Blender Plug in Octane

Cover image: "In the arms of Morpheus" by Enrico Cerica
OctaneRender® for Blender Plugin Manual

Version 2019— Manual publication date: 20 December 2019
All rights reserved. OctaneRender and OTOY and their logos are trademarks of OTOY, Incorporated. Blender is
a registered trademark of the Blender Foundation and its subsidiaries and affiliates in the Netherlands and
other countries.
http://render.otoy.com
Octane for Blender Plugin Manual
Contents
Installation and Overview 1

Versioning 1
Hardware And Software Requirements 2
Hardware Requirements 2
Looking To Buy A New GPU For OctaneRender®? 2
Internet Access 3
Software Requirements 3
NVIDIA® cuDNN Library File 3
Drivers 3
Installation Process 4
Installing On Windows® Systems 4
Installing On MacOS® 6
Installing On Linux 8
Uninstalling OctaneBlender® and OctaneServer 8
Initiating OctaneRender® Inside Blender® 8
Troubleshooting 10
GPU Settings 11
Authentication And Internet Access 14
Signing In To The Octane Licensing System 15
Closing A Session 16
HTTP Proxy Support 17
Proxy Server Configuration From System Settings 17
Windows® 17
From The WinHTTP Configuration 18
macOS® 18
Linux 18
Rendering For The First Time 19

Octane Properties 26
Mesh Types 27
Infinite Planes 30
Visibility 30
Volume Properties 31
Materials And Texture Interface 34
Octane Shaders 35
Diffuse Material 36
Diffuse Material Parameters 38
Glossy Material 41
Glossy Material Parameters 43
Specular (Glass) Material 47
Specular Material Parameters 48
Mix Material 51
Portal Material 54
Using Portals 56
Shadow Catcher Material 57
Metal Material 60
Metal Material Parameters 61
Toon Material 63
Toon Material Parameters 64
Universal Material 65
Universal Material Parameters 68
Layered Material 72
Layered Material Parameters 73
Composite Material 73
Composite Material Parameters 74
Mediums 74
Absorption Medium 77
Absorption Parameters 79
Scattering Medium 79
Scattering Medium Parameters 80
Volume Medium 81
Volume Parameters 84
Rendering Your First Smoke Volume 86
The OctaneRender® LiveDB 93
Octane Layers 97
Layer Group 99
Diffuse Layer 100
Metallic Layer 101
Sheen Layer 102
Specular Layer 103
Textures 106
Octane Procedural 106
Checks Texture 108
Dirt Texture 109
Grayscale Texture 112
Marble Texture 115
Marble Texture Parameters 116
Noise Texture 116
Noise Texture Parameters 118
OSL Texture 119
Polygon Side Texture 121
Random Color Texture 122
Ridged Fractal Texture 124
Riged Fractal Parameters 125
Triplanar Texture 125
Saw/Sine/Triangle Wave Texture 128
Turbulence Texture 130
Turbulance Texture Parameters 132

UVW Transform Texture 132
W Texture 133
Float Vertex Texture 135
Color Vertex Texture 136
Octane Texture 138
Alpha Image Texture 138
Alpha Image Parameters 140
Gaussian Spectrum 141
Gaussian Spectrum Parameters 141
Float Image Texture 141
When To Use Float Image Versus Image Data Type? 142
Image Tex 142
Image Tile Texture 146
Instance Color Texture 147
RGB Spectrum Texture 148
Octane Tool 150
Add Texture 151
Baking Texture 153
Clamp Texture 153
Color Correct 154
Comparison Texture 155
Cosine Mix Texture 157
Falloff Texture 158
Falloff Texture Parameters 160
Gradient Texture 161
Instance Range Texture 162
Invert Texture 163
Mix Texture 164
Multiply Texture 165
Subtract Texture 167

Toon Ramp Texture 168
Volume Ramp 170
Octane Projection 172
Box Projection 173
Cylindrical Projection 174
Perspective Projection 175
Spherical Projection 176
UVW Projection 177
XYZ Projection 178
Triplanar Projection 178
OSL Delayed UV Projection 179
OSL Projection 179
Octane Transform 181
2D Transforms 181
3D Transform 182
Rotation Transform 183
Scale Transform 184
Full Transform 184
Octane Value 185
Float Value 186
Int Value 187
Sun Direction 187
Sun Direction Parameters 188
Texture Reference 188
Rounded Edges 189
Displacement 190
Texture Displacement 191
Texture Displacement Parameters 192
Vertex Displacement 193
Vertex Displacement Parameters 194

Vertex Displacement Mixer 194
Vertex Displacement Mixer Paraemeters 195
Octane Lighting 196
Texture Environment 196
Texture Environment Parameters 197
Daylight Environment 198
Daylight Environment Parameters 200
Planetary Environment 203
Planetary Environment Parameters 204
Visible Environment 206
Area Light 208
Mesh Emitters 210
Blackbody And Texture Emission Parameters 212
Blackbody Emissions-Only Parameters 213
IES Lights 214
Octane Cameras 216
Octane Camera Parameters 217
Lens 217
Camera Rollout 217
Octane Camera Rollout 217
Thin Lens Camera 219
Thin Lens Camera Parameters 220
Lens Rollout 220
Camera Rollout 221
Panoramic Camera 223
Lens Rollout 224
Camera Rollout 224
Baking Camera 226

Baking Camera Parameters 227
OSL Camera 228
The Octane Imager 232
Octane Imager Properties 234
Rendering 238
Kernels 238
Direct Light 239
Direct Light Parameters 241
Path Tracing 244
Path Tracing Parameters 246
PMC Kernel 249
PMC Kernel Parameters 252
Info Channel 256
Adaptive Sampling 262
Render Passes 263
Render Layers 264
Octane Baking Layers 268
ORBX and Alembic Export 271
Network Rendering 272
Octane Out Of Core 279
Effects 280
The Octane Post Processor 280
Hair And Fur 283
Motion Blur 286
Glossary 289
Index 303
Installation and Overview
Versioning
The plugin version describes the following information:

l The version of the OctaneRender® engine used inside the OctaneServer®.
l The version of the plugin.
For example:
1 — Installation and Overview

Hardware And Software Requirements
Hardware Requirements
We recommend using your on-board graphics or a second graphics card for the Windows® display adapter,
and dedicate a more powerful CUDA®-enabled card for rendering.
OctaneRender® runs on CUDA®-enabled NVIDIA®graphics cards that support at least CUDA 9.1 and the latest
drivers. It runs on Kepler, Maxwell, PascalTM , high-end GTX Titans, and VoltaTM GPUs. Texture limits and
differing power efficiency ratings also apply, depending on the GPU1 's micro-architecture. 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 it can use different types of NVIDIA® cards
simultaneously, such as a GeForce® GTX 1080 combined with a Quadro® 6000. The official list of NVIDIA®
CUDA®-enabled products is located here.
If you plan to use the out-of-core features, we recommend the following:
l 8-Core CPU
l 16 GB RAM
l CUDA®-enabled card with 2 GB or more 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 most VRAM (we recommend at least 2 GB) and the most CUDA® cores for your budget. Make sure your
power supply can handle the new card. If you’re using a Mac, make sure that you purchase an Apple®-
approved GPU.
To use the denoiser features, OctaneRender® requires additional memory to collect all necessary information.
For example, a 4k render requires about 5 GB, while an 8k render requires about 20 GB. High-definition
renders require about 0.5 GB. OctaneRender® also requires additional memory for geometry, Textures2,
post-processing buffers, and other 3D modeling software. The denoiser requires additional RAM and about 450
MB VRAM on devices.
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.
2 Textures are used to add details to a surface. Textures can be procedural or imported raster files.

If you need to free up space for the denoiser, use out-of-core features to move geometry and Textures onto
RAM.
Internet Access
Except for the demo versions, all OctaneRender® editions require authentication with its designated license
key, and it requires internet access during the initial launch. Once you launch the program, OctaneRender®
requests your OTOY® credentials, and it attempts to retrieve an available license from the OctaneRender
LiveTM server.
We recommend using your on-board graphics or a second graphics card for the Windows® display adapter,
and dedicate a more powerful CUDA®-enabled card for rendering.
Software Requirements
OctaneRender® for Blender® requires:
l The Blender OctaneRender Edition

l OctaneRender Server
OctaneRender® for Blender® runs on the following operating systems:
l Microsoft® Windows® 7 or higher (64-bit)

l Linux
l Mac OS X® 10.11 or higher
NVIDIA® cuDNN Library File

OctaneRender® requires NVIDIA® CuDNN to run. Download the cuDNN library file from
https://render.otoy.com/downloads/1c/42/12/04/cudnn64_7.dll
Place the library file here: C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Local\OctaneRender\thirdpa
Drivers
OctaneRender® 2019 requires an NVIDIA® driver supporting at least CUDA® 9.1, and a graphics driver that is
version 388.x or higher. You can find the download links for Windows® and Linux here, and you can find the
download links for Mac® here.
Not installing these drivers can cause instability. We cannot provide support for different driver versions.

The CUDA® driver is the part of the NVIDIA® driver stack that OctaneRender® uses. On Linux and Windows®
it is part of the NVIDIA® graphics driver, while on macOS® systems it is a separate installation.
If you install any recent NVIDIA® graphics driver on Linux and Windows®, it installs a CUDA® driver that
supports CUDA® 9.1. The CUDA® toolkit is for development - installation is optional. The toolkit includes a
graphic driver, but it may not be the latest version.
Installation Process
To conform to GPL rules, the OctaneRender® for Blender® plugin consists of two parts:
l OctaneServer®
l The full Blender – OctaneRender edition®
OctaneServer® is the server for getting the TCP/IP render-commands and scene data from the client,
rendering the scene, and returning the rendered image to the client.
The Blender – OctaneRender® edition is the special compilation of Blender®, which includes the internal
OctaneRender® module. The module collects the Blender® scene data and communicates with the
OctaneServer® as the client by sending the data to the server, getting the rendered image from it, and showing
that image to you.
Such a way GPL is not violated by OctaneRender® for Blender Plugin: as the source-code of Blender –
OctaneRender® edition (which is under GPL) is available for users of the Plugin, and the source-code of Otoy‘s
proprietary closed-sourced OctaneServer® does not need to be published, as OctaneServer® is not linked to
Blender and works with render-clients through TCP/IP communication.
Installing On Windows® Systems
To install OctaneRender® for Blender®:
1. Install Blender - OctaneRender® edition. If you have a previous version of Blender - OctaneRender®
edition installed, then close Blender – OctaneRender® edition and the OctaneServer® and run the
installation file that you downloaded from the OTOY® website, and follow the installation instructions.

Figure 1: Running the Blender® installer
Figure 2: Installer window

2. Install OctaneServer®. If a previous version of OctaneServer® is installed and running, then close it and
run the installation file. Follow the instructions. For Windows® systems, you can close OctaneServer®
by right-clicking on the Server icon in the Windows® tray.
Figure 3: Running the OctaneServer® installer

Figure 4: OctaneServer® installer window
Installing On MacOS®
Download the installer file from the OTOY® website and run it to install the necessary OctaneRender®
packages.
Please note some important things below.
l Unlike other plugins, OctaneRender® for Blender® does not have an add-on for the standard Blender
installation from Blender.org.
l The plugin includes its own distribution of Blender®, which is compiled from the Standard Blender®
installation from Blender's website, but with the added modules for OctaneRender®. Installing on
macOS® is the same procedure as on Windows® except macOS® does not allow multiple copies of the
same app. If you already have a standard Blender® installation, macOS® locates this even if it is not in
the Applications folder. When macOS® detects a copy of Blender®, macOS® skips installing the

OctaneRender® for Blender®. Therefore, make sure existing copies of Blender® are removed from
macOS® before installing OctaneRender® for Blender®.
After the installation, you can install OctaneServer® and the full Blender - OctaneRender® edition.
_
Figure 1: Installing Blender - OctaneRender® edition on the Applications folder
After a successful installation, start up OctaneServer® so you can start using OctaneRender® from within
Blender®. Next, open Blender - OctaneRender® edition and go to User Preferences, find the
OctaneRender module, then enable it.
_
Figure 2: Enabling the OctaneRender® engine

Installing On Linux
To install OctaneBlender® and OctaneServer, open up the Linux Terminal dialog, then type chmod +x
octane_blender_2020.1.RC4-21.6-beta.run and press Enter. Next, type chmod +x octane_
server_prime_2020.1.RC4-21.6-beta.run and press Enter. If Linux asks for your root password,
enter it accordingly.
After running those commands, you can install the applications. First, type ./octane_blender_
2020.1.RC4-21.6-beta.run -i and press Enter. When that command finishes, type ./octane_
server_prime_2020.1.RC4-21.6-beta.run -i and press Enter. Linux installs OctaneBlender® and
OctaneServer in the /usr/local/OctaneBlender directory.
To run OctaneServer, type OctaneServer and press Enter. To run OctaneBlender®, type
OctaneBlender and press Enter.
You can also run these applications from the /usr/local/OctaneBlender folder, but the installation process asks
for permission, so we recommend running the programs with the sudo command.
Uninstalling OctaneBlender® and OctaneServer
To uninstall these programs, follow these steps.

1. Remove the OctaneBlender folder (/usr/local/OctaneBlender).
2. Remove the binary links for the programs by typing sudo rm -f /usr/bin/OctaneServer, then
pressing Enter.
3. Do the same for the OctaneBlender® binary by typing sudo rm -f /usr/bin/OctaneBlender
and pressing Enter.
4. Remove the Octane libraries - depending on your Linux system, type sudo rm -f
/usr/lib/liboctane.so or sudo rm -f /usr/lib64/liboctane.so
Initiating OctaneRender® Inside Blender®
To start using OctaneRender® from within Blender®, start up OctaneServer® first. This requires logging in to
Blender® with your OTOY® account credentials to authenticate OctaneRender®.

Figure 1: Signing in to authenticate the OctaneRender® for Blender® plugin
For more information about authentication and internet access requirements, please refer to the Authentication
And Internet Access topic in this manual. When you start OctaneServer®, its icon is visible in the Windows®
tray.
Figure 2: The Octane icon in the Windows® tray
Now you can start Blender® by going to User Preferences, finding the OctaneRender module, and
enabling it.

Figure 3: Enabling the OctaneRender® engine
To render with the plugin, choose Octane from the Render Engines rollout.
Figure 4: Selecting the Octane option
Troubleshooting
Figure 1: A "not activated" message

If the message in Figure 1 comes up after starting a render and the rendered image is not showing, check the
activation state of the OctaneServer®, which is accessible from the Render rollout menu.
Figure 2: OctaneServer® activation status
You can also re-authenticate the plugin from the Render rollout menu.
Figure 3: Re-authenticated OctaneServer®
If you are receiving an error that says "All OSE License Unavailable..." , make sure that a Render Node
daemon from OctaneRender® Standalone is not running on the Primary Render Node.
GPU Settings

OctaneRender® uses one or more GPUs for rendering, which you can adjust by clicking the Device
Preferences button (Figure 1), which opens the OctaneRender Devices Preferences window (Figure
2).
Figure 1: The Device Preferences button

Figure 2: Selecting GPUs from the OctaneRender Devices Preferences window
For help with troubleshooting problems, please refer to the Troubleshooting topic in the Standalone manual and
this manual.

Authentication And Internet Access
Except for the demo versions, all OctaneRender® editions require authentication with its designated license
key, and they require internet access to launch. OctaneRender® requests your OTOY® credentials and
attempts to retrieve an available license from the OctaneRender LiveTM server.
OctaneRender® requires one available Standalone license on OctaneRender LiveTM , while plugins require one
available standalone license plus one available license for that specific plugin. Standalone licenses are bound to
one machine, which means you can share the Standalone license across multiple plugins running on that
machine. You can also run multiple instances of Standalone or a plugin on a single machine using the same
license.
Closing the application releases the OctaneRender® license, similar to a floating license scheme. Standalone
edition just releases the standalone license, while plugins release both Standalone and their respective license.
In either case, licenses are released if there is not another instance of Standalone or a plugin making use of
that specific license. Note the distinctions below between just closing the applications and signing out of the
applications.
Exiting Or Closing The

Signing Out
Application
Standalone Releases the Standalone license key, Releases all OctaneRender® license
Edition except when there is a plugin edition that keys bound on that machine. If other
is also open and still bound to that
OctaneRender® instances are still
Standalone license key.
running, you will be asked to close
them before it can sign out and release
all of the licenses.
Plugin Releases the license keys bound to the Releases all OctaneRender® license
Edition plugin. This includes the Standalone keys bound on that machine. If there
license key, unless the Standalone edition
are other instances of OctaneRender®
is open or other plugins are open and their
keys are still bound to the same still running, you will be asked to exit
Standalone license key on the same those before it can sign out and release
machine. all OctaneRender® licenses.
Deactivating from the Octane live licenses administration page is not necessary as this is done automatically by
the application. This lets you use OctaneRender® somewhere else without deactivating any licenses. Licenses
in use by older versions have the Deactivate button next to them if you need to release the license.

If the application didn't close properly from a crash or other circumstances, there is a chance the license isn't
released. If the same machine accesses the same keys, this is not a problem as the same keys are still bound.
The problem arises when you use OctaneRender® on another machine, as the keys are still bound to the
previous machine. In such cases, failsafe web deactivation unbinds the keys.
Signing In To The Octane Licensing System

You need an internet connection before starting OctaneRender® for the first time in order for it to communicate
with the OctaneRender® licensing system. When you start the application, this sign-in screen appears.
Figure 1: OctaneRender Activation window
Enter your OTOY® account username and password, then click the Sign in button.
At this point, the single sign-on and licensing system pulls a valid license key from your account on OTOY’s
secure server.
If OctaneRender® detects a connection problem, make sure all communications use HTTPS (TCP port 443) for
the following:
l Standalone edition
l Standalone edition daemon
l Your OctaneRender® plugin's host application, if you are using a plugin

The above may require updating your firewall settings. If the issue persists, check your proxy settings. Refer
to the HTTP Proxy1 Support topic in this manual for more information.
After signing in, OctaneRender® keeps a session alive as long you run the Standalone or the plugin application
on a regular basis. In most cases, you should not have to sign in to the OctaneRender® licensing system again.
This session also lets you link your local installation to other OTOY® services like Octane Render Cloud®
(ORCTM ).
Closing A Session
To close a session, go to the OctaneRender Activation Status window by clicking on Render > Octane
Server > Activation State, then click the Sign Out button. This closes the current session and releases all
licenses bound to the current machine. If any plugin or another Standalone instance is running at that time,
close them before continuing with the sign-out process. Older versions of OctaneRender® that are running
releases the licenses too, which deactivates your plugin or Standalone instance.
Figure 2: Signing out
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
polygon limits and also keeps the relative file size of the main project file manageable.

HTTP Proxy Support
OctaneRender® supports running behind HTTP proxies. If you are running OctaneRender® behind an existing
proxy, OctaneRender® finds your proxy's current setup and uses it.
If you are trying to set up your proxy for the first time, or your proxy requires authentication, you can configure
it by using your operating system's proxy settings or environment variables.
Proxy Server Configuration From System Settings

This option allows OctaneRender® to retrieve your system settings. The configuration depends on your host
operating system.
Windows®
OctaneRender® can obtain its proxy configuration several different ways.
From Internet Explorer's LAN Settings, this configuration applies only to the current user. To change IE proxy
settings:
1. Press the Win+R keys.
2. Enter inetcpl.cpl,4 and click OK. The Internet Properties window displays.
3. Click LAN Settings.
4. Select the Use A Proxy Server1 For Your LAN checkbox.
5. In the Address box, enter the proxy server's IP address.
6. In the Port box, enter the port number.
If you have a dedicated proxy for HTTPS traffic, click on Advanced, clear the Use The Same Proxy2 For
All Protocols checkbox, and specify the proxy address and port for the Secure server type.
1 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.

From The WinHTTP Configuration
This configuration is system-wide, and stored in the registry. You can manage it using netsh winhttp. For
more information, please check Windows HTTP documentation from Microsoft®. The proxy exceptions list is
ignored.
macOS®
OctaneRender® reads the proxy settings stored in System Preferences. To change your proxy settings:
1. Open System Preferences.

2. Click on Network.
3. Click on Advanced ...
4. Click on the Proxies tab.
5. Choose either Web proxy (HTTP) or Secure web proxy (HTTPS), depending on your proxy type.
6. In the Web Proxy Server section, enter your server's IP address and port number.
OctaneRender®does not support bypassing proxy settings. Port numbers default to 80 if you're using HTTP,
and 443 if you're using HTTPS.
Macintosh® systems don't support the proxy authentication through proxy settings. If your proxy requires a
username and password, please refer to the following section about proxy configuration via environment
variables.
Linux
The proxy settings can vary between distributions, so proxy configuration on Linux is supported via
environment variables.
OctaneRender® supports the following proxy environment variables:
l https_proxy: Specifies a proxy server for HTTPS network traffic.

l all_proxy: Specifies a proxy server for all network traffic.
These are commonly used environment variables for specifying proxy configuration, specially on Linux. This
may affect other applications that use these proxy configurations. If one of these variables are found, they will
override your system's proxy preferences, even if there's already a configured proxy.
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]
For example, you may specify a proxy for HTTPS network traffic as https_
proxy=johndoe:mypass@127.0.1.50. This tells OctaneRender® to use 127.0.1.50 as your proxy's address
using the default port 80, and authenticate as user johndoe with password mypass.

