Silverwing Quick Tip: Octane Attribute Node (For Easy Vertex Color / Vertex Map Handling)

[@itsknowone]

Awesome! Definitely helpful and not underwhelming. These tips are actually really useful

[@3rdDim3nsn3D]

"If we take a look at the shader its a bit complex" me: 😳 Thanks for this awesome quick tip raf! Pretty neat little node 🙂

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey, thanks a lot. Ha ha... as shading artist I definitely overdo it sometimes with how complex I make my nodes 😇

[@3rdDim3nsn3D]

@@SilverwingVFX youre welcome buddy;) But yes i can definetly understand that node madness sometimes😄 But you just simply killed the node editor haha. Keep it up man, and stay safe! Greetz from Niedersachsen ;)

[@bulba1561]

you've really shown me that there is so much more to learn about octane. thank you

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey thanks. Great you found that tut helpful. If you have any future suggestions, please feel free to tell me.

[@bulba1561]

@@SilverwingVFX id like to see a video about how topology affects materials in octane

[@SilverwingVFX]

@@bulba1561 Hey, thanks for your suggestion. What do you want to know in general? Are there any problematic experiences you had in the past? Or what made you choose that topic? Thanks for your answer in advance!

[@bulba1561]

@@SilverwingVFX ive noticed that sometimes the c4d cloner and octane scatter will have weird, missing patches with certain models. i also want to know how to have optimal topology for the dirt/curvature node.

[@madlowles]

Legend, thank you SO MUCH. Have a sphere with the displacement animated by a noise and wanted to get the texture to animate with it. I thought the best way would be to simply add a vertex map to drive the Diffuse channel but it crashes C4D instantly. The alternative was putting the noise straight into diffuse which wasn't animating when played... this method worked perfectly. Cannot thank you enough!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there, thank you very much for your long comment. Great to read that you got your setup to work. Not sure exactly what you did and how my tut helped here. But I am very glad you got something out of it 😇 🙌

[@Tomydurand]

Hey that's the tip you give during the live of Cornelius! Thanks again!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Ha ha ha I was wondering if someone would notice. Indeed. Seeing the positive reactions with Corneliuses crowd, I thought it might be a good idea for this week 😊

[@mortazaviii]

Thank you Raphael,please keep these awesome tips coming!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you. Will do!

[@learn2share461]

It also seems to be the only way that octane is not making C4D crashed when you use the new color vertex map tag. Also, very efficient and more stable. Thanks for this, I was really getting me thinking of leaving octane for Redshift. :)

[@coledorais3097]

so grateful for the knowledge, you saint! thank you!

[@Sjoerdish]

Thx so much for another helpful quicktip. Always makes me happy to see you post one. Would you consider making one about udim workflow (image tiles). It’s quite hard to understand all the details.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey thank you very much. Makes me happy to see you happy ha ha. About the suggestion: That might be a good one. Though familiar with the topic I don´t actually use Udim´s. As (as mentioned in the tut) I am using a semi- / half-procedural workflow for shading usually. Mostly because full PBR textures weigh so heavy in the GPU memory.

[@Sjoerdish]

@@SilverwingVFX I see. Lately Udim keep dropping in front of me. Like when I got a marvelous designer export from my client. I didn't try the latest Octane build yet. So gonna do that now as i read something about a bugfix for filenames. That might already do the trick. I do have to say there's not much to find online about this subject. Keep up the great work you do Raph!

[@doc_noki]

Thanks a lot. as awlways

[@fernandolardizabal458]

Amazing! Thanks once again!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you 🙂 Happy you like it!

[@tim_tim_tim]

This is really helpful thank you :)

[@SilverwingVFX]

You are very welcome. Glad you liked it 🙌

[@mcherepanov]

Such a helpful tip!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you. Glad you found it helpful!

[@user-pb5rf6sj3e]

Very helpful! Thank you! Would the coloring work using a MoGraph Weightmap on a cloner as well?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much. Not sure if I understand you right and therefore my answer might be off. Do you mean using fields in the vertex tag? If so, yes! You can just readout the vertex data with the attribute as is. You can´t however make the fields visible in the shader directly. If you talking about clone color. This can also be displayed via the mograph color node. Hope this helps.

[@hisroyalillness]

What a valuable Tip - thx Raphael! 3D is all about problem solving, I think this will never change... One question, how are you selecting your vertexMap areas so precisely? Are you using the modeling tools like loopselection ect. for it?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey, thank you very much for your comment. I must have missed it! To answer your question: Yes I usually use selection tools like loop selection etc to get the Vertex map weighted. Sometimes its a bit of work. But it usually pays of at the end!

