Cinema 4D Tutorial - AOVs Deep Dive (Octane)

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Today we'll go over (almost) every single AOV in Octane, how it looks like, and what it does. This information is relevant to any rendering engine really, since AOVs are commonly used by many 3d apps.
Bringing AOVs into your workflow can help you fine-tune your renders to get an even more impressive look than your basic beauty render, help speed up your work by allowing very extensive post-compositing editing, and can help you quickly identify possible issues in specific channels by being able to isolate them.
00:00 - Intro
00:52 - Scene Setup
01:08 - Enabling AOVs
03:22 - Cryptomattes
05:09 - Irradiance
05:21 - Light Direction
05:33 - Noise
05:41 - Post Processing
05:52 - Shadow
06:19 - Diffuse
06:35 - Diffuse Direct
06:51 - Diffuse Indirect
07:20 - Diffuse Filter
07:35 - Emitters
07:50 - Environment
08:04 - Reflection
08:09 - Reflection Filter
08:32 - Reflection Direct/Indirect
08:45 - Refraction
09:03 - Refraction Filter
09:19 - Subusrface Scattering
09:42 - Transmission
09:50 - Transmission Filter
10:07 - Volume
10:29 - Volume Emission
10:36 - Volume Mask
10:41 - Volume Z-Depth
12:41 - Custom AOV
14:54 - Global Texture
15:20 - Denoiser Remainder
15:30 - Denoiser Diffuse Direct/Indirect
15:42 - Denoiser Reflection Direct/Indirect
15:58 - Denoiser Emissions
16:02 - Denoiser Volume
16:14 - Denoiser Volume Emissions
16:20 - AO
17:16 - Baking Group ID
17:36 - Diffuse Filter (Info)
17:54 - Index of Refraction
18:16 - Light Pass ID
18:35 - Material ID
18:52 - Motion Vectors
19:58 - Normal (Geometric)
20:18 - Normal (Shading)
20:39 - Normal (Smooth)
20:45 - Normal (Tangent)
21:03 - Object ID
21:38 - Object Layer Color
21:50 - Opacity
22:16 - Position
22:36 - Reflection/Refraction Filer (Info)
22:46 - Render Layer ID
22:52 - Render Layer Mask
22:59 - Roughness
23:18 - Texture Tangent
23:38 - Transmission Filter (Info)
23:45 - UV Coordinates
23:59 - Wireframe
24:05 - Z-Depth
24:53 - Light
25:48 - Light Direct/Indirect
26:26 - Final AOV Settings
28:03 - AOV Node Editor
29:55 - Outro

[@gustavoferreira2951]

i dont get tired of saying how iconic and helpful you are! thanks guyyyy

[@NewPlastic]

Hah I'm the Octane queen Thanks Gustavo!

[@metulski1234]

So true!!!

[@SlayeRFCSM]

I just can't even guess how did you know that I have searched exactly YESTERDAY this sort of video :) Huge thanx as always for very rich and valuable content!

[@NewPlastic]

I just read minds. Your card was 7 diamond.

[@JoniKukkohovi]

Super helpful! Thanks and nice to see you back in action.

[@NewPlastic]

My pleasure!

[@cgfx2421]

Thank you so much for your hard work and amazing focus on details. It was like a breath of fresh air and saved my project.. 🙏

[@NewPlastic]

Man that's amazing. Thank YOU!

[@tomcoben]

Seriously great info, thanks so much for this, definitely saving this video for future reference.

[@NewPlastic]

Yup even I will probably have to go back to it every now and then

[@user-hy7uj1cb4q]

I recently changed the renderer to Octane and this video is a huge help. Thank you

[@NewPlastic]

Love to hear that!

[@alamsheikh3578]

My guy your tutorials are a Big frickin help. Thankyou so much!

[@NewPlastic]

I'm your guy!

[@kitsizz]

12 secs into the video but i already know i've gotta thank you

[@NewPlastic]

Haha 24 seconds in you'll wanna kill me tho

[@vladan.Poison]

thank you for this DEEP dive.. When rendering to PW, Show Passes will show them in picture viewer , thus enabling you to see what will actually be saved in your multilayered file. If its off, the data will still be written but you will have only the beauty pass in the PW.

[@NewPlastic]

Interesting, are you sure? I always see the passes in the PV, but maybe it's always on. Thanks!

[@vladan.Poison]

.. i meant Render view not PV.

