OctaneRender™ Standalone 1.36 RC1

[Refracty]

I think it is really clear that the 1.5 release wont be very different from the 1.3x releases.
We have to wait for the releases after 1.5 to see new features...

[manalokos]

We've had a dramatic improvement on the node tree, I've been making so complex scenes that they would be impossible to manage in 1.2.

[Nod64]

Ooh! Ta

[voon]

What comes after 1.5? 2.0? Can I still expect displacement to come in in a free update?

[oguzbir]

.................
Max plugin is also not ready. A lot of improvements can be done there too. Like adding instancing support to particle flow, proxy meshes, bitmap reloading.. etc etc.. But again.. everything is standing still. Karba compiles the new Octane binaries and calls it a new version.

Anyway..the bottom line is.. please start to develop Octane in user oriented way.
I like Octane and I'd like to use it in the future too.

Thanks for reading..

Suv

Thanks for writing Suv.
I totally do agree.

All I can say that Octane developers did a great thing implementing their core binary in nearly every 3D app out there. Since it all depends on the main binary. This might be a good thing to sell licence to wide users but it also is a great obstacle to improve 3D app-plugins individually.
Sorry to say but as an artist I depend on 3dsmax and LUA is meaningless for me.
I can see that OTOY is planning octane standalone sell it as a production renderer for major movie studios. So there will be little improvement for Max and other plugins.
Like you said, a lot of improvements can be done and those can improve not the render speed for sure.
Max plugins still lacks major features to improve workflow those can be done without depending on the Octane Binary.
It has been nearly 4 years since I signed in to this great forum. We're still told to wait for future undisclosed features. Octane speed and it's visual output quality is great. I do want to see this beast perform better. In order to finish a project best possible way I have to buy other renderers as well to fill the gap.

We all can see coding gpu renders is a hard tast. None of the current renderers perform well.
There are few other new gpu renderers on the way. We'll see how they perform.

It's just sad not having a complete production ready renderer after all that waiting.
I really wish to see more plugin improvements at least those will improve and speed up our workflow.

[gordonrobb]

What comes after 1.5? 2.0? Can I still expect displacement to come in in a free update?

I'm sorry if this is all coming across as moaning but...

I know that some people are more interested in when they can use features in a pipeline, however, this question is the one that I'm most interested in.

At what point will I have to pay for an upgrade that gives me features I would expect to have now?

I can wait for:

Better procedurals
Better texture adjustment nodes
Full motion blur (although there's a work around in the LW plugin)
Specular materials that behaves properly (reflect parameter does not turn off reflection on the back side of the material)
Gradient that is more like LW's (ie can be based on position, slope, incidence angle etc)
Better matte material (shadows and reflections)

However, at what point in the update process will I be required to fork out more money? I kind of expect all of these things in a working programme (with the possible exception of the gradient node).

[steveps3]

That one is easy.

2.0 is when you have to pay again. It has been stated as such since the very beginning.

[Elvissuperstar007]

Please! add a gradient in 3ds max

[Elvissuperstar007]

cloud will? in 1.5 release candidate

[FrankPooleFloating]

suv makes some good points. Though this is one of those times where I am feeling a little more friendly towards Otoy. Clearly you guys have things very stable now and hit major milestones, and hopefully the real work starts now...

Marcus, Roeland et al, please make it a priority now to make Octane truly composite-friendly. Visibility is only 3/4 of the way there - we need to be able to render matte/masking objects without shadows/reflections on matte objects alpha. Until this and a couple other nuggets are in Octane, our renders often need to be ham-fisted into a compositing workflow. Presumably Hollywood would mostly agree. And when folks are able to render just the objects that are needed - and also use render region simultaneously - they will be able to render animations that would take eons to do as whole images.

If you guys add hair (or something of that ilk) before making Octane fully ready for a compositing workflow, I for one will scream.