Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

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Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

Postby mikeadamwood » Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:40 am

mikeadamwood Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:40 am
I'm abit fed up of OTOY teasing features that either do no get released or do not make it to plugins.

I mean the biggest one has got to be BRIGADE...

Don't get me wrong, I get that software takes a long time to develop...But wow this thing has been teased for almost a decade in various GTC presentations. In fact, I think it's been teased in almost every single one. And what's frustrating is it looks awesome, even if it's only for draft purposes it would help insanely in pre-viz stages.

What's annoying about this is you choose software based on what features you have now and what looks to be on the roadmap for the future. I would never commit time (YEARS!!)+MONEY to learning a tool unless I have confidence in the company behind it for my work now and in the future. Other companies have started development on comparable solutions WAY after you guys and already have a release, and have not created a long winded hypetrain in the build up...Redshift RT being released last year..The guys at Chaos have been completely revamping VRAY + adding GPU capability, but have also found the time to produce Chaos Vantage + Chaos Cosmos and adding so many useful applications to their ecosystem..I know they are backed by Autodesk but you have a much bigger and diverse userbase than them.

7 years ago...
chrome_dXymc1Oqev.png


Latest mention of BRIGADE and promising it will be in an upcoming version (LOL) :lol:
chrome_pC6AIZ6DiC.png
chrome_pC6AIZ6DiC.png (11.35 KiB) Viewed 3065 times


The anime kernal is another laughable one. All we got is a toon shader that doesn't even work.

Oh the new 'RENDER CAUSTICS FASTER' kernal I believe is the newest promise.

Then on top of all these GTC presentations where you promise these features the years tick by..And the next GTC comes along and you slap us with another load of HUGE promises when you havn't even delivered on the previous ones.

I'm sorry to rant, but over the years the OTOY GTC presentations have gone from being exciting to just a comedy show.

I think it's great that you have the ambition to develop these new features, but damn creating decade long hypetrains is POOR treatment of paying customers and misleading potential new customers IMO!

And then! When/if any of these do finally see the light of a public release, it will take most part of a year to see them properly implemented in plugins.
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Re: Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

Postby elsksa » Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:35 pm

elsksa Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:35 pm
Hi mikeadamwood,

I think it's understandable to feel that way, at least, from some people. Especially those who do not have an insight of a software development company.
I know many developers and even product (hardware) manufacturers/companies, it's a lot of work with many obstacles along the way. It takes time to produce anything "good". One recent example: ARRI (which I let you Google, if you've never heard of it, it's basically the brand used on the majority of movies) planned to release their newest camera in 2020, after a decade or so of planning, development, engineering, etc. It got postponed to 2022. They didn't receive too much pressure from their customers because they know that time is a capital requirement in order to release a reliable product. As a matter of a fact, a lot of rushed release (software or hardware) showed problems at release date.

The way I see it is that OTOY takes the necessary time to release an-as-reliable-as-possible feature on day one. Some features also require time for hardware to evolve. High-end real-time is only viable for the last few years. It wasn't the case a decade ago.

I'm only a Standalone user, and my own experience has been near problem-free with it. Photon Tracing, for instance, worked like a charm on day one. There has been some minor issues here and there, but that is to be expected (as with any software or hardware product) and it does get fixed rather quickly after. That's also why user feedback and report are crucial. Everyone has a different workstation configuration, workflow, etc.

I also do not think Octane is lacking major features at the moment and any important ones are already on the roadmap. It's one of the most feature-rich renderers of its kind. What you have mentioned is partially available: "bits of Brigade" (so to speak), has been already implemented in an experimental build and Anime-like rendering is already possible, Lino from OTOY have done it although the Anime Kernel will bring more benefits.

Octane is also a one of a kind renderer. OTOY developers are hard working on it and have been surprising many of us more than once, in the past. On top of being very keen to user feedback. There are always internal reasons why a product doesn't come to life or gets post-poned. No matter the industry.

