ETA on proper v3 version

[garytyler]

I have been testing Redshift in the last couple of weeks (signed up for their 3ds Max Alpha testing). Their 3ds Max plugin is beautifully crafted. It is developed way beyond Octane's and it's still technically in Alpha. It's a biased renderer, takes a little more work to setup and isn't as responsive in the Activeshade as Octane or VRay RT but it's much faster than either. Their Max plugin final version will be coming out any day now.

[Gestaltdesign]

Interesting to hear gary......some of our guys are pushing to trial it and i must confess i was blocking them initially in a hope to move to Octane after v3. I dont have to describe my dissapointment over the last 6 months with Octane Max development.

I have heard similar good reports from a friend who is a vray legend......he thinks this time next year redshift will be a super heavyweight in max....speed is of the essence to us so I am excited to see what it can do!

[thanulee]

Some time now in Framestore NY they are testing Redshift. I doubt its a coincidence. Octane's users seem mostly hobbyists or arch viz artists if i judge from the fb group that i follow. Very few published works in vfx/animation and actually i cannot seem to recall anything but Raoul Marks' video.
And it will shrink since the development is dead slow and product is very unstable. One month after v3 release and its obvious that months are gonna pass without a steady version. I contacted support for something and got 13 days later a response after i had to re send.
So if development not progressing, support not answering, then wtf is working in this company?

Its most likely that with Redshift and Fstorm release in September, octane is gonna remain a tool for hobbyists. I dont see that changing cause all this time that Otoy is looking for devs or dealing with their internal issues or trying to implement photoshop plugin (thats a joke at least), all other companies are actually working hard and evolving.
I hope that im wrong, but owning this software for 6 months and comparing to any other product that i ve used the past 10 years, i noticed 2 things:
I had one of the worst customer service i ever experienced and i ve never seen such slow development. Actually i never bought a beta product before haha i give em that.

[mojave]

So if development not progressing, support not answering, then wtf is working in this company?

Its most likely that with Redshift and Fstorm release in September, octane is gonna remain a tool for hobbyists. I dont see that changing cause all this time that Otoy is looking for devs or dealing with their internal issues or trying to implement photoshop plugin (thats a joke at least), all other companies are actually working hard and evolving.
I hope that im wrong, but owning this software for 6 months and comparing to any other product that i ve used the past 10 years, i noticed 2 things:
I had one of the worst customer service i ever experienced and i ve never seen such slow development. Actually i never bought a beta product before haha i give em that.

I cannot talk about support but I can tell you I had much worse experiences with way bigger SW industry players. Here we have real people behind each request, even developers themselves helping users directly which is quite unlikely to happen with other companies. I regret you had a bad experience but after a new release is usual that response times are higher due to high demand.

Also I think you are underestimating the development that has been done and the new features and improvements that had been added to Octane in just the last few months. I guess all depends on what you find useful or whether these new features apply to your daily work or if you are aware of them. We keep adding new features upon users requests as well as improving the product on a daily basis. I encourage you to take a look at the Octane 3 new features post where all new features added in V3 are described in detail.

Regarding to the Photoshop extension, it's a simple tool which purpose is to speedup the compositing workflow for our users (and a free EXR loader ), it has already more than 1.5K unique users and very few have reported any issues, so I don't understand that statement as it seems to have achieved its purpose.

[thanulee]

. Here we have real people behind each request, even developers themselves helping users directly which is quite unlikely to happen with other companies. I regret you had a bad experience but after a new release is usual that response times are higher due to high demand.

Also I think you are underestimating the development that has been done and the new features and improvements that had been added to Octane in just the last few months. I guess all depends on what you find useful or whether these new features apply to your daily work or if you are aware of them. We keep adding new features upon users requests as well as improving the product on a daily basis.

Quite unlikely? I think u have a big idea over ur company and ur living in ur own bubble. Go visit lets say a small company like Quixel and see what actually means REAL PEOPLE behind each request. Or Redshift/Corona or Substance or idk Lucid... U have by far one of the worst customer services.

And i think u are underestimating my perception if u wanna talk me over with words that u have made progress while u sold a BETA for a ready product without even documentation. Its almost insulting to read ur post, like im an amateur or something and i do not understand what is going on. Speaking of requests, still i am locked with octane maps alone inside 3ds max while every other render engine in the market works almost flawless with the software.

Really u shouldnt be answering, cause i think everyone in this post specifically had enough with words and awaits action.

ps. and ur not adding features on daily basis, u struggle in weekdays (and not weekends ofc) to make this octane plugin for max stable. The dev fixes one thing and breaks 3 others. WE STILL DO NOT HAVE A BUTTON TO SAVE OUR RENDERS. I think that says it all and its sad....

[BorderLine]

Just for info, i'm Lightwave user who come in 3ds max. I use Octane plugin with Lightwave and i 've no problem. Very very good plugin !
I change for reasons of speed and library and I naturally come to the plugin for 3dsmax, and read..... what's going on here ! Afraid !
So, just for info, just tested Fstorm with complex Vray scene : translate and ... render !
Incredible ! It's Corona in GPU ! Simple !
I made my choice and sorry for my English.
Good luck to the team

[Olitech]

I have been testing Redshift in the last couple of weeks (signed up for their 3ds Max Alpha testing). Their 3ds Max plugin is beautifully crafted. It is developed way beyond Octane's and it's still technically in Alpha. It's a biased renderer, takes a little more work to setup and isn't as responsive in the Activeshade as Octane or VRay RT but it's much faster than either. Their Max plugin final version will be coming out any day now.

