This is helpful if you prefer a free camera or an orthographic view, since Octane’s camera doesn’t provide these features. It’s also possible to use 3DS Max’s standard cameras with Octane, though only some of the parameters are supported. As fast as the render view is, it makes editing the scene difficult if the objects in the render are out of shot in the Max viewport, hopefully this is something that can be fixed in a future release. The effects of these settings are only visible in the render, the viewports do not reflect the change, so the Octane Viewport must be used to frame your composition when using this technique. X and Y lens shift is useful to correct horizontal and vertical convergence for architectural renders, but it was a little tricky to get used to as you have to leave your camera level, then use the shift settings to pan around. Normal, Cylindrical and Spherical cameras This short video demonstrates many of these features operating on Octane’s native Daylight object. These are all of course interactive post-effects. Bloom is a simple, one parameter tool that produces some very effective results, Glare allows you to set not only the power but the number of rays, the angle and blurriness making it very flexible, while spectral intensity allows you to shift the resulting glare to create some beautiful effects. Post Productionīloom, Glare, and Spectral Shift complete Octane’s post-processing capabilities.
There are currently no editable parameters to manually modify the tonemapping curves, but it’s easy to export the image using a linear response and using your own settings in an external image editing program. It’s a simple case of scrolling through the list of options until you find the look you’re after. Octane Render includes a large number of tone mapping response curves based on real-world film stock and, like all the settings in the Imager rollout, this is all achieved without interrupting the render. It’s also worth noting that the PMC kernel produced far fewer Fireflies in complex scenes containing mesh lights combined with specular and glossy materials than Pathtracer, and if Octane Render does implement Bidirectional sampling in the future we should see a significant reduction in hot pixels and improvement in speed. Not that Fireflies are hard to remove in an image editor, but this is just one more excellent feature that lets you get the majority of the work done directly in Max. These may disappear the longer the render is left to run, but Octane also provides a post-production filter that does a good job of reducing them if time is tight.
Saturation, white balance, and vignetting mean that simple post-production can be carried out without the need to use an external image editor, or even re-render.Ī downside of all unbiased algorithms is fireflies or hot pixels. Using these tools you feel more like a photographer than a 3D artist, using the live view to frame your shot then adjusting the parameters to set your exposure, all in real time.
Important parameters like f-stop and ISO can be adjusted either while the render is taking place and even after it’s finished. Octane’s interactive credentials are assured by a great feature that allows you to adjust the tone mapping of the render on-the-fly.