Regarding 3D DCC implementations (plugins), do keep in mind that no 3D DCC is the same. Each have their own APIs, quirks and whatnot. Not all of them are equally easy to manage for a developer (unfortunately).

Patience is a virtue. It will be worth the wait.
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Re: Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

Postby Goldorak » Wed Jun 29, 2022 9:50 pm

Goldorak Wed Jun 29, 2022 9:50 pm
I am responsible for communicating our public roadmap, making the GTC videos, all of it, so if I can be doing this better, I'm always open to feedback.

Id do want to make sure you we are talking about the same things.

The Photon Tracer for example - is actually already working great in plugins like C4D. We have users like WREN from Corridor even making tuts for it, and we added volume caustics - which was not in any roadmap we shared before; in that case I feel we surpassed what we promised even months earlier.

Brigade, as it ran in the video you posted (and note it had noise, even if it was fast) actually shipped in Octane 4 - we made tons of examples showing what that did: the 10-100x speed up in the scene graph for example, and this was before RTX made this even faster by 3-5x. the only thing holding back 60 fps today are 1) DCCs themselves that can't keep up with the scene graph and 2) the Octane CPU filmbuffer system (which is now back on GPU in 2022.1 XB2).

Brigade kernel is something new and distinct from the earlier work, and didn't exist until 2020, and it is shipping in 2022.1 RC1, with all Octane features intact + temporal denoiser and real time options for DOF, fog, godrays and more. It doesn't deviate from the core Octane spectral rendering pipeline, it builds on it, which is a big difference from many approaches to real time renderers (including early brigade kernel tests) which are split off or developed apart from the main production renderer, to cut features to get speed. That being said there is a place for those too, and adding RGB (non-spectral) Brigade kernel with some further optimizations, will be explored in the future. Also Brigade shipping in Octane as kernel (not a a whole new renderer) means we won't need to change rendering state just access it - it will work in all DCC's and in Unreal and Unity projects as well as in standalone of course.

Anime edge kernel is in a pretty good state as a render delegate (which we can then sideload in Octane core), but like polarization and some other roadmap features, I have put them further out because users have strongly voted on us shipping more urgent features ahead of this (including PPM caustics). You can do amazing things with the current toons shader, and the edges rendering is going to make that better. Right now, we have our work cut out for us on real time, meshlets and a long list of user requests that is the lifeblood of us supporting a very broad userbase.

Also, from an ecosystem perspective, we have added a ton of value around Octane for the $20 month that hasn't changed price in four years: Embergen, Sculptron, Architron (formerly LW CAD), Kitbash 3D, GSG+ (for annual sale on BF) and soon World Creator 3. Also we have Mac, Blender and Unreal still free and we have supported that for years to grow the ecosystem.
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Re: Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

Postby Goldorak » Wed Jun 29, 2022 10:01 pm

Goldorak Wed Jun 29, 2022 10:01 pm
I just want to add I really do care passionately about our community, and have and will drop everything I am doing to help users out if I can- yourself included - when I see something is wrong and we can do better or improve the customer experience:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/OctaneR ... 523168047/
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Re: Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

Postby mikeadamwood » Thu Jun 30, 2022 12:09 am

mikeadamwood Thu Jun 30, 2022 12:09 am
Goldorak wrote:I am responsible for communicating our public roadmap, making the GTC videos, all of it, so if I can be doing this better, I'm always open to feedback.


Fully appreciate that! And respect the work you do! Honestly! I think it just comes out of frustration as a long-time user of Octane, my main thing for me/clients is speed so when you promise new features I really do wait for them like a kid at Christmas! But I feel there is something wrong if you are teasing features so early on when you SHOULD know as a software company that it is nowhere near ready. And then when I see other tools being released by competitors I can't help but feel a little disappointed, as with my workloads I would really struggle to learn a new render engine to the extent that I know Octane...I have actually been learning Redshift slowly but I still default to Octane for client projects as I just don't have the time to properly build up the skills/confidence I need during a tight deadline etc..

