have only one Ethernet adapter
on the daemon and master PCs, you can safely ignore this case.
l The Windows firewall keeps the master from connecting to the daemon or the daemon from responding
to the master. That’s the most likely reason. To verify it, disable the firewall for private or home/work
networks on both PCs. You have to close the Windows dialog containing the firewall options. Only then
the change is actually applied. If the daemon is now detected (should take only up to 10-20 seconds),
you can try enabling one firewall after the other to see which one is causing trouble. If you want to have
the firewall running, you may have to poke a hole into it, to allow the communication between daemon
and master.
Only when you enable a daemon in the master settings, the slave gets actually launched and will eventually
appear in the status bar of the master. One daemon can be activated only by one master at a time. If daemon
is currently “occupied” by another master the user will see the daemon state change accordingly. The auto-
matic port configuration is an option on the master that enables multiple masters to be used on the same com-
puter.
542 — Rendering
When network rendering is disabled, the local network is not scanned for daemons. The master scans for dae-
mons only when network rendering is enabled.
543 — Rendering
Maximum Number of GPUs

Octane (through the Master) may use the networked gpus provided that the number of gpus do not exceed the
limit set by the Octane license for that Master. The Octane full non-subscription license allows a Master (the
machine with the GUI open) to render with only a maximum of 40 GPUs at a time. The 40 also includes those
that are at the Master. For subscription licenses, a Master is allowed a maximum of 20 GPUs at a time.
In the past v3.05.0 and earlier V3 full versions, Octane only looks for GPUs in slave nodes within the same sub-
net and thus Octane treats every GPU1 in Master (local) and the enabled slaves (remote) altogether as if these
are installed directly in the master machine. It will not even know the difference between a GPU in an expan-
sion box or in another machine. In those earlier V3 versions, to Octane, each local and remote GPU in the
slaves is just another GPU, so as long as it is available (not used by other renderers or the OS or any other
application) and correctly exposed as a CUDA gpu, Octane will pick those GPUs in that subnet until the GPU
limit is reached, if the network has more than the GPUs limit then the rest of the available GPUs will just not be
used.
In Octane v3.06.x and later versions, the native Octane Network Rendering2 feature has integrated sup-
port for multiple subnets and considers Hostnames and IP addresses. The improved Network Render feature
considers the per slave systems that determine how GPUs are allocated to applications and the overall network
system configuration that affect how networked nodes allocate processing capabilities between nodes. Depend-
ing on how the mix of configurations play out, there are some cases where a network allows Octane to use up
to the GPU limit across the network regardless of which slave nodes the GPUs are installed in (per GPU regard-
less of the slave node) and there are also other cases where the network cuts off the other remaining slaves
when a slave will potentially go over GPU limit (so per slave node rather than per GPU, this means all GPUs in
that slave or not use that slave at all) - effectively reducing the total rendering GPUs to significantly less than
the limit.
In all versions of Octane, there is always some hardware considerations such as the node/GPU power density
and heat loads within the slaves which affect availability and usability of each installed GPU.
Octane Network Rendering Feature and Licensing
OctaneRender’s network rendering feature is done via the Standalone Edition. It does not control the network
rendering implementations of other 3D applications (e.g., tap into TeamRender and/or NetRender) and merely
544 — Rendering
communicates straight to the GPUs. Deploying network render other than Octane’s network render requires
the peers/clients at the other end to be able to translate Octane properties, so this means the octane plugin is
necessary at the peer/client side despite the host 3D application’s network schema being used.
Enabling The Network Rendering Feature
Master
To enable network rendering, go to File -> Preferences -> Network Rendering1 and tick the Enable
Network Rendering box.
The network settings dialog includes an option which turns automatic port configuration on the master on or
off. If enabled, multiple masters can be used on the same computer.
545 — Rendering
546 — Rendering
What then happens is that the master opens a socket at the specified “Master Network Port” and listens at that
port for slaves trying to connect to the master. It starts scanning the specified subnet in the local network for
daemons and as soon as a slave with the correct version connects, the Octane Standalone status bar will show
the additional GPUs and slaves:
Multiple subnets may be scanned. The Network Render Feature is also applicable if the Master machines and
the Slave machines are not on the same subnet.
Host names or IP addresses of net render daemons may also be specified directly, which is helpful if they are
located outside of the subnet where the net render master is connected with:
547 — Rendering
To avoid having to enter all the daemons on every master computer, users can export/import this daemon list
and share it between computers, for example:
{
"Version": 1,
"AddrList": ["server1", "192.168.0.103"]
}
If you are currently rendering an image, the render data will be automatically sent to the new slave and it
starts contributing to the image. The render data update on the slave is driven by the master and you can see
the progress in the status bar:
Slaves
The slave version of OctaneRender is just a console build and requires a standalone license. The console build
slave is released as a Windows build but it is designed to work across platforms (i.e. master and slaves can be
on different platforms).
548 — Rendering
To launch a slave, either manually launch it via the command line or let a daemon do the job. To launch a slave
via the command line, run it via:
Code: octane_slave.exe --net-master-address --net-master-port
For example:
Code: octane_slave.exe --net-master-address xxx.xxx.xxx.103 --net-master-port
21000
This what it says on the console:
The line Launching net render slave (2000002) with master xxx.xxx.xxx.103:21000 indicates that the slave of
version 2000002 successfully connected with the master at IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.103 on port 21000.
To stop the slave, press CTRL-C and it will gracefully shutdown the process.
Obviously it would be quite painful if users would have to manually start/stop slaves on several computers,
which is where the daemons come into the picture.
Daemons
549 — Rendering
The daemon is a little lightweight program that is launched after login and runs all the time unless manually
shutdown. It fulfills various roles:
l It provides the possibility for masters to locate it in the local network.
l It determines the version and GPU1 configuration of the slave.
l It starts/stops a slave on request by a master and makes sure that only one master at a time uses the
slave.
l It monitors the “health” of a running slave process and kills the it if necessary.
To set up the daemon, you run the little batch script _install_daemon.bat on the slave computer. It will ask you
which port the daemon should listen for master requests (if you want to keep the default settings in the brack-
ets, you can just press RETURN):
After confirming your selection, a batch file run_octane_slave_daemon.bat is created in the startup folder of
your start menu (Start -> Programs -> Startup …). It will be launched the next time you log into your
Windows account. A new terminal window will be in your task bar. When you open it, you can see the daemon
starting up. At first it tries to launch the slave process to gather some information, which is then displayed:
550 — Rendering
On the Mac, the concepts are exactly the same as on Windows.

1. Open the Standalone .dmg file and double-click install daemon to run the daemon installer:
551 — Rendering
2. When the terminal window pops up, enter the daemon port and the IDs of the GPUs that are to be used
for rendering. The default values can also be used buy confirming with just the ENTER key:
552 — Rendering
3. After confirming the settings, you will have to enter your administrator password and the daemon and
slave are copied into the /Appplications folder and a launch agent is set up, which will launch the dae-
mon automatically when you log in the next time:
553 — Rendering
4. To run the daemon immediately (without logging out and logging in), go into the /Appplications folder
and run the daemon from there:
554 — Rendering
5. This will create a minimized terminal window in the dock which can be opened by selecting it in the
dock. The daemon is a console application and should produce an output like this:
555 — Rendering
Troubleshooting Network Rendering Issues
Octane registers one slave GPU1 out of a multiple number of slave GPUS
Ensure that you are not remote controlling via Windows Remote Desktop tool — particularly on Windows 10
systems. This method allocates only one GFX card to the session causing Octane to see only one video card
over the entire network.
Octane registers one GPU or some slave GPUs but not all the slave GPUS in
the network
Users can not activate devices by specifying GPUs directly, if these are not activated automatically. More so, if
there are some underlying issues in the system already then sometimes the devices are registered properly
during the startup of the computer and sometimes not.
556 — Rendering
Try unplugging some of the GPUs to see if the computer works fine with less cards, and later add more (one by
one) to know when the network and system begins to fail. It may be possible that there is a defective network
cable that pulls connection speed down to unexpected lows such as 10Mbs.
Master indicates "slave failed" and Slave indicates "Detected heart beat of slave stopped ->
Stopping slave."
Double -check that no other program running in either the slave machine or the master machine is obstructing
signals or causing heartbeats to stop. This is generally the result of antivirus software or the Windows OS Secur-
ity measures and the likes, which may kill normal operations once it suspects these operations to be func-
tioning similar to a computer virus.
Network Rendering1 worked in a previous session, but now after a few days and no
changes to the machines, the Network Rendering feature no longer works.
Ensure that the slave daemons in the slave machines have appropriate permissions. Try running the slave dae-
mons with administrative rights (right click -> “Run as Administrator”)
For other issues, consult the OctaneRender Community Board and Forums or contact help@otoy.com.
Setting Up Scenes For Virtual Reality Headsets
Once you’re up and running OctaneRender, you can start viewing the samples provided. For a more immersive
experience, use the Samsung Gear VR2 Innovator Edition head-mounted display (HMD) with the Oculus 360
Photos and Oculus 360 Videos apps that can be downloaded through the Oculus Store on the Samsung GALAXY
Note 4.
Aside from the sample images provided, you can create your own. It is just like rendering a 2D image in
OctaneRender as a 360 x 180 panorama. When you are happy with how your panorama looks, then turn on ste-
557 — Rendering
reo cube map rendering in the camera node and make sure post processing is off. Finally, select the Gear VR
stereo cube map resolution … and render!
Here are 10 useful guidelines for rendering scenes for VR headsets:

1. Turn off post processing. The glare and bloom will cross over the cube map edges. It also may be less
necessary than you think, as VR renders are experienced very differently than images on a plane. For
example, there is no DOF1 in VR renders, nor vignetting. You are not experiencing this render through
a camera lens, but through something much more like the human eye (we may have post processing
tools that mimic the eye on the client to do this right).
558 — Rendering
2. Make sure the scene units are in meters. Remember, IPD (Inter-Pupillary Distance) is set in real-world
metric units, and scale matters a lot. This is also going to be critical for light-field VR renders in the
future.
3. Make sure that objects in the view are at least 10x the stereo offset distance. If your default IPD is 65-
125 mm (e.g. 125 mm if you want to double the stereo strength), then the nearest object should be 70
cm to 1.5 meters from the camera.
4. Keep the camera upright and the horizon as a straight line in front of the viewer, especially for envir-
onment renders (interiors or exteriors). That is why we added the ‘keep upright’ option in the camera
node editor so that looking at panoramas through the HMD is as comfortable as possible.
5. Workflow suggestions: Set up your scene using a preview render target, with a normal spherical pano
("Normal Panoramic Camera" on the next page) camera at low res (for example, 1024×512) ("Image
resolution" on page 561). Preview your scene with a cube map projection ("Cube map projection" on
page 562) with anaglyph stereo rendering or side-by-side stereo rendering ("Side-by-side stereo test"
on page 563) to test stereo offset easily (we may support 3D displays if enough users have this). When
you are satisfied, you can then create a final quality rendertarget for the 18K cube map render ("Gear
VR stereo cube map resolution" on page 564) that shares the camera position and orientation of the pre-
view one. Make sure that your scene covers all directions because there may be something captivating
in the center of the view yet you’ll generally want to look around. Note that the VR feeling, is more real-
istic if you have something underneath or behind you and you’re not just floating in space. If your scene
is supposed to be viewed from a regular viewpoint, it is advisable to place the camera somewhere
between 1.4m to 1.7m above the ground.
559 — Rendering
Normal Panoramic Camera
560 — Rendering
Image resolution
561 — Rendering
Cube map projection
562 — Rendering
Side-by-side stereo test
563 — Rendering
Gear VR stereo cube map resolution
6. Because these renders are so large, it really helps to use region rendering on noisy areas that show up
early in the render. We will probably add a stereo region render tool to make sure that we apply the
region render to each eye identically. Right now, this is a manual process, and it is very important not to
have one eye have more noise than the other or you get bad stereo speckling.
7. Lighting is important. Part of the VR feeling comes from the fact that the lighting is very realistic. You are
also inclined to look at the image and be immersed in it for a longer time than usual. Make sure that light-
ing is as realistic as possible — for example, try the Pathtracing or PMC kernels. Also use hotpixel
removal to get rid of the very bright fireflies, as fireflies in stereo look really bad, as they typically only
show up in one eye and not the other. We used .75 on the Keloid example to remove all fireflies with a
1000 spp render.
8. Play with IPD scale value if you have a macro object that you want to give a bird’s eye view of. The
space station sample has an IPD of 4 meters to give the effect that you are looking at a miniature. But it
also pops out all the contours vividly and is a worthwhile way to show off details of a free-floating model
suspended in a space or air.
9. Experiment often with subtle tone mapping, lower contrast imager settings, and test multiple tone map-
ping exports in the VR viewer app as you make WIP tests. You may find harsh tone mapping and con-
trast that make a 2D image look great, don’t work at all with VR. In VR you have bright high-contrast
OLED pixels right in front of your eyes and no ambient light that frames the render as you do with an
image or video.
564 — Rendering
10. Octane’s specular and glossy surfaces can look stunning in VR, especially when you find the sweet spot
which gives this awesome sense of 3D realism. Check out Enrico’s kitchen scene, it shows this off per-
fectly. Making your VR render take advantage of Octane’s Specular1 and glossy surfaces is an import-
ant tool that sets Octane rendered VR content apart from rasterized VR or VR photos/videos, which
have trouble matching this level of fidelity (especially on mobile).
For more information about OctaneVR, see the dedicated discussion forum at:
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=98
565 — Rendering
Effects
Various environmental effects and scene building tools are discussed in the articles in this section. When work-
ing with large scenes, it is important to reuse objects if possible. Therefore, OctaneRender is equipped with a
robust instancing and scattering system which is discussed in the articles in this section as well.
Figure 1: A volume rendered in OctaneRender
Figure 2: Hair render using OctaneRender for Maya
566 — Effects
Volume Mediums
Volume Medium1 is used to add color and other qualities to a VDB2 file. VDBs are a generic volume format
that is used to create effects such as smoke, fog, vapor, and similar gaseous objects. VDBs are usually gen-
erated and exported from other 3D software packages such as Houdini. There is also a number of VDB files
available for download on line at www.openvdb.org/download. VDBs can be a single frame or an animated file
sequence. To use a VDB in Octane right-click in the Node Graph and use the pop-up menu to add a Volume
node (Figure 1). Use the file browser to locate the VDB file on your local drive.

