OctaneRender for ArchiCAD plugin

[Anonymous]

An announcement was made today about the development of an integrated OctaneRender rendering plugin for ArchiCAD. Details here...render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=26793.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

paulk wrote:

This is very critical to ArchiCAD users who use the Marquee tool a lot and for whom it's a great time-saver (and one would imagine an even bigger time and resources (read: CPU/GPU, Memory)-saver

Thanks for the clarification.

Are you saying you need to render the marquee area because a full render would take too long to run?

Paul

In some instances, yes.


In other instances it's merely a preference to see how a limited part of the project or model looks in a quick render (even in the Real Time window) without choking up the system and hogging all the cores which limits your ability to do anything else in ArchiCAD (which is also multi-core optimized; as well as having limited GPU bandwidth for the 3D window in ArchiCAD in the case of a GPU renderer like Octane.

In that latter case the amount of 3D Geometry information you can comfortably navigate and manipulate in the 3D window is obviously a direct function of the amount of video memory you have available.

And even in the former case of a renderer that instead utilized the CPU cores for most (or all of its) rendering functions (like Maxwell or even Vray in non-RT mode) some of us have found a way of being able to continue working in ArchiCAD while the renderer renders a limited (- read: marqueed) part of the model for testing purposes or even final render, and like I said, the amount of cores you have available for ArchiCAD is dependent on how much the render has to hog for the render.


I suppose it's all a question of optmizing our workflows (something that long-time users of ArchiCAD have long-learnt to do even with powerful computers) and a renderer that works well with the Marquee tool (like Maxwell used to, and like I hope Octane will) is a great asset to this toolset.


Additionally there are other side benefits (actually more than just side benefits) like the ability to do sectional or cutway renders of a section of your model, a floor or series of floors cut with the cutting planes and marquee, all without having to rely on the camera's Z-clip capability which can be cumbersome to orient correctly and can't cut anything or any other shapes but simply straight planes..

[Anonymous]

see how a limited part of the project or model looks in a quick render (even in the Real Time window) without choking up the system and hogging all the cores which limits your ability to do anything else in ArchiCAD (which is also multi-core optimized; as well as having limited GPU bandwidth for the 3D window in ArchiCAD in the case of a GPU renderer like Octane.

With Octane - the rendering is happening on your video card, so there is no "chocking up the system". Your system is running full speed whilst your render is running at full speed (assuming you have a card for your Windows display and a card to render with). You get almost instant feedback on how the final render will look, so you can tweak settings, wait a few secs to see the result, tweak, etc.

In that latter case the amount of 3D Geometry information you can comfortably navigate and manipulate in the 3D window is obviously a direct function of the amount of video memory you have available.

I have a 1gig card, and can easily fit 4Mil polys into it. ArchiCAD seems reasonable low-poly compared with other 3 apps I've used - due to the predominantly flat surfaces involved. From memory, the head model in this render was around the 4mil poly mark - and the render was 90% complete in a few secs, but I left it 2mins in this case to fill out the details (and I should have let it another 5 min for that last 2%). www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=528483140504671&set=pb.424191130933873.-2207520000.1358330736&type=3&theater

some of us have found a way of being able to continue working in ArchiCAD while the renderer renders a limited (- read: marqueed) part of the model for testing purposes or even final render, and like I said, the amount of cores you have available for ArchiCAD is dependent on how much the render has to hog for the render.

I understand where you are coming from, because I have employed similar technique with other apps to render and work on the scene in parallel. But with Octane I think your workflow may change, because you are getting such quick feedback on the render, there is rarely a need to actually multi-task. It's only the very final 16000 sample render that is going to take some time to run. And while it's rendering, it's not using any CPU cores....only GPU cores. So you set it running and you can continue working on the scene if needed.

Additionally there are other side benefits (actually more than just side benefits) like the ability to do sectional or cutway renders of a section of your model, a floor or series of floors cut with the cutting planes and marquee, all without having to rely on the camera's Z-clip capability which can be cumbersome to orient correctly and can't cut anything or any other shapes but simply straight planes..

I can see this being very useful, and at the moment when you do a cut-away with a marquee, that is reflected in the Octane Viewport.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

paulk wrote:
I understand where you are coming from, because I have employed similar technique with other apps to render and work on the scene in parallel. But with Octane I think your workflow may change, because you are getting such quick feedback on the render, there is rarely a need to actually multi-task. It's only the very final 16000 sample render that is going to take some time to run. And while it's rendering, it's not using any CPU cores....only GPU cores. So you set it running and you can continue working on the scene if needed.


I can see this being very useful, and at the moment when you do a cut-away with a marquee, that is reflected in the Octane Viewport.

I think that's the answer that most people were hoping for.