[@NewPlastic]

@@vladan.Poison Right right, that makes more sense. Never noticed it, so good to know!

[@zackmotion]

"Ok Octane crashed" sounds like just another normal day 😂

[@NewPlastic]

Unfortunately, every click my brain is constantly preparing for a crash. I'm traumatized.

[@nakix_x3422]

Big ups to you!!!

[@NewPlastic]

And to you as well sir

[@guckmyman]

You the man!

[@NewPlastic]

Nah you are!

[@avaantgarbdesign8396]

incredible thank you

[@NewPlastic]

You got it

[@junejane6655]

What a perfect guide for me. thank yo0u so much

[@NewPlastic]

My pleasure bud

[@anastasiaantoshkina7720]

Thank you so much!

[@NewPlastic]

Pazhalsta!

[@ManualMashups]

How do you get the post processing setting show in the actual render? I cannot figure it out. It only shows in the octane render view. But when I go to send it to the picture viewer, it does not show any of the post processing.

[@MVonUtube]

Thank you for this video! Is there no way to render an OAV that contains only the shadow from a shadow catcher? My compositing needs are simple but that's the most obvious thing I would regularly need. It puzzles me that it would be missing. Even before AOVs, you had to do a separate render pass, unchecking "seen by camera" on other objects in order to render only the shadow and not the object casting it, but this workflow made no sense then either. It's weird this would be overlooked again in a completely new compositing system.

[@davehedgehog9795]

This video helped me greatly. Thank you!

[@NewPlastic]

My pleasure!

[@colinwilloughby4321]

Yooo great tuts as always my guy! Am I crazy or does changing the color management to use ACES or OCIO not affect the way the AOVs render out. They appear in the realtime preview with correct color space, but then when I render them out, they're just using the standard color management profile. I don't know if I'm missing something. My buffer is set to LDR (8-bit) Color Space is set to Output RGB, like you suggest in your OCIO tut, but my AOV post effect is rendering as though its just the standard colorspace (HDR/sRGB).

[@user-fs9wv2gv2j]

Have you had issues using the motion vector and it not displaying right in AE. It looks right in the Octane viewport but when its rendered out its much more rainbow like than the more solid colors it displays in your example and what I see in the Octane viewport render. I have all the motion blur check boxes check, I am using Transform/vertex in the Octane object tag. Is it because of the OCIO ACES workflow?

[@BongbokCG]

Thank you👍

[@NewPlastic]

You got it bud

[@andreyobrien9581]

you are best!

[@NewPlastic]

You are!

[@drbellojr]

is the cryptomate working now? It used to be a nightmare changing ids every frame for animation...

[@allexrain]

And another great tutorial, thanks man! I have a question, maybe you or somebody in comments can help me. Just imagine, I need to mask/hide part of the object in the scene, like I did it in After Effects, how to do it in Octane? Thanks. BTW Happy Holydays!

[@NewPlastic]

Allex! totally missed this comment, what do you mean mask it, like render only a certain part? There's an option in Octane to render only a section of the LiveViewer. Look into Render Region in the Octane Renderer settings in the Main tab.

[@zadvornyros]

02:30 - if you leave Multilayer File off for passes the software like AE will read and render the scene faster instead of packing all passes into one huge (130mb+) files

[@NewPlastic]

Yeah true, AE sucks at stacking ExRs. I actually haven't noticed a huge difference when importing single files vs multilayer files but I should do a real test to see!

[@folders____]

Thankyou!

[@NewPlastic]

Yup!

[@noexchavez]

tyty

[@NewPlastic]

ywyw

[@prettygrotesk254]

thank you

[@NewPlastic]

Thank YOU!

[@ktrzr]

Hello, I would like to create cryptomatte AOV passes on an object-1 which is behind a specular object. On some angles it can extract a cryptomatte but on other angle, it create the cryptomatte only on the specular object, and I cannot see (with cryptomatte) the object-1 behind. Do you know if there is a way around?

[@NewPlastic]

Unfortunately cryptomattes can't see behind transparent objects. It sucks, hopefully it'll change in the future.

[@kalacolella605]

Hey there! Your tutorials are my bible! Thanks so much for sharing. Quick question, do you have an idea how to remove fireflies from the transmission AOV? Everything looks good when using my denoised beauty, but when I add the transmission layer it starts looking very noisy

[@NewPlastic]

Hey! Yeah you're gonna have to up the samples if you want a cleaner transmission AOV, but you can also use the Denoised Remainder AOV, which is a denoised version of of the Transmission and Subsurface Scattering channels combined. If you have nothing in the SSS channel then it'll be only the Transmission info and it'll be denoised.