Rendering For The First Time
Before delving into complex render setups with OctaneRender®, here are the first very basic steps to preview
and render a simple scene in Blender® using the plugin.
1. Create or import geometry into Blender®.
Figure 1: New geometry

For an initial render, use the default geometry type at it's default and leave the other types for later. For
more information on geometry types, see the "Mesh Types" on page 27 topic in this manual.
2. In the Render Engine dropdown, choose Octane. If Octane is not available, please refer to the
"Initiating OctaneRender® Inside Blender® " on page 8 topic in this manual.

Figure 2: Render Engine options

3. Make sure to choose an available GPU1 for rendering.

Figure 3: Device Preferences button

4. Apply Materials1 to Objects in the scene. Octane Diffuse2 Materials is the default.
1 A set of attributes or parameters that describe surface characteristics.

2 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.

Figure 4: Adding Materials

For more about complex materials, see the "Octane Shaders" on page 35 topic in this manual.
5. Light the scene. A Blender® lamp is in the scene by default, but you can also use a custom
OctaneRender® Light. Refer to the "Octane Lighting" on page 196 section in this manual for
more information on OctaneRender®-specific lights.
6. Select and adjust the Environment settings. Octane Daylight is on by default.

Figure 5: Daylight Environment setting

Customizing the Environment settings is discussed more in the "Texture Environment" on
page 196 topic in this manual.
7. Select the default camera in the scene and open the Camera Settings.

Figure 6: Octane Camera rollout

The default properties should work. See the "Octane Cameras " on page 216 topic in this manual
for more information about the Cameras and their features.
8. Choose a Render Kernel type. There are four to choose from - the default is Direct Light.
Figure 7: Octane Kernel button and rollout

For more information about each Render Kernel type, see the Render Kernels1 topic in this manual.
9. Adjust the resolution for the rendered image in the Dimensions rollout.
Figure 8: Dimensions button and rollout

10. Render the scene.
Figure 9: Rendering the image
1 By definition, this is the central or most important part of something. In Octane, the Kernels are the heart of
the render engine.

Figure 10: The rendered image
Octane Properties
This section covers the Mesh geometry and properties for each Object in the scene. These properties are
locatedin the Object and Object Data tabs.

Figure 1: The Octane Properties rollout
Mesh Types
Before you start rendering a scene, you need to set the Mesh types for all of the geometry in the scene. This
saves GPU1 memory (if you're using Scatter types) and increases the rendering speed (the samples-per-
second value) if you're using Global meshes for non-scattered Objects.

Figure 1: Setting the Mesh type in the Object Data window
There are four Mesh types.

Figure 2: The Mesh types
Global - During scene translation, all Meshes with this type collapse into one common Mesh. This increases
the rendering speed, but the translation time is much slower and GPU memory usage is much higher. Use this
mode if you render a heavy interior scene as a still image. If you have enough GPU memory to fit the entire
scene as one common Mesh, it does not matter that the translation time takes much longer because rendering
the image may case take hours. You an save time by using Global meshes in heavy still images, as the
rendering speed is much faster if the scene is used as one common Mesh. The Viewport refreshes slower if you
have a lot of Global meshes in scene.
Scatter - OctaneRender® reloads Geometry objects with the Scatter type. This increases the scene
translation speed and decreases GPU memory usage, but Objects with more scattering render with fewer
samples per pixel.
Movable Proxy1 - Similar to Scatter, but only the geometry types with Movable Proxy are retranslated and
reloaded into OctaneServer for every frame when you render an animation sequence.

Reshapable Proxy - OctaneRender® reloads the full Mesh and evaluates every frame. This is useful for
deforming mesh types like fluids.
Infinite Planes
Any non-Global mesh can convert to an infinite plane at render time. To do this, select the Object and make
sure its Infinite Plane checkbox under the Octane Properties rollout is enabled.
Figure 1: The Infinite Plane checkbox
Visibility

OctaneRender® supports three Object visibility properties for Mesh object visibility. These visibility options
are found in the Object context menu, under the Octane Properties rollout (Figure 1).
General Visibility - Controls the degree of visibility for the Object and its shadow.
Camera Visibility - Makes the Object visible to the camera.
Shadow Visibility - Makes the Object's shadows visible to the camera.
Figure 1: The Visibility options under the Octane Properties rollout
Volume Properties

These parameters act as multipliers for OctaneRender® Volume mediums, or for the corresponding
parameters in a Volume object like Blender's native Smoke physics. The Volume properties are located in the
Object Data context menu, under the Octane Properties rollout.
Figure 1: The Volume Properties under the Octane Properties rollout


Materials And Texture Interface
The Shader Editor window provides access to the OctaneRender® Node tree. There are many types of
Nodes available, which are discussed in this topic and the Textures1 section of this manual.
Figure 1: The Node Editor populated with OctaneRender® Material2 nodes
Materials3 and their associated Nodes are accessible from the Material window.
2The representation of the surface or volume properties of an object.
34 — Materials And Texture Interface

Figure 2: Accessing Nodes from the Material window
Octane Shaders

OctaneRender® has eleven Material1 types that are accessible from the Add menu in the Shader Editor
window.
Figure 1: Accessing the OctaneRender® Material types
Diffuse Material
Diffuse2 materials create dull, non-reflecting Materials3 and light-emitting surfaces.
1 The representation of the surface or volume properties of an object.


Figure 1: An object rendered with the Diffuse material1
1Used for dull, non-reflecting materials or mesh emitters.

Figure 2: Diffuse material parameters
Diffuse Material Parameters

Diffuse - Gives the Material1 its color.
Roughness - Simulates very rough surfaces like sandpaper or clay.
Bump/Normal - Both of these channels can load images to control the amount of Bump mapping and
Normal mapping. The Bump channel is set to Greyscale Image to load a Bump map. Set the Normal
channel to the Image data type to load a full-color Normal map. The Bump channel simulates a relief using a
Greyscale texture interpreted as a Height map, while the Normal Channel distorts normals using an RGB
image. Normal maps take precedence over Bump maps - you cannot use both maps at the same time.

Displacement 1 - Adjusts the height of surface points based on an image value to give Objects depth and
detail. To enable Displacement, connect the Material node's Displacement pin to a Displacement node. You can
specify a Displacement texture in the Displacement node as well as the amount of displacement (in meters),
the offset (in meters), and the level of detail (the Displacement map's maximum resolution). Image textures
are supported,and the rGBA image's red channel is used as Height map. Displacement works with the
Texture image node over a Mesh with a UV map. You can't use other OctaneRender® Nodes for
displacement.
Opacity - Sets the Material's transparency. Set the data type to Alphaimage if the image has an alpha
channel, or Floatimage for black/white images. Select the Invert checkbox if black-and-white regions are
considered transparent.
Smooth - Smooths out the normals of all Meshes sharing that Material. When disabled, the Materials are
faceted and polygonal.
Edges Rounding - This is the radius of gemetric objects' rounded edges that are rendered as a shading
effect at render time without modifying and reloading the geometry. This requires welding vertices before
applying the round edge value. This is very useful for beveling hard edges during render time, especially when
using low-polygon models.
Transmission 2 - Provides the Material with a basic texture.
Medium - This sets the Medium inside the Material.
l Absorption 3 Medium - The Material absorbs light passing through it. The color resulting from this
absorption depends on the distance that light travels through the Material. With increased distance, the
light gets darker, and if the Absorption is colored, it gets more saturated. It works in a substractive way,
so you need to configure the inverted color instead to get the desired absorption color.
Absorption works in a substractive way so if the absorption is colored and provided that the
transmission value of the material is white (allowing all light to pass through), the resulting color of the
material is the complementary color of the absorption node based on the color wheel:
1 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 position of points over the textured surface.
2 A surface characteristic that determines if light may pass through a surface volume.
3 Defines how fast light is absorbed while passing through a medium.

Example 1, the absorption color used in Box A is blue, the absorption color used in Box B is red:
The absorption used in Box A is black, the absorption used in Box B is white. Given that the transmission
color of the material on both boxes is white, the material in Box B shows no transmission of light at all
because this is subtracted entirely by the white absorption:
l Scattering1 Medium - Similar to the Absorption medium, but with the option to simulate
subsuburface scattering. This is a Medium with single-scattering SSS and Absorption. To use this
Medium, create a Volume. Scattering creates true unbiased SSS using Scattering textures,
Emission textures, and other parameters. Single-scattering is much faster than multiple-scattering,
1 Defines how fast light gets scattered when traveling through the medium.

although it does not allow things like volumetric caustics.

The scale parameter in both mediums multiplies the absorption texture, allowing a wide range of values
to be set more easily. For applying Absorption, Subsurface Scattering, and Emission, refer to the
"Octane Shaders" on page 35 topic in this manual.
Emission - Makes the Material act as a light source.
Shadow Catcher1 - Makes the Material a shadow catcher. The Material is transparent unless there is some
direct shadow cast onto the Material, which makes it less transparent based on the shadow strength.
Material Layer - Adds a Material Layer above the base Material. See the Octane Layers topic in this
manual for more details.
Glossy Material
The Glossy2 material creates shiny Materials3 like plastics or metals.
1 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
varying shapes.
2 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.

Figure 1: An Object rendered with a Glossy material1
1Used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals.

Glossy Material Parameters
Figure 2: Glossy material parameters
BRDF Model - Provides three options to determine the overall bidirectional reflectance distribution function
(BRDF). The Octane option produces a more brushed-metal effect. The Beckmann and GGX options
produce more polished chrome-like effects.

Diffuse1 - Gives color to the Material2. In computer graphics, this is referred to as base color or albedo. You
can set Diffuse color by using the color picker, or by connecting a Procedural or Image texture.
Specular3 - Determines the intensity for Specular reflections on the surface. This parameter accepts color,
values, or Textures4 . In most cases, specular highlights are white or colorless. However, to simulate 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.
Roughness - Determines how much the specular reflection spreads across the surface. This is also known as
reflection blur. A value of 0 simulates a perfect smooth reflective surface such as a mirror. Increasing the value
simulates microfacets in the surface, which causes the reflective highlights to spread. For example, to create
the look of worn plastic, increase the Roughness value. This parameter accepts a value or Texture map
(Procedural or Image).
Anisotropy - Adjusts the amount of change that a surface's reflectance has, depending on viewing direction.
Rotation - Controls the Anisotropy effect's orientation.
Sheen - Applies a soft luster to a surface.
Sheen Roughness - Determines how the sheen spreads across the surface. Lower values create a sharp
and narrow effect, and higher values spread the effect across a larger surface area.
Index -Determines the strength of reflections on the surface based on the Fresnel law. The Fresnel law
describes the physical properties of light as it is reflected off of a surface at grazing angles. If Index of
Refraction is set to a value higher than 1, the reflection is strongest on the part of the surface that turns away
from the viewer’s angle (grazing angles), while the reflection appears weaker or less apparent on the parts of
the surface perpendicular to the viewing angle. Since this is a physical phenomena, the result is a more
realistic-looking surface. If Index of Refraction is set to a value lower than 1, then the Fresnel effect is disabled
and the reflection color simply appears as a uniform color across the highlight. The color of the reflective
highlight itself is determined by the color connected to the Specular channel.
If you have a measured IOR, set the Glossy color to 1.0.
In the following examples, the six balls have a Roughness of 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0 (left to right), and
only the Specular value and Index of Refraction are modified for each rendered image.
3 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.


Figure 3: Spheres rendered using different settings for Specular and Index
Bump - Creates fine details on the Material’s surface using a Procedural or Image texture. When you connect
a Grayscale texture to this parameter, light areas of the Texture look like protruding bumps, and dark areas
look like indentations. You can adjust the Bump map's strength by setting the Power or Gamma1 values on
the Image texture. These attributes are covered in more detail in the Texture Overview topic in this manual.
Normal - Creates fine details 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, giving the appearance of
added detail. They can be more accurate than Bump maps, but requires specific software to generate.
Displacement 2 - Adjusts the surface vertices' height at render time using an Image texture map.
Displacement maps differs from Bump or Normal maps in that the geometry is altered by the Texture, as
opposed to creating details. Displacement mapping is more complex than using a Bump or Normal map, but the
results are more realistic, in particular along the surface's silhouette. Displacement mapping is covered in more
detail in the Octane Texture topic in this manual.
Opacity - Determines what parts of the surface are visible in the render. Dark values indicate transparent
areas, and light values determine opaque areas. Values in-between light and dark create the look of semi-
transparent areas. Lowering the Opacity value lowers the Object's overall visibility, and using a Texture map
varies the opacity across the surface. For example, if you want to make a simple polygon plane look like a leaf,
connect a black-and-white image of the leaf’s silhouette to the Diffuse shader's Opacity channel.
Smooth - Smooths the transition between surface normals. If this option is disabled, the edges between the
polygons of the surface are sharp, giving the surface a faceted look.
Edges Rounding - Bevels the surface edges at render time without altering or subdividing the geometry.
Using this option enhances object realism by eliminating sharp edges. The value refers to the rounded edge's
radius. Higher values produce rounder edges.
Film Width - Simulates the look of a thin film of material on the surface. This is useful when you want to
create an effect like the rainbow colors that appear on an oil slick surface. Larger values increase the effect's
strength.
Film Index - Controls the film's Index of Refraction. Use this option to adjust the colors visible in the film.
Material Layer - Adds a Material Layer above the base Material. See the Octane Layers topic in this manual
for more details.
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
rendering applications.

Specular (Glass) Material
The Specular1 material makes transparent Materials2 such as glass and water.
Figure 1: An object rendered with the Specular material3
3Used for transparent materials such as glass and water.

Specular Material Parameters
Figure 2: Specular material parameters

BRDF Model - There are three options for determining the overall bidirectional reflectance distribution
function (BRDF). The Octane option produces a more brushed-metal effect. The Beckmann and GGX
options produce more polished chrome-like effects.
Reflection - Determines the strength of reflections visible on the surface. Lower values increase its ability to
transmit light through the Object volume. Reflection is closely tied with the Index of Refraction (IOR), and
the two parameters work together to tune the Specular material's reflectivity.
Transmission 1 - Controls how light passes through a transparent surface. It works with the Index of
Refraction to control the surface's transparency, and it accepts color or Texture inputs. A value of 1 means
light passes through the surface. To create a mirror surface, set Transmission to 0 and Index of Refraction to
0. To create colored glass, change the color input to something other than white. Transmission is not the same
as Opacity. Opacity controls the surface's visibility, while Transmission controls the transparency. Use
Transmission to create a reflective glass surface, and use Opacity to create a hole in the surface.
Roughness - Creates microfacets in the surface, which blurs both the surface's reflections and the
transparency. One way to create translucent plastic is to make a surface that has a high Transmission value
and a Roughness value above 0. Roughness accepts a color value, or a Procedural or Image texture (we
recommend using a Grayscale image). Hue information doesn't affect the roughness.
Anisotropy - Adjusts the amount of change in a surface's reflection, depending on viewing direction.
Index - As light photons move through surfaces like water, they slow down and change direction. This shift is
visible as object distortion on the other side of the water’s surface. The vacuum's index of refraction (IOR) is 1,
and the water's IOR is 1.33, meaning that light travels 1.33 times faster through a vacuum than it does through
water. You can find the IOR of most transparent surfaces by searching the internet. Knowing the correct IOR of
a surface is key to replicating the look of the surface when rendering with OctaneRender®.
Dispersion Coefficient - Increasing the Dispersion value increases the amount of coloration and dispersion
in the Object’s transmission and caustics.
Bump - Creates fine details on the Material2 ’s surface using a Procedural or Image texture. When you
connect a Grayscale texture to this parameter, the Texture's light areas look like protruding bumps, and the
dark areas look like indentations. You can adjust the Bump map's strength by adjusting the Image texture's
Power or Gamma3 values. These attributes are covered in more detail in the Texture Overview section in
this manual.

green, and blue color values to perturb the surface's normals at render time, thus giving the appearance of
added detail. They can be more accurate than Bump maps, but require specific software to generate.
detail under the Texture Overview category in this manual.
areas, and light values indicate opaque areas. Values in-between light and dark indicate 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 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 Diffuse2 shader's Opacity channel.
Edges Rounding - Bevels the surface edges at render time without altering or subdividing the geometry.
Using this option enhances object realism by eliminating sharp edges. The value refers to the rounded edge's
radius. Higher values produce rounder edges.
Medium - OctaneRender® for Blender® has three types of Mediums3 .
l Absorption 4 Medium - Produces a Material that absorbs light while passing through a surface. The
color resulting from this absorption depends on the distance light travels through the Material. The
Absorption map type is covered in more detail in the Octane Texture topic in this manual.
l Scattering5 Medium - Similar to the Absorption medium, but with an additional option to simulate
subsurface scattering. Subsurface scattering is the phenomena that gives human skin, and similar
organic surfaces, their characteristic glow under certain lighting conditions. It is a major component in
creating the look of realistic skin. The Scattering map type is covered in more detail in the Octane
Texture topic in this manual.
3 The behavior of light inside a surface volume described by scatter, absorption, and transmission
characteristics.

l Volume Medium1 - Creates the effect of volumetric surfaces when applied to VDB2 files imported
into Blender® using openVDB.
Fake Shadows - Fake Shadows activates the architectural glass option for all Meshes sharing that Material.
When enabled, the Specular material exhibits the characteristics of architectural glass, with its transparent
feature allowing light to illuminate enclosed spaces or frame an exterior view.
Affect Alpha - Refractions affect the Alpha channel. This parameter has an effect if the Alpha channel is
enabled in the Render settings’ Kernel parameters.
Thin Wall- Makes the geometry very thin so the ray bounce exits the Material immediately rather than
entering the Medium.
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 like the rainbow colors that appear on an oil slick's surface. Larger values increase the
effect's strength.
Film Index - Controls the thin film's IOR and adjusts the film's visible colors.
Material Layer - Adds a Material Layer above the base Material. See the Octane Layers topic in this manual
for more details.
Mix Material
Mix materials combine two different Materials3 (Figure 1). It accepts any two Material4 nodes, and you
control the mix with a Texture node (Figure 2).
1 A shading system designed to render volumes such as smoke and fog.

2 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
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/.

Figure 1: Glossy1 and Specular2 materials mixed together with a Mix material3
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
3Used to mix any two material types.

Figure 2: A red Specular material1 mixed with a white Glossy material2 using a Checks
texture as the Mix Amount
1Used for transparent materials such as glass and water.

2Used for shiny materials such as plastics or metals.

The two Materials' individual displacements are not used when you connect them to a Mix material node.
Instead, the Mix material has its own Displacement 1 input.
Figure 3: Displacement applied to an Object through the Mix material's Displacement input
Portal Material
Portal2 materials optimize light source rendering by helping the render kernel find important light sources in
the scene. For example, interior scenes illuminated by an outside light source coming through windows 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, place a polygon plane outside the window and then apply a Portal material to the plane,
which creates a portal plane. This setup improves the quality of the light and increase the render's efficiency.
Portal materials work with pathtracing type kernels like Path Tracing and PMC.
2 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.

Figure 1: Portal material node
The scene below shows a glass sphere rendered in a room lit by light coming through a window. The scene is
rendered using 500 samples. The first image does not have a Portal plane placed over the opening. It is noisier
than Figure 3, which does use a Portal plane.
Figure 2: Scene rendered without a Portal material
Figure 3: Scene rendered with a Portal material

Using Portals
Portals are planes added to the scene in the host modeling program that OctaneRender® uses to more
efficiently render the scene.
In the following image, a room is modeled with a small, single window. This would be a difficult scene to light
with a sun/sky or HDRI1 file with no lighting on the interior of the room. A single plane was placed over the
window (in orange) with the plane's normal facing towards the room.
1 An image which presents more than 8 bit per color channel unlike most common image formats.

Figure 1: Portal1 material applied to a plane
Portals must cover all openings. If a scene has multiple windows, but the Portal covers one window, then the
Portal won't work. The Portal's normals must point into the scene, or the render kernel will not use it properly.
You can't place Portals in openings that are not open, like a window with glass. In some complex scenes,
Portals might slow down the render, so try experimenting with and without Portals. Portals only apply to Path
Tracing and PMC kernels.
We recommend using the least amount of geometry for Portals. A few simple rectangular planes are best.
Sometimes it is better to place one large Portal over many small windows. It’s okay to make a Portal larger
than the opening, but make sure it covers all openings. Portals, when defined with the Portal material, will not
show up in your render - this is invisible geometry.
Shadow Catcher Material
The Shadow Catcher2 option creates shadows cast by Objects onto the surrounding
geometry. The shadows cast are not limited to a ground plane, but can be cast onto other
surfaces of varying shapes.
1A 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.
varying shapes.

Figure 1: A Model is integrated into an image using the Shadow Catching

material
The Shadow Catcher material has one parameter, Enabled.
Figure 2: The Enabled checkbox

In the Render context window, activate Alpha Channel1 and disable Keep Environment (Figure 3).
When the image renders, the shadows appear over the surface's transparent parts. This image treatment
works in a compositing package to merge the Object and the shadows into the composition.
Figure 3: Activating the Alpha and Keep Environment checkboxes
1 A greyscale image used to determine which areas of a texture map are opaque and which areas are
transparent.