567 — Effects
Figure 1: To bring a VDB file into an Octane scene add a Volume node
Then attach a Volume Medium to the VDB node and the VDB node to a Render Target (Figure 2). When the
render target is selected it will be visible in the viewport, you may need to zoom out to see it if the volume is
very large.
568 — Effects
Figure 2: A Volume Medium is connected to a VDB file which is then connected to a Render
Target
569 — Effects
Figure 3: A VDB file rendered in the Octane Viewport
570 — Effects
The Volume Medium has a number of parameters which are used to edit the look of the volume. Typically
volume ramps are used to edit the parameters. In order to make use of a ramp, users must have a color spe-
cified for the corresponding channel. For example, to use the absorption ramp, users must select a color tex-
ture for absorption (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The parameters of the Volume Medium in the Node Inspector
The Volume Medium Parameters
Absorption 1
This specifies the color texture for absorption.
Absorption Ramp
The absorption color ramp that defines the colors range. The absorption ramp takes the grid value as input. In
the color gradient, the colors near “0” on the left side of the ramp are mapped to the lower values of the
volume, areas of lower density. Colors on the right side of the gradient are mapped to higher grid values where
the volume density is greater. Emission and scattering ramps operate in a similar (Figure 5).
571 — Effects
Figure 5: The Absorption Ramp is used to color the absorption of the volume
When using ramps to shade an animated VDB sequence pay attention to the Max value of the ramp. This value
normalizes the values of the volume grid keeping them between 0 and 1 so that the colors on the ramp can be
mapped to the volume grid appropriately. The maximum value of grids sometimes differ greatly throughout
VDB sequences from one frame to the next. If you set a Max value too high or too low, you will only see a sub-
set of the colors in the gradient that you specify. Figure 6 shows how a Max value has been adjusted to ensure
that the colors of the gradient appear consistently throughout an animated VDB sequence.
572 — Effects
Figure 6: The Max value is adjusted to keep the gradient colors consistent when applied to
an animated VDB sequence
Invert Absorption
This inverts the absorption color so that the absorption channel becomes a transparency channel. This helps
visualize the effect of the specified color since a neutral background shining through the medium will appear
approximately in that color.
Scattering1
This is the scattering cross section. This channel defines how much light is absorbed over the color range.
Scattering Ramp
Functions in a way similar to the Absorption ramp but instead it maps colors to the light as it is scattered within
the volume.
Emission
573 — Effects
This sets the volume emission to allow Volumetric Emission Modes. For emission, the Medium node can have
either a Blackbody Emission node, or a Texture Emission node.
When using the Blackbody Emission node, it is important to ensure that the data used for the emission grid
contains temperatures in Kelvin. It is common to find VDBs that have unit-less temperatures with arbitrary
ranges such as 0 to 1 or 0 to 45, as is the case with some sample VDBs from openvdb.org. Typical temperature
values range between 0 to 6500, where lower values tend towards longer wavelengths and higher values tend
towards shorter wavelengths. In order to get realistic results from the blackbody emission for volumes, you
must disable Normalize in the emission node. Lower temperatures give off less light than higher tem-
peratures, but when normalized, the radiance emitted by all temperatures is equal.
When using the Texture Emission node, the input temperature grid is interpreted as emission power, not
emission temperature. This is more linear in that the higher the “temperature” value, the more light will be
given off at that point. Once volume gradients are implemented, you will be able to control the color more pre-
cisely.
Emission Ramp
This is the emission color ramp.
Phase
The phase function also affects a volume as it would affect a medium node, and modifying the scale value of
the volume scales the density values of the volume linearly (Figure 7).
Figure 7: A comparison of Phase settings
574 — Effects
Density
The Absorption and Scattering scale. Similarly to the Medium node, volumes may also have scattering, emis-
sion and absorption. These colors influence the appearance of a volume significantly (Figure 8).
Figure 8: A comparison of Diffuse1 Depth settings
It is important to ensure the volume is not too dense. It is recommended that you reduce the volume step
length to an acceptable performance and accuracy level, and then reduce the volume density. Otherwise
you may risk rendering a solid object at a high step length.
Volume Fog Effects
There are many ways to create fog in Octane, using the Environment Medium found in the texture environment
node and the daylight environment node. A VDB2 file may also be used to create the fog.
Standard Fog Without Using A VDB file

This method is also known as fog+sky. This requires the need to use both the Environment and the Visible
Environment pins. Users may add and experiment on the different kinds of medium nodes available, how-
ever, with the scattering quality that characterizes Fog in the real world, it is most practical to use scattering
575 — Effects
medium. Adjusting the Medium Radius in the Environment node and perhaps setting it to 2 would provide a
desired effect.
In the example above, while the Daylight provides some sunlight to scatter around the scene, there is a texture
environment connected to the Visible environment pin which “hides” the daylight environment, so that the sun
does not appear.
Using a VDB File

There is no standard setting, because the settings depends a lot on the size of the volume geometry (VDB), the
most important attributes to tweak are of course the density and the volume step length. Check the maximum
values for absorption, scattering, and emission that is in the vdb itself, for this example it’s 10/10/10.
576 — Effects
This means the fog will be so dense at the value of Density = 10, while the step length mean distances covered
within the volume (Smaller steps within the volume grid mean more details are covered). So step length also
depends on the actual size of the volume geometry. The default is 4m, you have to decrease the steps if your
volume is smaller than 4m. Considering the size (e.g., abs/scat/emis: 10,10,10) is important especially if you
want to use some absorption and scattering ramps because the ramps will have a Max Value attribute and this
should not be greater than the size of your volume.
577 — Effects
578 — Effects
In the example above, the max value = 5. So if max size is 10 (as indicated in abs/scat/emis: 10,10,10), this
means it’s picking halfway through the ramp at some point in the violet shade for both scattering and absorp-
tion, but remember that scattering and absorption works in the complementary way, so just for the purpose of
this example, halfway in the fog would appear greenish.
Shadow Catcher
579 — Effects
The Shadow Catcher1 option can be used to create shadows cast by objects onto the surrounding geo-
metry. The shadows cast are not limited to simply a ground plane but can be cast onto other surfaces of vary-
ing shapes (Figure 1).
Figure 1: A Model is integrated into an image using the Shadow Catching material
This feature is enabled by activating the Shadow catcher option on the Diffuse material2 applied to the
shadow catching surfaces (Figure 2).
ing shapes.
580 — Effects
Figure 2: Activate the Shadow catcher option on the Diffuse1 material applied to shadow
catching surfaces
In the render kernel window activate Alpha Channel2 and disable Keep Environment (Figure 3). When
the image is rendered the shadows will appear over the transparent parts of the surface. This image can be
used in a compositing package to merge the object and the shadows into the composition. (Figure 4).
parent.
581 — Effects
Figure 3: Activate Alpha and Keep Environment in the Render Kernel settings
582 — Effects
.
Figure 4: Shadows are cast onto the environment while the surfaces receiving the shadows
are transparent
Hair and Fur
OctaneRender Standalone Edition can import and render hair or fur geometry. Hair and fur data is usually
retrieved from an Alembic1 file, which may or may not include a strand thickness value or a gradient attrib-
ute. If the thickness value or the gradient attribute or both are not provided, Octane respectively creates the
attribute for the hair gradient and bases the strand thickness according to the default value set in the Import
Preferences dialog.
583 — Effects
584 — Effects
The Alembic file may come from different 3D modelling applications and it may contain geometry derived from
the application’s native hair primitive in the form of hair guides. The hair guides are then exported for use in
Octane Standalone Edition in conjunction with its proxy system for replicating and scattering the hair guides to
create custom hair and fur effects. Users may also generate hair or fur via third-party geometry scatter plugins
such as Ornatrix.
Here is a typical export setting while exporting hair guides into an Alembic file from Cinema 4D:
When the alembic file is imported into the Octane, the geometry that appears are actually the hair guides.
585 — Effects
586 — Effects
The hair guides may then instanced using Octane’s instancing and scattering features, without using too much
GPU1 memory. For more information, refer to the section on Instancing2 in this manual.
2 Instancing an object means taking a single imported mesh object, such as an OBJ or an FBX and making mul-
tiple copies, each of which can be placed in different parts of the scene. This saves an enormous amount of
computational resources because only a single object is loaded into the scene.
587 — Effects
588 — Effects
Alternatively you may use a csv file as input for the transforms. For more information, refer to the section on
Scattering1 in this manual.
The material is then further improved, by using a W Coordinate texture, you can place a gradient for each
strand.
589 — Effects
For the next example that follows below, the Alembic file is generated by a scattering plugin called Ornatrix.
The resulting alembic file in this case already has hair data for hair guides and the transforms used for scat-
tering the strands.
The first step is to import the Alembic file containing the hair geometry by right clicking on the Nodegraph
Editor and selecting the Scene option.
590 — Effects
Once the hair geometry has been imported into the Octane Standalone, the existing materials from the Alembic
file may be used if present or Octane materials may also be added if preferred.
591 — Effects
Hair And Fur Gradients

By this time, the attribute for the hair or fur gradient would have already been loaded from the Alembic file or
automatically created and appended to the mesh node. This attribute defines a “W” coordinate for every hair
vertex and provides the ability to place a gradient along the hair or fur segments. For more information about
this attribute, please refer to the section on the W Coordinate texture.
To place a color gradient to hair or fur, create a "W coordinate" texture and use it as input texture of a gradient
texture or a mix texture or something else, like this for example:
592 — Effects
Toon Shading
Toon shading is a non-photorealistic way of depicting lighting effects. While it still shows lighting effects, it does
so in a simpler way, with often large areas of flat shaded color. In Octane toon shading is controlled by toon
materials and toon light sources. Toon rendering in Octane consists of two parts: a diffuse part and a glossy
highlight. The amount of detail in the shading is controlled using a Toon Ramp (Figure 2).
593 — Effects
Figure 1: Toon rendering in Octane consists of two parts: a diffuse part and a glossy high-
light
Figure 2: The amount of detail in the shading is controlled using a Toon Ramp
594 — Effects
Figure 3: To invoke a Toon Ramp node, right click the Nodegraph editor and select
Materials1 > Mappings > Toon Ramp
Toon shading uses its own light sources, independent from any mesh emitters in the scene. This is done
because with area lights you can never render sharp boundaries between different colors in the toon shader.
Toon lights are not visible in the rendered image. There are two kinds of toon lights: Toon Point light (Figure 4)
and Toon Directional light (Figure 5).
595 — Effects
Figure 4: Point lights behave similar to small mesh lights
Figure 5: Directional lights behave similar to sun light
596 — Effects
Figure 6: Basic node graph showing the connections of octane toon nodes used for Toon
Rendering
Toon shadowing, there is a toon shadowing pin under kernel settings for controlling the shadow col-
or/brightness.
597 — Effects
Appendix
This section describes general Octane Standalone troubleshooting guidelines and camera response curves.
Troubleshooting
Camera Response Curves
OSL Implementation In Octane
Troubleshooting
Most problems with OctaneRender® can be traced to the situations mentioned on this page. However, if an
error needs to be reported, please include information about the machine’s current specifications and con-
figuration such as:
l OctaneRender® SE version and build number
l Operating System version including bit version (32-bit or 64-bit)
l Video card(s) model(s) and VRAM size(s)
l Amount of RAM
l NVIDIA driver version
l NVIDIA CUDA version
Please refer to the issue numbers listed to find common solutions.
Issue Description
1 Cannot find driver for laptop or computer
2 OctaneRender® won't open due to "No Cuda Devices"
3 OctaneRender® won't open due to License Issues
4 OctaneRender® crashes loading a file
5 Render looks strange or gives unexpected results
6 Navigation of Viewport is slow / UI is Unresponsive
7 OctaneRender® works for a while then closes while rendering
8 Can't change settings or save renders
9 OctaneRender® does not see all available video cards
10 Additional Helpful Hints
598 — Appendix
Issue 1. Cannot find driver for laptop or computer

