OctaneRender® 2024.1 Alpha 1

[pxlntwrk]

Can anyone tell me when this moves from alpha to full commercial release?
Mojave told me in another thread that 2024.1 was coming out this year.

These version numberings mean nothing apart from the change in commercial season.
A reminder to tell you that the subscription collection is starting.
And to mitigate a little the very fair words of @elsksa, you can also influence this notion of time to a certain extent by allocating the necessary resources to manage to submit "your work on time" or to remain consistent with what you promote.
In general, clear and honest communication is enough.
This is what generally happens in a professional environment with a minimum of ethics bla blablala blabla....
I have a lot of respect for all the devs (@abstrax, @Mojave...) who improve and maintain this awesome rendering engine, with a special thought for the developer of the Cinema4d plugin @aoktar and @bepeg4d of course.
Happy Octane user on Windows for over 10 years now,
I really struggle to trust Otoy as a customer...

[northalex78]

Wow that somehow became a philosophical question about acceptance and time as a closed circle. Or something.

Would love to hear from Devs though, when is this alpha moving to a full release?
What I don't understand is resources still going into 2023.1 moving it to 2023.1.1 when we have 2024. Should that one be all hands on deck?

[frankmci]

Wow that somehow became a philosophical question about acceptance and time as a closed circle. Or something.

Would love to hear from Devs though, when is this alpha moving to a full release?
What I don't understand is resources still going into 2023.1 moving it to 2023.1.1 when we have 2024. Should that one be all hands on deck?

As I (not an Otoy dev or employee) understand it, the n.n.x releases are primarily bug fixes for significant issues. It's only n.x releases that have significant changes to features. As such, since 2023.1 is in wide spread use, it makes sense to keep trouble shooting it for a reasonable amount of time. That does not mean that 2023 is getting the kind of attention from the devs that the next N.X release is. Beppe & Co. have said publicly that 2023.1.x is not getting any major updates. There will be no 2023.2. All the significant features and modifications that were to be labeled 2023.2 have been rolled over into 2024.X.

Based on previous history, I expect two or three Beta versions of 2024.1 before an official, stable release. I'm only guessing that it might be in the late winter, early spring time frame. But that's just speculation. It Ships When It's Ready.

[john_otoy]

OctaneRender 2024.1 Alpha 2 has been released: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=82826

[northalex78]

Wow that somehow became a philosophical question about acceptance and time as a closed circle. Or something.

Would love to hear from Devs though, when is this alpha moving to a full release?
What I don't understand is resources still going into 2023.1 moving it to 2023.1.1 when we have 2024. Should that one be all hands on deck?

As I (not an Otoy dev or employee) understand it, the n.n.x releases are primarily bug fixes for significant issues. It's only n.x releases that have significant changes to features. As such, since 2023.1 is in wide spread use, it makes sense to keep trouble shooting it for a reasonable amount of time. That does not mean that 2023 is getting the kind of attention from the devs that the next N.X release is. Beppe & Co. have said publicly that 2023.1.x is not getting any major updates. There will be no 2023.2. All the significant features and modifications that were to be labeled 2023.2 have been rolled over into 2024.X.

Based on previous history, I expect two or three Beta versions of 2024.1 before an official, stable release. I'm only guessing that it might be in the late winter, early spring time frame. But that's just speculation. It Ships When It's Ready.

Frank, every time I ask this question you pop in defending everyone. Just butt out, dude. I'm not asking you, and I don't care what you think, and you're not adding anything to the discussing by coming in each time saying "hey everyone, it's ready when it's ready".

In any case, I have seen via socials that they have indeed now released another 2024 version. Thanks to Otoy people (not randoms who are not employees, "Frank") for working on this.

[northalex78]

Hard disagree. People piping in when not asked, with nothing to say or contribute other than "it's ready when it's ready, the sky is blue, water is wet" isn't helpful. May as well say nothing at all than state the obvious, it's not a contribution at all. Maybe he is helpful with other questions, but here it's not helpful at all.

Devs do reply, because as I pointed out, in other posts they had explicitly stated to me that 2024.1 would be out this year. So I asked if what they said was still the case. "Infamous when"? Don't think so, I'm not idly popping up to scream "wen, wen, wen", I'm following up on something they've already said to me.

And I am happy to have seen further progress on 2024.

But lack of "official" reply isn't an invitation for others to jump in and try to reinforce to everyone that Otoy should be in no way accountable to things they've said themselves.

Merry Christmas.

[frankmci]

Frank, every time I ask this question you pop in defending everyone. Just butt out, dude. I'm not asking you, and I don't care what you think, and you're not adding anything to the discussing by coming in each time saying "hey everyone, it's ready when it's ready".

In any case, I have seen via socials that they have indeed now released another 2024 version. Thanks to Otoy people (not randoms who are not employees, "Frank") for working on this.

The fact remains that there is a constant influx of people new to these tools and to forums like this one who don't know the reality of most production software development and release cycles in this bleeding-edge industry. People get very worked up over it, and the issue seems to cause them great frustration and anxiety. I try to share this reality with folks who may not understand that this is a decades old issue, and the fact that it is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. If it helps even one person sleep a little better or be a bit less grumpy with their coworkers, friends and family, then it is well worth my time.

I will continue to do so, but you are certainly free to ignore me.