Figure 4: Shadows cast onto the environment while the surfaces receiving
the shadows are transparent
Metal Material
Metal materials have similar attributes and surface characteristics as Glossy1 materials, but default Metal
material settings produce a more accurate metallic surface without any adjustments.
Figure 1: The Metallic material

Metal Material Parameters
Figure 2: Metal Material1 Parameters
BRDF Model - Provides four options for determining the overall bi-directional reflectance distribution function
(BRDF). The Octane option produces a more brushed-metal effect. The Beckmann, GGX, and Ward
options produce more polished chrome-like effects.
Metallic Reflection Mode - This changes how OctaneRender® calculates reflectivity.

l Artistic - Uses the Specular1 color.

l IOR + Color - Uses the Specular color and adjusts the brightness using the IOR.
l RGB IOR - Uses the three IOR values (for 650nm, 550nm, and 450 nm) and ignores the Specular color.
Diffuse2 - Gives color to the Material. In computer graphics, this is referred to as base color or albedo. You
can set Diffuse color by using the color picker, or by connecting a Procedural or Image texture.
Specular - Determines the intensity for Specular reflections on the surface. This parameter accepts color,
values, or Textures3 . In most cases, specular highlights are white or colorless. However, to simulate 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.
Specular Map - Controls the blend between the Diffuse and Specular channels.
Roughness - Determines how much the specular reflection spreads across the surface. In CG terminology,
this is also known as reflection blur. A value of 0 simulates a perfect smooth reflective surface such as a mirror.
Increasing the value simulates microfacets in the surface, which causes the reflective highlights to spread. For
example, to create the look of worn plastic, increase the Roughness value. This parameter accepts a value or
Texture map (Procedural or Image).
Anisotropy - Adjusts the amount of change that a surface's reflectance has, depending on viewing direction.
Sheen - Applies a soft luster to a surface.
Sheen Roughness - The Roughness channel for the sheen that is present on Metal and Glossy materials.
IOR - Complex-valued IOR (n-k*i) controlling the specular reflection's Fresnel effect, where n = the refractive
index and k = the attenuation or extinction coefficient. For RGB mode, the IOR for red light (650nm).
IOR (Green) - For RGB mode, the IOR for red light (550nm).
IOR (Blue) - For RGB mode, the IOR for red light (450nm).
a Grayscale texture to this parameter, light areas of the Texture look like protruding bumps, and dark areas
look like indentations. You can adjust the Bump map's strength by setting the Power or Gamma4 values on
the Image texture. These attributes are covered in more detail in the Octane Texture topic in this manual.

green, and blue color values to perturb the normals of the surface at render time, giving the appearance of
added detail. They can be more accurate than Bump maps, but require specific software to generate.
detail under the Texture Overview topic in this manual.
The Displacement parameter adjusts the height of the vertices of a surface at render time using a texture map.
Displacement maps differs 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 can be more realistic especially along the silhouette of the
surface. Displacement mapping is covered in more detail under the Octane Texture topic in this manual.
areas, and light values determine opaque areas. Values in-between light and dark create the look of semi-
transparent areas. Lowering the Opacity value lowers the Object's overall visibility, and using a Texture map
varies the opacity across the surface. For example, if you want to make a simple polygon plane look like a leaf,
connect a black-and-white image of the leaf’s silhouette to the Diffuse shader's Opacity channel.
Rounded Edges Radius - Bevels the surface edges at render time without altering or subdividing the
geometry. Using this option enhances object realism by eliminating sharp edges. The value refers to the
rounded edge's radius. Higher values produce rounder edges.
create an effect like the rainbow colors that appear on an oil slick surface. Larger values increase the effect's
strength.
Film Index - Controls the film's Index of Refraction. Use this option to adjust the colors visible in the film.
Material Layer - Adds a Material Layer above the base material. See the Octane Layers topic in this manual
for more details.
Toon Material

The Toon material can design non-photorealistic renderings that have hand-drawn characteristics. You can
use it in conjunction with the Toon Ramp texture connected to any of the ramp attributes to design more
detailed, toon-like Material1 effects.
Figure 1: The Toon material
Toon Material Parameters
Figure 2: Toon Material Parameters

Toon Lighting Mode - Since Toon Lighting is required for Toon materials to work, this attribute defines
where the Toon lighting is drawn from. This can be from the camera direction, or from OctaneRender®Toon
Lights. If Toon Lights is the selected mode, Toon materials need a Toon point light or a Toon directional light
included in the scene in order to work.
Diffuse1 - The Diffuse reflection channel, or the albedo value of the Toon shader.
Specular2 - The Specular reflection channel, which behaves like a coating on top of the Diffuse layer and
creates a highlight on the surface depending on the incident light angle and the camera’s viewpoint. A value of
0 means there is no highlight at all.
Roughness - The Specular reflection channel's roughness. The appearance of the Toon shading’s Specular
reflection becomes more prevalent as the roughness of the Specular reflection channels decreases.
Toon Diffuse Ramp - The color/float range that defines how the Toon shading’s albedo value (or diffuse
color) varies over a surface.
Toon Specular Ramp - The color/float range that defines how the Toon shading’s Specular value varies
over a surface.
Bump - Simulates a relief using a Greyscale texture interpreted as a height map.
Normal - Distorts normals based on an RGB image.
Displacement 3 - Creates very detailed geometry with a low memory footprint.
Outline Color - The color used for the surface's outline and contour edges.
Outline Thickness - Defines and propagates the outline and contour edges used in the Toon shading. A
thickness of 0.0 means there is no outline for that surface.
Opacity - Controls the Toon material transparency with a Grayscale texture.
Smooth - Enables normal interpolation. If disabled, triangle meshes will appear faceted.
Rounded Edges - Rounds the geometry edges by using a shading effect rather than creating additional
geometry.
Universal Material

The Universal material puts Substance maps and PBR1 outputs into OctaneRender®. Substance Painter
and other engines map well to this material.
Universal materials blend between dielectric and metallic with a Metallic parameter value from 0 - 1.
Compared to other materials, the Universal material is equivalent to the Metallic material when its Metallic
parameter is set to 1.0, and it is similar to the Glossy2 material when its Metallic parameter is set to 0.0.
The Universal material is designed to follow after the workflow in the PBR model, since the Metallic material
falls short of the Metallic and Roughness maps that are often derived from Substance Painter and other
tools. It handles dielectric material (Diffuse3 and Glossy BRDF) and also Metallic material (Glossy BRDF) with
assumed IOR or custom IOR for both dielectric and metallic surfaces.
Figure 1: Example of coatings made possible by the Universal material
Material4 IOR in the base layer of Universal materials is also not limited to scalar values, and this can be
controlled procedurally with texture-type nodes and OSL shaders connected to a new IOR texture input pin.
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.

Figure 2: The Universal Material node

Universal Material Parameters

Transmission 1 Model - Determines how light refracts. There are three options for the Transmission Model.
Specular2 makes the material behave like a shiny, specular surface. The Diffuse option makes the surface
appear non-reflective. The Thin Wall option makes the geometry becomes very thin, so the ray bounce exits
the material immediately instead of entering the medium.
BRDF Model - There are four options for determining the overall bidirectional reflectance distribution function
(BRDF). The Octane option produces a more brushed-metal effect. The Beckmann and GGX options
produce more polished chrome-like effects. The Ward option is similar to the Beckmann model, but is less
computationally expensive to evaluate.
Metallic Reflection Mode - Changes how OctaneRender® calculates the Metallic material's reflectivity.
l Default - Uses the albedo color.

l IOR + Color - Uses the albedo color and adjusts the brightness using the IOR.
l RGB IOR - Uses the three IOR values for 650 nm, 550 nm, and 450 nm, and ignores albedo color.
Transmission - Controls the light passing through the Material's surface with refraction.
Albedo - The Material's base color.
Metallic - Determines how metallic a surface looks. Lower values make the surface look more dielectric, and
higher values make the surface look more metallic.
Specular - Determines the color of glossy reflections for dielectric materials when the Metallic parameter's
value is 0. The Dielectric IOR parameter must be more than 1.0 for the Specular parameter to contribute to
the surface characteristics.
Roughness - Determines how much the Specular and Transmission characteristics spread across the
surface.
Anisotropy - Determines the shape of the Specular and Transmission highlights. A value of -1 creates a
horizontal shape, and a value of 1 creates a vertical shape.
Rotation - Controls the Anisotropy shape's rotation.
Dielectric IOR - Controls the specular reflection's or transmission's Fresnel effect. By default, if the
Dielectric 1/IOR parameter is empty, then the dielectric specular uses this parameter instead.
Dielectric 1/IOR - Overrides the Dielectric IOR when a map or value is applied. This parameter is an index
of refraction map, where each texel represents 1/IOR.
Metallic IOR - Complex-valued IOR (n-k*i), which controls the Fresnel effect of the Metallic material's
specular reflection. For RGB mode, this is thered light's IOR (650nm).

Metallic IOR (Green) - For RGB mode, this is the green light's IOR (550nm).
Metallic IOR (Blue) - For RGB mode, this is the blue light's IOR (450nm).
Coating - Adds a second layer of reflection to the surface.
Coating Roughness - Determines how much the Coating characteristic spreads across the surface.
Coating IOR - Controls the Fresnel effect for the Coating characteristics of the surface.
Coating Bump - Much like a regular Bump map, this creates fine details on the Material’s Coating attribute
by using a Procedural or Image texture.
Figure 3: The sphere on the right has an OctaneRender® Turbulence texture connected to
the Coating Bump attribute
Coating Normal - Creates the look of fine detail on the surface's coating by using red, green, and blue color
values to perturb the surface's normals at render time, thus giving the appearance of added detail. They are
more accurate than Bump maps, but require specific software to generate.
create an effect like the rainbow colors that appear on an oil slick's surface. Larger values increase the effect's
strength.
Film IOR - Controls the thin film's IOR and its visible colors.
Sheen - Adds a second layer of glossiness to the surface.
Sheen Roughness - Determines how much the Sheen characteristic spreads across the surface.

Sheen Bump - Much like a regular Bump map, this creates fine details in the Material’s sheen attribute using
a Procedural or Image texture.
Sheen Normal - This attribute also creates the look of fine detail in the surface's sheen. However, a Normal
map is a special type of Image texture that uses red, green, and blue color values to perturb the surface
normals at render time, thus giving the appearance of added detail. They can be more accurate than Bump
maps, but require specific software to generate.
Dispersion Coefficient - Increasing the Dispersion value increases the amount of coloration and dispersion
in the Object’s transmission and in caustics.
Medium - OctaneRender® has three types of Mediums1 to create translucent surfaces. To use these
Mediums, connect the Diffuse material's Medium input to an Absorption 2 or Scattering3 medium.
l Absorption Medium - Produces material that absorbs light while passing through a surface. The
color resulting from this absorption depends on the distance light travels through the material. The
Absorption map type is covered in more detail in the Textures4 topic of this manual.
l Scattering Medium - Similar to the Absorption medium, but with an additional option to simulate
subsurface scattering. Subsurface scattering is the phenomena that gives human skin and similar
organic surfaces their characteristic glow under certain lighting conditions. It is a major component in
creating the look of realistic skin. The Scattering map type is covered in more detail in the Textures
topic of this manual.
characteristics.

l Volume Medium1 - Creates volumetric surfaces when applied to VDB2 files imported into Blender
using OpenVDB3 .
areas, and light values determine opaque areas. Values in-between light and dark indicate 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 opacity across the surface. For example, to make a simple polygon plane look like a leaf, connect a
black-and-white Image of the leaf’s silhouette to the Diffuse shader's Opacity channel.
Fake Shadows - Activates the Architectural glass option for all Meshes sharing that Material. When enabled,
the Specular material4 exhibits the characteristics of Architectural glass with its transparent feature,
allowing light to illuminate enclosed spaces or frame an exterior view.
Affect Alpha - Causes refraction to affect the Alpha Channel5 if it is enabled in the Render settings’
Kernel parameters.
a Grayscale texture to this parameter, light areas of the Texture indicate protruding bumps, and dark areas
indicate indentation. You can adjust the Bump map's strength by setting the Power or Gamma6 values on the
Image texture node. These attributes are covered in more detail in the Octane Texture topic in this manual.
1 A shading system designed to render volumes such as smoke and fog.

information about OpenVDB, check at http://www.openvdb.org/.
4 Used for transparent materials such as glass and water.
transparent.

Normal - A special type of Image texture that uses red, green, and blue color values to perturb the surface
normals at render time, giving the appearance of fine detail. They can be more accurate than Bump maps, but
require specific software to generate.
Displacement 1 - Adjusts the height of the surface vertices at render time using a Texture map.
Displacement maps differs from Bump or Normal maps in that the geometry is altered by the texture, as
opposed to creating the appearance of detail. Displacement mapping is more complex than using a Bump or
Normal map, but the results are more realistic, in particular along the surface's silhouette. Displacement
mapping is covered in more detail in the Octane Texture topic in this manual.
Smooth - Smooths out the transition between surface normals. If this option is disabled, the edges between
the polygons of the surface are sharp, giving the surface a faceted look.
Rounded Edges Radius - Bevels the surface edges at render time without altering or subdividing the
geometry. Using this option enhances object realism by eliminating sharp edges. Higher values produce
rounder edges.
Emission - Creates a surface that emits light (also known as a Mesh emitter). To use this option, connect a
Diffuse material2 's Emission input to a Blackbody or Texture emission node. These nodes are covered
in more detail in the Octane Texture topic and in the Mesh Emitters3 topic under the Octane Lighting
category in this manual.
Shadow Catcher4 - This converts the Material into a shadow catcher. When it is active, the surface is visible
in the areas that are in shadow, and all other areas are transparent in the render.
Material Layer - Adds a Material Layer above the base Material. See the Octane Layers category in this
manual for more details.
Layered Material
2 Used for dull, non-reflecting materials or mesh emitters.
3 The ability for a surface to emit illumination usually described by a Black Body or Texture emission type.
varying shapes.

The Layered Material1 node constructs complex Materials2 that consist of a base
layer and up to eight Material Layers. You can create complex Materials in a physically-
based manner, as opposed to manually mixing Materials3 together.
Figure 1: Adding more layers to the Layered Material node
Layered Material Parameters
Base Material - The Material that sits below any additional Material Layers.
Layers 1 - 8 - The Material Layer inputs.
Composite Material
The Composite Material4 node mixes up to 16 Materials5 using masks. This is much cleaner than using
several chained Mix materials. If a mask is not connected, OctaneRender® uses the Material's Opacity
parameter. The first Material pin becomes the base layer.

3 Used to mix any two material types.

Figure 1: Adding more Materials to the Composite Material node
Composite Material Parameters
Add Input - Adds a new Material input to the end of the Node.
Remove Input - Removes the last Material input.
Displacement1 - The displacement for the Composite material surface.
Material - The Material input. When you use several Materials, the first Material pin
becomes the base layer.
Material Mask - Controls the Material’s opacity using an Input map. If a mask is not
connected, OctaneRender® uses the Material's Opacity parameter.
Mediums

OctaneRender® supports participating media inside Objects (Absorption 1, Subsurface scattering, and
Volume). These settings are stored in Medium nodes attached to the corresponding Input pin of Diffuse2
or Specular3 material nodes.
There are three types of Medium nodes:
l Scattering4 - Has parameters for absorption, scattering light that passes through the Medium, and
emission inside the Medium.
l Absorption - A simple version with just absorption parameters.
l Volumes - Described in more detail in the Effects category in this manual. Volume mediums work on
volumetric surfaces like smoke and clouds, and they require a VDB5 file to create the Volume objects.
To render with Medium nodes, the Path Tracing or PMC render kernels are the best choices. It is possible to
render Mediums6 with the Direct Light kernel, but only if the Medium node is connected to a Diffuse
material7 and if Diffuse Mode is set to GI. You can access the Medium nodes from the Add menu.

characteristics.

Figure 1: Accessing the Medium nodes from the Add menu
Add Medium nodes to Materials1 that are 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 if a Material2 has a Medium applied to it.
The one exception is a plane representing the ground - OctaneRender® treats the ground plane as an infinitely
deep surface.
Specular shaders are the best choice when using a Medium node. Set the Transmission 3, and Reflection
parameters to a non-zero value, or a color other than black, or a Texture map. When connecting a Medium
node to a Diffuse shader, set the Transmission to a non-zero value, or a color other than black, or a texture
map.
When using a Specular shader, set the Reflection value low because only the part of the spectrum that is not
reflected can enter the Object for scattering. If the Reflection is set to 1.0, all light reflects regardless of the
Transmission value. If Reflection is set to 0.0, all light transmits through the surface, but the result is an
unnatural appearance. Reflection values between 0.1 - 0.2 are a good starting point.
If the Reflection parameter uses a color, OctaneRender® shades the light transmitted through the surface as
the complementary color. For example, if the reflection is set to yellow, the transmitted light is a bluish color.


Figure 2 : Complementary colors are opposite from each other on the color wheel
Absorption Medium
Absorption 1 makes the Material2 absorb some light while it passes through the Medium. To do this, you
must apply a Medium to a polygon with at least three dimensions or a Volume. A value of 0.0 (black) means
no absorption. The higher the value, the faster the Medium absorbs the light. The color resulting from this
absorption is dependent on the distance the light travels through the Material. The light fades as the distance
increases, and if the Absorption is colored it desaturates more. The Absorption texture is multiplied by the
Density parameter, which sets a wide range of values.
Absorption is substractive - for example, if you set Absorption to absorb yellow light, then yellow light travels
faster than other colors, giving the Object a blue appearance.


Figure 1: A yellow Absorption color provides a blue result
The Invert Absorption checkbox produce the opposite result.

Figure 2: Inverting the absorption or changing the color to blue produces a yellow color
Absorption Parameters
Volume Step Length - The default value is 4, but if the Volume is smaller than this, then decrease the
value. Decreasing this value decreases render speed, and increasing the value causes the ray marching
algorithm to take longer steps. If the Volume 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 this
value as small as possible.
Invert Absorption - Inverts the Absorption color so that the Absorption channel becomes a
Transparency channel. This helps visualize the specified color's effect, since a neutral background shining
through the Medium appears in that approximate color.
Scattering Medium

The Scattering1 medium is similar to the Absorption 2 medium but with the option to simulate subsuburface
scattering. It has single-scattering SSS and absorption. The Scattering medium defines how fast light scatters
when it travels through the Medium, similar to how absorption is defined. High values mean light scatters
very fast, and a value of 0.0 means no scattering. This Medium requires a polygon with at least three
dimensions or a Volume, it will not work on simple surfaces.
The Scattering medium creates true unbiased single-scattering SSS by using various parameters, including the
Scattering texture, Emission texture, and other parameters. This is much faster and more practical than
multiple-scattering, but it doesn't allow you to do some things like volumetric caustics.
Figure 1: Scattering medium parameters
Scattering Medium Parameters

Density - Multiplies against Scattering and Absorption.
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, then decrease the value. Decreasing this value decreases render
speed, and increasing the value causes the ray marching algorithm to take longer steps. If Volume 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 this value as small as possible.

Absorption Tex - Controlled by Absorption color, which defines how fast a Medium absorbs light passing
through it. A value of 0.0 or a black color means no absorption. Higher values result in faster light absorption.
The specified color in the Absorption parameter produces its complimentary color in the rendering. The
Absorption texture is multiplied by the Density parameter, which lets you set a wide range of values.
Invert Absorption - Inverts the Absorption color so that the Absorption channel becomes a
Transparency channel. This helps visualize the specified color's effect, since a neutral background shining
through the Medium appears in that approximate color.
Scattering Tex - Determines how fast light scatters as it moves through a surface. High values make light
scatter sooner as it enters a surface, and low values make light pass deeper into the surface before scattering.
A 0 value disables Scattering.
Phase - Controls the light's direction as it scatters through the surface. A value of 0 makes light scatter equally
in all directions. Positive values make light scatter forward, where photons continue the same approximate
direction as when they enter the surface. Negative values result in backscattering, where light moves through
the surface in the same direction, but opposite to the angle that they entered the surface.
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 by the Scale parameter. This effect works best with large Objects that aren't too
bright. Small, bright Objects create lots of noise.
Volume Medium
Volume mediums add color and other qualities to a VDB1 file. VDBs are a generic Volume format that create
effects such as smoke, fog, vapor, and similar gaseous Objects. VDBs can be a single frame, or an animated
file sequence. The Volume medium node is often connected to a Material2 Output node's Volume input
pin.

Figure 1: The Volume medium node
Prior to viewing or rendering the Volume, if you want to make the Volume visible in the live render view, click
the Physics Properties button and expand the Cache rollout to cache the domain in the OpenVDB1 format
and bake it.

Figure 2: Caching and baking a Volume

If the Volume is animated, click on Data Tab > Octane Properties > Mesh Type and set the Mesh Type
to Reshapable Proxy1.
Figure 3: Setting the Mesh Type to Reshapable Proxy
Volume Parameters
Density - Tells OctaneRender® the Volume's scale in terms of Density provided by Blender®. The default unit
is in meters. This applies to the current Volume's Density and affects the Volume's Absorption 2 and
Scattering3 parameters.