Problem: The available OEM drivers are not recent enough.
Solution: As a workaround, find a suitable official Nvidia driver,
unzip the executable, and modify the device list to
include your hardware. Then manually install the
driver. See forum or search the Internet for more
detailed information.
Problem: Newly released card and waiting for updated Nvidia

driver to support it.
Solution: The new drivers should be released shortly.
OctaneRender® and CUDA are in constant development
and new hardware and CUDA revisions are being
released regularly. There are a few occasions where
this situation occurs and causes a delay in getting the
most out of your hardware and OctaneRender.
Issue 2. OctaneRender® won't open due to "No CUDA Devices"

Error Message
Problem: Incorrect Driver installed
Solution: Read the release notes to ensure that you have the cor-
rect driver version installed. Attempt to remove the old
driver versions and then install the proper version. It
may be necessary to use a tool such as Driver Sweeper
to get all driver components uninstalled.
Problem: Video Card is not CUDA-enabled

Solution: Check the list below to ensure that your card is in fact
CUDA-enabled:
http://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus
Issue 3. OctaneRender® won't open due to License Issues

Problem: OctaneRender® is not licensed.
599 — Appendix
Solution: Your customer details have been incorrectly entered

into the licensing system. If you suspect a problem, con-
tact us at help@otoy.com.
Problem: OctaneRender® is not "Activated".

Solution: Either your license has not been processed, or the cur-
rent OTOY account has been logged out, or there has
been an update on your Operating System which causes
issues with previous builds of OctaneRender. Check for
the status of the actual license key through the OTOY
website online customer area https://render-
.otoy.com/account/. If you suspect a problem, contact
us at help@otoy.com.
Persistent Error: “Your license was deactivated or

Problem:
expired and there is not another one available...”
There may be either of these separate issues involved:
The use of older build of OctaneRender that did
not release licenses correctly in some cases. Try
downloading and installing the latest build of
OctaneRender.
Solution:
The installation of OctaneRender Studio (our sub-
scription product, formerly known as OctaneVR)
instead of OctaneRender (our licensed product)
or vice versa. We recommend uninstalling the
OctaneRender Studio versions, and installing the
latest OctaneRender releases or vice versa.
OctaneRender cannot connect to the OctaneLive servers
Problem:
or error message “SSO server cannot be found”.
This could be due to either of these issues:
l This error is caused when Octane cannot connect
Solution:
to our account servers (account.otoy.com),
please disable the firewall temporarily. Also, if
600 — Appendix
you are in a corporate proxy environment,

please verify that you have configured your
proxy settings correctly. Refer to the topic on
HTTP Proxy1 Support in this manual and for the
option for a static IP contact help@otoy.com.
l Your customer details have been incorrectly
entered by either you or members of the
OctaneRender Team into the licensing system. If
you suspect a problem, contact us at help@o-
toy.com.
Issue 4. OctaneRender® Crashes Loading a File
If OctaneRender® crashes upon loading a user created file, ensure that OctaneRender® and the drivers are
installed correctly. To verify if the crash is caused by OctaneRender® or something that may be inherent in the
user-created file, try also testing a scene by loading the demo suite files from http://render-
.otoy.com/downloads/OctaneRender_1_20_DemoSuite.zip or the OctaneBench scenes from https://render-
.otoy.com/downloads/e4/39/98/a6/benchmark_scenes.zip.
Problem: Problems inside Obj file such as stray edges, vertices, etc..
Solution: Re-export the scene using different exporting options from the modeling program or export
script.
Problem: Special Characters inside Obj or MTL file.

Solution: OctaneRender recognises filenames containing spaces, and it should be able to use files with
non-latin characters. An OBJ or MTL file containing special characters may be encoded in UTF-
8.
Problem: Incompatibility of previous version macros and OCS file format.

Solution: Unfortunately, the only way to get around this is to recreate the macros or OCS file in the cur-
rent version.
1 An object saved as a separate file with the purpose of being reused in larger scenes. This is used to minimize
any addition to the total polygon count in the scene, especially if the scene requires the same object to appear
several times. If used in conjunction with instancing, Proxies help keep very large scenes from reaching poly-
gon limits and also keeps the relative file size of the main project file manageable.
601 — Appendix
Problem: Insufficient system or video RAM.

Solution: It is recommended to use a 64-bit operating system with more than 4 GB of system RAM. Also,
if possible use a video card with more than 2 GB of vram. For example, 2 GB vram is sufficient
for 6 million polygons with medium texture use and a medium render size. To render in larger
resolutions or to utilize more high resolution textures, a video card with more than 2 GB vram
might be necessary.
Problem: Display Video Card is not active while CUDA enabled card is active.
Solution: This may require swapping video card slots on the motherboard or changing bios settings so
PCI-E slot with the display is "Initialized First". Review your motherboard documentation for the
exact wording and location for this setting.
Problem: CUDA error 702 on device 0: the launch timed out and was terminated.
Solution: This happens if the GPU1 code takes too long to complete. To work around this, increase the
timeout for the TDR recovery system. The default is 2 seconds, increase it to 10 seconds or
more for rendering heavy scenes.
The Octane standalone installer adjusts the TDR upon installation, however, this adjustment
can also be done manually. TO manually adjust the TDR, run regedit and add following
DWORD values:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\TdrLevel = 3
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\TdrDelay = 10
Note: Take caution using regedit, mistakes may render your system unstable. Rein-
stall the Standalone Edition using the executable installer to make sure that the timeout
for the TDR recovery system is adjusted correctly.
Issue 5. Render Looks Strange or Gives Unexpected Results

Problem: Concentric circles over the image or unusual effects
including bump map not working.
602 — Appendix
Solution: Check the scale of the imported scene and change the
rayepsilon value. Typically this is due to the scale being
incorrect by a factor of 100 or 1000X. Octane expects one
unit in the scene to equal one meter. Adjust export set-
tings in the modeling application or adjust the import set-
tings in OctaneRender™.
Problem: Facetting occurs revealing the underlying polygonal

mesh, Geometry, or Normals issues.
Solution: Ensure that the geometry and normals are correct in the
modeling program. Re-export the scene if necessary.
Make sure the Normal Smoothing boolean value
("smooth") is enabled for each material in the Node
Inspector.
Problem: Bump map does not show up.

Solution: When a bump map and normal map are both loaded, the
normal map will take priority and the bump map will not
be used.
Problem: Images do not look right on the model.

Solution: This may be due to the way the model was UV
unwrapped. This may need to be redone more precisely
in the 3D modeling application and re-exported.
Issue 6. Navigation of Viewport is Slow/UI is Unresponsive

Problem: Known issue with display refresh time out on Windows.
Solution: This can be attributed to a function that is included in some oper-
ating systems that shut down any program after the OS has lost
communication with the GPU1 . Since higher resolutions and Path
Tracing both can take long periods of time to render a single frame,
the OS loses contact with the GPU and shuts down Octane.
This can be resolved one of two ways:
603 — Appendix
l Purchase a second GPU and dedicate one to

OctaneRender™ and one to the operating system.
l Adjust the time out values specific to the operating system.
As this typically involves adjusting critical OS files, it is not
recommended and not supported by the OctaneRender™
Team. For Microsoft Windows systems, more information
can be read here.
Problem: Render card has insufficient performance.

Solution: We suggest purchasing a more powerful GPU be purchased to get
the most out of OctaneRender. For benchmarks on how GPUs per-
form with OctaneRender, check the OctaneBench scores here:
https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/results.php?v=3.06.2&sort_
by=avg&filter=&singleGPU=1
Problem: Navigating is slow. Is there anything else I can do?

Solution: To increase the speed of navigating in OctaneRender®, you can:
l Use the Shift key while rotating, moving, or translating the

Render Viewport.
l Use the Sub-Sampling settings (3 checkerboard icons in the
viewport) to increase the speed of navigating in the view-
port.
l Reduce the Render resolution of the Viewport while setting
up materials, lights and camera.
Issue 7. OctaneRender® works for a while then closes while ren-

dering
Problem: Insufficient Power Supply
Solution: The current generation of CUDA-enabled GPUs can be
very demanding on a computers power supply. When
going with multiple video cards it can be even more
demanding. Purchase a new power supply if necessary
to ensure that all components have sufficient energy to
do their task.
604 — Appendix
Problem: Graphics Card1 or Computer Overheating

Solution: Make sure the computer case has good ventilation
which may include purchasing additional cooling fans or
a different case altogether. Ensure the case has a good
amount of space around all air intakes and vents. Heat
sinks and fans will also build up dust and lose their cool-
ing capacity. Use canned air to clean out computer
cases, heat sinks and fans regularly. Free software
tools such as Speedfan, EVGA Precision and GPUZ can
assist in determining temperatures of the GPU2 and
will assist in setting fan speeds if necessary.
Issue 8. Can't Change Settings or Save Renders in the Demo
Problem: Changed settings do not keep when closing and restarting Octane.
Solution: This is currently not available for Demo Users.
Problem: I cannot save any renders or use the built-in animation tools.
Solution: This is currently not available for Demo Users.
Issue 9. Windows and the Nvidia driver see all available GPUs,
but OctaneRender® does not
There are occasions when using more than two video cards that Windows and the Nvidia driver properly
register all cards, but OctaneRender does not see them. This can be addressed by updating the registry. This
involves adjusting critical OS files, it is not supported by the OctaneRender team.
1. Start the registry editor (press the Start button, then type "regedit" to launch it.)
2. Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Cur-
rentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
3. You will see keys for each video card starting with "0000" and then "0001", etc..
605 — Appendix
4. Under each of the keys identified in 3 for each video card, add two dword values: Dis-
playLessPolicy and LimitVideoPresentSources and set each value to 1.
5. Once these have been added to each of the video cards, shut down Regedit, and then reboot.
OctaneRender should now see all video cards.
Issue 10. Additional Helpful Hints
1. PCI-E 16X / 8X / 4X / 2X slots are sufficient to run OctaneRender®, while PCI-E 1X slots are not, as it
slows down the transfer of data too much.
2. PCI-E bandwidth sharing by mixing 16x and 8x slots is possible.
3. It is best to use two or more video cards of the same speed and RAM configuration when using them
with OctaneRender.
Advanced Topics
Launching Octane from the Command Line
Octane Modules
"The Script Menu" on page 622
OctaneRender™ Compositing Extension for Photoshop CC
Batch Rendering1
Uploading Images To The Samsung Gear VR2
Normal Maps and Bump Maps
Batch Rendering
In OctaneRender Standalone Edition, the frames of an animated scene needs to be rendered individually and
then consequentially saved on disk for later compositing. This process will be tedious enough when done manu-
ally for every frame so this is where batch rendering becomes useful.
1 The process of assigning sequential portions of frames to be rendered across multiple systems.
606 — Appendix
The Batch Rendering1 script is one of those readily available under Script menu, when invoked, it requires
at least one Render Target present in the current scene but if there are more render targets, the script provides
the option (check/uncheck) to include specific render targets and a choice of image formats for the output of
each render target respectively. The script automatically detects the render targets and these would be dis-
played and sorted alphanumerically.
1 The process of assigning sequential portions of frames to be rendered across multiple systems.
607 — Appendix
The batch rendering script is able to do the following:

l Detect render targets nested in a nodegraph.
l Allow to select which render targets should be rendered in the batch.
l Assign an index to each render target and use that one in the output name (instead of the render time),
this prevents overwrites as well.
l Allows users to specify the output format.
l Support PNG and EXR1 saving and allows scrolling.
l Allow saving of both the main beauty and the denoised main passes.
Batch Render Settings
Framerate
This is used for animated scenes. The script detects the FPS that has been originally set at the render viewport,
but allows users to adjust this rate for the whole batch.
Start time / Start frame