[@kalacolella605]

@@NewPlastic yas! I knew you'd had a solution. Thanks so much!

[@westex13]

Is there a way to render only a object id aov without the system rendering the whole scene ?

[@NewPlastic]

That's a great question, if I have to render a data pass only I just set the samples in the Kernel to the lowest number, turn down bounces wherever I can and render the AOV. It'll have to calculate the Beauty as well but at least it'll do it very fast.

[@elissitdesign]

I wish you used Redshift. Is there a specific reason for choosing one over the other? Considering how integrated RS is now to C4D.

[@NewPlastic]

Yeah that's a great question, I picked up Octane in 2019 after trying Arnold for a year and the C4D Physical Render for like 2 years. And I just stuck with Octane cuz it's powerful and Redshift was still in its diapers. A couple of months ago I realized RS has some really powerful potential for C4D for the reason you mentioned so I also picked it up and started integrating it into my workflow. I now have videos about RS along with Octane, but honestly RS has still got a LONG way to go in terms of procedural node setup. It's just, very much behind. Octane has a really vast array of nodes capable of building a really sophisticated, fully procedural setup. And even tho I still have major issues with is (Blender's node system is even stronger), RS's node system is like a 15 year old kid trying to figure out how to upgrade his kickflip into a treflip while Octane is already doing Treflips boardslides down a 4 stair handrail.

[@mjaroszcom]

Great! Anybody knows if this functionality (with all those presets) are available in Blender?

[@NewPlastic]

This should all be available in Blender and any other 3d program

[@noramiki613]

Great tutorial! Not sure if I am missing something but I can't see how to only render the AOV. Any help?

[@NewPlastic]

Just don't fill out the regular C4D render location, just type a location for the AOVs. When you render Cinema will ask you if you're sure since it's thinking that you're not saving the render but just click yes

[@noramiki613]

@@NewPlastic Ah, right. Super thanks!

[@yebutonu]

Is there any very simple way you can explain the Render Layer + Layer AOV (e.g. Layer Black Shadow) workflow? Or some kind of manual or reference you can show? I'm doing exactly what you said render layer-wise (combining CG with real life stuff), but I have no idea how to set it up. Back in 2020 I used this workflow no problem, but now I have absolutely no idea!

[@yebutonu]

Nevermind! I figured it out haha. I forgot about the whole Octane ID 1 default bs business (simply set my render layer to 2 with octane object tags, and voila!). Also wow, how you can combine layer render with other AOV stuff (e.g. custom matte masks) is pretty cool and fast the more I look into it. Thanks for this video, got me in the right direction!

[@NewPlastic]

Hah ok great to know it worked! Yes that ID 1 thing is hella annoying.

[@skilldomideaddead5909]

Hello friend, greetings from Spain, I have been using the ACES configuration since I saw your tutorial and I am very happy with it, but now to do this with AOVS, is it compatible with ACES? I can't get it, can you help me? Gracias

[@NewPlastic]

It should be compatible, you have to convert from ACES to sRGB in your post-compositing software

[@skilldomideaddead5909]

@@NewPlastic thanks. When I render for the animation with the AOVS passes, the main render is not seen with the visualization that appears in the octane live viewer, that's why it said if it was compatible, because it appears as if I were doing it with another configuration, not with Aces. I create animations and I do the postproduction in after effects but I never used AOVS passes in my animations and I want to start doing it, I don't know if I'm doing something wrong

[@NewPlastic]

@@skilldomideaddead5909 Watch my ACES tutorial to see how to render ACES right. You can bake the look into the image or you can render it in ACES color profile and convert it to sRGB in post. I have a video coming up about how to convert it to sRGB in post, hopefully I'll release it ASAP.

[@masonthompson3284]

Patrons seen it first 💅🏾

[@NewPlastic]

You know it buddy!

[@tik3d]

We need to do the compositing in After Effects

[@NewPlastic]

Nuke or Fusion are better at post-comping but After Effects works for me, you can also use Photoshop

[@herzoglegrand9051]

Show pass checked let you preview your passes in the liveviewer

[@NewPlastic]

D'oh, thanks! Didn't even notice it

[@norbertss85]

localpath/$prj its work

[@NewPlastic]

Oh damn ok, I'll test it out, thanks!