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Octane Render 4 available

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
The denoiser + AI lights are by far my favorite features. There is also the new Brigade node that brings real-time PBR rendering to Octane, though they don't show us how this works, besides saying it is there. This is becoming common ground nowadays, where even iClone has it built-in - I mean, it's own real-time PBR, not Brigade. I wonder if Brigade will share the same limitations as the iClone alternative, like for example, each object can reflect the environment, but not each other.

OTOY also claims drastic speed improvements, to include scene refreshing times, which affect animation rendering speeds. In Octane 3, refreshing a frame sometimes takes longer than to render it, which makes animation rendering a pain. In Octane 4, they claim it happens instantly. I am eager to see that. They also claim that sharing VRAM with RAM won't affect rendering speed, while it does with competing products.

I have played with the Octane 4 preview, and the benchmarks blow the previous version performance by FAR. It was already the fastest in the market, and now it's just crazy fast. OTOY was graceful to allow current Octane license owners to play with version 4 for free, and perhaps the biggest news is that Octane 4 will be FREE for up to 2 GPUs when released. For everybody else, they offer fix price or subscription plans. For the subscription plans, they claim to give away ALL of the Octane plugins for FREE. I only have a single GPU, so at least I will get Octane 4 for free. :)
 

Bonnie2001

Extraordinary
I only have a single GPU, so at least I will get Octane 4 for free.

Same here. I'm really looking forward to the instant refresh for animation frames. In version 3, the scene refresh for every frame adds almost an extra minute per frame on my computer.
 

quietrob

Extraordinary
I suppose my point is that everyone has a video card (Perhaps not. Mine is still integrated with the motherboard but it's still a GPU so I think it should count) so does that mean Octane 4 is free for me? I like Superfly but it's rather slow like a DS render. I wouldn't mind a speed boost on my quite middle of the road computer.

Hmm, It seems at the very least I need a NVIDIA GPU....I have a Raedon 7....
 
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Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
I suppose my point is that everyone has a video card (Perhaps not. Mine is still integrated with the motherboard but it's still a GPU so I think it should count) so does that mean Octane 4 is free for me? I like Superfly but it's rather slow like a DS render. I wouldn't mind a speed boost on my quite middle of the road computer.

Hmm, It seems at the very least I need a NVIDIA GPU....I have a Raedon 7....

I first got started with Octane 1.0 with an old GTX 580 3GB VRAM, and rendering speeds were *crazy* comparing to what we had at that time. Octane was (at the time) the only engine that was rendering entirely in VRAM, which is many times faster than regular system RAM. That meant we were limited by amount of VRAM to decide what kinds of scenes we could render. There was also a nVidia CUDA limitation where we could only use up to 16 greyscale maps (can't remember the exact number) in the entire scene.

Nowadays Octane 3 has dropped all of these limitations, so we can load unlimited number of maps, and we can share VRAM and RAM in any amounts, BUT that came at the price of performance drops. With Octane 4, those drops are claimed to have been eliminated, which is nothing short of amazing, since all the competing alternatives still bottleneck at these things. Add to this the new "instant" scene refresh, and we can reach close to 1 FPS animation render speeds. In Octane 4, if you switch API to Brigade, you can go full real-time PBR rendering. OTOY claims they have mapped the Brigade API to the regular one, so converting the scene to real-time should be simple, but that is yet to be seen.

When it comes to performance, the bottom line is that it can be as fast as your GPU will physically allow. This includes video cards with proven cooling solutions, for I have fried two of them (GTX 275 and GTX 480) trying to render with stock cooling solutions - not a good idea. There is a reason nVidia charges more for the "Classified" editions that ship with stronger cooler systems that can withstand extended GPU rendering. In theory, a "good" GPU should have sufficient coolers so it doesn't fry itself when stressed, and sufficient number of streaming processors (SPs) to distribute the rendering processes. More built-in VRAM also means faster rendering. The more, the better.

Coming from that, decent GPU rendering doesn't come cheap. If you are serious about GPU rendering, you should consider forking out $600 to $700 on a flagship video card with decent cooling. I am not sure about ATI cards, but the nVidia "Classified" line out is the most recommended, though mine is one step below that, but it still includes special ATX 2.0+ (dual fan) cooling system, which includes a metal back plating to keep the card from warping, and also to double as a heat radiator.

Other factors include your motherboard and PSU (power source unit). These flagship video cards require a dedicated PCIEx 16X slot, and a PSU with stable 40A+ on a 12V rail. If your mobo PCIEx slot shares resources with other components, your expensive video card will be downgraded to slower performance. If your PSU cannot handle the power, it give you BSOD (unstable system), blow up the PSU capacitors, or in some cases, fry your entire system. Like I said, fast GPU rendering speed doesn't come cheap. At least Octane 4 is claimed to be free for up to 2 GPUs, where most of us only have a single one. :)
 

Bonnie2001

Extraordinary
I suppose my point is that everyone has a video card (Perhaps not. Mine is still integrated with the motherboard but it's still a GPU so I think it should count) so does that mean Octane 4 is free for me?....

Yes the upgrade to Octane 4 will be free for you too, that is if you already own version 3.
 

Bonnie2001

Extraordinary
Yes it says that on the video
Oh, so that's what they meant? Free for upgrades from version 3 only?

Yes Ken, it says so in the video at 0.12:


I'm not sure if the upgrade is free for Octane 2 users. The thread on the octane forum is a bit messy and confusing.
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
I have always supported Octane, so I am covered. They give away ALL of the plugins with the paid version, so I will still have to buy the Poser plugin. Maybe I can buy more plugins now that the upgrade is free. :)
 

agentunawares

Member
Contributing Artist
Yes it says that on the video


Yes Ken, it says so in the video at 0.12:


I'm not sure if the upgrade is free for Octane 2 users. The thread on the octane forum is a bit messy and confusing.

Skip to 0:20. There is going to b a 2-GPU free version.
 

quietrob

Extraordinary
I just checked and I don't have Octane on any drives. I think I was using Luxrender and Reality for my PBR. I guess I'll wait till I get I can get a decent Mobo CPU GPU combo.
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
It's hard to confuse Octane with Lux. Lux is free, and Octane cost hundreds. Another is that Lux is the slowest from the bunch, while Octane is the fastest. It's hard to forget those things. :)
 

agentunawares

Member
Contributing Artist
Note that this is displayed under the "License Upgrades" for Octane 3 customers, which means no charge only when upgrading from version 3.
No there really is a free tier. Octane Staff even talk about it in the launch thread on their forum... how would free customers that don't exist now upgrade to a free tier?
 

Ken1171

Esteemed
Contributing Artist
No there really is a free tier. Octane Staff even talk about it in the launch thread on their forum... how would free customers that don't exist now upgrade to a free tier?

I don't know, man. I was just pointing out what it says at the 0:20 mark you have mentioned. :)
 

agentunawares

Member
Contributing Artist
I don't know, man. I was just pointing out what it says at the 0:20 mark you have mentioned. :)
It says what plans current customers will be upgraded to, but it also lists a free tier, which obviously will be free and which obviously current customers cannot upgrade to. ;)

I am very excited about this.
 
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