End time / End frame
This is used for animated scenes. The script detects the slider units that has been originally set at the render
viewport and the animation’s length (time) or it’s total number of frames, but allows users to control which
frames are to be rendered in the batch.
Shutter time (s)

This is used for animated scenes. The script detects the shutter time (in seconds) which has been originally set
at the render viewport, but allows users to adjust this rate to be used for the batch.
File numbering
The batch render script saves multiple files and this is handy when multiple images or frames are expected to
be rendered off the same render target as in the case of animated scenes.
608 — Appendix
Override s/px
Each render target has its maximum number of samples. This option makes it easier to override the Maximum
samples originally set in the kernel for that batch.
Samples/px
This allows the user to specify a different maximum number of samples for the batch when Override s/px
option is enabled.
Filename template
Determines the parameters that will be included in naming the rendered files. Parameters available:
l %i render target index
l %n node name
l %e extension (file format)
l %t timestamp
l %f file numbering (handy for indicating frames)
l %p render pass name
For example, batch rendering an alembic scene with 80 frames and three render targets, a typical filename
template would be %n_%f_%p.%e which will save rendered images as: <render target node name>_<file
numbering>_<render pass name>.<file format extension>.
DL 10_1_Beauty.png
DL 10_2_Beauty.png
...
DL 10_80_Beauty.png
IC WF_1_Beauty.png
IC WF_2_Beauty.png
...
IC WF_80_Beauty.png
PMC 10_1_Beauty.png
PMC 10_2_Beauty.png
...
PMC 10_80_Beauty.png
PT 10_1_Beauty.png
PT 10_2_Beauty.png
...
PT 10_80_Beauty.png
609 — Appendix
Output folder
This invokes the operating system’s standard file and folder dialog to allow users to create or specify a folder
where the rendered images resulting from the batch render will be stored. If the Output folder or the filename
is left blank, Octane will still render everything but not save the images. This is a feature not a bug and is sim-
ilar with the other animation scripts. This way users can test render the scene without having to save it.
Skip existing files

Option to skip existing files.
Render passes
Option to save enabled passes and or layered EXR when the passes are saved in EXR format.
The batch rendering script also has a status bar to gauge how far off the rendering is from finishing the entire
batch. The status bar in the script will also indicate the frame that is currently being rendered on the render pre-
view window. If the filename template and the Output folder has not been specified, the status bar will indicate
the current frame, rendertarget and append (discrete files) during the process.
e.g.,
frame 0/81 - Render Target - MAIN (dry-run) (discrete files)
Deep Image1
Option to include and save additional deep image data.
Launching Octane from the Command Line
OctaneRender supports passing command line parameters to utilize scripting or other automated tasks.
The following is an example of the workflow for working with OctaneRender® from the Command Line. To util-
ize the command line options, you must do the following:
1. Save the scene to an OCS file. You must know the full path to this scene.
Example: C:\Temp\OctaneTest.ocs
2. Remember the name of the mesh node that you want to render. This typically is the node for the impor-
ted OBJ.
610 — Appendix
Example "OctaneTest.obj"
3. If the scene geometry has changed and needs to be reloaded, note the full path
Example: C:\Temp\NewGeom.obj
4. Octane can then be launched from the command line using the following syntax
Notes:
For OctaneRender v2.21 and later builds, the octane-cli.exe is a separate executable file specifically added for
the Windows platform to launch OctaneRender™ as a command line application.
For Windows, the octane-cli.exe executable will behave more like a command line application: it will always
block until Octane has finished. Output to standard out is displayed in the terminal and can be piped into a file or
an other program. It also supports terminating with ctrl-C.
USAGE :
[--net-test] [-a ] ... [--script ] [--benchmark] [--dpi ] [--no-opengl] [-t ] [-m] [-R ] ... [-r ] [-l] [-n ] [--imager-
exposure ] [--daylight-sundir-z ] [--daylight-sundir-y ] [--daylight-sundir-x ] [--cam-lensshift-right ] [--cam-
lensshift-up ] [--cam-aperture ] [--cam-focaldepth ] [--cam-scale ] [--cam-fov] [--cam-motion-up-z ] [--cam-
motion-up-y ] [--cam-motion-up-x ] [--cam-motion-target-z ] [--cam-motion-target-y ] [--cam-motion-target-
x ] [--cam-motion-pos-z ] [--cam-motion-pos-y ] [--cam-motion-pos-x ] [--cam-up-z ] [--cam-up-y] [--cam-
up-x ] [--cam-target-z ] [--cam-target-y ] [--cam-target-x ] [--cam-pos-z] [--cam-pos-y ] [--cam-pos-x ]
[--stop-after-script] [--no-gui] [-q] [-g ] ... [-s ][--output-exr-tm ] [--output-exr ] [--output-png16 ] [-o ] [--
film-height] [--film-width ] [-e] [--] [--version] [-h]
WHERE :
--net-test
Test the local network and closes Octane afterwards.
-a <string>, --script-arg <string> (accepted multiple times)

Argument passed to the script. Every instance of this argument will be one element in the arg table.
--script <string>
Filename of the script to execute.
--benchmark
611 — Appendix
Run the benchmark suite.
--dpi <dpi>
Override the desktop dpi setting.
--no-opengl
Force software display.
-t <node name>, --target-node <node name>

Name of the render target node to render.
-m <string>, --mesh-node <string>

Name of the mesh node to render.
-R <node name=filename>, --relink <node name=filename> (accepted multiple times)

Override the file name attribute in the node with the given node name (can occur multiple times).
-r <filename>, --relink-meshnode <filename>

Load the given OBJ mesh file into the mesh node given with --mesh-node.
-l <filename>, --link-meshnode <filename>

Create a new mesh node from the given OBJ mesh file.
-n <filename>, --new <filename>

Create a new OCS project file from given command line arguments.
--imager-exposure <float>
Imager Exposure Amount.
--daylight-sundir-z <float>
612 — Appendix
Daylight Sun Direction Vector Z Component.
--daylight-sundir-y <float>
Daylight Sun Direction Vector Y Component.
--daylight-sundir-x <float>
Daylight Sun Direction Vector X Component.
--cam-lensshift-right <float>
Lens Shift Right.
--cam-lensshift-up <float>
Lens Shift Up.
--cam-aperture <float>
Camera Aperture1 Radius.
--cam-focaldepth <float>
Camera Focal Depth.
--cam-scale <float>
Orthographic Camera Horizontal Scale.
--cam-fov <float>
Camera Horizontal FOV2 (degrees).
1 Determines how much light enters a camera lens. A large aperture produces a narrow depth of field and a
small aperture produces a wide depth of field.
613 — Appendix
--cam-motion-up-z <float>
Camera Up Motion 2nd Vector Z Component.
--cam-motion-up-y <float>
Camera Up Motion 2nd Vector Y Component.
--cam-motion-up-x <float>
Camera Up Motion 2nd Vector X Component.
--cam-motion-target-z <float>
Camera Target Motion 2nd Position Z Component.
--cam-motion-target-y <float>
Camera Target Motion 2nd Position Y Component.
--cam-motion-target-x <float>
Camera Target Motion 2nd Position X Component.
--cam-motion-pos-z <float>
Camera Motion 2nd Position Z Component.
--cam-motion-pos-y <float>
Camera Motion 2nd Position Y Component.
--cam-motion-pos-x <float>
Camera Motion 2nd Position X Component.
--cam-up-z <float>
Camera Up Vector Z Component.
614 — Appendix
--cam-up-y <float>
Camera Up Vector Y Component.
--cam-up-x <float>
Camera Up Vector X Component.
--cam-target-z <float>
Camera Target Position Z Component.
--cam-target-y <float>
Camera Target Position Y Component.
--cam-target-x <float>
Camera Target Position X Component.
--cam-pos-z <float>
Camera Position Z Component.
--cam-pos-y <float>
Camera Position Y Component.
--cam-pos-x <float>
Camera Position X Component.
--stop-after-script
Stops Octane after the specified script has finished - this is implicitly enabled, if --no-gui is set.
--no-gui
Disables the creation of a user interface if a script file is specified.
615 — Appendix
-q, --quiet
Start Application without splash and minimized window.
-g <int>, --gpu <int> (accepted multiple times)

Add GPU1 device to use for rendering (0 = first).
-s <int>, --samples <int>

Maximum number of samples per pixel (maxsamples).
--output-exr-tm <filename>
Output tonemapped EXR2 image file when maxsamples is reached.
--output-exr <filename>
Output EXR image file when maxsamples is reached.
--output-png16 <filename>
Output 16-bit PNG image file when maxsamples is reached.
-o <filename>, --output-png <filename>

Output PNG image file when maxsamples is reached.
--film-height <int>
Film height.
--film-width <int>
Film width.
616 — Appendix
-e, --exit
Close the application when rendering is done.
--, --ignore_rest
Ignores the rest of the labeled arguments following this flag.
--version
Displays version information and exits.
-h, --help
Displays usage information and exits.
<filename>
.OCS Project scene file.
For example, to open a file (C:\Temp\OctaneTest.ocs), relink the geometry (C:\Temp\NewGeometry.obj),

select the meshnode (OctaneTest.obj) and render the frame for 1000 samples per pixel, save the render and
exit:
octane –e –r C:\Temp\NewGeometry.obj –m OctaneTest.obj –s 1000 –o

C:\temp\test.png C:\Temp\OctaneTest.ocs
Another example, to open an Octane .orbx packaged file (C:\Geronimo\Blender\bullet1.orbx), select the mesh-
node (bullet1.obj) and render the frame until 800 samples per pixel, save the rendered image to a specific dir-
ectory and with filename cmd_rendered_bullet1.png and then exit after the render:
octane –e –m bullet1.obj –s 800 –o C:\Geronimo\Blender\cmd_rendered_bul-

let1.png C:\Geronimo\Blender\bullet1.orbx
Other examples:
$ octane "OctaneBenchmark/octane_benchmark for 1022 beta 2.2rc.ocs"
$ octane "some test scene.ocs"
617 — Appendix
It is also possible to adjust the size of Octane’s interface. This is useful for example, in the case of using a 4k
monitor wherein the font appears as 8 point (e.g. in Linux version). For the Standalone version, users can over-
ride the UI size with a command line parameter such as below:
Why are there two sets of Camera Parameters?

The second camera control (-- cam-motion) is used to specify the camera position in the next frame.
OctaneRender® will then use the current position and the next frame position to calculate motion blur between
the two camera positions.
Normal maps and Bump maps both serve the same purpose. By using an image (Bump or Normal), the geo-
metry of the surface can have the appearance of more detail. This should not be confused with displacement
mapping where the image used actually affects the geometry.
Bump Maps are typically grey scale images and OctaneRender™ uses the values to determine how much to
affect the geometry at that location of the pixel.
Normal Maps work slightly different. They are color images that use RGB values to add directionality to the
raised or lowered areas.
618 — Appendix
Note: Normal maps take precedence over bump maps, therefore you actually can not use both a nor-
mal map and a bump map at the same time. In fact, if there is both a Normal Map and a Bump map
applied on the same material, the Normal Map will take a higher priority and be used and the Bump Map
will be ignored.
In OctaneRender, the normal map is interpreted in tangent space. The X-axis is the tangent vector in the dP/dU
direction, the Y-axis is the other tangent vector and the Z-axis is the normal direction.
My Normal Maps from Z-Brush don’ t export properly. What can I do?
To get Z-Brush normal maps to work in OctaneRender, you must enable the “Flip G” button under the Normal
Map settings ("Z-Brush Normal Map Settings" below) and the “Flip V” on the File Export ("Click on the “Flip V”
button prior to export" on the next page).
Z-Brush Normal Map Settings
619 — Appendix
Click on the “Flip V” button prior to export
Octane Modules
Modules are separate GPU1 Octane rendering extensions that add new functionality to OctaneRender. These
are dependent on the services provided by the Standalone Edition and are created by third-party developer
clients through Octane’s Module API for the purpose of integrating in the Standalone Edition. The term ‘Mod-
ules” is used in order to avoid confusion with the term plugin which is already used for integrations of
OctaneRender in other 3D modelling host applications.
With the module API, the following files are provided:

