Render Series
Version 2.0, Updated February 2025 using Octane 2024.1.2 and Cinema 4D 2025.1.2
About this guide
There’s a lot to keep track of when prepping a scene for post production. This checklist serves as a way to make sure all the various boxes have been ticked and settings have been set to reduce the amount of frustration later. A docx version is also available if you want to customize it to your own workflow.
This guide assumes you’ve at least skimmed the Intro to AOVs for Octane guide. It also uses the terms “AOV” and “pass” interchangeably.
PDF & .docx formats
This guide is also available in 📄 PDF form here
You can download and customize the 📄 .docx here
Part I
Overview
What Are We Trying to Do?
We have a scene that we’re going to render in Octane in Cinema 4D, but in a way that gives us a lot more source data to further edit our project in a separate post production application like Davinci or After Effects.
- First, we want to make sure our color management workflow is sound and compatible with our target post app.
- Next, we want to prep our objects to assign light pass and layer IDs to them (if needed)
- Then, we want to make sure our render will be split out into the components we’re going to want to alter. Regardless of whether we’re working on a beauty stack or a lighting stack, we need to have all the data accounted for so the render is complete when we recombine it in post. This is also where we set up Cryptomatte, Render Layer, and any other utility AOVs that we’ll need later.
- Pick a rendering method and render. In order to get the best quality and make sure we don’t have fringing or other artifacts, we’re going to want to export high bit depth, linear EXRs.
- In post, we’ll do all our edits, adjustments, and any other posty stuff, recombine all the layers, apply the correct transfer function and export our final files for delivery.
Part II
The Checklist
1. Color Management
It’s strongly recommended to read and understand the Color Management in Octane guide.
Octane itself already calculates and renders physically linear values, so there isn’t anything to set here. We can export our high bit depth EXRs as ACEScg or ACES2065-1 or some other OCIO color space if we know our post app needs that, and Octane will export the files correctly and independently of C4D’s color settings.
What we do have make sure of is that we have C4D’s color management settings set right so we don’t have any surprises between what we’re seeing in the Live Viewer and what we see in post. Almost all of the time, when we hit Ctl-D / Cmd-D to get to the Project Settings and look at the Color Management section in the Project tab, we’re going to want to use Legacy (Linear sRGB) unless we really know what we’re doing and have a good reason to change it.
We can then set up the Live Viewer to show us what the tone mapping will look like (ACES/AgX/non tone mapped, etc) when we apply the same transfer function in our post app.
☐ Check the Color Management settings in C4D’s Project Settings > Project tab
☐ Make sure the Live Viewer is set to show the same tone mapping / transfer function used in the post app (un-tonemapped sRGB / ACES / AgX / etc.)
2. Prep the Objects
This is where we want to make sure our objects are set to the right IDs. For lights, this is done in the Octane Light tag. For objects it’s done in the Octane Object Tag.
☐ If exporting lighting AOVs, check each light’s Octane Light Tag and and make sure the Light pass ID is set properly.
☐ If masking objects, make sure each objects or materials is set up properly depending on the cryptomatte or render layer method used (more on that here)
3. Set up the AOVs
All of the settings here are in C4D’s Render Settings > Octane Renderer section on the left > Render AOV Manager tab. The Render AOV manager popup window is accessible via a button in this tab.
More info on the passes themselves here.
General
☐ Important: Make sure Enable is checked. No Enable = No Render AOVs.
☐ Determine which passes are needed in post for this project: Beauty stack, lighting stack, cryptomatte, utility passes, some combo?
Beauty Stack
For a beauty stack, we need every pass that has some sort of contribution to the render. We can get a head start on this in the Render AOV Manager popup window by making sure “Presets” at the top is set to Beauty surface, and then hit Load.
Important: Don’t hit the delete button - that deletes the preset, not the selected AOV.
☐ Review all the standard passes in the Live Viewer, delete unneeded ones by selecting them and hitting the delete key on the keyboard, not the UI button.
☐ Break out diffuse or reflection into direct/indirect if needed. (either pick the combined one or the two broken out ones, but not all three)
☐ If volumes are being used, add in volume and/or volume emission passes
☐ If the denoiser is being used, add in denoised passes
☐ If PostFX are being used, add in the Post processing pass
☐ Add in any utility/data/other passes (z-depth, etc.)