[@bensasi]

@@SilverwingVFX is it possible to do the same thing but generate like a direction selection to lets say to create dirt? what stays on top of the surface of a geometry basically?

[@SilverwingVFX]

@@bensasi You can use fields for that I think. In the vertex map tick "Use Fields" then in there use a shader field with a C4D falloff Shader. In this shader you can use the direction and the gradient to point the vertex map in to the desired direction. P.s. Setting the space to "World" from "Object" in the shader makes the direction global. If you are going for something like snow. Though all of this also can be done using shader level effects so you are not reliant on the Vertex map. This is done with the Falloff node in Octane using the "Normal vs Vector" mode.

[@oursonwelles]

Thank you for this tip! I was wondering if you had a secret method to generate these convex / concave maps easily? Or maybe it’s just a simple point / loop selection.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there and thank you for commenting! Unfortunately I am doing this the "brute force" way by hand selecting everything. Of course I am using phong break selection, loop selection where applicable. There are plugins that try to select vertexes based on the mesh curvature. But I never found them precise enough.

[@imonline8051]

Was looking for the same thing. I saw it in one video and then lost it. Was looking through these comments in the hopes I would find it again and saw your comment. I just found it in one of the files I used to test it out. Create a vertex map > turn on the fields > then drag the same object into the field layer. It should work like the octane dirt node letting you select convex or concave. I hope this helps!

[@oursonwelles]

@@imonline8051 Hey, that’s very kind of you! Nice trick, can’t wait to try this :)

[@bobbarth6936]

This will surely save me a lot of time, thank you kindly. Quick question though, why use vertex map instead of going procedural using dirt node?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you. Yes you are right about the use of Dirt or Curvature node. I also use them. So its not a bad thing. As with everything in this world every method has its advantages and disadvantages. Of course Dirt an Curvature is a lot faster to set up and also can do the job pretty well. But needs more render-resources / compute due to it being raytraced. Can cause problems with inverted dirt on thinner parts "false selection" of non edge parts. Settings (thickness etc) go for the whole object. Therefore not customizable / art directable as much. Vertex Maps can be painted wherever you want. But takes time to prepare them and also can cause problems if the underlying mesh does not have a hood flow or is not dense enough. Also you can use vertex maps for non edge areas. I also have a tut in mind where I use vertex Maps to paint some rust on surfaces. (With the right underlying mesh) this is very art directable.

[@camilosixto3698]

my idea for a tutorial is a simple disco ball scene with decent caustics in octane that would be so useful. thanks.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey camilo, thanks a lot for your comment and your suggestion! If you go to the Octane Photon Tracing video that I made some time ago, you might be able to use the techniques shown there to make your disco-ball effect. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ommngWdpptiohK8 I am afraid that you need to use the new experimental photon tracing for a decent effect. It´s possible with PathTracing or PMC but will take lots of samples to render and clean up.

[@matteoromano9547]

Ehi! Do you know if it's possible to use a vertex map as input for vertex displacement in octane? I've also tried to bake the vertex map with a baking node and then changing the displacement into a texture displacement but it's not working for me

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey Matteo, unfortunately this is a limitation and Vertex Maps can´t be used as Displacement in Octane at all. Baking the vertex map into a texture should work however. But that requires the object to have good, non overlapping UVs. As soon as its a texture mapped on UV basis, it should work even with texture displacement. I made a video on baking textures a while ago. Maybe this further helps: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZStf4qqfpyiq8U

[@WalterMurch]

Hey Silverwing, great tutorial, super useful. Are there other uses for the attribute node other than vertex? can it reference other strings within cinema??

[@fernandolardizabal458]

It"s worth trying... things like set selections...

[@SilverwingVFX]

As far as I know as of right now you can only reference Vertex Color and Vertex Maps. Maybe in the future you could bring in selections.

[@WalterMurch]

@@SilverwingVFX thanks a bunch for replying so soon. Looking forward to using your technique along side xpvertex to drive octane channels. I've been using xpvertex recently to add lakes and streams parametrically to C4Ds landscape object via the displacer. Xpvertex map acts like a live proximal shader driven by any object. I've found I can drive Octane scatter objects with the same vertex map to spawn different types of plants around the shoreline of the displaced mesh. So to be able to carry the vertex links between scenes will save a heap of time.

[@CharlesLijt]

Thank you!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you for your comment! You are very welcome.