l Most up-to-date version of this document.
l API header files. All their names start with api (e.g. apiprojectmanager.h).
l API wrapper header and source files. All their names start with octanewrap (e.g., octane-
wrapprojectmanager.h).
l octane.lib is provided for linking on Windows.
l Example modules directory.
Loading Modules
Modules are loaded once on startup. Once Octane is running it's not possible anymore to unload loaded mod-
ules or load new modules. Octane searches recursively for shared libraries in the modules directory. The lib-
raries are recognized by their file extension (.so for Linux, .dll for Windows and .dylib for OSX). The modules
directory can be configured via the preferences dialog. Loading of modules can be skipped by using the --no-
modules command line option. (TIP: When Octane seems to hang at startup, it could be that it crashed because
of your module code. You can skip module loading to verify this).
You can get more info about the module loading by enabling the moduleLoader log flag. To enable this log flag
(and other log flags), create a file named octane_log_flags.txt in the directory of the Octane binary. This file
should have each log flag on a new line. To print out all the log flags, add logFlags to this file.
Writing Modules
Modules are writtn in C++. Each module needs a start and stop function. The start function is called once when
620 — Appendix
Octane is loaded from the command line. The stop function is called once before Octane exits. These functions
are the entry points for Octane into your code. It's important that these functions have the correct name and sig-
nature and that their symbol is visible in your module library. You should define these functions as extern "C" to
avoid name-mangling. The easiest is to use the macros defined in apimodule.h. In the start function, the mod-
ule should register itself with Octane. One library (module) is allowed to implement multiple modules, so
register can be called multiple times in the start function. Registration can only be done from within the start
function.
The API is made up of all the header files that start with api. This API is C++ but with some limitations to avoid
problems that can occur at dll boundaries. Because of this, the API isn't always easy and intuitive to use. That is
why we provided C++ convenience wrappers around most of the api code. If the code is trivial, we don't
provide wrappers. All the wrappers are in the files prefixed with octanewrap. We recommend using the wrap-
pers because it makes life a lot easier. The wrappers should be compiled as part of the module code. For con-
venience, we provide octanemoduleapi.h` and `octanemoduleapi.cpp so that you have to include/compile only
a single file.
We try our best to provide good documentation for the API in the header files. If you run into problems, the
forum is the best place to ask for help.
Module IDs
Each module is identified by a unique ID. Once an ID is assigned to a module, it cannot be re-used for a dif-
ferent module. We are working on a website where users can register unique module IDs. Until then, just pm
me to request a module ID and we will keep track of them when the system is there.
Module Types
There are different types of modules and each type integrates different in Octane: The types are:
l Command module: Modules of this type execute a command. Executing a command is very generic
and can be everything from saving a file, opening a window, ... . Each command module gets a menu
entry in the modules menu. When the menu entry is clicked, the command's execute function is called.
Commands are the most flexible plugins in Octane.
l Work pane module: Work pane modules implement a gui component that can be docked into the
Octane workspace. Work pane modules have a menu entry in the window menu and when launched
they are initially created in a separate undocked window. There can be only a single instance of a work
pane module. Work pane modules are destroyed when a new project is loaded. Users can save the
work pane module as part of their default layout.
Threading
The main thread running in OctaneRender is called the "message thread". This is the thread that runs Octane
itself and most of the code is executed by the message thread (user interface, node system evaluation, ...).
Octane will always call your plugin from the main thread unless documented otherwise. You can only call the
API from the main thread except for a few specific classes. This is documented at the top of those classes (e.g.
621 — Appendix
ApiRenderEngine, ApiLogManager, ...).
A good practice is to use the macro OCTANE_API_ASSERT_MESSAGE_THREAD defined in octanewrapthread.h

to make sure that you aren't calling the API from the wrong thread.
Compilation
If you are using the wrappers, they should be compiled with your module code. Windows and macOS require
some extra things:
l Windows: your module code needs to link against octane.lib.
l macOS: you need to specify -undefined dynamic_lookup to the linker options.
The compilers we tested with are Visual Studio 2010 (Windows), g++-4.8.4 (Linux) and Clang 6.10 (macOS).
Examples
The easiest way to get started with the API is by studying the example modules. You can build the examples on
Windows with the Visual Studio solution octane-modules.sln. For Linux and macOS, CMake files are provided
for each example module. You can build all modules by executing the script build-modules.sh The examples
we provide are:
l Hello world module: Shows how to register a module, use the log manager and create a window.
l Work pane module: Shows how to create a work pane module and demonstrates the creation of vari-
ous user interface components.
l Texture commander module: Shows how to use the table component and how to correctly interact
with the node system and events generated by the node system.
Warnings
Some warnings and potential pitfalls:
l Your code is not running in a sandbox. A crash in your code will crash Octane.
l Keep an eye on the log output, errors generated by your module will be displayed here.
The Script Menu
The Script menu contains some pre-coded scripts which are ready to use. If nedeed, you can also improve
these scripts through Octane's LUA script editor or any text editor.
622 — Appendix
Figure 1: The Script Menu items.
Turntable Animation Script
The Turntable Animation script is used to automatically render out images that are later pieced
together to form a turntable animation. You'll need to supply the animation settings.
623 — Appendix
Figure 2: The Tirntable Animation settings window.
The Duration and number of Frames are directly associated such that these will re-adjust when
the other is changed. The shutter speed creates the motion blur effect, it specifies the shutter
time percentage relative to the duration of a single frame. Shutter Time controls how much time
the shutter stays open. You can set this parameter to any value above 100%.
624 — Appendix
Figure 3: In the example above, 50 frames is specficed after which the rendered
images are saved into the output directory specified.
Lua Scripting In Octane
Lua1 scripting in OctaneRender allows user to create their own scripts to automate workflows or augment cer-
tain procedures. Animation scripts store their settings per project instead of globally in the applications set-
tings.
The script Editor is used to create, edit and save new scripts or open existing scripts for editing.
Detailed documentation about the available API modules is provided through the Lua API browser, the doc-
umentation is also available as an HTML page via our HTML documentation script page.
For those who are new to Lua, check out Programming in Lua online: http://www.lua.org/pil/contents.html.
Below are practical facts about Lua Scripting2 in OctaneRender:

l The Lua script output scrolls automatically when more text is printed.
l The Lua editor displays line numbers.
l Uses of the Lua API:
l basic animation support, so camera motion blur can be set from LUA
l Tables with all available node types, pin types etc.
l disconnecting nodes
l Root graph creation, so scripts can create and render nodes without changing the current project
l Windows created with Lua automatically pop up to the front.
l Users are prompted to save the current script upon exiting OctaneRender
l The Lua output can be copied to the clipboard.
625 — Appendix
Using the LUA API Browser
The Octane API exposes a single table called octane. You can find this table in the documentation as the Octane
module.
The octane table contains all the other modules such as octane.gui which is the gui module in the API browser.
Now let’s have a closer look at the gui module. The Members column lists three kinds of items: Functions, Prop-
erties, and Constants.
The items listed under Constants are other tables which, in turn, contain constants which can be used as func-
tion arguments. All these values can be seen listed in the Description column. So octane.gui.componentType is
a table, and octane.gui.componentType.BUTTON is the number 2:
626 — Appendix
All the constants listed in the octane module are a special case because these are also available directly in the
octane table itself. Therefore both octane.attributeId.A_COLOR and octane.A_COLOR are the number 28:
627 — Appendix
The items under Functions describe all the functions in a module. The create item describes a function in the gui
module, the function call looks like this: octane.gui.create(table). Functions in Lua have a number of para-
meters and a number of return values, this one is simple: it has one parameter, and one return value.
628 — Appendix
The description of parameters and return values follows the following pattern: it gives the type, and some
name (this can be a user-defined arbitrary name in the user script). The single parameter is listed as table
PROPS_GUI_COMPONENT, so it should get a table as argument. The name is chosen to refer to an item under
Properties below. The return value is listed as being a component. This is a custom type defined by Octane.
The items under Properties are different, these are not actually present in the API, but these are descriptions of
information that have to be sent to a function, or information that have to be returned from a function.
629 — Appendix
A lot of functions in the Lua API Browser return a table. For example, using octane.gui.getProperties to get the
properties of a GUI component returns a table containing information about the object that has just been cre-
ated. The contents of the table depends on the type of the component, but it is described by one of the items
here. if you create a slider you will get a table with information described by the PROPS_GUI_SLIDER item. You
can also find all the other component types here.
630 — Appendix
A lot of functions also take a single argument which is a table. octane.gui.create is such a function. These tables
are also described here. For this function these are the same descriptions as the ones returned from
octane.gui.getProperties.
Simultaneously pressing <CTRL> key + F key while in the LUA API browser invokes the Search Dialog, which
is used to quickly find and select nodes and dynamic pins that contain the entered search string.
631 — Appendix
OctaneRender® Compositing Extension for Photoshop CC
The OctaneRender® Photoshop Compositing Extension provides tools for compositing OctaneRender® render
passes and support for loading multilayer OpenEXR file format (16- and 32-bits. It can be obtained here on the
Adobe Add-ons website, but it is also usually included in every new Octane Standalone release post.
Installing the Extension

l Photoshop CC 2014 or earlier (up to CS6 (13.0)): If you've downloaded the extension bundle, it can be
installed via the Adobe Extension Manager CC, which makes sure all the contained plugins and addi-
tional files are properly set up within Photoshop.
l Photoshop CC 2015: The extension can be added to Photoshop via the Adobe Add-ons website. Altern-
atively, if you have downloaded the extension bundle from the forums, Note that the extension man-
632 — Appendix
ager has been discontinued by Adobe for CC 2015 applications, so you may use ZXPInstaller as an
alternative.
Once the extension is installed you will find new entries for each plugin within the Help > About
Plug-In menu on Windows or Photoshop CC > About Plug-In on Mac OSX:
Also, the File > Automate menu has been updated with two new entries.
633 — Appendix
The OTOY EXR1 Plug-in

This plugin provides support for loading multi-layer OpenEXR files (16- and 32-bits) into Photoshop. When
installed, it overrides the default EXR Photoshop loader which supports just single layer EXR files and allows
loading them through the standard File > Open .... Upon file load the plugin allows to un-premultiply your
634 — Appendix
data if it's been exported using pre-multiplied alpha as well as adjusting the gamma level in case the data is not
in linear colorspace:
EXRImport.png (19.17 KiB) Viewed 4013 times
Note: The plugin does not support saving into the OpenEXR files.
Loading the OctaneRender® Compositing Project Plugin

This is the central part of the extension and allows you to load an OctaneRender Compositing Project (*.ocprj)
file into Photoshop. To create such a project file you have to enable appropriate option in the multi-pass saving
dialog:
635 — Appendix
Whether you've exported multi-layer EXR or discrete files, you can browse your compositing project file by
clicking on File > Automate > Load OctaneRender Compositing Project .... The plug-in will load all
636 — Appendix
your project files in a single document, un-premultipying the data if necessary and setting up all layers blending
and grouping as needed. Once loaded, you may start compositing your image, save this document as a PSD file
or export it in any other format you wish.
Setup OctaneRender® Render Layers1 Plug-in

This plugin arranges render passes exported from Octane to be correctly displayed as layers in Photoshop
using the right layer grouping and blending, achieving exactly the same image composition as it would be dis-
played by Octane. This can be used independently from whether you've loaded your document from a com-
positing project or created by other means. Once the render passes are loaded as layers into a Photoshop
document, just go to File > Automate > Setup OctaneRender Render Layers ....
The plugin will go through all your document layers, set the proper layer order and blending and create the
required layer groups. Layers recognized as render passes will be highlighted in GREEN. Layers that are not
render passes will be disabled and marked in YELLOW as a warning to the user.
Material2 render passes

Once you've loaded your material render passes they may look something like this:
Note that the beauty pass is being shown first, hiding the rest of layers. After running the plugin, the layers are
separated into foreground and environment. The transparency is removed from the foreground layers and
1 Render layers allow users to separate their scene geometry into parts, where one part is meant to be visible
and the rest of the other parts “capture” the side effects of the visible geometry. The layers allow different
objects to be rendered into separate images where, in turn, some normal render passes may be applied. The
637 — Appendix
applied to the foreground group as an alpha mask. Also blending is applied according to each render pass set-
tings in Octane:
Lighting render passes

Once you've loaded your lighting render passes they may look something like this:
After running the plugin, the layers are grouped and the blending will be set to "Linear Dodge (Add)", resulting
in the right blending.
638 — Appendix
Render layers render passes