I look forward to your final release.

Regarding the previous comment, I might be wrong but I've always been under the impression that ArchiCAD utilizes the GPU for 3D window functions (modelling, navigation etc) which, in the case of large models, might imply some bottle-neck situations where video memory, at least, is concerned when ArchiCAD is working with an Octane (or any GPU-renderer) render running in the background.
I realize that the way GPU renderers utilize GPU cores to render is probably not the same way that modellers like ArchiCAD or other Open GL applications utilize it in 3D window navigations, but I was curious as to whether you think this might be an issue since a lot of ArchiCAD users tend to work predominantly in the 3D window in their workflow.

Most of the test renders I've seen of your alpha version of the plugin (in the Vimeo videos) have been of small sized models, although your Facebook page shows a larger model.
With the Morph tool in AC16 and probably high poly-counts in models going forward (and presumably high counts of triangles in the 3D window) it, once again, begs the question of just how powerful one's Video card will have to be to be able to comfortably get the most out of both.

In any case, apologies for the many questions.
Your answers are useful to many of us.

[Anonymous]

I might be wrong but I've always been under the impression that ArchiCAD utilizes the GPU for 3D window functions (modelling, navigation etc) which, in the case of large models, might imply some bottle-neck situations where video memory, at least, is concerned when ArchiCAD is working with an Octane (or any GPU-renderer) render running in the background.
I realize that the way GPU renderers utilize GPU cores to render is probably not the same way that modellers like ArchiCAD or other Open GL applications utilize it in 3D window navigations, but I was curious as to whether you think this might be an issue since a lot of ArchiCAD users tend to work predominantly in the 3D window in their workflow.

I am reasonably certain that Archicad would be utilising the display adapter for OpenGL 3d imaging. Ideally you would run your on-board graphics card (or second graphics card) as the Windows display adapter (for Archicad OpenGL), leaving the main graphics card(s) to do all the GPU work. I have however used 1 card for both GPU and OpenGL, and performance was only hampered once I went over about 500,000 tris. But ideally, you'll have an on-board or 2nd card for your display adapted.

Most of the test renders I've seen of your alpha version of the plugin (in the Vimeo videos) have been of small sized models, although your Facebook page shows a larger model.
With the Morph tool in AC16 and probably high poly-counts in models going forward (and presumably high counts of triangles in the 3D window) it, once again, begs the question of just how powerful one's Video card will have to be to be able to comfortably get the most out of both.

The yellow building (one of the Archicad samples) on the FB page was around 350k triangles from memory, which is very small by normal 3d standards. We've found you can fit a massive amount of geometry into a 1Gig card - and the limiting factor is the load time, rather than the VRAM available. The other limited factors is the number of texture map slots and texturemap space - but again, Archicad seems very economical in this regard.

Paul

[Anonymous]

Otoy are looking for beta testers too.....render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=27118.

[Rafal SLEK]

Bricklyne wrote:


And he's also referencing the Maxwell for ArchiCAD plugin which for the longest time would respect the MArquee tool boundary and then just when they release the latest version with the Fire capability (for real time preview of the 3D Window similar to what your plugin does), they broke the Marquee tool capability - which kinda makes it useless for us and even defeats the whole purpose since even actual renders export the entire scene as opposed to just whats defined by the Marquee.

In newest ArchiCAD-Maxwell (plugin 2.7.3) it works again. There is a "3D window" export mode — cutting planes and marquee are now working in MR after sending geometry from AC.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Rafal wrote:

Bricklyne wrote:


And he's also referencing the Maxwell for ArchiCAD plugin which for the longest time would respect the MArquee tool boundary and then just when they release the latest version with the Fire capability (for real time preview of the 3D Window similar to what your plugin does), they broke the Marquee tool capability - which kinda makes it useless for us and even defeats the whole purpose since even actual renders export the entire scene as opposed to just whats defined by the Marquee.

In newest ArchiCAD-Maxwell (plugin 2.7.3) it works again. There is a "3D window" export mode — cutting planes and marquee are now working in MR after sending geometry from AC.

\

I don't have time to test it myself yet, but did they fix it to work with Maxwell Fire as well?
Or is it just for final renders and exporting geometry/scenes from AC?

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Okay, I confirmed that they did indeed fix it and it works with FIRE as well now.

Nice to see that they also fixed the ability to control the Sun position using ArchiCAD's projection settings Sun location dialog box rather then just through the Maxwell render palette.

[Earthworm]

Can you change the background image?

Never mind: yes you can

[Anonymous]

The GUI interface to the OctaneRender for ArchiCAD plugin have been posted at www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.338208282951012.64337.323683251070182&type=1&l=57867bc282

Beta testing is almost complete, so it should be available soon.