Goldorak wrote: The Photon Tracer for example - is actually already working great in plugins like C4D. We have users like WREN from Corridor even making tuts for it, and we added volume caustics - which was not in any roadmap we shared before; in that case I feel we surpassed what we promised even months earlier.


I'm assuming this is in the experimental builds? I tend to stay away from them in favour of stability..But I do check and test every now and then!

Goldorak wrote:Anime edge kernel is in a pretty good state as a render delegate (which we can then sideload in Octane core), but like polarization and some other roadmap features, I have put them further out because users have strongly voted on us shipping more urgent features ahead of this (including PPM caustics)


It's strange that people would favor caustics over the real-time brigade kernal. Maybe it's just me, as I don't work with caustics really but it's a very specific thing/effect used in maybe product rendering and potentially a few other areas, whereas a real-time solution has so many uses in pre-viz/art direction/set dressing etc and in some cases, I'd probably use it as final renderer depending on client needs, I feel almost every industry could benefit from it...I mean look at the impact UE5 is having on the film industry alone!

Also, I feel the ANIME kernal is probably something people don't think they need until they have it...Abit like sketch and toon in C4D which is super useful for ALOT of things you wouldn't expect, especially stylisation elements/render passes/effects.

Goldorak wrote:Also, from an ecosystem perspective, we have added a ton of value around Octane for the $20 month that hasn't changed price in four years: Embergen, Sculptron, Architron (formerly LW CAD), Kitbash 3D, GSG+ (for annual sale on BF) and soon World Creator 3. Also we have Mac, Blender and Unreal still free and we have supported that for years to grow the ecosystem.


Again, appreciate that you have added these tools to the subscription..I do have licenses for most of those tools outside the OTOY sub.


elsksa wrote:Hi mikeadamwood,

I think it's understandable to feel that way, at least, from some people. Especially those who do not have an insight of a software development company.
I know many developers and even product (hardware) manufacturers/companies, it's a lot of work with many obstacles along the way. It takes time to produce anything "good". One recent example: ARRI (which I let you Google, if you've never heard of it, it's basically the brand used on the majority of movies) planned to release their newest camera in 2020, after a decade or so of planning, development, engineering, etc. It got postponed to 2022. They didn't receive too much pressure from their customers because they know that time is a capital requirement in order to release a reliable product. As a matter of a fact, a lot of rushed release (software or hardware) showed problems at release date.

The way I see it is that OTOY takes the necessary time to release an-as-reliable-as-possible feature on day one. Some features also require time for hardware to evolve. High-end real-time is only viable for the last few years. It wasn't the case a decade ago.

I'm only a Standalone user, and my own experience has been near problem-free with it. Photon Tracing, for instance, worked like a charm on day one. There has been some minor issues here and there, but that is to be expected (as with any software or hardware product) and it does get fixed rather quickly after. That's also why user feedback and report are crucial. Everyone has a different workstation configuration, workflow, etc.

I also do not think Octane is lacking major features at the moment and any important ones are already on the roadmap. It's one of the most feature-rich renderers of its kind. What you have mentioned is partially available: "bits of Brigade" (so to speak), has been already implemented in an experimental build and Anime-like rendering is already possible, Lino from OTOY have done it although the Anime Kernel will bring more benefits.

Octane is also a one of a kind renderer. OTOY developers are hard working on it and have been surprising many of us more than once, in the past. On top of being very keen to user feedback. There are always internal reasons why a product doesn't come to life or gets post-poned. No matter the industry.

Regarding 3D DCC implementations (plugins), do keep in mind that no 3D DCC is the same. Each have their own APIs, quirks and whatnot. Not all of them are equally easy to manage for a developer (unfortunately).

Patience is a virtue. It will be worth the wait.