Once you've loaded your render layers they may look something like this:
After running the plugin render passes layers are grouped and the right blending is set. The beauty layer,
opposite to the previous render passes types is enabled. An additional background placeholder layer is also cre-
ated for convenience so that a background image can be easily placed:
639 — Appendix
Note: The shadows pass layer is just enabled if none of 'black shadows' or 'colored shadows' are not
present. If just one of them is present, it will be disabled.
Take into account that if you are using an environment you should enable 'Alpha channel' in your kernel set-
tings.
Known issues:
l When exporting beauty passes make sure to not to use the 'Raw' flag as the extension blending does
not take it into account.
l In Photoshop CS6, if there are any render layer passes present, the layer arrangement will fail.
Uploading Images To The Samsung Gear VR
Uploading VR1 quality synthetic rendered images to the Samsung Galaxy

Gear VR
640 — Appendix
If you are rendering images for viewing on the Gear VR headset, ensure that the images are the following:
l 18K cube map renders
l stereo images usually rendered via a Stereoscopic Panoramic Camera with a Cube Map projection of
equal sides (+x,-x,+y,-y,+z,-z)
l usually saved as 8-bit .png images
After having rendered an image via OctaneRender, you can upload and view this image on the Gear VR
through these steps below.
1. Ensure that the OTOY ORBX1 Media Player is downloaded and installed into your Samsung smart-
phone. The ORBX Media Player can be downloaded from the Oculus Store. Additional content can be
downloaded from http://m.otoy.com/media/ORBX.zip as well and added by unzipping the media
archive and placing the resulting files on your phone under the “ORBX/media” directory.
2. To start uploading your own rendered image, connect the data cable from phone to PC.
3. Copy the image and add it into your phone’s “ORBX/media” directory.
4. Attach the phone to the Gear VR headset.
5. Wearing the headset, navigate to the ORBX player. At this point the ORBX player detects the newly
uploaded .png file and, based on this, generates the .json file which includes the name of the .png file,
the name of the author, and other data. It then loads the thumbnail picked up from the .json file along
with all the other thumbnails in its Media directory and displays these in a menu.
6. Simply locate your new image among those currently loaded and enjoy the view.
The above are the basic steps. The updated build of the ORBX Media Player also fully supports both ZIP pack-
ages as well as ORBX and has new features to support ORBX videos and interactive media. 18K cube map
renders may be stitched together to create videos (code to link two cubemaps together) using high level
JSON/lua fields. Here is a link for a sample project using LUA and some sample content: https://render-
.otoy.com/forum/download/file.php?id=46517.
Fast facts:
l The ORBX Media Player is also commonly referred to as the ORBX Viewer or as shortened jargon abbre-
viated to OMP app.The ORBX Media Player is available on the Oculus Store on the Samsung Gear VR
Innovator Edition and Consumer Version.
l The ORBX Media Player is OTOY’s app for viewing stereo cube maps (like 360 Photo but in 3D) as well
as viewing light field photographs and immersive experiences, paving way for navigable VR scenes and
360 degree video with positional tracking.
641 — Appendix
l The first Gear VR Innovator Edition (December 2014) was mainly released for developers and only
worked with the Galaxy Note 4.
l The second Gear VR Innovator Edition (March 2015) works with the Galaxy S6 and the S6 Edge.
l The Gear VR Consumer Version (November 2015) is lighter and more compact, it is compatible with the
Samsung GALAXY flagship smartphones: S7, S7 Edge, Note 5, S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+.
To know more about the ORBX Player: view 11:11-15:24 at https://www.y-
outube.com/watch?v=0LLHMpbIJNA
Is running an 18k cubemap sequence longer than 11 frames possible? Is

there a limit?
To load more than a few dozen SCM frames you need to compress and package as OKX compressed textures,
which we do on ORC right now for each specific platform/GPU1 combo we support in the player (right now
GVR only). OKX for mobile takes a while to encode – up to 9 mins per frame. But if you render on ORC, this can
be done between frames.
We are adding script nodes (see above post) that accept camera node inputs for a set of keyframes on a path,
and ORC can generate the in between frames for you. Right now, if you send a stereo cube map ORBX to orc,
and render it, you can also have it packaged and compressed to ORBX file which can be loaded in your scene or
played back as a video file in the player.
Can I brand the ORBX viewer to make our VR panoramas appear so much
more valuable/professional as opposed placing them as one of many apps in
a main entertainment-oriented interface?
We are working on signed/certs for ORBX media packages. If you have OMP to load an ORBX link or local file
(via android intent, icon shortcut, shell app, URL web link, etc.) it will bypass the home screen/media browser
and run the ORBX project as if it were a stand alone app. This is how it will also work on the PC.
Packaging your project folder as a ZIP actually works in the current app pretty well for things like
images+scripts. But it can break other media depending on the ZIP software you use, which is not in our
hands. The reason we have ORBX containers is they are meant to be packaged by our software for the target
device in order to make sure the assets work optimally. We are also adding digitial signatures, encryption and
buffered streaming cache to ORBX containers that is based on your Octane ID and the settings you set for the
package. If you launch a signed ORBX file with the player (via a URI request or android intent from another app
for example), you will bypass the home screen and run the ORBX content directly with whatever other para-
maters the URI defines.
Will ORBX viewer 3 also allow precise hotspot positioning and the ability to
642 — Appendix
use .png sequences for animated hotspots?

The ORBX 3 player will add support for mesh layers (including hidden bounding box of scene objects) exported
from Octane 3. You can pretty much use this for precise and nearly automatic hotspot scene authoring. The hot-
spot metadata could be handled in a script node you attach to the object layer.

Normal Maps and Bump Maps both serve the same purpose. By using an image (Bump or Normal), the geo-
metry of the surface can have the appearance of more detail. This should not be confused with displacement
mapping where the image used actually affects the geometry.
Bump Maps are typically grey scale images and OctaneRender™ uses the values to determine how much to
affect the geometry at that location of the pixel.
Normal Maps work slightly different. They are color images that use RGB values to add directionality to the
raised or lowered areas.
Note: Normal maps take precedence over bump maps, therefore you actually can not use both a nor-
mal map and a bump map at the same time. In fact, if there is both a Normal Map and a Bump map
applied on the same material, the Normal Map will take a higher priority and be used and the Bump Map
will be ignored.
In OctaneRender™, the normal map is interpreted in tangent space. The X-axis is the tangent vector in the
dP/dU direction, the Y-axis is the other tangent vector and the Z-axis is the normal direction.
My Normal Maps from Z-Brush don’ t export properly. What can I do?
To get Z-Brush normal maps to work in OctaneRender™, you must enable the “Flip G” button under the Normal
Map settings ("Z-Brush Normal Map Settings" on the next page) and the “Flip V” on the File Export ("Click on the
“Flip V” button prior to export" on the next page).
643 — Appendix
Z-Brush Normal Map Settings
Click on the “Flip V” button prior to export
644 — Appendix
Camera Response Curves
Agfacolor Futura 100CD Agfacolor Futura 200CD Agfacolor Futura 400CD
Agfacolor Futura II 100CD Agfacolor Futura II 200CD Agfacolor Futura II 400CD
Agfacolor HDC 100 plusCD Agfacolor HDC 200 plusCD Agfacolor HDC 400 plusCD
645 — Appendix
Agfacolor Optima II 100CD Agfacolor Optima II 200CD Agfacolor Ultra 050 CD
Agfacolor Vista 100CD Agfacolor Vista 200CD Agfacolor Vista 400CD
Agfacolor Vista 800CD Agfachrome CT Precisa 100CD Agfachrome CT Precisa 200CD
646 — Appendix
Agfachrome RSX2 050CD Agfachrome RSX2 100CD Agfachrome RSX2 200CD
Kodak Advantix 100CD Kodak Advantix 200CD Kodak Advantix 400CD
Kodak Gold 100CD Kodak Gold 200CD Kodak Max Zoom 800CD
647 — Appendix
Kodak Portra 100NCCD Kodak Portra 100TCD Kodak Portra 160VCCD
Kodak Portra 400NCCD Kodak Portra 400VCCD Kodak Portra 800CD
Kodak Ektachrome 100 plusCD Kodak Ektachrome 100CD Kodak Ektachrome 320TCD
648 — Appendix
Kodak Ektachrome 400XCD Kodak Ektachrome 64CD Kodak Ektachrome 64TCD
Kodak Ektachrome E100SCD Kodachrome 200CD Kodachrome 25
Kodachrome 64CD F25CD F250CD
649 — Appendix
F400CD FCICD DSCS315_1
DSCS315_2 DSCS315_3 DSCS315_4
DSCS315_5 DSCS315_6 FP2900Z
650 — Appendix
Response Curve OFF (Linear)
OSL Implementation In Octane

Input Parameter Types
Color Handling In OSL Shaders
String Handling In OSL Shaders
Octane-Specific Features And Extensions
Supported And Unsupported Features
Supported OSL Shader Types
List Of String Constants
Input Parameter Types
Conceptually an OSL shader corresponds to a node in our node system. Input parameters will show up as input
pins on the OSL texture node. There is a single output parameter corresponding to the output value of the
node.
The I/O types in OSL code correspond to the following Octane attribute pin types:
color → Octane Texture attribute

point → Octane Projection attribute (UV, spherical, cylindrical…)
vector, normal → Octane Float attribute (X, Y, Z)
matrix → Octane Transform attribute
651 — Appendix
float → Octane Float attribute (1D-value)

int → Octane Int attribute (1D-value)
string → Octane Filename or Enum ⁽¹⁾ attribute
Default values in the function signature are used as the default values for the input pins.
OSL allows meta data for shaders, that provide more control of how the node parameters are displayed.
Octane supports the following:
Metadata for all inputs:
string label
Override the name shown in the node inspector (normally the variable name is shown)
string help
Provides a tool tip for the pin when you hover your mouse over the pin
string page
Can be used to group pins into categories
Metadata for int and float inputs:
float/int min, max

Specify the minimum and maximum values for a float or int input (note that there's no guarantee
that the actual value for the variable in the shader is inside these bounds)
float/int slidermin, slidermax
Allows you to specify a more narrow value range for the sliders. Users may still enter values out-
side this range (but within min / max) using right mouse button drag, and by typing a value.
float/int sensitivity
Allows you to specify the steps for a float/int type variable
float/int sliderexponent
Sets up the skew factor for the slider. In Octane, only linear (sliderexponent == 1) and log-
arithmic (sliderexponent > 1) are supported
Metadata for int inputs:
string widget = "checkBox"
652 — Appendix
show a checkbox instead of a slider. The input value will be 0 or 1.

string widget = "boolean"
synonym for checkBox
string widget = "mapper"
string options
Use a combo box. Options are separated by pipe characters, the keys and value by a colon. Eg.
"option one:1|option two:2|option three:3"
Metadata for matrix inputs:
int dim
set to either 2 or 3, specifies if the matrix should be shown as a 2D or 3D transform
Metadata for string inputs:
string widget = "popup"/string options

use a combo box, using the options in the given string. Options are separated by pipe characters,
e.g. "option one|option two|option three".
int editable
If 1, this allows entering string values in a combo box which are not in the list of options.
File name inputs are always displayed as a file input, regardless of any given metadata.
To learn more about programming with the Open Shader Language1 refer to the [link to OSL wiki being
drafted by Roeland]
Octane-Specific Features And Extensions
List of intrinsic functions

Using intrinsics defined by Octane requires including <octane-oslintrin.h>.
_evaluateDelayed()
653 — Appendix
Evaluates an input, and make texU and texV available during that evaluation. inputVar must be a color
input variable for the OSL shader. See "Using delayed input textures" below.
color _evaluateDelayed(
color inputVar,
float texU,
float texV)
_gaussian()
Return a Gaussian spectrum, normalized so that the maximal value is 1.0. The useful ranges for the inputs are:
mean: 380nm – 720 nm
sigma: 0 – 250 nm
The returned color is represented as a spectrum.
color _gaussian(
float mean,
float sigma)
_squareSpectrum()
Return a spectrum which is 1.0 between begin and end, and 0.0 otherwise.
color _squareSpectrum(
float begin,
float end)
_triangularSpectrum()
Return a triangular spectrum which is 1.0 at mean, and which reaches 0 at mean +/- spread.
color _triangularSpectrum(
float mean,
float spread)
654 — Appendix
_spectrum()
Makes a spectral color. The 4 inputs correspond to the intensities at the wavelengths returned by get-
attribute("color:wavelengths", wl).
color _spectrum(
float a,
float b,
float c,
float d)
wavelength_color()
wavelength_color(float wavelength) returns a spectrum consisting of a narrow band around
wavelength. Colors returned for wavelengths outside (390, 700) will be close to black.
Octane 3.08 converts this call to _triangularSpectrum(wavelength, 30.0).
blackbody()
blackbody(kelvins) has the same meaning as in standard OSL, but returns a spectral color.
_hueshift()
Shifts the hue of the given color. This is a circular shift, shift = 6 represents a full circle. The returned color is
represented in the same way as the c argument.
For RGB colors, 1 will shift red to yellow, while 2 will shift red to green.
For spectral colors, colors will be shifted to lower or higher wavelengths. Octane samples only a limited num-
ber of wavelengths, so color fidelity will be rather low.
color _hueshift(
color c,
float shift)
655 — Appendix
To learn more about programming with the Open Shader Language1 refer to The Octane OSL Guide.
String Handling In OSL Shaders
Supported operations on string values

l Octane considers strings to be opaque values, and supports only a limited set of operations:
l assignment (string b = a;)
l check for equality (a == b, a != b)
l using strings as arguments in functions and shaders
None of the standard string functions defined by OSL are supported.
Types of string variables