Volume Step Length - Longer steps cover longer distances (a 10-meter step) within the Volume grid makes
rendering faster in lieu of details. Smaller steps (a 1-meter step) within the Volume grid covers more details in
the volume at the expense of a slower render time. The default value is 4. If the Volume be smaller than this,
then decrease this value. Increasing this value causes the ray marching algorithm to take longer steps. If this
value 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 this value as small as possible.
Absorption Tex - Defines how much light is absorbed over the color range. If Invert Absorption is
enabled, this channel behaves like a Transparency channel.
Abs. Ramp - The Absorption color ramp that defines the color's range. The Absorption ramp takes the grid
value as input. In the color gradient, the colors near 0 on the left side of the gradient are mapped to the
Volume's lower values, which are 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
way.
Invert Abs. - Inverts the absorption color so the channel becomes a Transparency channel. This helps
visualize the specified color's effect since a neutral background shining through the Medium appears in that
approximate color. To apply the absorption colour ramp, see the Volume Ramp topic in this manual for more
information.
Scattering Tex - Defines how much light is absorbed over the color range.
Scat. Ramp - Acts similar to the Absorption ramp, but instead it maps colors to the light as it scatters within
the Volume.
Phase - Affects a Volume as it would affect a Medium. Modifying the Volume Scale value scales the
Volume's density values linearly.
Emission - This makes the Volume emission accept volumetric Emission modes. For emission, the Medium
can have a Blackbody or a Texture emission.
When using the Blackbody emission, make sure that the Emission grid data contains temperatures in Kelvin.
VDBs often have unit-less temperatures with arbitrary ranges such as 0 - 1 or 0 - 45, as is the case with some
sample VDBs from openvdb.org. Typical temperature values range between 0 - 6500, where lower values
create longer wavelengths, and higher values create shorter wavelengths. In order to get realistic results from
the Blackbody emission for Volumes, disable Normalize in the Emission node. Lower temperatures give off
less light than higher temperatures, but when normalized, the radiance emitted by all temperatures is equal.
When using the Texture emission, 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 it gives off at that
point. Once Volume gradients are implemented, you can control the color more precisely.
Emission Ramp - The Emission color ramp.

Rendering Your First Smoke Volume
To render a Smoke volume:

1. Create the plane for the flow by pressing Shift+A and selecting a plane, then give it some particle data.
You can rename the particle data to something descriptive like "Smoke_particle".
Figure 1: Creating a plane

2. From the Emission rollout, expand the Source rollout and from the Emit From dropdown, select
Volumes.

Figure 2: Selecting a source

3. With the Plane still selected, go to the Physics tab and under the Enable Physics For section, select
Smoke, then set the Type to Flow. Select Particle System as the Flow Source, then select the
particle system created in step 1 as the Particle System.

Figure 3: The Physics tab

4. Create a cube for the smoke's domain. Select the cube, then go to the Physics tab, and under Enable
Physics For, select Smoke, then under the Smoke rollout, set the cube as the Type.

Figure 4: Selecting the Smoke Type

5. With the cube still selected, go to the Physics tab to provide the cache. Choose OpenVDB1 from the
File Format dropdown and provide an external path for the directory to store the resulting VDB2 files.

Figure 5: Selecting the file format

6. Create a Material1 for the cube.
Figure 6: Creating a new Material

7. With the cube still selected, switch to the Shader Editor view.
Figure 7: Selecting the Shader Editor

8. OctaneRender® applies a Universal material, but since you are using a Volume, replace the Universal
material with an OctaneRender® Volume medium and connect it to the Volume input pin.
Figure 8: Adding a Volume medium
Figure 9: Volume medium connected to Volume input pin

9. With the cube still selected, click on Object Data Tab > Octane Properties rollout and set the

Mesh Type to Reshapable Proxy1.
Figure 10: Setting Mesh Type to Reshapable Proxy

10. Set the Start and End frames to start baking.
The OctaneRender® LiveDB
OctaneRender Live DB is OctaneRender’s asset database. The Live DB lets you access Materials2, groups of
Nodes, and whole scenes shared by the OctaneRender® community and the OctaneRender® team.To access
the LiveDB, connect your computer to the internet, click the Window menu, and select Octane DB.

Figure 1: Accessing OctaneRender Live DB from Blender®
After selecting the Octane DB option, you can access the OctaneRender® LiveDB Materials tree.

Figure 2: The Octane DB window

Right-click on a Material1 preview, then click Import to download and set the choosen Material to the
current active Blender® material (its name is shown in the LiveDB window's header). If the active Object
does not have any set Material, OctaneRender® creates the Material automatically.
Figure 3: Right-clicking on a Material to import it into Blender®
After downloading a LiveDB Material and setting it to an Object, you can work with it as with any other
OctaneRender® Material in the Shader Editor window.

Figure 4: An Octane LiveDB Material in the Blender® Node Editor
Octane Layers

Layer materials let you construct complex Materials1 that consist of a base layer and up to eight Material2
layers. The layers are based on components used in previous OctaneRender® Materials. Using this set of
unique layers, you can recreate complex Materials in a physically-based manner, as opposed to manually
mixing Materials3 together.
Figure 1: The types of Layers
The following Layer nodes are available:

l Diffuse4 Layer - Creates dull, non-reflective Materials.
l Group Layer - Adds multiple Layers to existing Materials.
l Metallic Layer - Creates reflective Materials.

3 Used to mix any two material types.

l Sheen Layer - Simulates the grazing coloration in fabrics.

l Specular1 Layer - Creates shiny Materials like plastic, or clear Materials like glass.
Layer Group
The Layer Group node adds multiple Layers to existing OctaneRender® Materials2,
without needing a Layer material node. It connects to the Material3 Layer pin on
existing Materials.

Figure 1: Connecting the Octane Layer Group node to the Material Layer
input pin
Diffuse Layer
The Diffuse 1 layer creates dull, non-reflective Materials2. See the Diffuse Material3
topic in this manual for more information.

Figure 1: Diffuse Layer parameters
Metallic Layer
The Metallic layer creates reflective Materials1 with colored reflections. For more
information, see the Metallic Material2 topic in this manual.


Figure 1: Metallic layer parameters
Sheen Layer

The Sheen layer simulates the grazing coloration or rim lighting in fabrics like velvet. It
can also simulate layers of dust. See the Universal Material1 topic in this manual for
more information.
Figure 1: Sheen layer parameters
Specular Layer

The Specular1 layer creates shiny Materials2 like plastics, or clear Materials like glass.
Refer to the Glossy3, Specular, and Universal Material4 topics in this manual for more
information.

Figure 1: Specular layer parameters

Textures
The Texture category of Material1 nodes contains a large selection of texture generators that can create
complex Material networks.
Figure 1: Octane Procedural, Texture, and Tool menus
Octane Procedural
106 — Textures
Procedural textures generate patterns that you can use individually, or you can combine
them with Mapping and Color textures to create common surface effects. This is a
memory-efficient way to generate patterns as the calculations require less memory than
loading bitmap images. Procedurals can create rock and marble surfaces, checkered or
wooden textures, Bump maps, and other advanced Materials1 with minimal impact to
GPU2 memory. Try to create Materials using these Textures3 before using Image
textures.

107 — Textures
Figure 1: Octane Procedural textures
Checks Texture
The Checks texture makes striped, checkerboard, and grid patterns controlled by a float3 value. It is most
useful when mixed with other Textures1.
108 — Textures
Figure 1: A Checks texture applied to a Diffuse material1
Dirt Texture
109 — Textures
Dirt textures create dirt, dust particles, or worn out effects overlaid on a Material1.
Figure 1: Dirt texture parameters
110 — Textures
111 — Textures
Figure 2: Dirt texture with various Strength, Details, Radius, and Invert settings
Grayscale Texture
112 — Textures
Grayscale textures generate a float value that node networks use as an input. When connected to a Color
input like a Diffuse1 pin, the result is a grayscale color, with 0 being equivalent to black, and 1 being
equivalent to white.
113 — Textures
Figure 1: A Grayscale texture node connected to a Diffuse material1
114 — Textures
Marble Texture
Marble textures create marble-like noise. It is a grayscale generator similar to a Turbulence texture but
more fine tuned to create marbled patterns.
115 — Textures
Figure 1: A Marble texture connected to a Material1's Diffuse2 pin
Marble Texture Parameters

Power - The Texture's strength. A value of 0 produces a black texture, and a value of 1 produces a full-
strength texture.
Offset - Controls the position of Marble noise details.
Octaves - Adjusts the scale of detail in the noise.
Omega - Adjusts the noise detail sharpness.
Variance - Controls the detail variation in the Marble texture.
Transform - Accepts a Transform node, which changes the noise's position and scale.
Projection - Accepts a Projection node, which determines how the noise maps to the surface. If left blank,
the Object's UV texture coordinates determine the mapping.
Noise Texture
Noise textures generate four different types of Procedural noise, and the settings give you the ability to
produce a wide variety of noise effects.

2Amount of diffusion, or the reflection of light photons at different angles from an uneven or granular surface.
116 — Textures
117 — Textures
Figure 1: A Noise texture connected to a Diffuse material1's Diffuse2 channel
Noise Texture Parameters

There are four Noise types:
l Perlin - Similar to the Turbulence node with Use Turbulence disabled.
l Turbulence - Similar to the Turbulence node with Use Turbulence enabled.
l Circular - A Worley noise.
l Chips - A Voronoi noise.
Figure 1: Examples of Noise types
Octaves - Sets the Noise detail's scale.

Omega - Controls the fractal pattern detail.
Transform - Positions, scales, and rotates the surface Texture.
Projection - Adjusts how the Texture projects onto the surface.
Invert - Inverts the Noise texture's values.
Gamma3 - Adjusts the Noise texture's luminance values.

118 — Textures
Contrast - Adjusts the Noise detail's sharpness.
OSL Texture
The OSL texture node is a scriptable node that lets you write scripts using the OSL (Open Shader
Language1 ) standard programming language to define arbitrary Texture types to create customized
Materials2 and shaders. OSL is a standard created by Sony Imageworks. To learn about the generic OSL
standard, please read the OSL Readme and PDF documentation.
Figure 1: The OSL Texture node
There are two options to add scripts for the OSL texture. The Internal option is available by opening another
area in Blender® for the Text Editor, creating a new text, and writing the OSL script (Figure 2). The
External option lets you to select a pre-coded OSL file from the File Explorer window (Figure 3).
1 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.
119 — Textures
Figure 2: Using the Internal option
120 — Textures
Figure 3: Using the External option
Polygon Side Texture
Polygon Side textures render white on the front face and black on the back face of a polygon. This is useful
for back face culling by putting the Texture into the Opacity channel; creating double-sided Materials1 by
placing it into a Mix material; and mixing Textures2 by placing it into a Mix texture.

121 — Textures
Figure 1: RGB Spectrum nodes add different colors on the front and back sides of polygons
Random Color Texture
The Random Color texture is a grayscale Texture map that plugs into a "Gradient Texture" on page 161 to
achieve random color variations. It also works with Objects that are accessible as linked files in Blender®.
122 — Textures
Figure 1: The Random Color texture applied to an array of instanced cubes
123 — Textures
Ridged Fractal Texture
The Ridged Fractal texture is a Procedural texture that creates ridged turbulence-like noise. It has a
Lacunarity parameter to adjust the noise frequency scale factor-per-interval in the fractal pattern.
124 — Textures
Figure 1: A Ridged Fractal texture connected to a Diffuse material1
Riged Fractal Parameters

Power - Controls the Texture's overall brightness.
Offset - Controls thepattern's intensity.
Octaves - Controls the amount of detail in the Texture.
Omega - This specifies the difference per interval.
Lacunarity - Controls the size of the gaps in the fractal pattern.
Transform - Controls the surface Texture's position, scale, and rotation.
Projection - Determines how the Texture projects onto the surface.
Triplanar Texture
Triplanar textures map samples of multiple Textures2 along three x, y, and z planes in world space or
object-space coordinates and blend them to create one seamless Texture. Depending on the model's
complexity, you can often map Textures without having a UV-mapped Mesh.

125 — Textures
Figure 1: The Triplanar Texture node parameters
126 — Textures
Figure 2: Triplanar example
It divides a Material1 map into six areas corresponding to the x, -x, y, -y, z and -z axis. At first, a Texture
covers the entire Object's surface, but the Triplanar mapping confines the Texture's visibility onto the
Texture's corresponding axes that are active. Figure 3 shows a comparison of an image without the Triplanar
mapping versus one that is plugged into the Triplanar texture's X and Y axis pins.
127 — Textures
Figure 3: No Triplanar mapping (left), and with Triplanar mapping (right)
The Triplanar texture has the Blend Angle and Blend Cube Transform parameters, which soften the
seams.
Saw/Sine/Triangle Wave Texture
The Sine, Saw, and Triangle wave textures create various banding or striped patterns. To control the
pattern's position, connect a Transform node to the Texture’s Scale attribute.
l Saw - Generates a Texture with sharp jagged-edged patterns, like wood.
l Sine - Generates a Texture with simple smoother wave patterns, like marble or wood.
l Triangle - Generates a Texture with sharp triangular wave patterns.
These Textures1 have a single Offset attribute that adjusts the wave bands' position. Figures 1 - 3 compare
the different results from each Texture applied to a model.
128 — Textures
Figure 1: A Saw wave texture applied to a model
129 — Textures
Figure 2: A Sine wave texture applied to a model
Figure 3: A Triangle wave texture applied to a model
Turbulence Texture
The Turbulence texture creates many different effects based on banded noise like
wood, marble, flesh, and many other useful Textures1.
130 — Textures
131 — Textures
Figure 1: A Turbulence texture connected to a Diffuse material1's Diffuse2 channel
Turbulance Texture Parameters

Power - Controls the Texture's overall brightness.
Offset - Controls the fractal pattern values.
Octaves - Controls the detail amount in the Texture.
Omega - Controls the underlying fractal pattern detail.
Transform - Accepts a Transform node, which changes the noise's scale.
Projection - Accepts a Projection node, which determines how the noise maps to the surface. If left blank,
the Object's UV texture coordinates determine the mapping.
Turbulence - Enables the overlaying fractal pattern.
Invert - Reverses the Turbulence values.
Gamma3 - Adjusts the fractal pattern's luminance values.
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 Input texture’s own UV coordinate transformation.

132 — Textures
Figure 1: The UVW Transform Texture applied to a cube
The UVW transform texture works with other mapping textures like the Triplanar map texture, Mix texture,
Cosine Mix texture, or the logical texture maps (Comparison) or arithmetic texture maps (Add, Subtract,
Multiply).
W Texture
The W texture is a way to access the OctaneRender® W coordinate system, which lets you put Gradients on
hair geometry. This is useful when you need to shade a hair system for the color values to change along the
length of the hair strands.
133 — Textures
Figure 1: W texture parameters
Figure 2: Hair strands rendered using the W Texture to distribute color
134 — Textures
Float Vertex Texture
Float Vertex textures render Vertex Groups with an OctaneRender® Material1.
Figure 1: Accessing the Vertex Group tool in Blender®
After you create a Vertex Group index, you can use it's name as a reference in a Float
Vertex texture to render the OctaneRender® Material over the Blender® Vertex Group.
135 — Textures
Figure 2: Referencing a Vertex Group index name in a Float Vertex texture

node
Color Vertex Texture
Color Vertex textures render Vertex Colors painted with the Blender® Vertex Color
tools.
136 — Textures
Figure 1: Accessing the Vertex Color tool in Blender®
After you create a Vertex Color index, you can use it's name as a reference in a Color
Vertex texture to render the vertex paint in OctaneRender®.
Figure 2: Referencing a Vertex Color index name
137 — Textures
Octane Texture
Textures1 generates colors and import Texture maps that you can use by themselves or with other Nodes to
create common surface effects.
Figure 1: Accessing Textures from the Shader Editor
Alpha Image Texture
An Alpha Image utilizes the image’s native alpha channel to provide transparency.
138 — Textures
Figure 1: Alpha Image parameters
Figure 2: Alpha Image connected to a Box projection
139 — Textures
Figure 3: An Alpha Image texture masking a surface area
Alpha Image Parameters

Border Mode - Sets the behavior of the space around the image if it doesn't cover the entire geometry. Wrap
Around is the default behavior, which repeats the image in the areas outside the image's coverage. The
White Color and Black Color options turn the area outside the image to white or black, respectively.
Power - Adjusts the image brightness. Lower values darken the image.
Gamma1 - Controls the input image's luminance, and tunes or color-corrects images.
Invert - Inverts the Texture values.
Transform - Positions, rotates, and scales the surface Texture.
Projection - Accepts OctaneRender® Projection nodes. If you connect nothing 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 Projections2 topic in this manual.
2 Methods for orienting 2D texture maps onto 3D surfaces.
140 — Textures
Gaussian Spectrum
This Texture is based on a Gaussian distribution spectrum (0 - 1 for the parameters).
Gaussian Spectrum Parameters
Figure 1: Gaussian Spectrum parameters
Wave Length - This represents the mean wavelength approximation between 380 nm - 720 nm. Lower
values appear blue, and higher values appear red.
Width - Almost no color is visible when the value is 0. A width of 1.000 spreads the color thin over a large
space, and the Texture appears faint.
Power - The Texture's brightness.
Float Image Texture
Float textures' data is a floating point value that signifies a grayscale value, where 0.00 is darkest and 1.00 is
lightest. Ifyou use a color RGB texture, then OctaneRender® converts the image to grayscale.
141 — Textures
Figure 1: The Float Image Texture parameters
When To Use Float Image Versus Image Data Type?

There are some parameters where full color data is not used (or useful). If you load a full-color image, it takes
much more memory in the GPU1 than a grayscale image, even you want just the grayscale data. Since
memory management is very critical for GPU rendering, the Float Image type loads a full-color texture, but it
interprets the image as a grayscale image and uses less VRAM. If you need the full-color data, then use the
Image data type (Normal maps, Diffuse2 maps).
Image Tex
142 — Textures
The Image Tex node imports external Texture maps to any Material1 parameters that accept a Texture
map.
143 — Textures
Figure 1: The typical Node Editor setup for using an imported Texture map
144 — Textures
Border Mode determines the Texture lookup behavior when the Texture coordinates fall outside [0, 1].
l 0 - Wraparound
l 1 - Black color
l 2 = White color
l 3 - Clamp value
145 — Textures
l 4 - Mirror
Image Tile Texture
Image Tile textures set up a UV tile grid similar to UDIM image tile formats. These tiles formats are often
generated in modeling and texturing applications.
146 — Textures
Figure 1: The Image Tile Texture node
Instance Color Texture
Instance Color textures prepares an image's pixels to map to geometric instance IDs. The Node maps an
Object's Scatter Instance IDs to an imported Texture map's pixels, starting at the bottom-left and
counting in row-major order to the top-right. After that, the Node wraps around and starts at the bottom-left
again. In Figure 1, a 4 x 4 Texture map and Instance Color Texture node map the four colors onto different
Objects using their Scatter Instance IDs.
147 — Textures
Figure 1: Using the Instance Color texture to vary the colors of instanced Objects
RGB Spectrum Texture
RGB Spectrum textures are based on a selected RGB color.
148 — Textures
Figure 1: A yellow color added to the Diffuse material1 through a RGB Spectrum texture
149 — Textures
Octane Tool
The Tools category of Textures1 modifies other Texture maps, and you can use them by themselves or with
other Nodes to create common surface effects. Texture Displacement 2 nodes are also in this category.
150 — Textures
Figure 1: Accessing the Octane Tools from the Shader Editor
Add Texture
151 — Textures
The Add Texture node adds two Textures1 together. The calculation is similar to the Add Layer mode used
in Photoshop® to add the two layers' color values.
Figure 1: The Add Texture node mixes a brick texture with a red color
152 — Textures
Baking Texture
The displacement function in OctaneRender® cannot utilize a Procedural texture map. The Baking texture
lets you bake Procedural textures into an image to use it as a Displacement 1 map. With this Texture node,
you can use the full power of Procedural textures for displacement.
The baking process uses the texture preview system, which appears as an Image texture to the rest of the
system. The baking is done whenever you change an input, and OctaneRender® calculates it on-the-fly. The
internal image isn't stored in the project, so OctaneRender® recalculates it whenever it loads the project.
The Baking texture takes an input from any OctaneRender® Procedural texture map, then it connects to an
OctaneRender® Displacement node, which then connects to an OctaneRender® Material2 's
Displacement pin.
Figure 1: The typical Node network for using a Baking texture with Procedural texture
maps
Clamp Texture
153 — Textures
The Clamp texture requires a Texture input so you can clamp the Texture with the Minimum and
Maximum sliders.
Figure 1: The Clamp texture lightening a Checks texture
Color Correct
154 — Textures
Color Correct adjusts attributes such as Brightness, Hue, Saturation, Gamma1, and Contrast, which
have values set by third-party modelling applications.
Figure 1: The Color Correct node increases the contrast on a Marble texture
Comparison Texture
155 — Textures
The Comparison texture uses a logical comparison operator to combine Textures1. The Node takes four
inputs. The first two inputs are the Textures to compare. The second two inputs are the result of the
comparison. In Figure 1, Input A is a Noise texture, and Input B is a Gradient texture that is mapped
based on a Falloff texture. The Compare texture looks at the color values of Inputs A and B. Wherever the
color values of A are less than B, a green RGB texture maps to the surface. Wherever the color values of Input
A are equal or greater than the values of Input B, a red RGB texture maps to the surface. This example is
simple, but you can create very complex textures using the Compare texture, in particular when combined with
other Compare textures.
Figure 1: The Comparison texture uses a logical operator to compare two Textures and uses
the result to compare two other Textures
156 — Textures
Cosine Mix Texture
The Mix textures mix two textures together, either linearly or according to a cosine wave. In the example
below, a Checks mix combines with a Gaussian Spectrum using a Cosine Mix texture, and connects to
the Diffuse1 channel of a Diffuse material.
Figure 1: The Cosine Mix texture adds color to a Checks texture
157 — Textures
Falloff Texture
The Falloff map is a Texture node that controls blending two Materials1 depending on the Material2
geometry's viewing angle. The Falloff map can control the blending amount of a mixed Node. The mixed Mode
can be a "Mix Texture" on page 164, or a "Mix Material" on page 51.
Figure 1: Falloff texture parameters
The angle between the eye ray and the shading normal is mapped from (0, 90) to (0, 1). For values larger
than 1, the Falloff node does a gamma correction by using the Falloff Skew Factor as an exponent. Falloff
Skew Factor interpolates between the spectral shades resulting from the Minimum and Maximum values,
which are based on the first and second inputs of a mixed Node.
There are three modes of the Falloff Map:
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.

