VDB bugs

[senorpablo]

I haven't used Octane in over a year. Using it for a quick personal project, and I'm reminded how awfully buggy it is.

Trying to use some VDB files and discovered these bus within minutes:

1. The start frame can't be a negative number. Therefore it's impossible to start a vdb file anywhere but the beginning.
2. Putting any kind of modifier on the Octane Volume breaks it completely, even it it's deleted. That node is completely useless now and must be recreated from scratch.
3. Like all(?) custom Octane nodes, it's just labeled "Object" in the modify panel.
4. There's a memory leak. Using a vdb and scrubbing the timeline with the render window open will eventually cause Max to run out of memory and Windows will shut it down.

All this is in the latest available version of Octane 4. Glad I haven't wasted money on the upgrade.

Does Otoy employ any quality assurance people at all? Does anyone take pride in software development anymore?

[senorpablo]

one more:

5. The looping setting in the volume object doesn't work. When it get's to the last frame, it just stops.

[paride4331]

Hi senorpablo,
I have a -200 + 200 frames, it seems to work; loop seems to work and pingpong as well, in render as Octane render viewport.
No memory leaks scrubbing the timeline.
Could you give us more info to better understand because of your issue?
Regards
Paride

[senorpablo]

Hi senorpablo,
I have a -200 + 200 frames, it seems to work; loop seems to work and pingpong as well, in render as Octane render viewport.
No memory leaks scrubbing the timeline.
Could you give us more info to better understand because of your issue?
Regards
Paride

You're using version 2020+ in that video. I said in my post that I'm using the latest available version 4.

[paride4331]

Hi senorpablo,
thanks, I will invastigate about.
Your claim has led to confusion, it got me to thinking to v2020.
If you haven't yet upgraded your license to v2020, what wasted money are you talking about?
Octane v4 was free for V3 license owners.
Regards
Paride

[senorpablo]

Hi senorpablo,
thanks, I will invastigate about.
Your claim has led to confusion, it got me to thinking to v2020.
If you haven't yet upgraded your license to v2020, what wasted money are you talking about?
Octane v4 was free for V3 license owners.
Regards
Paride

It surely wasn't free. I paid for version 3; the fact that Otoy included some buggy software they chose to call "version 4" with it was not something I asked for. If version 4 is free, I'll gladly take a refund of all the monies I've paid to Otoy, use version 4 as-is with no complaint and be on my way. We both know very well that at that time, it was a marketing ploy to avoid the backlash from switching to a subscription model, and no longer supporting "perpetual" software for all the customers who made Octane possible to that point. Calling it free or saying it was given away doesn't excuse broken software.

I spent many hours debugging completely obvious bugs in Octane over the years I used it, and posting them to this forum, often with test cases. That was something I did for "free" even though my time is valuable and I'm busy. My post history supports that claim. Did Otoy compensate me in any way for all the QA work I did, because they're too cheap to hire professionals? No. I wanted to make the software better. So yeah, I expect the software I paid for to work. There are several guys here in the Max forum who post many more bugs than I did, and Otoy would be wise to support them in some way since Otoy isn't up to the job. You work hard also and do the best you can, but it's not enough. Otoy needs more QA; Octane has always been very buggy and unpolished.

I discovered these bugs within a few minutes of using VDB's. Some programmer went to the effort of putting in those check boxes, and didn't test that they worked. Or, to make the obvious functionality of being able to specify a negative frame to start. Not to mention the memory leak that crashes Max every time(not 100% if this is related to vdb or something else, but it's definitely an Octane bug--Max doesn't crash if the Octane viewport isn't open). This isn't on the programmers, but Otoy. Companies make a conscious choice to pump out buggy and unfinished software to hit lots of marketing bullet points, or to produce a more solid and reliable product without features that aren't tested and finished.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that the final version of the perpetual software I paid for to work as suggested.