[@user-vh3gu3di5y]

Hi Raphael, thanks for the great tutorial ! 😊 I just watched the tutorial and tried it. However, I copied and loaded it into a new scene, but the Vertex Map is linked as it is. Did Otoy solve this problem by any chance? Or did I do something wrong?😭 If this problem is solved, which one should I use, Vertex Map Node or Attribute Texture Node?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there. Unless anything is broken, attribute map should work. From your text its hard to understand what went wrong. If you follow exactly what I do in my tutorial (using the Attribute Texture) it should work! Make sure the vertex map are named accordingly on your objects.

[@user-vh3gu3di5y]

@@SilverwingVFX I'm sorry I didn't explain well. I mean you said in your tutorial it didn't work that Vertex Map Node the feature link. But when I tried it by using Vertex Map Node not Attribute Texture Node, it did linked well. So I'm wondering the Otoy fix this issue which it didn't link when I copied it and pasted it in new scene by any chance?

[@SilverwingVFX]

​@@user-vh3gu3di5y Ah OK I get it now. If you are copying the object with the materials both, then it´s no problem. Because you both copying the object that is linked to and the material containing the link. As soon as you delete the object the link was linked to, it will be gone. This can be an overview nightmare with big projects. Because its not visible at first sight what specific vertex map is linked. Also if you just want to copy over materials to a new scene with out copying the object, they will all loose the link. Hope that explains it better 🙂

[@yassinedjebbari4819]

Thank you so much for this ! I am pretty nood and I would like to know how did you manage to create those Vertex maps for the dirt spots and such ? Thank you again!!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there and thank you very much for your comment. The Vertex maps are generated Manually. So, as shown in the beginning, by selecting a bunch of points and then giving them a weight. There are less manual ways you could select convex and concave shapes. There are plugins for that. But I never found them as precise as I wanted.

[@bulba1561]

i was wondering if it was possible to use substance anchor points in correspondence to the improved vertex map support in octane to achieve a "wiped dust look." do you think thats possible?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hi there 🙂 I have a rough understanding of Substance Anchor Points. But I am unfortunately not that deep into Substance, so I can´t answer your question without having more info. If you have the time you may explain your Idea in a little more detail. What do you mean by "wiped dust look". Maybe you can point me in the right direction 🖖

[@bulba1561]

@@SilverwingVFX i've honestly been trying to elaborate on what i meant for the past few minutes -- and i just can articulate it without a visual representation. regardless, thank you for caring so much about the question. its evident that youre doing this out of pure passion.

[@SilverwingVFX]

@@bulba1561 You might write me an email and attach images and videos if you like. The mail address is found on my website. Don´t want to link it here. Getting enough spam already 😇

[@Virtual-lands-3d]

Is there any advantage of using vertex maps compared to the octane dirt node? I assume it is more controllable. Also: too bad C4d cannot select polygons based on curvature to create the vertex maps automatically. That would be a nice addition to fields for instance.

[@SilverwingVFX]

There are advantages and disadvantages: Advantages: Needs less compute then raytraced effects like dirt or curvature. Can be controlled via Fields / Mograph. Does not need to be on edges. You can paint it wherever you want. Disadvantages: Takes time to set up. No Radius Map input to vary the range (Though there are other ways to do that). Can´t be as dynamic as Dirt e.g. if you want to simulate foam on a water surface from one object to the water. And yeah. A curvature to vertex weight would really be amazing in C4D.

[@Virtual-lands-3d]

​@@SilverwingVFX I just realize that this actually exists in 2023. I tested it on a landscape object. Create the object > Add a vertex map > Select the fields vertex map type > Drag the object into the field > At the bottom, go to curvature mode > Choose concave or convex.

[@monany5876]

Hi Raphael,thank you for your tips! there is no doubt vertex map is a great method when make worn edges effects,and i follow you course , try to use vertex map to make that ,but when i set two vertex maps on the object ，edge and corner vertex maps, but only the first one (the one in the front) take effect，I tried many times ,I don't know why, Is it a bug? Or is there some thing wrong with my configuration? I use S22 version

[@SilverwingVFX]

I did not experience any buggy behavior. Make sure you name your vertex map tags. They have to have different names. Other then that just check if you have the newest Octane version 2021.1.6_R4 You have set the Attribute Node to set to Float. Hope that helps.

[@monany5876]

​@@SilverwingVFX thanks very much.I'm sure I named the two vertex maps two different names,and Octane version is 2021.1.thanks again for your reply

[@ThePuka]

Worth the weight….. sorry, had to. ;)

[@SilverwingVFX]

Ha ha ha. Good one 😆