Let me just add my 2 cents here regarding Octane/Blender vs E-
Cycles speeds and addon compatibility issues:
• Due to the fact that Octane/Blender uses Octane materials while E-
Cycles uses
Cycles/Blender materials you can never have an “exact” or “identical” scene comparison, but you sure can have a comparable scene comparison that will yield very accurate real world results in comparison tests between to the two rendering solutions.
• As an avid Octane/Blender user and now E-
Cycles 2.79/2.8 user I can tell you hands down that E-
Cycles is faster and easier to tailor render results in regards to speed vs quality. You can see lots of comparisons here on my Youtube channel between E-
Cycles, Octane/Blender v4, and
Cycles in my E-
Cycles for Blender playlist.
https://youtu.be/w43iJn2OFfE?list=PLQTNAvZfxupboMqAeLsA-GKRS677Wg5q5• Not only is E-
Cycles faster than Octane/Blender, when you consider the amount of production time lost converting
Cycles/Blender materials to Octane’s when using addons such as Graswald, Kit-Ops Pro, or Flip Fluids just to name a few E-
Cycles becomes a no-brainer since Blender Addons simplify many complex production processes.
• Transparency of development and build announcements are also a plus for E-
Cycles over Octane/Blender. The E-
Cycles author communicates with E-
Cycles users daily in regards to development and progress of the application and even offers a course on how you can mod Blender to Develop your own E-
Cycles like solution amongst other things for Blender. Check out the detailed E-
Cycles thread here on Blender Artist.
https://blenderartists.org/t/e-cycles-faster-cuda-rendering-and-better-ai-denoising/1139717/1702• Another additional plus in favor of E-
Cycles is it’s already out for the latest Blender 2.8 Beta build, and is updated weekly to match the most recent Beta.
Hope this helps.
-Brent