OTOY Forums

Dear Octane community,

OTOY® is very proud to announce the availability of a new free version of OctaneRender™ 2019 for DAZ Studio - with free new tier!



The world's fastest and most feature-rich unbiased Octane render engine 2019.1.4 that integrates completely with DAZ Studio v4.

You can read about new features of OctaneRender™ 2019.1.4 here:
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=73140

Download Octane 2019 for Daz Studio (free tier)
Download OctaneRender™ for Daz Studio 2019 - with free new tier!

- You will need to create an OTOY account in order to download it. Please follow these steps here
- Make sure to update your Nvidia drivers here
- DAZ Studio 4.8 or later on Window Vista, 7, 8 or 10 64bit
- And make sure to enable the GPU from System tab > Open Device Settings

Feature Support

- No Network render as a limitation
- Can activate only One GPU


Happy GPU Rendering !!

Your team
OTOY

Congratulations to OTOY for releasing this and OR 2020.
My question is, what exactly differs this "free" version of OCDS from v4 OCDS?

Since all the "interesting" new features like RTX support and random walk SSS were moved to 2020, (at least judging from the feature list in the link you provieded) 2019.4 seems to be a mere bugfixing release, with critical features like dForce Hair and such, still missing from it.
Now we get a "free" version, which is obviously only there to level the playing field in regard to DAZ Studio's proprietary Iray rendering engine (since it comes for free) and are being told (at least it feels like this) "Here you go, now shut up about the issues the plug-in has, since you're getting this for free"
But then you go ahead and artificially cripple it, by restricting it to ONE GPU...seriously? Even Iray supports multiple GPUs?

Furthermore, pricing for perpetual v4 license holders (499 € for one year and 699 € for two years of usage!!!) is still so far off the charts for semi-professional / enthusiast-users, that I begin to seriously question OTOY's business strategy...how can it be, that enthusiast users are being asked the same price than professional users who are actually generating revenue with their works?
I know, that OTOY charged users 479€ back when the versions were changing from V2 to V3 (I believe), but that was back, when about 70 - 80% of the features also made it over to OCDS...

Can't stop shaking my head at this...

Oh: And please don't assume, that I don't know, that the people behind the actual developing / coding also need to earn money. I'm not talking about the contractors here...

EDIT: Since OR 2020 was released in free tier, I'll have to take back some of my initial remarks. It was a fine move of OTOY to release OR2020 in the free Prime tier.
Nvertheless: The missing features from the host application (read DAZ Studio) should be the focus of future development efforts.

This is nice for people to really dive into this renderer for daz, but I have to ask, is anything being done currently to bring in more of octane features the plugin is currently lacking?

Thanks for making this plugin free - at least as a limited version.

I ahev downloaded it and tried it and have a couple of initial questions.

1. Geografts don't appear to work. I loaded a G8 figure and added a geograft which displayes correctly in the DAZ Studio viewport by has no textures/materials in the Octane render. Just white.

2. I closed that session of DAZ Studio and restarted. Now everything I load appears as marble white - no textures for anything. It seems that the geograft broke the Octane plugin.

3. I have a "stable" version of DAZ Studio installed (4.11) and a beta version (4.12). I use the beta more than the 4.11 version so is there a way to install the Octane plugin even if the 4.11 plugin has to be removed?

I totally dont get this ...

Who the hell is thinking that the DAZ plugin (how its working now .. the features its lacking) would be a good motivation for somebody to go for a higher license later?

:headshake:

So Iray Supports Muilti GPU, and RTX. Hmmmm

Hmmmm...I am going to side with Otoy on this one...
Because a multi-gpu rig with Octane is a buzillion times better, in my opinion, than same GPU's in Iray....
Even if you liked the way Iray looks better, speedwise Octane is way faster.
The RTX for Iray is not at all realtime, it is a few seconds faster, at best, for Iray.

So, if Otoy wants to let Daz users trial their plugin, and journey towards the power, features, and might of the Standalone, then this is a good way to market it.

I'm somewhat confused. I'm currently paying to have access to this plugin with the old subscription model. Should I cancel my subscription and use the free version? Will there be any difference between the new paid version and the free version? I haven't gotten an email about changes to my service.

Edit: Just realized Octane Standalone doesn't come with the free tier so I'm guessing that's the big decider between free and paid.

I still don't know what is being sold. There's nothing to tell me what's happening. I have 4 perpetual from the early days. I'm only a casual user. So 1 GPU for free sounds great to me. I usually never leave Daz Studio, and I use the other GPU for rendering, and the primary for display.

I WANT TO GIVE MONEY... But what is included? What is in 2018 versus 2019... versus free... versus 4. There is no information. I simply have no idea what is happening.

Even reading this is as clear as mud.. from incredibly thick dirty water.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=69646

if I pay $300 (..ish cdn) a year what do I get exactly? What the difference between all these versions? We need a document describing what is happening with all this for Daz, and what the plan is. (In general, I'll pay for the ability to use what ever is standard in Daz... like their new hair. But I have no idea if that's even supported, and I know its not in 4.)

Octane for Daz Studio would be much more useful If Octane had built in Nvidia .mdl support. Nvidia did open sorce MDL