OctaneRender 4 / All Access -Update FAQ: For existing monthly subscription customers
EDIT: Updated with details on Free Tier, 3rd party Renderfarms, single GPU Vulkan-RTX support in subs, and rent-to-own options
Do I need to pay more to upgrade to Octane 4 for my monthly $20 Octane Studio subscription?
No - you are automatically updated to V4 standalone and plugin you are subscribed to and the cost is still $20/month.
Does my monthly subscription licence support more than 2 GPUs now?
Yes - with V4 (and V4 only) you can use up to 20 GPUs. Future versions with the RT-Vulkan backend will at least initially be released with the normal studio subscription 1-2 GPU limit (see below)
Does my monthly subscription licence support network rendering?
Yes - with V4 adding another monthly subscription licence adds another slave node - and subscription licences now support up to 20 GPUs with V4 (and V4 only) with network rendering.
Does my $20 monthly subscription cover ‘All-Access’ to get other plugins besides the one I subscribed to?
Yes - if you pay annually. If you are paying monthly now, you need to switch to an annual All-Access subscription pass, which is a new option under the monthly subscription. Annual passes are currently discounted 20% until Q1 2019.
Do I have to cancel my existing monthly subscription to upgrade to an annual ‘All-Access’ pass?
Yes, it is a different licence. There is no upgrade needed - you can simply cancel your monthly subscription and get an annual pass (contact support for help ensuring your time is amortized if you are doing this mid-month).
Why do I still have to pick a plug-in with ‘All-Access’ passes if I now get access to all of them?
Multiple V4 plug-ins are coming in Q1 2019, and until they do, you need to select your primary plug-in. Even after multiple plug-ins are available, we will ask subscription uses to select a primary plug-in for support and maintenance purposes.
What else do I get with ‘All-Access’ annual passes?
Access to ORC (cloud rendering) is included as of Q1.
Does ‘All-Access’ give me a second render slave?
We are planning to add a limited second V4 render slave to subscription annual passes in Q1 that supports net rendering on a second machine without needing to get an additional licence. This ‘render extender’ is not a full render slave licence - and it cannot be paired or used with other licences or used as a standalone licence in any way - think of it like having a GPU extender for your main machine, but over LAN.
Does my Octane 4 Studio subscription support RTX optimizations a now and in the future?
Octane 4 is already highly optimized for RTX Turing GPUs, and scores 25% higher than 3.08, and fully supports out of core rendering without NV Link being needed.
Further RT Core acceleration with Vulkan - as well as NV Link support - are experimental today and beyond the V4 release. These features will be made fully available first through Enterprise annual subscriptions which are also $20 /Month ( $16.59/ Month through the end of the year) but require that you have first made a one time purchase of OctaneRender Standalone+DCC Enterprise (either Combo or All-access bundle) from the purchase page. The All Access Bundle comes with 1 or more years included.
Experimental Single GPU support with Vulkan-RT Core acceleration is planned for studio subscriptions in 2019 - further details will be finalized closer to the release.
OctaneRender 4 / All Access/ Update FAQ: For existing customers with a purchased (Enterprise) Licence:
Do I need to pay anything to upgrade to Octane 4?
No. You can follow the instructions and upgrade all your V3 licences to V4 for free. This includes your V3 DCC licences as well as V3 standalone licences.
Do I get a access to other DCC plug-ins when I upgrade to Octane 4 for free?
No. Your free upgrade to V4 only gives you access to the same plug-ins you purchased with V3, unless you add Octane All-Access from the upgrade page (see below), which includes access to all Octane 4 Studio plugins in early 2019.
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Do I get a second render node for free when I upgrade to Octane 4 for free?
No. Your free upgrade to V4 gives you access to the same number of render slaves as you had with V3, unless you add Octane All-Access form the upgrade page (see below) which includes a second render slave node.
Do I get RTX optimizations when I upgrade to Octane 4 for free?
Yes, Octane 4 is already highly optimized for RTX Turing GPUs, and today scores 25% higher than 3.08 on RTX cards and fully supports out of core rendering without NV Link being needed.