158 — Textures
Figure 1: Skew Factor = 1, Direction does not apply
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.
Figure 2: Skew Factor = 1, Falloff Direction X = 1
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.
159 — Textures
Figure 3: Skew Factor = 1, Falloff Direction X = 1
Falloff Texture Parameters

Normal - Applicable if the angle between the two directions is 0. This is the map's lightness (0 - 1) at straight-
on viewing angles. When used as a Mix node input, the Minimum Value is the normal spectral shade value
(color range) between the first and second inputs.
Grazing - Applicable if the angle between the two directions is at the maximum. This is the map's lightness (0
- 1) at grazing angles. When used as a Mix node input, the Minimum Value is the grazing spectral shade value
(color range) between the first and second inputs.
Falloff Skew Factor - The relative amount of the Minimum and Maximum Values that are at an angle to the
straight-on view. A value of 0.1 creates almost complete coverage by the Grazing value regardless of viewing
angle, whereas a value of 15 creates almost complete coverage by the Normal value.
While the index value on Glossy1 and Specular2 nodes corresponds to a real-world IOR (Index of
Refraction) value on dielectric Materials, like plastic and glass, the Falloff node works differently because of
this Falloff Skew Factor.
If the Falloff Skew Factor value is 1, then the value is proportional to the angle between the normal and the
camera ray - i.e., if it is viewed from 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 value and mirrors the
power curve.
160 — Textures
_ _
Falloff Direction - The direction vector that is used by the Normal Vs. Vector 90deg and Normal Bs. Vector
180deg modes. For most Materials, the Fresnel effect (the default mode) is the best choice, while Falloff
Direction is for exceptional cases that you can adjust relative to the camera. Changing the Object's rotation will
not change the Falloff Direction's orientation.
Gradient Texture
Gradient textures affect graded linear changes to represent slopes, depth, distance, or color progressions of
Procedural texture maps.
161 — Textures
Figure 1: A Gradient texture node colorizing a Marble texture
Instance Range Texture
162 — Textures
Instance Range textures hold a gradient color with a range from 0 - Maximum ID and prepares this range
to map to geometric instance IDs. Maximum ID should correspond to the total number of instanced geometry
in the scene with the Material1 applied on it. Maximum ID values can spread out to allow a wider range of
values with less-instanced Objects. Any tools that create instanced Objects in Blender® can communicate
with this Node.
Figure 1: Using multiple Array modifiers to apply a gradient across instanced Objects using
the Instance Range texture
Invert Texture
Invert textures reverse the colors or values in a Texture or Procedural map.
163 — Textures
Figure 1: An Invert texture reverses the color values on a Marble texture
Mix Texture
Mix textures mix two Textures1 together. 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
164 — Textures
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.
Figure 1: A red color is mixed with a Marble texture and the mix Amount is set to 50%
Multiply Texture
165 — Textures
The Multiply texture multiplies the values of Textures1 or colors together in an overlay fashion similar to
the Multipy blending mode in Photoshop®.
Figure 1: A red RGB Spectrum texture is multiplied against a Marble texture, and the result
is connected to a Diffuse material2's Diffuse3 channel
166 — Textures
Subtract Texture
The Subtract texture subtracts the value of one texture from another (Figure 1), similar to the Subtract Layer
mode in Photoshop®.
Figure 1: The Subtract texture combines a Marble texture and an orange RGB Spectrum
texture
167 — Textures
Toon Ramp Texture
Toon Ramp textures work with OctaneRender® Toon materials. Toon Ramps can connect to a Toon
material's Diffuse1 Ramp and Specular2 Ramp. It provides color variations across the model's surface.
168 — Textures
Figure 1: A Toon Ramp texture connected to a Toon material's Diffuse Ramp
169 — Textures
Volume Ramp
This is a special Gradient node for Volumes like smoke and fire. You can control a Volume geometry's color
with more precision. A Volume ramp connects to a "Volume Medium" on page 81, which ports the Blender®
OpenVDB1 volume as an OctaneRender® Node. Without the Volume medium, the Volume will not show in
the render. OctaneRender® then applies the Volume medium to the smoke’s domain geometry.
Figure 1: Volume Ramp textures connected to a Volume medium
170 — Textures
Figure 2: The results of the Volume material
The Absorption 1 Ramp input on a Volume medium takes the grid value from a Volume Ramp as input. In
the color gradient, the colors near 0 on the left map low grid values to a custom color (the lowest values map to
white). Higher grid values map to colors on the right of the color gradient. Less-saturated colors cause less-
pronounced absorption. Emission Ramps and Scattering2 Ramps operate in the same way.
Note: Volume Ramps are restricted to static colors for performance reasons (i.e., it is not possible to
attach a series of other texture mappings/generators to colors in the ramps).
There is an important consequence of volume animations specifically related to Volume Ramps: ramps have a
Max Value, which you must set to a reasonable value. This value scales grid values between 0 and 1 so the
ramp can map these back to colors in the color gradient. This is needed because maximum values in the grids
can differ greatly throughout VDB3 sequences. Setting the Max Value too high or too low presents just a subset
of the colors in the gradient that you specify. The maximum values for grids in the current VDB selected display

171 — Textures
in the Volume node's Inspector pane. A good rule of thumb is to choose a value near to these, but you are
free to customize as you like.
Octane Projection
Projections1 are sets of Nodes in the Shader Editor that orient Texture maps on an
Object's surface.
Figure 1: Accessing the Octane Projections from the Shader Editor
172 — Textures
Figure 2: Connecting a Projection to a Texture node
Box Projection
Box projections (aka cube mapping) are an extension of XYZ To UVW mapping. The projection of the cube's
planes are based on the surface's normal direction. Box projections provide a quick way to map a Texture on
any Object without too much distortion, but the seams between the box's Projection planes may be visible
in the render, depending on the surface's shape.
173 — Textures
Figure 1: Several simple shapes using Box projections to map a Texture to their surface
Cylindrical Projection
Cylindrical projections wrap Texture maps on a surface with a cylindrical sshape without too much
distortion. However, the Texture seams may be visible in the render depending on the shape of the surface.
174 — Textures
Figure 1: Several simple shapes using Cylindrical projection to map a Texture to their
surface
Perspective Projection
Perspective projections take the world space coordinates and divides the X and Y coordinates by the Z
coordinate.
175 — Textures
Figure 1: A Texture is mapped to a spherical Perspective projection
Spherical Projection
Spherical projections work with Environment textures and IES1 light distributions. It performs latitude-
longitude mapping for the U and V coordinates. For Procedural textures, the W coordinate is the distance
from the origin.
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/.
176 — Textures
Figure 1: Using Spherical projection to map a Texture to a sphere
When using an Image texture to light a scene with the Sun And Sky node, spherical mapping combined with
a Transform node rotates and translates the Environment sphere's Texture.
UVW Projection
UVW Projection nodes use the UV texture coordinates of a Mesh to map the Texture onto the surface.
You don't always have to connect a UVW projection node to the Texture, as UV projection is the default
mapping method. However, it may be useful for mapping a Texture to a surface that has multiple UV sets. The
UVW projection node has a single UV Set attribute that specifies the UV set needed for the Texture. The
attribute is a numerical value that ranges from 1 - 3.
177 — Textures
Figure 1: UVW Projection parameters
XYZ Projection
XYZ projection maps are also known as planar projection or flat mapping. This Projection map takes the
coordinates in world or object space and uses them as UVW coordinates. For images, only the X and Y
coordinates are relevant, which map to U and V. In other words, the images use flat mapping projected along
the Z axis.
Rotating the mapping around the Z-axis rotates the image around the center, as the UVW rotation would do.
Figure 1: The XYZ Projection applied to various primitive shapes
Triplanar Projection
Triplanar projections work with a Triplanar maps. It takes the coordinates in world or object space and
picks the projection axis depending on the active axis of the Triplanar 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.
Triplanar maps have 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.
178 — Textures
Figure 1: The Triplanar Map node and the Triplanar projection node mapping a Check
texture and an imported Texture to an Object's different projection planes
OSL Delayed UV Projection
The OSL Delayed UV projection node is a scriptable Node that lets you write OSL
scripts using the defined UV projection type.
Figure 1: The OSL UV projection does not have any specific parameters
OSL Projection
179 — Textures
The OSL projection node is a scriptable node that lets you write OSL (Open Shader Language1 ) scripts to
define arbitrary Projection types. It's similar to an OSL texture, but it connects to a Projection input. OSL is
a standard created by Sony Imageworks. To learn about the generic OSL standard, read the OSL Readme and
PDF documentation.
Figure 1: The OSL projection node
There are two options to add scripts for OSL projections. The Internal option lets you open another area in
Blender® for the Text Editor and create a new text file for the OSL script. The External option lets you to
select a pre-coded OSL file from the File Explorer window.
The initial script’s declaration component includes one required output variable with Output Typepoint.
The OSL I/O Type point corresponds to an OctaneRender® Projection attribute node (Box, Mesh, UV,
Spherical, Cylindrical, etc.).
Shader OslProjection (
output point uvw = 0)
uvw = point(u, v, 0);
180 — Textures
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.
For a list of OSL variable declaration I/O Types in the OSL Specification that OctaneRender® supports, refer to
the Appendix topic on OSL Implementation in the OctaneRender® Standalone manual. To learn more about
scripting within OctaneRender® using the Open Shader Language, refer to The Octane OSL Guide.
Octane Transform
Transform nodes provide a set of Nodes in the Shader Editor that move, scale, and
rotate Texture maps on an Object's surface.
Figure 1: Accessing the Transforms from the Shader Editor
2D Transforms
181 — Textures
2D Transforms set the orientation of other Textures1 when you connect it to the Transform input pin on
any given Texture map. 2D Transforms provide planar positioning for Texture maps, unlike the 3D
Transform node, which positions all three axes.
Figure 1: 2D Transformation parameters
3D Transform
3D Transforms set the orientation of other Textures2. It connects to the Transform input pin on any
given Texture map. It provides true 3D positioning for Texture maps, unlike the 2D Transform node, which
provides planar positioning for Texture maps.
182 — Textures
Figure 1: 3D Transform parameters
Rotation Transform
Rotation Transform nodes control rotational values on the X, Y, and Z axes, and you can change the
rotation order.
183 — Textures
Figure 1: Rotation Transform parameters
Scale Transform
Scale Transforms controls the X, Y, and Z axes as they relate to a Texture map's scale on the surface of an
Object.
Figure 1: Scale Transform parameters
Full Transform
184 — Textures
Full Transform is similar to the 3D Transform - it provides Rotation, Scale, and Translation data for
connected Textures1.
Figure 1: Full Transform parameters
Octane Value
Octane Value has a set of Nodes in the Shader Editor that contributes values to other
Texture maps and Nodes.
185 — Textures
Figure 1: Accessing the Octane Value nodes from the Shader Editor
Float Value
Float Values provide float data for a variety of shader-based configurations.
Figure 1: Float Value parameters
186 — Textures
Int Value
Int Value provides integer data that connects to other shader network Nodes.
Figure 1: Int Value parameters
Sun Direction
Sun Direction controls the sun's direction in a Daylight environment node.
187 — Textures
Figure 1: Connecting the Sun Direction node to a Daylight environment
Sun Direction Parameters
Longitude/Latitude - Generates realistic sun settings for the specified geographic

location.
Month/Day/GMT Offset/Local Time - Place the sun in the sky according to the
date/time for the sun at the current longitude/latitude.
Texture Reference
Texture Reference nodes add a texture to a Texture environment node.
188 — Textures
Figure 1: Connecting a Texture Reference node to a Texture environment

node
Rounded Edges
The Rounded Edges node rounds a surface's hard edges at render time. It connects to
an Edges Rounding input on a Material1 node.
189 — Textures
Figure 1: The Round Edge node connected to a Diffuse material1
Displacement
The Displacement2 nodes are located in the Shader Editor under the Octane Tool
category. There are three type of Displacement nodes available in OctaneRender®:
Texture Displacement, Vertex Displacement, and Vertex Displacement Mixer.

190 — Textures
Figure 1: Accessing the Displacement nodes from the Shader Editor window
Texture Displacement
191 — Textures
Displacement 1 mapping utilizes a 2D Texture map in order to generate 3D surface relief. Unlike Bump
and Normal mapping, Displacement mapping provides the illusion of depth, and it displaces point positions
over the surface based on the Displacement texture's light and dark values. The 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 need UV texture coordinates, and the Displacement
map should match the model's UV layout. Procedural textures will not work for Displacement in
OctaneRender® - only Image textures will work, and Procedural textures must be baked prior using a
Baking texture.
Figure 1: A Marble texture is baked and connected to the Texture

Displacement node
Texture Displacement Parameters
Displacement Size/Level Of Detail - Determines the Displacement texture's

resolution.
Displacement Direction - Choose different Displacement vectors.
Filter Type - Selects the Displacement map filter.
Texture - Provides the Displacement map path. Displacement maps are Image textures
generated in other 3D programs.
Mid Level - Defines the displacement shift in Texture value range. Set this value to 0.5
for Image textures that use 50% to represent no displacement. For images that use black
192 — Textures
to represent no displacement (such as 32-bit EXRs), set this value to 0. If you use a digital
sculpting program to generate 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.
Height - Controls the Displacement strength.
Filter Radius - Adjusts the number of nearest pixels to use for filtering. High values
create smoother Displacement maps. This parameter is valid if you enable a Box or
Gaussian filter.
Vertex Displacement
Vertex displacement is a more robust displacement system that does not suffer from the
same limitations as Texture displacement. It works with all Textures1 and
Projections2, including Procedurals, OSL textures, and Images. Vector displacement
also works with Height maps and Vector displacement maps, and you can mix it with
the Vertex displacement Mixer node.
Figure 1: The Vertex displacement connects a Marble texture to a Diffuse

material3
193 — Textures
Vertex Displacement Parameters

Map Type - Choose between Height maps and Vector displacement maps.
Vertex Space - Makes the Displacement 1 Object or Tangent.
Texture - Supports all Texture types, including Images, Procedurals, and OSL textures.
Height - The Displacement height, in meters.
Mid Level - The Image value that corresponds to no displacement. The range is always normalized to (0, 1).
Set this value to 0.5 for Image textures that use 50% to represent no displacement.
Auto Bump Map - Generates an Automatic bump map to achieve fine details without requiring high
subdivision levels. Only supports Height displacement maps.
Subdivision Level - The subdivision level applied to Polygons using this Material2. Overrides the
subdivision level set in Geometry preferences. High values achieve greater displacement detail, but can also
increase rendering and pre-processing times.
Vertex Displacement Mixer
The Vertex Displacement3 Mixer mixes multiple Vertex displacement nodes.
194 — Textures
Figure 1: Vertex Displacement Mixer parameters
Vertex Displacement Mixer Paraemeters

Add Displacement Inputs - Add a new Displacement input to the end of the Node.
Displacement 1 - Connects a Vertex displacement node.
Blend Weight 1 - Controls the connected Vertex displacement node's Mix amount.
Displacement 2 - Connects a Vertex displacement node.
Blend Weight 2 - Controls the connected Vertex displacement node's Mix amount.
195 — Textures
Octane Lighting
There are several ways to light a scene in Blender® with OctaneRender®. OctaneRender® provides complex
environment lighting with the use of the "Daylight Environment" on page 198, a "Texture Environment" below,
and Environment maps for Environment lighting. You can also use "Area Light" on page 208 and "IES
Lights" on page 214 to construct "Mesh Emitters" on page 210.
Figure 1: Lighting sample
Texture Environment
The Texture environment type affects the environment's illumination and color. This Environment type can
add an HDRI1 environment to the scene for illumination. To use a Texture environment, click on the World
tab and navigate to the Octane Environment rollout. From here, you can switch the Environment Type
from Daylight to Texture. When using Texture environments, other attributes for Daylight environments
are disabled.
196 — Octane Lighting

Figure 1: Switching the Environment Type to Texture
Texture Environment Parameters

Texture - Specifies a solid color or an HDRI map as a Texture environment. To use an HDRI file as the
Environment, connect an Image Tex node to a Texture environment node's Texture pin, then load the
image file when you're prompted.
Power - Adjusts the scene's brightness. We recommend leaving this set to 1 and use the Power setting to
brighten or dim the lighting.
Importance Sampling - Enables quicker convergence (noise reduction) for HRDI images by applying
importance to certain areas of the HDRI, which prioritizes areas to resolve sample rays more often than other
areas.
Medium - Creates an Environment medium. This is analogous to a volume geometry that encloses the whole
scene and creating a bubble with inward-pointing normals around the camera such that camera rays properly
enter the Volume. If specified, the Medium applies to a virtual sphere around the camera.

Medium Radius - If you specify a Medium (Absorption 1 or Scattering2), this controls the virtual
sphere's radius created around the camera when the Medium is applied.
Environment nodes like Daylight and Texture have extra options for controlling the Environment's behavior
when used as the Visible environment. When you're using the Node as a Normal environment, these options
are ignored:
l Visable Env Backplate - Uses the Visible environment as a backplate image.
l Visable Env Reflections - The Visible environment overrides the Normal environment when
calculating reflections for Specular3 and Glossy4 materials.
l Visable Env Refractions - The Visible environment overrides the Normal environment when
calculating refractions for Specular materials.
Daylight Environment
OctaneRender® has a powerful Daylight environment system to simulate real-world illumination that consists
of a primary light (sun), indirect light (sky/environment), and atmosphere.


Figure 1: Daylight environment illuniating a scene
You can access the Daylight environment from the World tab, and the settings are located in the
Environment rollout.

Figure 2: Daylight environment parameters
Daylight Environment Parameters

Environment Type - Select the lighting method for the scene’s overall environment.
l Octane Daylight Model - The new daylight model that simulates full-spectrum daylight, which
provides more sky color variation as the sun moves along and bears shorter rays as the sun moves
closer to the normal plane.
l Preetham Daylight Model - The old daylight model that lights a scene with basic spectral radiance
as the sun moves over the horizon at a relative distance from the Object.

l Nishita Daylight Model - Implements atmospheric scattering based on the Nishita sky model and
displays the color variations, which are optical effects caused by the particles in the atmosphere.
l Hosek Wilkie Daylight Model - Produces more realistic and detailed results than other
implementations, in particular hazy conditions and near the horizon.
Sun Direction - The Sun’s X, Y, and Z direction, which is enabled for the Sun Direction daylight type. You can
edit it by clicking and dragging on the Sphere icon (Figure 3). If a Sun Direction node is connected to the
Daylight environment, the Sphere icon will not be available and the sun direction is controlled by Latitude,
Longitude, Month, Day, Local Time, and GMT Offset (Figure 4).
Figure 3: The Sun Direction sphere

Figure 4: A Sun Direction node controlling the sun's placement
Sky Turbidity - Adjusts the sharpness of the sun light's shadows. Low values create sharp shadows (like on a
sunny day) and high values diffuse the shadows (like on a cloudy day).
Power - Adjusts the light's strength. This affects the image's overall contrast and exposure level.
North Offset - Adjusts the scene's actual North direction. This is useful for architecture visualization to
ensure the sun's direction is accurate to the scene.
Sky Color - The sky's base color, used by the new daylight model to customize the spectral shade of light.
This affects the image's overall mood.
Sunset Color - The color of the sky and sun at sunset, used by the new daylight model to customize the
spectral shade of light. This affects the image's overall mood.

Sun Size - Controls the sun's radius in the Daylight environment.

Ground Color - The ground's base color, used by the new daylight model to customize the light's spectral
shade. This affects the image's overall mood.
Ground Start Angle - The angle below the horizon where the transition to the Ground Color starts,
measured in degrees.
Ground Blend Angle - The angle over which the sky color transitions to the Ground Color.
Sky Texture - Connects a Texture that works as the background and ensures that Objects in the scene
accurately reflect it.
Importance Sampling - This toggles the Sky texture's importance sampling, which is like the Texture
environment's importance sampling.
Medium - Accepts an Absorption 1, Scattering2, or Volume medium to create volume/fog effects across
the scene.
Medium Radius - The Environment medium's radius, which acts as a sphere around the camera's position
with the specified radius.
Environment nodes (both Daylight and Texture) have extra options controlling the Environment's behavior
when used as the visible environment. When the Node is used as a Normal environment, these options are
ignored:
Planetary Environment
Planetary environments are flexible Nishita sky models. It is most useful when rendering scenes as they are
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 (Figure 1). It takes into account the
conditions within and beyond the atmosphere of a planetary body and its surroundings in space. Instead of a
single ground color and a sky/sunset color, there is a planetary surface that reflects and emits light. Most
importantly, this Node serves to extend 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, and 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 atmospheric scattering is based on the Nishita sky
model, a physically-based model that displays the color variations that are optical effects caused by the
particles in the atmosphere.
This Environment is not connected to the Camera, and you can zoom the Camera's view of the Objects in the
scene in and out while not affecting the Environment's position in the scene. It is a physically-based model so it
gathers optical depth (transmittance) from the sun position, if the sun's Y Axis position is greater than 0.0,
then it gets colored. If the Y Axis position is less than 0.0, then it won't gather transmittance and becomes
invisible.
Figure 1: An object rendered at a Camera altitude of 100,000
Planetary Environment Parameters

Sun Direction - The Sun’s X, Y, and Z direction, which is enabled for the Sun Direction daylight type. You
can edit this by clicking and dragging on the Sphere icon (Figure 2). If you connect a Sun Direction node to
a Daylight environment, the Sphere icon isn't available and the sun direction is controlled by Latitude,
Longitude, Month, Day, Local Time, and GMT Offset.