Isn't the whole point of Octane is that it is UNBIASED?

This is just a personal opinion, but as a 20 year veteran of the Viz Biz, I'm still pretty amazed at what these guys have created in a relatively short amount of time. They've changed the way we do our work.

It totally reminds me of the early days of Vray. Small, passionate team. Forum help directly from the developers. Incredible results. Patiently waiting for new features and bug fixes. Customer-driven features. Kudos to Vlado and his team for changing the game in this way. Vray is still king of the photorealistic BIASED renders, but it's been what...15 years now? So of course they've got it right. I remember Karba from the early days of the Vray forums and eventually followed him here.

Lightscape, Brazil, Mental Ray, Vray...I for one do not miss photon mapping or other alternatives and will never go back. You really miss trying to pick the right AA filter and hope it works? Regarding UNBIASED, I also don't miss Maxwell's poor customer service (in the beginning).

The trade-off for us at DBM is Setup Time vs. Render Time. Sure there's faster render engines out there with longer setup times, but I'd rather have a quicker setup time (WSWG) and go home to let the machines do the work.

What's the real complaint here? Spending a measly few hundred bucks on a game-changer and it's not working perfectly yet? LMFAO! If you're risking test versions on pro work; well, what do you expect? The slow-down is because the company is growing and expanding. Duh.

Try investing 10's of Thousands on a render engine and 100's of Thousands on a farm to support it. And it's still not perfect. And stuff still flickers and looks fake and crashes...unless you've spent a few years mastering it to get to finally 'render fast'. Which some of us have.

I can only speak for myself, but I find I'm doing the same level of work (actually better) than when I had a $300k render farm and 25 artists at my disposal. Massive, massive scenes.

What was my point? Oh yeah, Octane still kills it!

Just my one-cent.

Happy Friday!

Best,
O

[Gestaltdesign]

Jeez......just checked the FStorm facebook page......astonishing! What a development rate!! Definately had my eye off the ball on that one!

[garytyler]

I have been testing Redshift in the last couple of weeks (signed up for their 3ds Max Alpha testing). Their 3ds Max plugin is beautifully crafted. It is developed way beyond Octane's and it's still technically in Alpha. It's a biased renderer, takes a little more work to setup and isn't as responsive in the Activeshade as Octane or VRay RT but it's much faster than either. Their Max plugin final version will be coming out any day now.

Isn't the whole point of Octane is that it is UNBIASED?

This is just a personal opinion, but as a 20 year veteran of the Viz Biz, I'm still pretty amazed at what these guys have created in a relatively short amount of time. They've changed the way we do our work.

It totally reminds me of the early days of Vray. Small, passionate team. Forum help directly from the developers. Incredible results. Patiently waiting for new features and bug fixes. Customer-driven features. Kudos to Vlado and his team for changing the game in this way. Vray is still king of the photorealistic BIASED renders, but it's been what...15 years now? So of course they've got it right. I remember Karba from the early days of the Vray forums and eventually followed him here.

Lightscape, Brazil, Mental Ray, Vray...I for one do not miss photon mapping or other alternatives and will never go back. You really miss trying to pick the right AA filter and hope it works? Regarding UNBIASED, I also don't miss Maxwell's poor customer service (in the beginning).

The trade-off for us at DBM is Setup Time vs. Render Time. Sure there's faster render engines out there with longer setup times, but I'd rather have a quicker setup time (WSWG) and go home to let the machines do the work.

What's the real complaint here? Spending a measly few hundred bucks on a game-changer and it's not working perfectly yet? LMFAO! If you're risking test versions on pro work; well, what do you expect? The slow-down is because the company is growing and expanding. Duh.

Try investing 10's of Thousands on a render engine and 100's of Thousands on a farm to support it. And it's still not perfect. And stuff still flickers and looks fake and crashes...unless you've spent a few years mastering it to get to finally 'render fast'. Which some of us have.

I can only speak for myself, but I find I'm doing the same level of work (actually better) than when I had a $300k render farm and 25 artists at my disposal. Massive, massive scenes.

What was my point? Oh yeah, Octane still kills it!

Just my one-cent.

Happy Friday!

Best,
O

I agree with everything you're saying :/ and I am less experienced with CG than you, and appreciate your input. I come from a photography and filmmaking background, shooting on actual film. Octane is the best looking renderer in my opinion, by far. But, I want to render animations. Rendering with Redshift has been very similar except I am not forced to wait so long for little areas of grain to clear. I know that Vray setup these days is much easier than it used to be. And, Redshift is very simple once learned, which is obnoxious I admit. The only reason to use photon mapping in Redshift is to generate caustics, which it does separate from GI and very fast. Redshift Brute Force is very very good. I don't care much for the settings and risk of flicker involved in Light/Irradiance Cache.

Overall, I will continue using Octane for fun and for anything that will only be a still. It simply renders beautiful images. But, the fact that they don't take their plugin development seriously and they overlook major features like dependable round edges and motion blur on liquids is very disappointing. I think the problem may be Octane's organization around a central standalone version that nobody would use if Octane simply maintained decent plugins instead. Something is holding it back.

[thanulee]

Swapped to redshift looks stunning and everything works out of the box. Everything, with no excuses and awesome support and its like xxxx times faster than octane with same quality. Once fstorm adds some more stuff, it will be better than octane i believe.

Cheers,