Lighting Stack
For a lighting stack, we need to make sure all the lights in the scene are accounted for so the recombined pass in post will match what we need in the render. We need one Light (or one Light Direct/Light Indirect pair) pass for every light ID we have. The Light passes preset in the AOV manager may or may not be useful here.
☐ If an HDRI is being used, make sure there’s a Light pass set to Ambient
☐ If an Octane Daylight object is being used, make sure there’s a Light pass set to Sunlight
☐ Make sure there’s one Light pass per LightID being used among the physical lights
☐ Make sure there’s one Light pass per LightID being used in the emissive materials
☐ If PostFX are being used, add in the Post processing pass
☐ Add in any utility/data/other passes (z-depth, etc.)
Cryptomatte
Most of the setup here was done in the previous step where we assigned various IDs or material/selection tag names. There’s a whole AOV Masking Guide here.
☐ If Cryptomatte is being used, add a Cryptomatte pass and choose the right crypto type depending on the desired mattes
☐ Test in the Live Viewer to make sure it looks right.
Render Layer
Render Layer controls are directly in the Render AOV Manager tab (not the popup) at the very bottom. We’ll need to twirl down the section to see it. This is also covered in the AOV Masking Guide
☐ Check Enable
☐ Set the Layer ID to the one with objects we want to render assigned to it
☐ Pick the mode
Pick an Export Method
We have a few options exporting the files. This is covered in detail at the end of the Intro to AOVs guide.
Live Viewer: Quick and dirty
If we pick Save Render Passes as EXR or PSD from the Live Viewer’s File menu, we don’t get options aside from naming the file. It saves a single, layered 32-bit ZIPS-compressed EXR or PSD for the current frame at the point where we stopped the render. If we want all the samples, we need to let the render finish first.
Live Viewer: More options, most stable
If we’re rendering using the Live Viewer’s Save image sequence, then we have some options to set.
☐ Set the frame range in the Output tab of the C4D render settings.
Important: This range must cover at least two frames as of this writing, otherwise Octane will render EVERY frame.
☐ Choose Save image sequence from the File menu in the Live viewer.
☐ Make sure Use Render Settings is checked - that pulls the frame range specified from C4D
☐ Pick a filename
☐ Choose EXR - probably 32-bit, but 16-bit may work for some scenes if drive space is at a premium. If 16-bit is needed, make sure EXR half-float is checked at the bottom.
☐ Choose a compression - PIZ is usually the best option for getting lossless files at the smallest size possible
☐ Choose a color space. Most of the time it should be Linear sRGB (not just sRGB - that will cause color shifting) unless we know for sure that the post app needs ACES or some other OCIO space.
☐ Important: Make sure Save render passes is on. If not, we’ll get a flat image.
☐ Start export
PV: Most options, only use if necessary
We also have the option to save from the C4D’s Picture Viewer. Most of the time this will work ok if it’s set up right, but there may be issues depending on the ever-changing versions of C4D and Octane.
The main reason to do it this way is that we can render each pass as its own file series rather than all the passes in a single EXR. The Picture Viewer also supports tokens.
☐ Make sure the Save section in C4D’s render settings is turned OFF
☐ In C4D render settings > Octane Renderer > Main tab, set the Color space to Linear sRGB (or ACES/OCIO if we know we need that for sure) - regular sRGB will cause unwanted color shifting.
Go to C4D Render Settings > Octane Renderer > Render AOV group for the rest
☐ Choose the path and filename
☐ Make sure Format is set to EXR (Octane), not just regular EXR
☐ Set the bit depth - 32-bit will give the best results, 16-bit may work in some cases
☐ Set the compression - PIZ is probably the best option
☐ Decide whether Multilayer File should be on or off - on means one multi-layer EXR per frame with each pass as a layer, off means one single-layer EXR per pass per frame. If off, a new setting appears to put each pass sequence in its own folder.
☐ Turn Save Beauty on or off depending on whether a full beauty render is also needed
☐ Turn on Denoised Beauty if desired
☐ Render to Picture Viewer
Wrap Up
That should cover the important things to double-check before rendering for post. Once it’s in the post app, some work will have to be done to apply the transfer function and make sure the blend modes are set correctly (Linear Dodge/Add most of the time, Multiply for the shadows, etc.).