Figure 3: The Sun Direction Sphere icon

Figure 4: Using a Sun Direction node to control the sun's placement
Altitude - The camera's altitude. Set this to a very high value in order to view the planet's expansive horizon.
Star Field - A Texture that conveys star fields behind the planet.
Ground Albedo - The planet's surface Texture map.
Ground Reflection - The planet's specular Texture map.
Ground Glossiness - The planetary glossiness.
Ground Emission - The planet's surface Texture map at nighttime.
Ground Normal Map - The planet's Normal map.
Ground Elevation - The planet's Elevation map.
Environment nodes have extra options to control the environment's behavior when it's the visible Environment.
When you use the Node as a Normal environment, these options are ignored:
Visible Environment
You can make Environment maps an environment for lighting and an environment for the background. Apart
from having an HDR image to light the Environment, you can specify a different Environment for the
background and also see that background in reflections.

Figure 1: An Image texture is visible in the reflections while a Daylight environment

illuminates the scene
The Visible environment incorporates reflections and refractions from a second HDRI1 or image. You may
also want this second HDRI to serve as a backplate, and this backplate can be visible or invisible.
The Visible environment node has options for controlling the Environment's behavior when it's the visible
Environment. When you use the Node as a normal Texture environment from the Octane Environment
dropdown, these options are ignored:

Figure 2: A Texture environment visible in the backplate (top), and the same texture visible
in the reflections (bottom)
Area Light
The Area light in Blender® is the only light type from the program that OctaneRender® supports. After
creating the Area light, you can adjust its settings in the Lamp tab.

Figure 1: Area light settings
To use the Area light, connect a Diffuse1 material and a Blackbody or Texture emission to the Light
Output node.

Figure 2: The Blackbody emission is connected a Diffuse material1, which is

connected to the Light output
Mesh Emitters
A Mesh emitter is a Polygon object that emits light into a scene by applying a Diffuse2 material to the Mesh
object, and then connecting a Blackbody or Texture emission node to the Diffuse material3 's Emission
channel.


Figure 1: Emission textures can convert a surface into a light emitter
To use a Mesh as a light source, change its Material1 type to a Diffuse material, then connect an Emission
node to the Diffuse material's Emission pin. There are two types of Emissions2 :

2 The process by which a Black body or Texture is used to emit light from a surface.

l Blackbody - Uses Color Temperature (in Kelvin) and Power to control the light's color and
intensity.
l Texture - Allows any valid Texture type to set the light intensity. This creates interesting effects by
using an Image texture as the source.
Blackbody And Texture Emission Parameters

Texture - Sets the light source's efficiency in real-world values. No light is 100% efficient at delivering the
power at the specified wattage - a 100-watt light bulb does not deliver 100 watts of light.
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.
Surface Brightness - Causes Emitters to keep a constant brightness on the surface, independent of the
Emitter's surface area.
Keep Instance Power - Enabling this option with Surface Brightness disabled and Uniform Scaling
applied to the Object causes Power to remain constant.
Double Sided - Allows Emitters to emit light from the front and back sides.
Distribution - Controls the light pattern. You can set this to a Grayscale or RGB image so that you can load
an Image texture or IES1 file. the Image texture's Projection nodes adjust the light's orientation and
direction.
Sampling Rate - Choose what light sources receive more samples.
Light Pass ID - Captures the Emitter's contribution.
Visible On Diffuse - Enables light source visibility on diffuse surfaces. Blackbody or Texture emission light
sources can 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.

Figure 3: Visible on Diffuse parameter enabled (left) and disabled (right)
Visible On Specular1 - Enables the light source's visibility on specular surfaces, and hides Emitters on
specular reflections/refractions.
Figure 4: Visible On Specular enabled (left) and disabled (right)
Transparent Emission - Light sources cast illuminations on Diffuse objects, even if the light source is on
transparent material.
Cast Shadows - Enables light sources to cast light and shadows on diffuse surfaces, letting you disable 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).
Figure 5: Cast Shadows enabled (left) and disabled (right)
Blackbody Emissions-Only Parameters

Temperature - The temperature (in Kelvin) of the Blackbody's emitted light.

Normalize - Ensures all the normal vectors have the same length for the Blackbody emission to keep the
emitted light's luminance from a Blackbody constant if the temperature varies.
IES Lights
IES1 is a file format that contains the description of a light’s properties. It simulates realistic architectural lights
based on real-world lights sold by vendors. You can obtain IES profiles online - many light manufacturers
provide free IES files to download.
Figure 1: Various IES light profiles shaping the light distribution
You can add IES profiles to an existing light source from the Shader Editor. Connect a Float Image Tex
node to a Blackbody emission's Distribution pin to load the IES file into the Float Image Tex node.

Figure 2: Using the Float Image Tex node to add an IES profile to a light source

Octane Cameras
OctaneRender® for Blender® has five Camera types:
l Thin Lens
l Panoramic
l Baking
l OSL
l OSL Baking
If there are no Cameras present in the scene, create a Blender® Camera and choose a Camera type. To adjust
the Camera's attributes, navigate to the Camera’s properties under the Lens, Camera and Octane Camera
rollouts. The Octane Camera rollout contains attributes for all of the Camera types and each attribute's status
depends on the Camera type you select.
216 — Octane Cameras

Figure 1: Accessing Octane camera parameters from the Camera rollout
Octane Camera Parameters

Lens
Type - Selects the Camera type you want to use.
Focal Length - Adjusts the lens's focal length.
Field of View1 - Sets the horizontal field of view for the Camera in the scene, measured in degrees. Large
values make more of the scene visible from the Camera, and smaller values reduce the amount of visible
scenery.
Lens Shift (X, Y) - Renders images of tall buildings or structures from a similar height as the human eye, but
keeps the vertical lines parallel.
Clipping Start - The distance from the Camera to the near clipping plane, measured in meters. This
parameter helps you get good shots of entire rooms for interior scenes but cannot do so without a very large
field-of-view and keep the camera inside the room. You can position the camera outside the room - lower the
FOV2 and increase the clipping plane distance in front of you until the closest walls are clipped out.
OctaneRender® doesn't alter the geometry, but it alters the Camera's clipping, which means that shadows,
reflections, and refractions are still affected by the clipped geometry.
Clipping End - The distance from the Camera to the far clipping plane, measured in meters. This clips off
Objects in the background starting at this specified distance.
Camera Rollout
Sensor Width - The size of the sensor or film in millimeters.
Octane Camera Rollout

Pan Mode - Used by the Panoramic camera to specify the panoramic projection to use, along with the
Spherical or Cylindrical camera lens. Single-face Cube map projections are available to render one Cube face.
This is useful for animation overlays in stereo panorama renderings.
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.

l FOV X - Sets the horizontal field-of-view in degrees. This sets the Camera's X-coordinate in the scene.
This is ignored when using Cube mapping.
l FOV Y - Sest the vertical field-of-view in degrees. This sets the Camera's Y-coordinate in the scene.
This is ignored when using Cube mapping.
l Keep Upright - The Panoramic camera always orients towards the horizon, and the up-vector stays in
its default vertical direction (0, 1, 0).
Distortion - Adjusts the spherical and cylindrical distortion. The rendered image displays the entire sphere
and uses equidistant cylindrical projection, also known as lat-lon projection.
Pixel Aspect - Squash or stretch the depth-of-field disc and render it to a non-square pixel format like NTSC
or PAL.
Perspective Correction - If the up-vector is vertical, enabling this option keeps vertical lines parallel.
Use F-Stop - Adjusts the aperture-to-focal-length ratio to control the field-of-view and depth-of-field like a
camera.
Autofocus - Keeps focus on the closest visible surface at the center of the image, regardless of the
Aperture1, Aperture Edge, and Focal Depth values. If Autofocus is disabled, you need to define the
depth-of-field focus point relative to an Object in the scene, and you need to define the Camera's distance from
the focus point.
Distance - If Autofocus is disabled, this specifies the Camera's distance to the focus point. Make sure the
Distance attribute encompasses the scene (or the Object in focus), because like the real world, you cannot see
any Objects if Distance is 0, and some Objects won't be visible if the Distance is too short.
Aperture - Represents the radius of the Camera's lens opening, measured in centimeters. Low values have a
wide depth-of-field where everything is in focus.High values create a shallow depth-of-field where objects in
the foreground and background are out of focus.
Aperture Aspect Ratio - Squashes or stretches the depth-of-field disc.
Aperture Edge - Controls aperture edge detection at all points within the aperture, and modifies the bokeh
effect. Lower values give more pronounced edges to out-of-focus Objects affected by the shallow depth-of-
field, like Objects in the foreground and background. High values increase the contrast towards the edge.
Bokeh Side Count - The number of edges making up the bokeh shape.
Bokeh Rotation - The bokeh shape's orientation.
Bokeh Roundedness - The roundedness of the bokeh shape's sides.
Stereo Mode - Enables stereo mode, and gives you options to use off-axis or parallel stereo camera
projections.
Stereo Output - This specifies the output rendered in stereo mode.
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.

l Left - Renders the left-eye image.

l Right - Renders the right-eye image.
l Side-By-Side - Renders the scene as a pair of two-dimensional images.
l Anaglyphic - View renders with red/blue 3D glasses.
l Over-Under - The two-dimensional images are placed one above the other for special viewers.
Stereo Distance - The distance between the left and right eye in stereo mode, measured in meters. This is
also refers to the inter pupillary distance (IPD), stereo interocular distance, or stereo distance. When working
with scenes for virtual reality, the IPD scale unit used by OctaneRender® is not affected by the scene scale
unit. This is intentional, as when the IPD is set, this must remain consistent even when scenes change in scale
or proximity. However, the units used by the IPD in OctaneRender® are also interpreted in meters, so when
checking the Camera attribute, Eye Distance is effectively 0.02, which is its default value equal to 2 cm or 20
mm. For a distance of 65 mm, set the Camera node's Stereo Distance value to 0.065. For realistic depth, use
values between 0.055 and 0.075.
Swap Eyes - Swaps the left and right eye positions when stereo mode shows both.
Stereo Distance Falloff - Used by the Panoramic camera to control how fast the eye distance reduces
towards the poles. This reduces eye strain at the poles when the panorama is viewed through a head-mounted
display. A value of 1 reduces the eye distance from equator to the poles, which creates a relaxed viewing
experience, but this also causes flat surfaces to appear curved. Values smaller than 1 keeps the eye distance
constant for a larger latitude range above and below the horizon, but reduces the eye distance near the poles.
This keeps flat surface flat, but cause more eye strain near the poles. You can reduce the eye distance more by
setting the Pano Blackout Latitude to less than 90 degrees.
Pano Blackout Latitude - Used by the Panoramic camera. This is the minimum latitude that blacks out
areas with higher latitude values the panorama when Stereo Rendering is enabled.
l If set to 90 degrees. nothing blacks out.
l If set to 70 degrees, an angle of 2×20 degrees blacks out at both poles.
l If set to 0, everything blacks out.
Left Stereo Filter/Right Stereo Filter - The left and right filter colors adjust the colors that create the
anaglyphic stereo affect in the render.
Thin Lens Camera
The Thin Lens Camera is the standard photographic camera used to render Blender® scenes. There are two
types to choose from: Perspective or Orthographic. The OctaneRender® Camera uses Blender's Lens
and Camera settings in addition to the active OctaneRender® Camera's attributes. If you choose the
Perspective camera type, OctaneRender® considers the lens's Focal Length (Figure 1). If you choose the
Orthographic camera type, OctaneRender® considers the lens's Orthographic Scale (Figure 2).

Figure 1: The default Perspective setting
Figure 2: The default Orthographic setting
Thin Lens Camera Parameters

Lens Rollout
Type - These options change based on the Camera type selected.
Focal Length - The lens's focal length.
Field Of View1 - This sets the horizontal field-of-view for the camera in the scene, measured in degrees.
Large values make more of the scene visible, and smaller values reduce the amount the amount of visible
scenery.
Clipping Start (Near Clip Depth) - The distance from the Camera to the near clipping plane, measured in
meters. This parameter helps you get good shots of entire rooms for interior scenes but cannot do so without a
very large field-of-view and keep the camera inside the room. You can position the camera outside the room -

lower the FOV1 and increase the clipping plane distance in front of you until the closest walls are clipped out.
Clipping End (Far Clip Depth) - The distance from the Camera to the far clipping plane, measured in
meters. This clips off Objects in the background starting at this specified distance.
Camera Rollout
Sensor Width (Width, Height, or Size) - The size of the sensor or film in millimeters.

Distortion - This adjusts the spherical and cylindrical distortion. The rendered image displays the entire
sphere and uses equidistant cylindrical projection, also known as lat-lon projection.
Pixel Aspect (Pixel Aspect Ratio) - Squash or stretch the depth-of-field disc and render it to a non-square
pixel format like NTSC or PAL.
Perspective Correction - If the up-vector is vertical, enabling this option keeps vertical lines parallel.
camera.
the focus point.

Stereo Mode - Enables stereo mode, and gives you options to use off-axis or parallel stereo camera
projections.
Stereo Distance Falloff - Used by the Panoramic camera to control how fast the eye distance gets reduced
towards the poles. This reduces eye strain at the poles when the panorama is viewed through a head-mounted
display. A value of 1 reduces the eye distance from equator to the poles, which creates a relaxed viewing
experience, but this also causes flat surfaces to appear curved. Values smaller than 1 keeps the eye distance
constant for a larger latitude range above and below the horizon, but reduces the eye distance near the poles.
This keeps flat surface flat, but cause more eye strain near the poles. You can reduce the eye distance more by
setting the Pano Blackout Latitude to less than 90 degrees.

Panoramic Camera
The Panoramic Camera renders Spherical environment maps, Stereo cube maps, and other types of
unconventional images used for virtual reality applications and stereo vision goggles or head-mounted displays
in immersive experiences. Panoramic cameras use Blender's Lens and Camera settings in addition to
OctaneRender's Camera attributes that are active for this Camera type to render images with horizontally
elongated fields-of-view. It differs from a Thin Lens camera because it adjusts the Field Of View1
attributes and the selection of Panoramic Modes for wide format renders (Figure 2).
Figure 1: Panoramic camera's Lens and Camera settings

Figure 2: Panoramic camera Field Of View attributes and Panoramic modes
Lens Rollout
Clipping Start - The distance from the Camera to the near clipping plane, measured in meters. This
parameter helps you get good shots of entire rooms for interior scenes but cannot do so without a very large
field-of-view and keep the camera inside the room. You can position the camera outside the room - lower the
FOV1 and increase the clipping plane distance in front of you until the closest walls are clipped out.
Clipping End - The distance from the Camera to the far clipping plane, measured in meters. This clips off
Objects in the background starting at this specified distance.
Camera Rollout
Sensor Width - The size of the sensor or film in millimeters.


Distortion - Disabled when using a Panoramic camera.
Pixel Aspect - Disabled when using a Panoramic camera.
Perspective Correction - Disabled when using a Panoramic camera.
camera.
the focus point.
Stereo Mode - Disabled when using a Panoramic camera.

Stereo Distance Falloff - Controls how fast the eye distance reduces towards the poles. This reduces eye
strain at the poles when the panorama is viewed through a head-mounted display. A value of 1 reduces the
eye distance from equator to the poles, which creates a relaxed viewing experience, but this also causes flat
surfaces to appear curved. Values smaller than 1 keeps the eye distance constant for a larger latitude range
above and below the horizon, but reduces the eye distance near the poles. This keeps flat surface flat, but
cause more eye strain near the poles. You can reduce the eye distance more by setting the Pano Blackout
Latitude to less than 90 degrees.
Baking Camera
The Baking camera works with Texture baking. This is a process bakes scene lighting into a Texture map
based on an Object's UV texture coordinates. The resulting Texture can map back onto the surface to create
realistic lighting in a real-time rendering environment. This technique is often used in game engines and virtual
reality for creating realistic environments. The Baking camera works with the Baking Layers available in the
Render Layers1 window. More information on baking layers can be found in the Octane Baking Layers topic
in this manual.
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.

Figure 1: The Baking Camera options
Baking Camera Parameters

Revert Baking - Flips the Camera's rays and uses the Mesh as a camera to render the rest of the scene.
Use Baking Position - Uses the provided position for baking position-dependent artifacts.
Backface Culling - Bakes the back geometry faces.
Edge Noise Tolerance - Specifies an edge noise tolerance, which removes hot pixels appearing near the
edge UV geometry. Values close to 1 do not remove any hot pixels, while values close to 0 remove all hot
pixels.
Baking Group ID - Specifies the Group ID to bake. By default, all Objects belong to the default Baking
Group number 1. You can arrange new baking groups to use Object layers or Object layer maps, similar to the
way render layers work.
Size - The number of pixels added to the UV map edges. Due to interpolation when mapping a Texture to a
Mesh, sometimes a black edge appears because the Texture is black (no data) beyond the UV mesh. To avoid
this, add padding around the baked data's edges. The padding size is specified in pixels.

Figure 2: Padding samples
UV Set - Select the set of UV coordinates to use for the Baking camera.
UV Box Min. X And Y - The coordinates for the origin of the bounding region in UV space for baking.
UV Box Size X And Y - The size of the bounding region for baking in UV space.
OSL Camera
The OSL Camera node is a scriptable node. You can create custom camera types for any purpose (such as
VR1 warping) with OSL (Open Shader Language2 ) scripts. It is a flexible camera used to match the
rendering to the existing footage. One OSL Camera is one OSL compilation unit, which contains one shader, so
it has one output attribute pin that connects to a Render Target node's Camera input pin. OSL is a standard
created by Sony Imageworks. To learn about the generic OSL standard, information is provided from the OSL
Readme and PDF documentation.
Figure 1: The OSL Camera Option
The OSL Camera node is enabled from Blender's Shader Editor window. There are two options for OSL
cameras: the OSL camera, and the OSL Baking camera. See the Octane Baking Layers topic in this manual
1 Immersively engaging and experiencing depth perception in a three dimensional scene through stereo vision
goggles and head-mounted displays.

for more details on these Cameras. Add the OSL camera to a Material1 (Figure 2) to access the Material and
corresponding OSL camera node in the Camera tab (Figure 3).
Figure 2: Adding an OSL Camera node to an Octane material


Figure 3: Accessing the OSL camera material and OSL camera node in the OSL Camera
rollout
There are two options to add scripts for the OSL texture. The Internal option is available by opening another
area in Blender® for the Text Editor, creating a new text, and writing the OSL script. The External option
lets you to select a pre-coded OSL file from the File Explorer window.
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;
dir = transform("camera", "world", dir);
For a list of OSL variable declaration input/output types in the OSL Specification that OctaneRender® supports,
refer to the Appendix topic on OSL Implementation in the OctaneRender® Standalone manual. To learn more
about scripting within OctaneRender® using OSL, see to The Octane OSL Guide.

The Octane Imager
The Octane Imager settings are accessible from the Octane Camera Imager (Render Mode) rollout in
the Camera properties.


Figure 1: The Octane Imager settings
Octane Imager Properties

Order - Determines the order for Response, Gamma1, and LUT. 3D LUTs are defined for sRGB input
values, so you'll want to apply the custom LUT last. However, there might be 3D look-up tables for linear input
data, in which case you'll want to apply the custom LUT first.
Response Type - A list of preset measured camera response curves to provide various predefined color
grades to a rendering.
White Balance - Specifies the color for adjusting the tint to produce and simulate the relative temperature
cast throughout the image by different light sources.
Exposure - Controls the scene's exposure. Low values create a dark scene, while high values create a bright
scene.This attribute has no effect on any of the render layer passes.
Gamma - Adjusts the render's gamma and controls the image's overall brightness. Images that are not
properly corrected can look bleached out or too dark. Adjusting this value changes the image brightness and
also the ratios of red:green:blue.
Vignetting - Increases the amount of darkening in the corners of the render. It can increase the reder's
realism. Vignetting is not applied to any of the beauty passes except the main pass.
Saturation - Adjusts the amount of color saturation in the render.
White Saturation - Specify the color to adjust the image's tint to produce and simulate the relative
temperature cast throughout the image by different light sources.
Figure 2: Image rendered with a colored tint

Figure 3: Image rendered with the default white balance
Hot Pixel Removal - Removes bright pixels (fireflies) during the rendering process. While many regular
pixels can disappear if the render progresses as normal, this parameter removes bright pixels at a lower
sample-per-pixel ratio.
Minimum Display Samples - The minimum amount of samples that OctaneRender® calculates before
displaying the image. This feature reduces the noise while navigating, and is useful for real-time walkthroughs.
When using multiple GPUs, we recommend setting this value as a multiple of the number of available GPUs for
rendering. If you’re rendering with four GPUs, set this value to 4 or 8.
Highlight Compression - This reduces burned-out highlights by compressing them and reducing their
contrast.
Figure 4: Highlight Compression samples
Maximum Tonemap Interval - The maximum interval between tonemaps in seconds.

Dithering - Adds random noise, which removes banding in very clean images.

Pre-Multiplied Alpha - Multiplies any output pixel's transparency value by the pixel's color.
Neutral Response - Prevents the camera response curve from tinting the render result.
_
Figure 5: A Material1 rendered with no response curve and a Gamma of 2.2 (left); rendered
with the Agfacolor HDC 200 curve and a Gamma of 1 (center); and rendered with the
Agfacolor HDC 200 curve and Neutral Response enabled (right)
Disable Partial Alpha - Make partially-transparent pixels (Alpha > 0) fully opaque.
Custom LUT - Uses a custom color LUT.
Spectral AI Denoiser - Renders noise-free images in a fraction of the time. To use the Denoiser,
enable this feature from the Camera Imager.
Enable Denoising - 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 - Makes the spectral AI denoiser denoise Volumes in the scene. Otherwise, Volumes are
not denoised by default.
Denoise On Completion - Denoises beauty passes once at the end of a render. Disable this option while
rendering with an interactive region.
Minimum Denoiser Samples - The minimum number of samples-per-pixel until the denoiser activates.
Only valid when the denoise once option is false.
Maximum Denoiser Samples - The maximum interval between denoiser runs (in seconds). Only valid
when the denoise once option is false.
Blend - Blends the original image into the denoiser output. A value of 0.f results in a fully denoised image, and
a value of 1.f results in the original image. Values in between produce a blend between the denoised image
and the original image.


Rendering
In order to successfully output an image or animation using OctaneRender® for Blender®, the rendering
process must consider camera properties, render layers, render passes, and numerous other processes
covered in this section.
Kernels
A Kernel is the central part of the rendering engine that interfaces with the rendering hardware.
There are four major rendering Kernels1 in OctaneRender®: Direct Lighting, Path Tracing, PMC and
Info Channel. Each Kernel has its own strengths and weaknesses, so deciding the best Kernel to use is
the render engine.
238 — Rendering
Materials1 and lighting in the scene, how you want the final image to look, and how fast you want to render
the scene.
The properties are located in the Octane Kernel rollout of the Render properties.
Figure 1: Octane Kernel rollout
Direct Light
The Direct Light kernel is used for faster preview rendering. Direct Lighting is not unbiased and will not yield
photorealistic results. However, because of its speed, it is ideal for rendering animations or stills, depending on
the project's demands.
239 — Rendering
Figure 1: Direct Light settings
240 — Rendering
Direct Light Parameters

Clay Mode - Overrides all Materials1 in a scene.
Max. Samples - Sets the maximum number of samples per pixel before the rendering process stops when
producing the final rendered image. High values produce cleaner renders. For quick animations and scenes
with predominantly direct lighting, a low amount of samples (500 - 1000) may suffice. In scenes with lots of
indirect lighting and Mesh lights, a few thousand samples may be required to obtain a clean render.
Max. Preview Samples - The maximum number of samples rendered during Render Mode previews in
Blender’s 3D View Editor window.
GI Mode - There are five different GI modes to choose from.
l None - Includes direct lighting from area lights. The rest of the image areas receive no contribution,
and will be black.
l Ambient Occlusion - Standard ambient occlusion.
l Diffuse2 - This is an indirect diffuse, with a configuration to set the number of indirect diffuse bounces.
This gives a GI quality that is in-between Direct, AO, and Path Tracing, without caustics and a
decent realistic quality (much better than AO), but much faster than Path Tracing or PMC. It is very
good for quick finals and animations, and is similar in some ways to brute force indirect GI in other
engines.
Specular3 Depth - Controls the number of times a ray refracts before dying. Higher values generate slower
render times, but more color bleeding and more details in transparent materials. Low values introduce
artifacts, or turn some refractions into pure black.
Glossy4 Depth - Controls the number of times a ray reflects before dying. Higher values generate slower
render times. Values lower than 4 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 - Determines the shadow ray offset distance.
Filter Size - Film splatting width to reduce aliasing.

241 — Rendering
AO Distance - The ambient occlusion's distance in units. Always check if the amount is correct relative to the
scene scale. For example, you don’t need 3 units if your Object is a small toy. However, if your model is a
house or something large, then increase this value.
AO Ambient Texture - This is the ambient occlusion Environment texture, which works with AO rays. If
not specified, then OctaneRender® uses the Environment instead.
Alpha Shadows - Lets 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 - Renders the first surface as a white Diffuse material1 . Irradiance Mode works like
Clay Mode, but it's applied to just the first bounce. It disables the Bump channel and makes samples that are
blocked by backfaces transparent.
Max Subdivision Level - The maximum subdivision level applied on the scene's geometry. A value of 0
disables subdivision.
Alpha Channel2 - Removes background images or colors created by the Daylight environment node from
the rendered image without affecting any lighting cast by the Environment. This is useful if the 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 appear as noise artifacts, but these edges are not included in the Alpha
Channel itself.
Keep Environment - Works with the Alpha Channel setting. It makes the background visible in the rendered
image and keeps the Alpha Channel.
AI Light - Enables AI lights. AI light functionality learns from the scene, and rendering becomes more efficient
as more samples are rendered. When used with Adaptive Sampling3 , AI Light becomes even more
effective as it learns pixel and light importance in a scene, and some pixels are no longer sampled.
AI Light Update - Enables dynamic updates to the AI lighting.
Light IDs Action - Determines whether the L.IDs (Light IDs) and L. Inv (Light Inverse) buttons enable or
disable lights with matching Light Pass ID numbers.
Path Termination Power - High values increase render speed, but also increase noise in dark areas.
Coherent Ratio - High values increase the render speed, but they also introduce low-frequency noise
(blotches), which may require a few hundred or even a few thousand samples-per-pixel to go away,
depending on the scene.
Static Noise - Keeps noise patterns stable between frames.

transparent.
3 A method of sampling that determines if areas of a rendering require more sampling than other areas instead
of sampling the entire rendering equally.
242 — Rendering
Parallel Samples - This controls how many samples OctaneRender® calculates in parallel. Small values
require less memory to store the sample's state, but rendering is slower. High values need more graphics
memory, but rendering is faster. The change in performance depends on the scene and the GPU1
architecture.
Maximum Tile Samples - Controls the number of samples-per-pixel that OctaneRender® will render until it
takes the result and stores it in the film buffer. Higher values create results less often in the film buffer.
Minimize Net Traffic - OctaneRender® distributes the same tile to the net Render Nodes until it reaches the
max samples-per-pixel ratio for that tile, and then it distributes the next tile to Render Nodes. Work done by
local GPUs is not affected by this option. A Render Node can merge all of its results into the same cached tile
until the Primary Render Node switches to a different tile.
Adaptive Sampling - Stops sampling pixels that reach a specified noise threshold, and the kernel focuses its
processing on areas that still need refinement.
Noise Threshold - When Adaptive Sampling is enabled, Noise Threshold specifies the smallest relative noise
level. When a pixel's noise estimate is less than this value, its sampling switches off. Good values are in the
range of 0.01 - 0.03.
Min. Adaptive Samples - Specifies the minimum samples to calculate before adaptive sampling kicks in.
The higher you set the Noise Threshold, the higher you should also set this value to avoid artifacts.
Group Pixels - When Adaptive Sampling is enabled, this parameter specifies the number of pixels that are
handled together. When all of a group's pixels reach the noise level, sampling stops for all of these pixels.
Expected Exposure - This value should match the image's exposure, or set it to 0 (the default value) to
ignore these settings. Adaptive Sampling uses this parameter to determine bright and dark pixels, which
depends on the exposure setting in the Octane Imager. If the value is not 0, Adaptive Sampling reduces the
noise estimate for very dark areas in an image. It also increases the Min. Adaptive Samples limit for very dark
areas because very dark areas find paths to light sources irregularly, resulting in over-optimistic noise
estimates.
Deep Image2 - Enables rendering deep pixel images used for deep image compositing.
Deep Image Passes - Includes render passes in deep pixel rendering.
Max. Depth Samples - Used when Deep Image rendering is enabled. This sets the maximum number of
depth samples per pixel. This is covered in more detail in the Deep Image Rendering topic of this manual.
Depth Tolerance - Used when Deep Image rendering is enabled. The depth samples whose relative depth
difference falls below this tolerance value merge together. This is covered in more detail the Deep Image
Rendering topic of this manual.
Toon Shadow Ambient - The ambient modifier to control Toon shading.
2 Renders frames with multiple depth samples in addition to typical color and opacity channels.
243 — Rendering
Emulate Old Volume Behavior - When enabled, older scenes built with earlier OctaneRender® versions
render by using the former volume rendering system. When disabled, OctaneRender® uses the new volume
rendering system, and you must set up any pre-existing Volumes again to render correctly. This is disabled by
default if there no pre-existing Volumes in the scene.
Path Tracing
The Path Tracing and PMC kernels are the best choices for rendering physically based, photorealistic
images. The increase in quality slows down render times. Path Tracing may have difficulty rendering scenes
that use small light sources and may not render proper caustics well. In these situations, the PMC kernel is the
better choice. Testing renders using each of the Kernels1 is the best way to determine which Kernel is the
best choice for a given scene.
the render engine.
244 — Rendering
245 — Rendering
Figure 1: The Path Tracing kernel settings
Path Tracing Parameters

Max. Preview Samples - The maximum number of samples rendered during Render Mode previews in
Blender’s 3D View Editor window.
Max. Diffuse2 Depth - The maximum number of times a ray can bounce, reflect, or refract off of a diffuse
or very rough surface. Higher values mean longer render times but more realistic results. For outdoor renders,
a good setting is around 4. For lighting interiors with natural light, you need higher values like 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 usually not necessary.
Max. Glossy3 Depth - Controls the number of times a ray reflects before dying. Higher values generate
slower render times but more color bleeding and more details in transparent material. Values lower than 4
introduce artifacts or turn some reflections into pure black.
Max. Scatter Depth - The maximum path depth for calculating scattering.
Ray Epsilon - Determines the shadow ray offset's distance.
Filter Size - The film splatting width to reduce aliasing.
Alpha Shadows - Lets any Object with transparency (Specular4 materials, Materials with Opacity settings
and Alpha channels) to cast a shadow instead of behaving as a solid object.
Caustic Blur - Reduces noise in caustic light patterns. High values create softness in the caustic patterns.

246 — Rendering
Figure 2: A comparison of caustic light patterns rendered with different Caustic Blur
settings
GI Clamp - Clamps each path's contribution to the specified value. Reducing this value reduces the noise
(fireflies) caused by sparse but strong contributing paths by removing energy.
Figure 3: A comparison of renders using different GI Clamp values
Irradiance Mode - Renders the first surface as a white Diffuse material. Irradiance Mode works like Clay
Mode, but it's applied to just the first bounce. It disables the Bump channel and makes samples that are
blocked by backfaces transparent.
247 — Rendering
Max. Subdivision Level - The maximum subdivision level applied on the scene's geometry. A value of 0
disables subdivision.
Alpha Channel1 - Removes background images or colors created by the Daylight environment node from
the rendered image without affecting any lighting cast by the Environment. This is useful if the 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 appear as noise artifacts, but these edges are not included in the Alpha
Channel itself.
Keep Environment - Works with the Alpha Channel setting. It makes the background visible in the rendered
image and keeps the Alpha Channel.
AI Light - Enables AI lights. AI light functionality learns from the scene, and rendering becomes more efficient
as more samples are rendered. When used with Adaptive Sampling2 , AI Light becomes even more
effective as it learns pixel and light importance in a scene, and some pixels are no longer sampled.
AI Light Update - Enables dynamic updates to the AI lighting.
Light IDs Action - Determines whether the L.IDs (Light IDs) and L. Inv (Light Inverse) buttons enable or
disable lights with matching Light Pass ID numbers.
Path Termination Power - High values increase render speed, but also increase noise in dark areas.
Coherent Ratio - High values increase the render speed, but they also introduce low-frequency noise
(blotches), which may require a few hundred or even a few thousand samples-per-pixel to go away,
depending on the scene.
Static Noise - Keeps noise patterns stable between frames.
Parallel Samples - This controls how many samples OctaneRender® calculates in parallel. Small values
require less memory to store the sample's state, but rendering is slower. High values need more graphics
memory, but rendering is faster. The change in performance depends on the scene and the GPU3
architecture.
Maximum Tile Samples - Controls the number of samples-per-pixel that OctaneRender® will render until it
takes the result and stores it in the film buffer. Higher values create results less often in the film buffer.
Minimize Net Traffic - OctaneRender® distributes the same tile to the net Render Nodes until it reaches the
max samples-per-pixel ratio for that tile, and then it distributes the next tile to Render Nodes. Work done by
local GPUs is not affected by this option. A Render Node can merge all of its results into the same cached tile
until the Primary Render Node switches to a different tile.
transparent.
248 — Rendering
Adaptive Sampling - Stops sampling pixels that reach a specified noise threshold, and the kernel focuses its
processing on areas that still need refinement.
Noise Threshold - When Adaptive Sampling is enabled, Noise Threshold specifies the smallest relative noise
level. When a pixel's noise estimate is less than this value, its sampling switches off. Good values are in the
range of 0.01 - 0.03.
Min. Adaptive Samples - Specifies the minimum samples to calculate before adaptive sampling kicks in.
The higher you set the Noise Threshold, the higher you should also set this value to avoid artifacts.
Group Pixels - When Adaptive Sampling is enabled, this parameter specifies the number of pixels that are
handled together. When all of a group's pixels reach the noise level, sampling stops for all of these pixels.
Expected Exposure - This value should match the image's exposure, or set it to 0 (the default value) to
ignore these settings. Adaptive Sampling uses this parameter to determine bright and dark pixels, which
depends on the exposure setting in the Octane Imager. If the value is not 0, Adaptive Sampling reduces the
noise estimate for very dark areas in an image. It also increases the Min. Adaptive Samples limit for very dark
areas because very dark areas find paths to light sources irregularly, resulting in over-optimistic noise
estimates.
Deep Image1 - Enables rendering deep pixel images used for deep image compositing.
Deep Image Passes - Includes render passes in deep pixel rendering.
Max. Depth Samples - Used when Deep Image rendering is enabled. This sets the maximum number of
depth samples per pixel. This is covered in the Deep Image Rendering topic of this manual.
Depth Tolerance - Used when Deep Image rendering is enabled. The depth samples whose relative depth
difference falls below this tolerance value merge together. This is covered in more detail the Deep Image
Rendering topic of this manual.
Toon Shadow Ambient - The ambient modifier to control Toon shading.
Emulate Old Volume Behavior - When enabled, older scenes built with earlier OctaneRender® versions
render by using the former volume rendering system. When disabled, OctaneRender® uses the new volume
rendering system, and you must set up any pre-existing Volumes again to render correctly. This is disabled by
default if there no pre-existing Volumes in the scene.
PMC Kernel
249 — Rendering
The PMC kernel is a custom mutating unbiased kernel designed specifically for GPU1 rendering. Rendering
with PMC creates physically accurate lighting and caustic effects. It produces the highest quality results, but it
also takes the most time to render, depending on the scene.
250 — Rendering
251 — Rendering
Figure 1: PMC kernel settings
PMC Kernel Parameters

Max. Preview Samples
This is the maximum samples rendered during Rendered Mode previews in Blender’s 3D View Editor window.
Max Diffuse2 depth

The maximum number of times a ray can bounce/reflect/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 (the sun and the sky) you will need higher settings 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 usually not necessary.
Max Glossy3 depth

Controls the number of times a ray can be refracted before dying. Higher numbers mean 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.
Max Scatter Depth

The maximum path depth for which scattering is calculated.
Ray Epsilon

252 — Rendering
Determines the shadow ray offset distance.
Filter Size
Film splatting width to reduce aliasing.
Alpha Shadows
This setting allows any object with transparency (specular materials, materials with opacity settings and alpha
channels) to cast a shadow accordingly instead of behaving as a solid object.
Caustic Blur
Is used to reduce noise in caustic light patterns. High values may result is softness in the caustic patterns
(Figure 2).
Figure 2: A comparison of caustic light patterns rendered with different Caustic blur
settings.
GI Clamp
This 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 strongly contributing paths. Reducing this value
decreases noise by removing energy (Figure 3).
253 — Rendering
Figure 3: A comparison of renders using different GI Clamp values.
Irradiance mode
This renders the first surface as a white diffuse material. Irradiance mode works similar to clay mode however
it is only applied to the first bounce. It disables the bump channel and makes samples that are blocked by back
faces transparent. IRradiance mode is possible for Direct Light, PMC and Path Tracing Kernels1 .
Max Subdivision Level

The maximum subdivision level that should be applied on the geometry in the scene. A value of 0 disables
subdivision.
Alpha Channel2
Removes background images or colors created by the Daylight environment node from the rendered image
while not affecting any lighting cast by the environment. This is useful if the 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 appear as noise artifacts, but these edges are not included in the Alpha Channel itself.
the render engine.
transparent.
254 — Rendering
Keep Environment
Used in conjunction with the Alpha Channel setting. It makes the background visible in the rendered image
while also keeping the Alpha Channel.
AI Light
Enables AI lights. AI light functionality learns from the scene, and rendering becomes more efficient as more
samples are rendered. When used with Adaptive Sampling1 , AI Light becomes even more effective as it
learns pixel and light importance in a scene, and some pixels are no longer sampled.
AI Light Update
Enables dynamic updates to the AI lighting.
Light IDs Action

This parameter determines whether the L.IDs (Light IDs) and L. Inv (Light Inverse) buttons enable or disable
lights with matching Light Pass ID numbers.
Path Termination Power

High values increase render speed, but lead to higher noise in dark areas.
Exploration Strength
This specifies how long the kernel investigates good paths before it tries to find a new path. Low values can
create a noisy image while larger values can create a splotchy image.
Direct Light Importance

The direct light importance makes the kernel focus more on paths with indirect light. For example, imagine
sunlight through a window that creates a bright spot on the floor. If the direct light importance is 1, the kernel
would sample this area a lot, although it becomes clean very quickly. If the direct light importance is reduced,
the kernel reduces its efforts to sample that area and focuses more on more tricky areas that are hard to
render.
255 — Rendering
Max Rejects
This can control the “bias” of the render. By reducing the value, the result will be more biased, but the render
time will be shorter.
Parallelism
This is used to reduce the number of samples that are investigated in parallel to make caustics appear earlier
at the expense of some performance.
Work Chunk Size

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

The ambient modifier to control Toon shadowing.
Emulate Old Volume Behavior

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
rendering 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.
Info Channel
The Info channel kernel evaluates scene data and renders the data as color images that can be used in
post processes for compositing (Figure 1).
256 — Rendering
Figure 1: The Info Channel settings.
The following channel settings are available with some of the most commonly used channels defined (Figure
2).
257 — Rendering
Figure 2: The Info Channel types.
Maximum Samples
This sets the maximum number of samples per pixel before the rendering process stops when producing the
final rendered image. The higher the number of samples per pixel, the cleaner the render. For quick
animations and scenes with predominantly direct lighting, a low amount of samples (500-1000) may suffice. In
scenes with lots of indirect lighting and mesh lights, a few thousand samples may be required to obtain a clean
render.
Maximum Preview Samples

This is the maximum samples rendered during Rendered Mode previews in Blender’s 3D View Editor window.
258 — Rendering
Info Channel Type

This parameter specifies the various passes that can be rendered and used in the compositing process.
Ray Epsilon
Determines the shadow ray offset distance.
Filter Size
Film splatting width to reduce aliasing.
AO Distance
The distance of the ambient occlusion in units. Always check if the amount is correct relative to scene scale. For
example, you don’t need 3 units if your object is a small toy. However, if your model is a house or something
large, you can increase the value.
Alpha Shadows
This setting allows any object with transparency (specular materials, materials with opacity settings and alpha
channels) to cast a shadow accordingly instead of behaving as a solid object.
Opacity Threshold
Sets the opacity value minimum of the surfaces when rendering with AO Alpha Shadowing enabled.
Z-Depth 1 Max
Determines the maximum depth as shown in the shading of the Z-depth info channel pass.
UV Max
Sets the maximum value that can be shown for the texture coordinates.
UV Coordinate Selection
Determines the UV set number to be used.
1 A measure of object distances from the camera typically represented as a grayscale image.
259 — Rendering
Max Speed
Speed mapped to the maximum intensity in the motion vector channel.
Sampling Mode - Enables motion blur, depth-of-field, and pixel filtering modes.
l Distributed Rays - Enables motion blur and DOF1 along with pixel filtering
l Non-Distributed With Pixel Filtering - Disables motion blur and DOF, but leaves pixel filtering
enabled.
l Non-Distributed Without Pixel Filtering - Disables motion blur and DOF, as well as disabling
pixel filtering for all render passes, except for render layer mask and ambient occlusion.
Bump And Normal Mapping

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

Enables backface highlighting in the Wireframe channel.
Max Subdivision Level

The maximum subdivision level applied on the scene geometry. A value of 0 disables this parameter.
Alpha Channel2
Removes the background and renders it as transparent (zero alpha). This is useful if you want to composite the
render over another image and don't want the background to be present.
Parallel Samples
Controls how many samples OctaneRender® calculates in parallel. If you set it to a small value,
OctaneRender® requires less memory to store the sample's state, but it renders a bit slower. If you set it to a
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)
transparent.
260 — Rendering
high value, then OctaneRender® needs more graphics memory, making rendering faster. The change in
performance depends on the scene and the GPU1 architecture.
Maximum Tile Samples