Octane roughly distinguishes between 3 types of string variables:
l file names: These are strings which are passed into image sampling functions, like texture().
l enum values: These are strings which are passed into functions which take a well-defined set of pos-
sible values, like raytype() or noise().
l other strings: Strings which are not used for either of the above, or which are used for multiple types of
enums.
The Octane OSL compiler will use static code analysis to determine how each string variable is used. If a vari-
able is used as both an enum value and file name a compiler error is raised.
Using strings as shader inputs

Octane will represent the three types above with different widgets:
l A file name is always shown as a file input, and any metadata is ignored.
l Enum values will by default be represented by an Enum input pin.
l Other string values will by default be represented by an Enum input pin.
String literals in texture() calls
656 — Appendix
If the argument of a texture call is a constant string, the compiler will generate a file name input and use the lit-
eral value as the default value. This allows loading OSL code which contains file names, and ensures any ref-
erenced files will be packed when a scene is exported to ORBX1 .
Color Handling In OSL Shaders
Octane is a spectral renderer, so it handles the color variable type in a somewhat non-standard way.
Spectrum and RGB

Depending on what returned a given color value, a color variable may be represented internally as RGB or as a
spectral color. When expressions use both RGB colors and spectral colors, the RGB colors will be converted to
spectral colors.
“a” will be an RGB color:
color a = 1;
“b” will be an RGB color:
color b = {1, 0.5, 0};
“c” will be a spectral color:
color c = _gaussian(1, 0.5, 0.01);
Adding two RGB colors results in another RGB color:
color d = a + b
657 — Appendix
Note: Adding a spectral color to another color always results in a spectral color.
In practice, most colors will end up being represented as RGB colors. The main exceptions are blackbody and
Gaussian spectra.
RGB colors support element access (using []) and casting to point-like types. For spectral colors this can be
done only approximately, and the result will have poor color fidelity. The compiler will emit a warning if this
happens.
List Of String Constants
OSL defines strings as inputs and outputs of various functions:

l Noise types supported by the noise() function: "uperlin", "perlin", "noise", "snoise", "cell", "circular",
"chips", "voronoi", "scircular", "schips", "svoronoi"
l Ray types supported by raytype(): "camera", "shadow", "diffuse", "glossy", "reflection", "specular",
"refraction", "AO"
l Keys supported by getattribute(): "camera:resolution", "camera:pixelaspect", "cam-
era:projection", "camera:fov2 ", "camera:clip_near", "camera:clip_far", "camera:clip", "cam-
era:distortion", "hit:obj-seed", "hit:w", "hit:local-shader-dir", "pixel:pos"
l Keys supported by gettetureinfo(): "exists", "resolution", "channels"
l Values supported for the wrap option for texture() calls: "black", "white", "clamp", "mirror", "periodic"
l Values returned by getattribute("camera:projection"): "spherical", "cylindrical", "cube",
"cube:+x", "cube:-x", "cube:+y", "cube:-y", "cube:+z", "cube:-z", "perspective", "orthographic", "bak-
ing"
658 — Appendix
For more string constants and learning more about programming with the Open Shader Language1 refer to
The Octane OSL Guide.
Supported OSL Shader Types
Octane supports 3 OSL node types:

l Texture - OSL Texture shader is drawn using an Octane OSL Texture node.
l Projection - an OSL Projection shader is drawn using an Octane OSL Projection node.
l Camera - an OSL Camera shader is drawn using an Octane OslCamera node.
Each has its own requirements regarding the signature of the OSL shader. For these requirements, refer to the
respective topics for each node in this documentation.
Supported And Unsupported Features
Octane supports only a subset of the OSL standard, plus a few extensions to use features specific to Octane.
Unsupported features
l Point cloud functions
l Dictionary lookup functions
l Message passing is generally not supported, except for the built-ins listed under "Octane extensions"
(see below).
l Derivatives
l trace(). For AO like effects, you can add a color input and connect the input pin to a dirt node
l Material3 shaders and closure variables
l wavelength color(). Use _gaussian() instead
l struct variable types
l The global variables Ps and dPdt
659 — Appendix
Partially supported features

l noise() doesn't support 4D noise, and doesn't support the "simplex" and "gabor" noise types
l The global variable time always has a value between 0 and 1, and represents the time within a sub-
frame
l getmessage() and gettextureinfo() must have string literals as attribute names
660 — Appendix
Glossary
Absorption
Defines how fast light is absorbed while passing through a medium.
Adaptive Sampling
A method of sampling that determines if areas of a rendering require more
sampling than other areas instead of sampling the entire rendering equally.
Alembic
An open format used to bake animated scenes for easy transfer between digital
content creation tools.
Alpha Channel
A greyscale image used to determine which areas of a texture map are opaque and
which areas are transparent.
Anti-Ghosting
The automatic or manual correction involved in the merging a stack of images dur-
ing the creation of a High Dynamic Range image. The process aims to correct the
strange effect when objects that change position in the image set is partially visible
(like a ghost) in the final HDR image.
Aperture
Determines how much light enters a camera lens. A large aperture produces a nar-
row depth of field and a small aperture produces a wide depth of field.
AR
Viewing a conceptual three dimensional scene in context to see how it might look
in the real world.
661 — Glossary
Augmented Reality
Viewing a conceptual three dimensional scene in context to see how it might look
in the real world.
Batch Rendering
The process of assigning sequential portions of frames to be rendered across mul-
tiple systems.
Black Body
An opaque object that emits thermal radiation. In Octane, this is used to designate
illumination properties for mesh emitters.
Deep Image
Renders frames with multiple depth samples in addition to typical color and opa-
city channels.
Depth Buffer
A measure of object distances from the camera typically represented as a grayscale
image.
Depth of Field
The distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear
acceptably sharp in an image. Although a lens can precisely focus at only one dis-
tance at a time, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on each side of the focused
distance, so that within the DOF, the unsharpness is imperceptible under normal
viewing conditions. source: wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_
field)
Diffuse
Amount 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
662 — Glossary
emitters.
Diffuse material
Displacement
The process of utilizing a 2D texture map to generate 3D surface relief. As
opposed to bump and normal mapping, Displacement mapping does not only
provide the illusion of depth but it effectively displaces the actual geometric pos-
ition of points over the textured surface.
DoF
field)
Drivers
Files that allow hardware devices to communicate with an operating system. In the
case of Octane, the latest Nvidia drivers should be used.
Effective Focus Range

field)
Emissions
The process by which a Black body or Texture is used to emit light from a surface.
663 — Glossary
EXR
Also known as OpenEXR. This image file format was developed by Industrial Light
& Magic and provides a High Dynamic Range image capable of storing deep image
data on a frame-by-frame basis.
FBX
.fbx (Filmbox) is a proprietary file format developed by Kaydara and owned by
Autodesk since 2006. It is used to provide interoperability between digital content
creation applications. As of Octane 3.07, a scene node will also be available as an
FBX file, allowing for quick and easy transport of assets from industry standard
DCC applications
Field of View
The area that is visible to a camera lens usually measured in millimeters. A wide
angle lens provides a larger field of view and a telephoto lens provides a narrow
field of view.
Focus Range
field)
FoV
The area that is visible to a camera lens usually measured in millimeters. A wide
angle lens provides a larger field of view and a telephoto lens provides a narrow
field of view.
664 — Glossary
Gamma
The function or attribute used to code or decode luminance for common displays.
The computer graphics industry has set a standard gamma setting of 2.2 making it
the most common default for 3D modelling and rendering applications.
Glossy
The 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.
Glossy material
Used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals.
GPU
The GPU is responsible for displaying graphical elements on a computer display.
The GPU plays a key role in the Octane rendering process as the CUDA cores are
utilized during the rendering process.
Graphics Card
The GPU is responsible for displaying graphical elements on a computer display.
The GPU plays a key role in the Octane rendering process as the CUDA cores are
utilized during the rendering process.
Hardware
Any physical device present in a computer system. A Nvidia GPU is a required hard-
ware device for using the Octane Render engine.
HDRI
An image which presents more than 8 bit per color channel unlike most common
image formats.
665 — Glossary
High Dynamic Range Image

An image which presents more than 8 bit per color channel unlike most common
image formats.
IES
An IES light is the lighting information representing the real-world lighting values
for specific light fixtures. For more information, visit http://www.ies.org/lighting/.
IFL
(Image File List) file is an ASCII file that constructs an animation by listing single-
frame bitmap files to be used for each rendered frame. When you assign an IFL file
as a bitmap, rendering steps through each specified frame, resulting in an anim-
ated map. (reference: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-
explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2017/ENU/3DSMax/files/GUID-CA63616D-
9E87-42FC-8E84-D67E1990EE71-htm.html)
Independent Software Vendor

An individual or business that builds, develops and sells consumer or enterprise
software. Although ISV-provided software is consumed by end users, it remains
the property of the vendor. An ISV is also known as a software publisher.
Instancing
Instancing an object means taking a single imported mesh object, such as an OBJ
or an FBX and making multiple copies, each of which can be placed in different
parts of the scene. This saves an enormous amount of computational resources
because only a single object is loaded into the scene.
Interactive Photorealistic Rendering

Provides artists a quick preview of the image prior to the final render, and effi-
ciently allows for adjusting some elements in the scene such as lights, shaders and
textures interactively. An IPR image contains shading and lighting data including
some for visibility, in addition to the software render.
666 — Glossary
IPR
Provides artists a quick preview of the image prior to the final render, and effi-
ciently allows for adjusting some elements in the scene such as lights, shaders and
textures interactively. An IPR image contains shading and lighting data including
some for visibility, in addition to the software render.
ISV
An individual or business that builds, develops and sells consumer or enterprise
software. Although ISV-provided software is consumed by end users, it remains
the property of the vendor. An ISV is also known as a software publisher.
Kernels
By definition, this is the central or most important part of something. In Octane,
the Kernels are the heart of the render engine.
LDR
Image formats that have 8 bits per color channel such as the common image
formats JPEG, PNG, GIF among others.
Low Dynamic Range

Image formats that have 8 bits per color channel such as the common image
formats JPEG, PNG, GIF among others.
Lua
A scripting language that supports procedural, object-oriented, functional, and
data-driven programming. It can be used to extend Octane’s functionality.A script-
ing language that supports procedural, object-oriented, functional, and data-
driven programming. It can be used to extend Octane’s functionality.
667 — Glossary
Lua Scripting
A scripting language that supports procedural, object-oriented, functional, and
data-driven programming. It can be used to extend Octane’s functionality.A script-
ing language that supports procedural, object-oriented, functional, and data-
driven programming. It can be used to extend Octane’s functionality.
Material
The representation of the surface or volume properties of an object.
Materials
A set of attributes or parameters that describe surface characteristics.
Mediums
The behavior of light inside a surface volume described by scatter, absorption, and
transmission characteristics.
Mesh Emitters
The ability for a surface to emit illumination usually described by a Black Body or
Texture emission type.
Mix material
Used to mix any two material types.
Mixed
The ratio of diffuse and specular reflection.
Motion Blur
An optical phenomenon that occurs when a camera’s shutter opens and closes too
slowly to capture movement without recording a blurring of the subject.
668 — Glossary
Network Rendering
The utilization of multiple CPUs or GPUs over a network to complete the rendering
process.
NGE
Node Graph Editor
Open Shader Language

A shading language developed by Sony Pictures Imageworks. There are multiple
render engines that utilize OSL as it is particularly suited for physically-based ren-
derers.
Open SubDiv Surfaces

