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I purchased Octane 2 days ago and was implementing Maxwell render before making the jump. I am a professional photographer who is getting into virtual product shots with 3d due to the advancements in technology in tha past few years...anyway, using maxwell render it was extremely efficient and simple to get photo real results using the lighting and material editors...it looks like Octane is not so much of a virtual studio(not a knock to Octane...I think photographers are the last people to use 3d software) so I am wondering if there are any other product or studio types here that might have some pointers on using Octane in the "virtual studio" type of use? For example, what are some tips to create physically accurate soft boxes? What are the best steps to creating physically accurate materials? Any tips for the novice here are greatly appreciated!

You probably better use KeyShot for that.

I have used Keyshot. No disprespect to Keyshot, but I believe it was made for folks who model CAD who want decent quick product renders. I do advertising images and need the highest quality photo real renderer as possible. Hence, why I was using Maxwell. I am getting good results in my short time with Octane, but the workflow for someone like myself is not as straightforward as it might seem.

I never used Maxwell, but Octane to me seems very easy to learn, so perhaps you just need a bit more time with it to experiment and find the workflow that suits you best?

Making product shot everyday, I must say that octane + hdrilight studio is the best solution you can find today for this type of work
My 2 cents

Hi Barant,

Similar here. I've been using Maxwell for product rendering and added Octane a little while back. This was primarily for the extra speed on the gpu.

There's a few settings that differ, like the Aperture setting controlling the dof, and the F stop changing exposure, but not dof etc.

What with V2 out now, with texture displacement etc. Octane pretty much covers off all of the Maxwell feature set.

cheers,

Steve

For studio renderings, consider getting HDR Light Studio. I'd recommend it whether you're using Octane or not. Makes simple work of adding most any kind of light, bounce card, background. And a handy feature of being able to place lights by clicking on the surface where you want to see it's reflection.

The only thing that gets in my way so far from Octane in studio setups is the inability to set objects or materials to not cast shadows or to only receive reflections. That and a SSS system that is not very user-friendly for artists.

To be honest, I would go through the effort of learning Modo. It's a designer and photographer's dream and there's an Octane addon, the hdrlightstudio addon is very solid as well. I use Maya in my day job but I use Modo whenever I can in my spare time.

There are also studio photographer centric addons as well such as slik :

http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/kits/slik/ (won't work with Octane, but modo's built in renderer is pretty good and very fast)

I have a friend who's a package designer and I recommended the same thing. I also have a friend who's a studio/product photographer and he made the switch to cg (modo) years ago and hasn't looked back. You don't need to become and amazing modeler, you'd be spending the bulk of your time translating your skills to CG lighting/rendering (they translate very well)

You can't beat the modo community as well, if you have a question it'll be answered very quickly.

good luck!

I second investigating MODO for product visualization, if you aren't already.