You've helped A LOT. Thank you!

Let me see if I get it.
My issue with animation happens (guessing) because in animation, C4D sends the file to Octane for every frame to render. While I can edit the materials (and sky,settings etc) IN Octane, when the frame I'm working on finishes rendering, Octane takes the next frame from C4D but ...

2.54 has wavefront obj exporting issue too...
Hope to see the 2.5X plugin soon, since 2.49 or exporting obj from 2.53 is the only option atm.