Thanks for the reply + explanation Eleska! I do get that it's difficult and there are heaps of challenges I am completely unaware of..My issue was purely with the hype train and what seems like broken promises regarding (I guess) bigger features being made/ready for public release...Especially when I see other companies releasing comparable products that aim to do the same thing in less time (RS RT, Chaos Vantage, EEVEE etc)

And to your last comment, I really do hope so!
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Re: Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

Postby senorpablo » Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:10 am

senorpablo Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:10 am
To add to the list of promised and never delivered features, the AMD GPU support that was right around the corner yet never materialized. That was over seven years ago.
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Re: Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

Postby Agendum » Sun Jul 17, 2022 10:17 pm

Agendum Sun Jul 17, 2022 10:17 pm
Ive waited years for Brigade as well. What exactly are their priorities? I feel regret that I didnt spend my time learning Redshift instead of paying for steep maintenance costs for what exactly?
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Re: Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

Postby elsksa » Mon Jul 18, 2022 4:57 pm

elsksa Mon Jul 18, 2022 4:57 pm
Agendum wrote:(...) steep maintenance costs for what exactly?

The developers have been constantly pushing new releases on both the Octane core & the accordingly updated plugin (to only mention a couple), featuring new options, features and many fixes. It's all in the release notes.
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Re: Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

Postby atoyuser1 » Fri Jul 22, 2022 10:27 am

atoyuser1 Fri Jul 22, 2022 10:27 am
senorpablo wrote:To add to the list of promised and never delivered features, the AMD GPU support that was right around the corner yet never materialized. That was over seven years ago.

100% this
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Re: Fed up of OTOY teasing features never get released

Postby leehenshall » Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:33 pm

leehenshall Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:33 pm
Otoy are incredibly transparent with their development ambitions...I personally like this approach. I'd rather this than being completely opaque such as games and hardware developer Valve....Half Life 3 anyone?! :D Imagine if they had shared their last 10 years of development with the public.

I'm a long time vRay user. I became interested in Octane when I built my first quad GPU rig in 2015. I tested every GPU render engine on the market. For me....Octane always interested me the most. Although at the time, it was missing many features. Those have nearly all been delivered since then...it was also a very good value render engine. I remember the upgrade from v3 to v4 was free.

IMO Octane is a one of a kind render engine...the Stand-alone experience is one of it's greatest strengths. RNDR is nothing short of genius and an incredible achievement amongst many others. For me this uniqueness is worth it, even if some features have never arrived.

Even simple stuff...like I can load a 24k HDRI and rotate it in realtime/IPR....where vRay chuggs with anything over 8k. Out of core and NVLINK are the most complete and stable experiences of all GPU render engines and they are even pledging to take the further based on slides from GTC 2022.

Unreal Engine is taking a lot of market share in my industry. As Jules said, the worlds of Realtime and Offline are converging and i think this is a very important thing to consider. All the offline render engines are looking for a way providing a realtime experience. The rise of the game or realtime engines poses somewhat of a threat to the traditional way of creating imagery.

I'm still waiting to see what this future looks like...Are we all going to move to realtime engines mixing advanced raster techniques with realtime raytracing?....or are offline render engines going to become realtime?...the jury is still out...we are at a major fork in the industry imo.

I can confirm having tested Redshift RT and Chaos Vantage...that these early attempts have failed at bringing realtime to offline....they simply cannot keep parity with their original render engines, throttled by available vRam (chaos vantage) & are generally an ugly heavily denoised mess. Missing features and non parity was exactly why I did not stick with vRay GPU in the first place. It completely undermines the value of realtime when you have to jump through hoops, forego certain functionality/features or fork your production pipeline to utilize a particular tool.

So far with Brigade....otoy have said and done the right things....full parity with Octane is a must and this is still the goal if GTX 2022 is anything to go by & not releasing it when it's not ready (i know early implementations actually did make it to Octane core). I personally would prefer to wait and see this come to fruition. Brigade will be a VERY big deal if it delivers on this where others have failed.

I guess from my perspective I'm saying that I think we are dealing with cutting edge & unpredictable technology here...possibly something totally unique to our industry. And to have the benefit of full transparency from the developer you kind of have to come along for the ride with realistic exceptions.

However I do understand how it can be hard to be so patient when you have work that would greatly benefit from such exciting features.
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