Controls the number of samples per pixel that OctaneRender® will render until it takes the result and stores it
in the film buffer. A higher value means that results arrive less often in the film buffer.
Minimize Net Traffic

If enabled, OctaneRender® distributes the same tile to the net Render Nodes until it reaches the max samples-
per-pixel for that tile, and then it distributes the next tile to Render Nodes. Work done by local GPUs is not
affected by this option. A Render Node can merge all of its results into the same cached tile until the Primary
Render Node switches to a different tile.
Deep Image2
Enable rendering deep pixel images used for Deep Image compositing.
Deep Render Passes3

Includes render passes in deep pixel rendering.
Max. Depth Samples

Used when Deep Image rendering is enabled. This sets the maximum number of depth samples per pixel. This
is covered in the Deep Image Rendering topic of this manual.
Depth Tolerance
Used when Deep Image rendering is enabled. The depth samples whose relative depth difference falls below
this tolerance value are merged together. This is covered in the Deep Image Rendering topic of this manual.
3 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
fundamental visual components such as diffuse, ambient, specular, etc..
261 — Rendering
Adaptive Sampling
The Adaptive Sampling1 parameter is a rendering option that disables sampling for pixels that reach a
specified noise threshold, which allows the kernel to focus its processing on areas that still need refinement.
The Adaptive Sampling options are found in the Octane Kernel rollout for the Direct Light and Path Tracing
kernels.
Figure 1: The Adaptive Sampling options.
Adaptive Sampling
Stops sampling pixels that reach a specified noise threshold, which allows the kernel to focus its processing on
areas that still need refinement.
Noise Threshold
When Adaptive Sampling is enabled, Noise Threshold specifies the smallest relative noise level. When the
noise estimate of a pixel becomes less than this value, sampling switches off for this pixel. Good values are in
the range of 0.01 - 0.03. The default is 0.02, which is pretty clean.
Min. Adaptive Samples

Specifies the minimum samples to calculate 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 large initial error. The higher you set the noise
threshold, the higher you should also set Min. Adaptive Samples to avoid artifacts.
262 — Rendering
Group Pixels
When Adaptive Sampling is enabled, Pixel Grouing specifies the number of pixels that are handled together.
When all pixels of a group have reached the noise level, sampling will stop for all of these pixels.
Expected Exposure
This parameter should be about the same value as the image exposure, or 0 (the default value) to ignore these
settings. This parameter is used by Adaptive Sampling to determine the pixels that are bright and those that
are dark - which depends on the exposure setting in the Octane Imager. If the value is not 0, Adaptive
Sampling reduces the noise estimate of very dark areas of the image. It also will also increase the Min.
Adaptive Samples limit for very dark areas, because very dark areas tend to find paths to light sources
irregularly, resulting to an otherwise over-optimistic noise estimate.
Render Passes
OctaneRender’s Render Passes1 allow users to isolate 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 photo-realistic images.
Render Passes are processed differently by different render engines. Since OctaneRender is a separate render
engine it also uses its own set of Render Passes and these can be found under Blender’s Layer Properties
tab (Figure 1).
263 — Rendering
Figure 1: Render passes settings.
The Preview Pass Type selects the pass that will rendered on the live render view (Blender 3D View
window Rendered Viewport Shading method) or in the final render view (F12). The default Combined pass is
the main beauty pass.
Render Layers
Render layers allow users to separate 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 on it. The layers allow different
264 — Rendering
objects to be rendered into separate images where in turn some normal render passes may be applied. The
To set up a scene for rendering in layers, assign an Render Layer ID for respective objects in the scene
(Figure 1).
Figure 1: Accessing the Render Layers1 for a scene object.
1Render 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
265 — Rendering
Enable the Render Layers feature in the Layer Properties window . If the respective Layer Numbers (Object
Layer IDs) has been set correctly for each object, Octane can render separate passes with only those objects
that share an ID (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Activate Render layers.
The main beauty pass will then render 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.
Provided that the objects relations are correctly placed, Octane Render Layers may be used in conjunction
with Octane Render Passes1 to get a specific render layer pass. The available render layer passes are:
l Layer Shadows: combines black shadows (in the alpha channel) with colored shadows (in the RGB
channels) in a single image. The blend mode is multiply. It captures the same shadows as the matte
material with the difference that the matte materials captures all shadows in the alpha channel and
hence doesn’t keep color information.
266 — Rendering
l Black layer shadows: Captures black shadows, i.e points on the non-active layer geometry where
light is fully blocked by objects on the active layer. If light is blocked, shadows are always captured
regardless of the material that receives the shadow. It’s assumed that the object that receives the
shadows has a white diffuse material. e.g. shadows cast on a polished mirror like surface would not be
visible in the render but we capture them in the shadow pass anyway. This pass only uses the alpha
channel and should be composed in via the normal blend mode (regular alpha blending).
l Layer 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.
OctaneRender distinguishes 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 basically what the matte material is capturing and can be composed using normal
alpha blending.
Colored shadows are shadows that are cast by specular materials with the Fake shadow option enabled.
The corresponding colored shadow layer pass needs to be composed onto the background using multiplication.
The shadow layer pass will capture both black and colored shadows and also needs to be composed onto
the background using multiplication.
The Octane render layers work a little bit differently than the Blender Render layer. In fact, Octane render
layers work at another level of Blender and they are distinct from Blender scene render layers.
Mode
This determines the mode that should be used to render layers.
l Normal – The beauty passes contain the active layer only and the render layer passes (shadows,
reflections, etc.) 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.
l 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.
l 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 still record the side effects
of the active render layer. This is useful to capture all side effects without the active layer obstructing
those.
267 — Rendering
l 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, etc.) will be recorded in the render layer
passes.
Octane Baking Layers
Baking Layers bake Material1 and Lighting data directly to texture maps. The baking process requires the
use of a baking camera (Figure 1) and a Baking Layer ID specified in the Object Properties (Figure 2).
268 — Rendering
269 — Rendering
Figure 1: Activating the Baking Camera in the Camera Type window.
Figure 2: Setting Baking Layer IDs in the Object Properties window.
270 — Rendering
ORBX and Alembic Export
The Integrated Plugin has its own Alembic1 and ORBX2 export feature in case users would like to export
the scene into the Standalone Edition for additional flexibility and final rendering. The Orbx exporter will
produce a .ORBX file which includes the geometry and materials used in the scene. The ORBX file may only be
used in the Octane ecosystem.
The Alembic exporter will export an Alembic file which is going to store all the geometric information available
in the scene, including the objects animated transformations and deformations, instances and hair. The
resulting Alembic file can be used in the Standalone Edition or in other 3D applications. Remember that the
Alembic file is designed to share geometric information, so shading information is never stored in the .abc file.
Additionally it is possible to export a full animated .Orbx file that store all the Alembic information plus all the
scene shading and render settings, ready to be used in Standalone Edition. The Octane ORBX and Octane
Alembic export is available in Blender’s File -> Export options (Figure 1).
1 An open format used to bake animated scenes for easy transfer between digital content creation tools.
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
independent 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.
271 — Rendering
Network Rendering
This chapter provides a detailed description of Octane’s Network Rendering1 feature. If you are already
familiar with Octane’s network rendering concepts, you may go straight to the summarized steps to deploy this
feature in your workflow.
Overview
1 The utilization of multiple CPUs or GPUs over a network to complete the rendering process.
272 — Rendering
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.
Conceptually 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 Primary
Render Node and one or more Render Nodes on different computers. The OctaneRender instance that drives
the rendering is referred as the “Primary Render Node” and the OctaneRender instances that are helping are
referred as the rendering “Render Nodes”.
Since an OctaneRender slave currently requires an activated Standalone license, it is advisable to run the
Standalone 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 Primary Render Node 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 firewall for home/work networks on the Primary Render Node. If that does not
help, also try switching off the firewall on the slave computer for home/work networks.
Primary Render Node, Render Nodes and Daemons

The Standalone version or the octane.exe act as Primary Render Node and a special console version of
OctaneRender, octane_slave.exe, can run on other computers as Render Nodes. 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 Primary Render Node is pointless.
273 — Rendering
The OctaneRender network render slave is fairly dumb and all the render data processing is actually done on
the Primary Render Node 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 Render Nodes can also be different since the communication between the machines is cross
platform. No data is stored on the Render Nodes’ 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 Render Nodes 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 Primary Render Node), monitors it and
stops it (on request by a Primary Render Node). 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 Primary
Render Node requests it. The daemon also listens for the “heartbeat” 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.
IMPORTANT: The Octane version for the Slave must be the same version as the plugin you are using
(ie. if you are using version OctaneSever 3.06.x – xx.xx of the plugin, you must run the slave for
OctaneSE 3.06.x).
The Slave Daemon

The Slave Daemon is initiated using the batch script _install_daemon.bat on the slave computer. During the
setup, it will ask if the user wants to use all GPUs or only a sub-set and on which port the daemon should listen
to for Primary Render Node requests. After that, the daemon will be resident on that machine and it will be
active at all times.
When a daemon is invoked by a Primary Render Node, the slave is quickly launched to get some information
about the number 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 Primary Render Nodes (there could be multiple Primary
Render Nodes 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 Primary Render Nodes. If it
does not, it can have the following reasons:
l The network rendering in the Primary Render Node is not enabled.
l The daemon is listening on a different port than the Primary Render Node is scanning. In your case both
are 48000, so that’s fine.
The Windows firewall keeps the Primary Render Node from connecting to the daemon or the daemon from
responding to the Primary Render Node. 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
274 — Rendering
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 Primary Render Node.
Only when you enable a daemon in the Primary Render Node settings, the slave gets actually launched and will
eventually appear in the status bar of the Primary Render Node. One daemon can be activated only by one
Primary Render Node at a time. If daemon is currently “occupied” by another Primary Render Node the user
will see the daemon state change accordingly.
Steps to Deploy Octane Network Rendering

1. Set up the Render Nodes. Install Standalone Editions on the Render Nodes, make sure that these are of
the same version as the OctaneServer installed in Primary Render Node.
2. On each of the Render Node machines, navigate to the installation folder of the Standalone Edition and
locate the following files:
l _install_daemon.bat
l _run_installed_daemon.bat
3. On the Render Node machine, install the slave daemon by running the file called _install_daemon.bat.
Follow the prompts until the installation is confirmed.
4. On the Render Node machine, run the slave daemon by initiating the file called _run_installed_
daemon.bat
5. Back on the Primary Render Node, run the Blender Plugin’s OctaneServer if it is not already running.
Then Navigate to the Octane's Network Preferences window through Blender's interface to enable the
Network Rendering feature. The Primary Render Node's OctaneServer should be able to pick up the
heartbeat of the Octane slave application sent through the network and tap into the gpus of the Render
Node.
275 — Rendering
276 — Rendering
While on the Render Node, you will notice on the Octane_Slave window at the Render Node will contain
some new lines indicating when the Primary Render Node (Blender Plugin’s OctaneSever component)
has picked up this connection.
Finally, close Network Preferences window and render with Octane Blender Edition. When generating a
final render (F12) or useing the live render view (Blender 3d View window -> Rendered Viewport
Shading method), you should see the net GPUs accounted for:
277 — Rendering
Turning off the Network Rendering Feature

The Blender plugin’s OctaneServer component is always listening for the presence of any active Render Node.
The only way to turn off the Network Rendering Feature therefore is to stop the octane slave process at the
Slave machine. You can do this by doing <CTRL-C> on the Octane Slave Daemon Window at the Render Node
machine.
Uninstalling the Octane Slave Daemon is not necessary if you are planning to use the Network Render Feature
again. But should you need to uninstall it, just navigate to the installation folder of the Standalone Edition on the
Render Node machine to locate and run the file called _uninstall_daemon.bat.
278 — Rendering
Octane Out Of Core
Out of Core textures allow for use of more textures than would fit in the graphic memory (VRAM) by keeping
them in the host memory (RAM). This means that as the CPU accommodates requests to access the host
memory, CPU usage will increase and any RAM occupied with out-of-core textures will not be available to other
applications. The Out of Core parameters can be accessed from the Out of Core rollout in the Render window
(figure 1).
Figure 1: Accessing the Out of Core settings in the Render window.
When using Out-Of-Core textures on Render Nodes via the Octane Network Rendering1 Feature, enough
RAM is also required for the Render Nodes. For net render Render Nodes, users can specify the out-of-core
memory options during the installation of the daemon. When specifying this for the Render Nodes, the out of
core memory amount should be entered in bytes, not Gbytes.
1 The utilization of multiple CPUs or GPUs over a network to complete the rendering process.
279 — Rendering
Effects
Effects can include a large range of features and tools. Various environmental effects, scene-building tools,
and animation techniques are discussed in the articles in this section such as"The Octane Post Processor"
below"Hair And Fur" on page 283 rendering, and "Motion Blur" on page 286
Figure 1: Hair and fur used to generate blades of grass in a scene.
The Octane Post Processor
The Post Processing1 Effects provide various tools to enhance render results after the rendering process
has been completed. This feature is accessed as one of the rollouts under the Camera Object Data Properties
tab (Figure 1). Post-processing effects added via the Octane Postprocessor rollout will not cause the engine to
re-render.
1 Effects such as Bloom and Glare that are applied after a scene has been rendered.
280 — Effects
Figure 1: Accessing the Post Processing effects.
Enable Checkbox
This is a boolean value used to enable or disable post-processing effects on the resulting render. Post-
processing is disabled by default.
Cutoff
Applies bloom/glare to pixel values above the Cutoff value.
Bloom Power
Controls the size of the glow originating from an emitter, the size of the halo of light originating from the sun
and/or concentrated light on reflective glossy materials to add a bloom effect to the rendered image.
281 — Effects
Glare Power
Controls the size of the visible rays originating from an emitter, the size of the glare originating from reflective
glossy materials at a point where concentration of light is at the highest to add a glare effect to the rendered
image.
Glare Ray Count

Controls the number of visible rays radiated or reflected.
Glare 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 adjusted and 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
affecting the visible spectrum relative to the source on the scene. The shift is evident by a color change, similar
to the Doppler Effect, as the distance travelled by the ray from its source increases or decreases.
Example of added post processing effects:
282 — Effects
l Bloom Power: 50
l Glare Power: 20
l Glare Ray Amount: 2
l Glare Rotation Angle: -90
l Glare Blur: 0.0010
Hair And Fur
OctaneRender® for Blender will render Blender hair and fur directly provided an Octane shader is applied to
the surface that is generating the hair particles (Figure 1).
283 — Effects
Figure 1: Blender hair particles rendered with Octane.
The is a custom Octane Hair Settings rollout in the Particles window that provides additional control for
the hair system such as root and tip thickness (Figure 2).
284 — Effects
Figure 2: Accessing the Octane Hair Settings in the Particles window.
The root to tip color can be controlled further by connecting an Octane Gradient Texture to the Diffuse1
pin on an Octane shader node. An Octane W Texture must then be connected to the Texture pin on the
Octane Gradient Texture node (Figure 3).
285 — Effects
Figure 3: The proper node connections to control hair strand color from root to tip.
Motion Blur
Blurring is a phenomenon common in photography especially when capturing fast-moving objects, it may
result either when the camera has moved thereby the focal point when the camera shutter opened is no longer
the same by the time the shutter is closed (camera blur) or when the object is moving too fast that the
camera’s shutter speed is not fast enough to capture a sharp image of it (object motion blur). In CG where
objects are simply modeled and rendered, the images may be all sharp since the computer is actually able to
generate all frames. Blurring effects are generally simulated through a variety of settings during the rendering.
In OctaneRender® for Blender, blur effects are applied through the Motion Blur1 rollout (Figure 1) and there
needs to be animated geometry that is either a Movable or a Reshapable Object Mesh Type.
1 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.
286 — Effects
Figure 1: Accessing the Motion Blur properties.
The Shutter Time is the shutter speed of the camera, this parameter determines the duration of the shutter
or the period of exposure and it is specified as a fraction of the frame. When transitioning a scene from the
Plugin to the either Standalone Edition or ORC, the Shutter parameter value is converted to a percentage of
time relative to the duration of a single frame. This equation holds true where the source of the scene is a
plugin edition.
Motion Blur Shutter parameter from plugin editions to ORC:
(plugin's shutter value) * (fps) * (100) = SE and/or ORC Shutter Percent value
Shutter Alignment
287 — Effects
This specifies how the shutter interval is aligned to the current time. The alignment of the blur can therefore be
`before`, `symmetrical` or `after` the shutter was triggered and this is applicable to each frame thereafter
relative to the given frame rate.
SubFrame Start/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 percentages 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).
288 — Effects
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.
289 — 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
290 — 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.
291 — 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.
292 — 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.
293 — 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.
294 — 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.
295 — 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.
296 — 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/.
297 — 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.
298 — 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..
299 — 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.
300 — 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
301 — 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
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.
302 — Glossary
Index
A
adaptive sampling 242, 248, 255, 262

alpha channel 39, 51, 59, 71, 138, 242, 248, 266
aperture 218, 221, 225
baking camera 226, 268
daylight environment 23, 188, 198, 207, 254

daylight model 200
devices 2, 12
diffuse material 36, 72, 75, 100, 109, 114, 118, 125, 132, 149, 166, 190, 193, 210, 242, 254, 267
drivers 2
field of view 217, 220, 223

FoV 217, 220, 224
gamma 46, 49, 62, 71, 118, 132, 140, 155, 158, 234
glossy material 41, 53
graphics card 2
hardware 2, 238
HDR 206
IES 176, 212, 214

imager 232, 243, 249, 263
installation 1, 4, 6, 8, 16, 275, 279
303 — Index
interface 34, 275
kernels
direct lighting 238-239
info channel 238, 256
path tracing 54, 57, 75, 238, 241, 244, 254, 262
PMC 54, 57, 75, 238, 241, 244, 249
lights 22, 65, 200, 214, 241, 246, 252, 258
materials 21, 34, 36, 41, 47, 51, 54, 60, 65-66, 73, 76, 93, 98-101, 104, 107, 119, 121, 158, 168, 198, 203,
206-207, 238, 241, 246, 252, 259, 266, 271, 281
mix material 51
Octane material 229

OpenVDB 51, 71, 82, 89, 170
ORBX 271
out of core 279
panoramic 216, 222-223

panoramic camera 217, 222-223
post processing 280
render layers 226, 238, 264

render target 228
sampling 197, 203, 212, 242, 248, 255, 260, 262

specular material 47, 71
304 — Index
sun 56, 177, 187, 198, 252, 281
texture environment 189, 196, 203, 208

textures 2, 34, 39, 44, 62, 70, 106-108, 110, 113, 115-116, 121, 125, 128, 130, 133, 135-136, 138, 141,
146-148, 150, 152-153, 156-157, 161, 163-164, 166, 168, 170, 176, 182, 185, 192-193, 211, 279
thin lens 216, 219, 223, 231
Unity Lights
Area Light 208
Point light 65
Unity settings 11, 16-17, 22, 46, 51, 60, 71, 75, 112, 116, 188, 199, 208, 219, 223, 232, 240, 246, 252, 257,
263-264, 271, 275, 279, 284, 286
virtual reality 219, 222-223, 226

VR 228
z-depth 259
305 — Index

Blender Plug in Octane

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Blender Plug in Octane

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Cover image: "In the arms of Morpheus" by Enrico Cerica

OctaneRender® for Blender Plugin Manual

Installation and Overview 1

Rendering For The First Time 19

Turbulance Texture Parameters 132

Subtract Texture 167

Vertex Displacement Parameters 194

Baking Camera 226

Installation and Overview

The plugin version describes the following information:

1 — Installation and Overview

Hardware And Software Requirements

Looking To Buy A New GPU For OctaneRender®?

2 — Installation and Overview

l The Blender OctaneRender Edition

l Microsoft® Windows® 7 or higher (64-bit)

NVIDIA® cuDNN Library File

3 — Installation and Overview

Installing On Windows® Systems

To install OctaneRender® for Blender®:

4 — Installation and Overview

Figure 1: Running the Blender® installer

Figure 2: Installer window

Figure 3: Running the OctaneServer® installer

5 — Installation and Overview

Figure 4: OctaneServer® installer window

6 — Installation and Overview

7 — Installation and Overview

Uninstalling OctaneBlender® and OctaneServer

To uninstall these programs, follow these steps.

Initiating OctaneRender® Inside Blender®

8 — Installation and Overview

Figure 1: Signing in to authenticate the OctaneRender® for Blender® plugin

Figure 2: The Octane icon in the Windows® tray

9 — Installation and Overview

Figure 3: Enabling the OctaneRender® engine

Figure 4: Selecting the Octane option

Figure 1: A "not activated" message

10 — Installation and Overview

Figure 2: OctaneServer® activation status

Figure 3: Re-authenticated OctaneServer®

11 — Installation and Overview

Figure 1: The Device Preferences button

12 — Installation and Overview

Figure 2: Selecting GPUs from the OctaneRender Devices Preferences window

13 — Installation and Overview

Authentication And Internet Access

Exiting Or Closing The

14 — Installation and Overview

Signing In To The Octane Licensing System

Figure 1: OctaneRender Activation window

15 — Installation and Overview

Figure 2: Signing out

16 — Installation and Overview

HTTP Proxy Support

Proxy Server Configuration From System Settings

OctaneRender® can obtain its proxy configuration several different ways.

17 — Installation and Overview

From The WinHTTP Configuration

1. Open System Preferences.

l https_proxy: Specifies a proxy server for HTTPS network traffic.

18 — Installation and Overview

Rendering For The First Time

Figure 1: New geometry