Future versions of Octane will add NV Link and RT core support, but those are not included in this free update.
Do I get future versions after V4 for free when I upgrade to Octane 4 for free?
No. V4 is the last major update we can give away for free at this time.
Future updates (2018.1 and later) are fully optional through a $20/month per node (standalone licence) with Octane-All Access annual passes.
All V4 DCC plug-ins get updated along with the standalone licence after it is updated with an all-access pass.
You can extend your V4 licence to AA at any time on the Shop->Purchase->upgrade page - and you will get a 20% discount through the end of the year - effectively making it $16.59/month.
Offline USB Dongles will work with new versions of Octane you access this way.
If I cancel my Annual Pass can I still use Octane?
You can still use Octane 4 the same way you do now without an annual pass, and any permanent licences you have purchased will work and are yours forever. Any USB Dongles activated for annual pass can be reverted to V4.
After the term of your annual all-access pass, you won’t have access to the extra plugins, render slaves or later version updates* that came with your annual pass.
However you can re-activate an annual pass later at any time.
*For 3 year passes, we are planning to support a rent-to-own system that let's you keep using versions after V4 (at minimum 2018.1 now in beta), with limited support and online features and only for your purchased licences. (see below)
If someone cancels their Access Pass, what version of Octane 4 do they revert back to? Would it be the latest 4.x update released while they were on subscription or does it revert back to Octane 4.0 ?
No matter what the status of your annual pass is, and even if you don't have one, you will always own and have access to the latest V4 releases (we made 5 updates to 3.08, and there may be just as many or more for V4). Also note that any big fixes or general improvements made in Octane 2018 will also be back ported to V4.
How can I get a perpetual licence to Octane 2018.1 or later?
Owning Octane is clearly important to many current boxed licence users, and we're working to support such a model for updates beyond V4.
For longer term AA plans beyond 1-2 years (currently being re-worked for the shop page in Q1), we are exploring one or more options for a limited rent-to-own model (those who already bought 3 year passes during the BF sale to date are covered)
The intent with rent-to-own (and please note final details are still TBD) is to find a system to let boxed licence users keep using 2018.1 (at minimum) without having to render their AA annual subscriptions - albeit with extremely restricted (possibly zero) support and with all online features disabled (i.e. no LiveDB, ORC or similar) . This would be covering only updates applied to fully purchased standalone and DCC licences (not any extra subscription DCC|slave licences that are added with the AA pass). Once all details of this system are finalized we want to offer a simple way for existing 1-2 year annual plans to transition to this form of extended coverage as well. Our goal is to finalize implementation details by or around the 2018.1 stable release. Feedback is welcome in the comments below.
OctaneRender on Renderfarms
With version 4 done, one of the next updates on our short term list is a cloud version with usage based licencing (built on RNDR) for 3rd party render services like Thinkbox, Zync and Pixelplow. Some of these partnerships may be announced by EOY.
EDIT - We've now publicly shared that we're working with PixelPlow to bring Octane 4 support to the service ASAP - more details coming soon!
OctaneRender 4 free Tier FAQ:
A free version of Octane 4 will be released under a new subscription tier, limited to 2 GPUs maximum and only available in certain plug-ins.
When will it be released?
You can already use the full version of Octane 4 for free inside Unity. Other plug-ins, will roll out around Q1 2019, shortly after we complete all the work on the all-access multiple subscriptions.
What tools besides Unity will be supported?
Blender is next. We are looking at tools that are free to use, like Blender, for the free tier, but we may add others in time.
If I own Octane or am on a monthly subscription with a plugin not in the free tier (like Rhino), can I also use add or use free tier plug-ins alongside my paid licenses?
Yes.
Will future versions of Octane be supported in the free tier?
For 2018.1 and later, we may need to rethink the 2 GPU limit as a differentiation from the paid tiers . it is meaningless when two GPUs give you 800-1000 OB and 22 GB to 50 GB of combined VRAM: