Sorry for such a long delay. Had unexpected deadline shift.

Ok. So here's how i have it setup:

I've copied all Octane 3ds Max files to C:\Program Files\OTOY. Folder structure is shown in Picture001.png .
Root folders contain octane.dat, octane.dll and vcomp.dll files. Plugins folders contain ...

I just tested 1.18 and 1.20 and both versions seem to load fine from remote location.

Tested on Windows 8 Pro x64, Max 2014 SP3, Octane for 3ds Max 1.18 and 1.20.

Octane3dsmax.dlr was loaded by INI file and octane.dat, octane.dll and vcomp100.dll where loaded by pointing PATH variable to them ...

I think that's because you don't have VRay installed. All VRay shaders/lights are not recognized. You can try instaling VRay demo and then converting.

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scrip ... ingplugins

You need to run it on a machine which has no octane installed.

You can put Octane3dsMax.dlr to to any folder you like as long as that folder is listed in plugins.ini
The problem is that for Octane to function properly octane.dat and octane.dll must be placed into 3ds Max root folder.

And I can't find a way to load octane.dll and octane.dat from different ...

You need to specify full path to you INI file after -p flag.

UPDATE:

I tried loading Octane 1.03 from different location and it just does not load. Plugin can't find octane.dll which by default is in 3ds max root folder. I've tried adding path to octane.dll to environment variable PATH. Max loads ...