A set of open source libraries that implement high performance subdivision sur-
face (subdiv) evaluation on massively parallel CPU and GPU architectures. This
code path is optimized for drawing deforming surfaces with static topology at inter-
active framerates. Source: Pixar (http://-
graphics.pixar.com/opensubdiv/docs/intro.html).
OpenVDB
Dreamworks’ open-source C++ library housing the data structures and tools imple-
mentation for storing and manipulating volume data, like smoke and other amorph-
ous materials. The purpose of OpenVDB is mostly to have an efficient way to store
volumetric data in memory and on disk. It has evolved into a more general toolkit
that also lets you accomplish other things, such as fracturing volumes, converting
meshes to volumes and vice versa. However, it does not include a computational
fluid dynamics solver, and therefore it cannot procedurally generate smoke or fire.
OpenVDB is fully integrated as a library in OctaneRender. For more information
about OpenVDB, check at http://www.openvdb.org/.
669 — Glossary
ORBX
The ORBX file format is the best way to transfer scene files from 3D Authoring soft-
ware 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 inde-
pendent format. ORBX is a container format that includes all animation data, mod-
els, textures etc. that is needed to transfer an Octane scene from one application to
another.
Out-of-Core
When scene assets become too large to load completely onto the system’s GPU,
Out-of-Core technology allows the render engine to utilize the CPU to assist in the
rendering process.
PBR
A contemporary shading and rendering process that seeks to simplify shading char-
acteristics while providing a more accurate representation of lighting in the real
world.
Portal
A 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.
Post Processing
Effects such as Bloom and Glare that are applied after a scene has been rendered.
Projections
Methods for orienting 2D texture maps onto 3D surfaces.
670 — Glossary
Proxy
An object saved as a separate file with the purpose of being reused in larger
scenes. This is used to minimize any addition to the total polygon count in the
scene, especially if the scene requires the same object to appear several times. If
used in conjunction with instancing, Proxies help keep very large scenes from
reaching polygon limits and also keeps the relative file size of the main project file
manageable.
Proxy Server
A Proxy Server, also known as an application-level gateway, is an intermediary
server between the local network and the external servers from which a client is
requesting a service. The external servers will only see the network proxy server's
IP address thus providing some degree of security and privacy. There are various
kinds of proxies, the most common are Web Proxies.
RAW
In HDR imaging, this refers to minimally processed HDR image formats. Raw files
can have 12 or 14 bits per color channel, although the available dynamic range
might be cut down due to noise.
Render Layers
Render layers allow users to separate their scene geometry into parts, where one
part is meant to be visible and the rest of the other parts “capture” the side effects
of the visible geometry. The layers allow different objects to be rendered into sep-
arate images where, in turn, some normal render passes may be applied. The
Render Passes
Render passes allow a rendered frame to be further broken down beyond the cap-
abilities of Render Layers. Render Passes vary among render engines but typically
they allow an image to be separated into its fundamental visual components such
as diffuse, ambient, specular, etc..
671 — Glossary
Scattering
Defines how fast light gets scattered when traveling through the medium.
Shadow Catcher
The Shadow Catcher can be used to create shadows cast by objects onto the sur-
rounding background imagery. The shadows cast are not limited to simply a
ground plane but can be cast onto other surfaces of varying shapes.
Spectral Light Transport

A technique in which a scene's light transport is modeled with real wavelengths.
Spectral rendering can also simulate light sources and objects more effectively, as
the light's emission spectrum can be used to release photons at a particular
wavelength in proportion to the spectrum. Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wiki-
pedia.org/wiki/Spectral_rendering).
Specular
Amount of specular reflection, or the mirror-like reflection of light photons at the
same angle. Used for transparent materials such as glass and water.
Specular material
Used for transparent materials such as glass and water.
Texture Baking
A process in which scene lighting is "baked" into a texture map based on an
object's UV texture coordinates. The resulting texture can then be mapped back
onto the surface to create realistic lighting in a real-time rendering environment.
This technique is frequently used in game engines and virtual reality for creating
realistic environments with minimal rendering overhead.
672 — Glossary
Textures
Textures are used to add details to a surface. Textures can be procedural or impor-
ted raster files.
TMO
Maps HDR images to standard displays which have a limited dynamic range. The
more prominent TMOs are Mantiuk’06, Reinhard’02, Drago, and Durand.
Tone Mapping
A term referring to various methods of “converting” HDR images into a viewable
format.
Tone Mapping Operator

Maps HDR images to standard displays which have a limited dynamic range. The
more prominent TMOs are Mantiuk’06, Reinhard’02, Drago, and Durand.
Transformations
Tools used to rotate and position 2D and 3D texture maps onto 3D surfaces.
Transmission
A surface characteristic that determines if light may pass through a surface
volume.
Unbiased Rendering
Unbiased rendering does not introduce any “errors” or shortcuts into the ren-
dering process. It will calculate all scene data using real-world calculations. This
type of rendering is known for producing exceptional render quality.
VDB
Dreamworks’ open-source C++ library housing the data structures and tools imple-
mentation for storing and manipulating volume data, like smoke and other
673 — Glossary
amorphous materials. The purpose of OpenVDB is mostly to have an efficient way

to store volumetric data in memory and on disk. It has evolved into a more general
toolkit that also lets you accomplish other things, such as fracturing volumes, con-
verting meshes to volumes and vice versa. However, it does not include a com-
putational fluid dynamics solver, and therefore it cannot procedurally generate
smoke or fire. OpenVDB is fully integrated as a library in OctaneRender. For more
information about OpenVDB, please see http://www.openvdb.org/.
Virtual Reality
Immersively engaging and experiencing depth perception in a three dimensional
scene through stereo vision goggles and head-mounted displays.
Volume Medium
A shading system designed to render volumes such as smoke and fog.
VR
Immersively engaging and experiencing depth perception in a three dimensional
scene through stereo vision goggles and head-mounted displays.
Z-Buffer
image.
Z-Depth
image.
674 — Glossary
Index
A
adaptive sampling 423, 443, 495, 503, 524

alpha channel 52, 179, 185, 203, 219, 252, 421, 427, 433, 441, 530, 581, 640
aperture 448, 613
baking camera 446, 453, 469, 485
daylight environment 371, 381, 385, 524, 531, 575

daylight model 375
depth of field 447, 460
devices 2, 22, 27, 50, 81, 85, 494, 515, 556, 598-599
diffuse material 177, 261, 272, 289, 306, 328, 330, 342, 387, 427, 580
drivers 2-3, 5, 13, 26, 31, 599, 601
EXR 51, 252, 500, 522, 608, 616
field of view 447, 451

film settings 49, 67, 481
FoV 447, 611, 658
gamma 178, 185, 202, 243, 253, 256, 262, 272, 279, 286, 329, 380, 465, 522, 634
global illumination mode 437
glossy material 173, 180, 186, 195, 214
graphics card 605
hardware 1, 22, 219, 544, 599
675 — Index
HDR 103, 255, 355, 385, 522

high dynamic range 52, 370, 379
IES 351, 353, 370, 393, 398

imager 64, 67, 412, 463, 489-490, 505, 564, 611
installation 1, 3, 5, 9, 25, 36, 85, 600, 602
interface 11, 23, 33, 41-42, 76, 102, 114, 615, 621, 642
kernels
direct lighting 415, 435, 496, 512, 514-515
info channel 429, 514
path tracing 222, 415, 418, 437, 461, 490, 505, 512, 514-515, 524, 603
PMC 199, 222, 403, 415, 418, 424, 437, 490, 564, 609
lights 41, 44, 375, 392, 397, 404, 437, 495, 531, 595, 604
low dynamic range 51
materials 41, 47, 66, 86, 115, 119, 121, 126, 138, 148, 173, 177, 180, 186, 195-196, 200, 204, 210, 213,
224, 228-229, 234, 238, 264, 279-280, 290, 295, 305, 326, 385, 401, 410, 420, 426, 432, 437, 475,
488, 500, 507, 530, 535, 537, 591, 593, 604
mix material 156, 195, 286
Node Graph Editor 58, 68, 81, 124, 152, 238, 361, 456, 539-540
nodegraph editor 66, 70, 123, 157, 197, 210, 222, 234, 316, 346, 364, 371, 377, 388, 390, 395, 401, 407,
410, 416, 444, 470, 473, 481, 517, 590, 595
OctaneVR 565, 600

OpenVDB 180, 204, 567
ORBX 112-115, 407, 641, 657
676 — Index
out of core 85
panoramic 446, 450, 485, 560, 641

panoramic camera 446, 451, 560, 641
post processing 67, 412, 473, 526
render layers 432, 487, 527, 535, 637

render pass 500, 526, 609
render target 67, 81, 112, 122, 141, 370, 408, 410, 415, 444, 455, 487, 519, 528, 538, 559, 568, 607, 612
sampling 49, 376, 381, 393, 398, 422, 428, 441, 495, 503, 507, 524, 604, 656
specular material 195, 200
sun 197, 374, 400, 420, 426, 437, 467, 475, 497, 524, 596
texture environment 355, 370, 376-377, 385, 524, 531, 575

textures 2, 49, 66, 79, 81, 85, 91, 112, 115, 180-181, 229, 234, 239, 251, 255, 260, 262, 264, 274, 279,
281, 289, 302, 305, 312, 314, 319, 324, 326-327, 330, 332, 338, 340, 343, 351, 353, 359, 370, 380,
488, 602, 642, 654
thin lens 444, 447, 462, 485
tone mapping 564
toolbar 463
Unity 14
Unity Lights
Point light 206, 595
Unity settings 9, 20, 26, 33, 41, 45, 66-67, 76, 79, 83, 86, 105, 112, 119, 122, 138, 146, 163, 185, 191, 204,
214, 221, 256, 262, 268, 308, 374, 380, 406, 415, 418, 424, 429, 435, 445, 454, 463, 468, 473, 481,
488, 491, 496-497, 505, 510, 517, 521, 530, 542, 545, 564, 574, 576, 582, 597-598, 600, 602-605,
608, 619, 623, 637, 642
677 — Index
virtual reality 485

VR 455, 557, 606, 640
z-depth 431, 512, 520, 534
678 — Index

Stand Alone Manual 2018

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Stand Alone Manual 2018

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

OctaneRender® Standalone Edition User Manual

Version 2018.1 — Manual publication date: 13 March 2019

Customizing the Interface 42

Gaussian Spectrum Parameters 236

Falloff Map Parameters 289

Info Channel Kernel 429

Calculation of the Deep Bin Distribution 514

Issue 1. Cannot find driver for laptop or computer 599

Image By Enrico Cerica

Looking To Buy A New GPU For OctaneRender®?

Windows and Linux Requirements

NVIDIA cuDNN Library File

Use the following command for more options:

Once uninstalled, reboot once before installing the preferred driver.

GNU Linux Installation

Authentication and Internet Access

Exiting or closing the application Signing Out

Signing into the Octane Licensing System

Offline Authentication and Offline Licensing Mode

Manually Signing Out of the Octane Licensing System

Octane License Management

Fail-safe Web Deactivation (Unlocks)

Authentication Using Version 2 and Earlier through the Licensing System

l Linux & Mac OSX:

Host file entries:

In case of difficulty, contact us here.

Unattended/Silent Authorization (Online Mode only)

Creating an OTOY Account

7. Click I am not a robot in the mCAPTCHA screen.

Confirming that Your Octane Licenses are Current

HTTP Proxy Support

Proxy Server1 configuration via system settings

The proxy configuration via environment variables:

The accepted syntax for proxy environment variables is [protocol://][user:password@]proxyhost[:port]

Single PCI-E Slot

Two or more PCI-E Slot Motherboards

Networked Master and Slave Render Machines

Multi-GPU setups, power supply, and energy consumption considerations

3Dconnexion Space Navigator Support

NVLink On Consumer GPUs

Figure 1: Example of a 3-slot NVLinkTM Bridge connecting two Quadro® cards.

Where, 0 = WDDM and 1 = TCC.

C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\nvidia-smi -g 0 -dm 0

This command switches the first Quadro® GPU to TCC mode:

C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\nvidia-smi -g 0 -dm 1

Figure 5: Setting the peers for the NVLinkTM-enabled devices

Figure 6: An example showing that device 1 is peered to device 2 and vice-versa

Wacom Cintiq Support

Figure 1: Uncheck the "Use Windows Ink" property.

The Render Cloud

OctaneRender Dongle Setup for Offline Mode

You will need:

1. Add your plugin license to your dongle

Figure 1: Information found at that Dongle tab in your OTOY account.

2. Download the Dongle Installer Tool

Figure 2: Adding licenses to the Dongle.

3. Run the Dongle Installer Tool

Figure 3: Window to enter your OTOY account credentials.

Figure 4: Installing the added licenses for offline use.

4. Use the dongle with your offline machine

5. Updating your dongle

Figure 6: Click the "Install Selected" button to update the dongle.

OctaneRender Standalone Overview

CUDA-Powered ATV OctaneRender Benchmark Scene by Jyrgen Aleksejev