Hi all, Otoy released the Blender version for Octane.
You need to buy a special version of Blender with integrated Octane Addon.
A demo version will follow soon.
Cheers, mib.
interesting to see that they got around the GPL incompatibilities by using a TCP/IP configuration… i wonder if this means we can have remote gpu’s rendering to our viewport?
Hm. I am confused.
What now? Open beta or demo? Besides the fact that there’s no binary anywhere.
The forum post as well says it’s open beta now, but no download and at the end of the post it says demo coming soon.
its open beta to those who pay for it – http://render.otoy.com/shop/blender_plugin.php… and if you pay for it you get the binaries & source code supposidly.
ok but who buys beta products is not final software, is this serious, what serious company will buy unfinished product for 300EU.
ok but who buys beta products
Hm, all Windows user? 
It is/was Octane concept from beginning to sell the software for ~50% or less during the Beta phase.
If you read the announcement it is 99 € during Beta and 199 € for the Final version.
I was Alpha tester during the last weeks and it is very stable software, only features you have in standalone version are missing atm…
Cheers, mib.
However that is no open beta.
That’s a prepurchase to get closed beta access.
Also, is there any word on how often they’ll release a modified Blender version?
If sales go slow, will they still update it with every major release, or will it just ebb away once sales decline and you’re stuck with BlenderOctane 2.70, while the rest of the world uses Blender 3.68?
Great news! I am still waiting for plugin for Modo, so now I will switch back to Blender to test Octane’s new plugin.
This product is still in development. It has undergone alpha testing but cannot be guaranteed as feature complete or bug free.
If i buy software for 100,200,300EU i need stable software.
I guess I’ll try out the demo version whenever it’s released.
I don’t really get this licensing problem though, if they are still required to publish their source code to buyers then what was the point of keeping it closed from the beginning?
It is stable, just as much as any other renderer. They’re just being honest and calling it a beta, as opposed to every other piece of software that continues fixing things up over the years while still calling it a “complete” program. Protip: There’s no such thing as a finished program.
Ill wait for more input from users (those who will actually buy this beta) and wait for the demo.
If this was one or two years ago, I would grab it with no questions asked. But while RefractiveSoftware and then OTOY were relying on the community to deliver Blender->Octane workflow support for free, and were delaying Blender integration, Cycles happened…
And its currently just for Win anyway, with Mac “in the working”, but no Linux version mentioned anywhere.
I was also one of the testers for several weeks I can tell that Octane for Blender is very stable. I love it!
GPL allow selling software.
But GPL allow only external, optional commercial plugins.
(not integrated into code)
Any code modification without publishing code in not conform with GPL.
In fact: they can sell plugin,
they can sell unmodified blender with plugin
they can sell modified blender with plugin (but they must publish code-changes)
But it is production-ready? I mean can you do everything you can do in Standalone version, possibly more (like exporting / animating particle systems)?
Matej Mo, some parts of the standalone are missing, material database for example.
Others are extended, region render, instancing and animation without export every frame.
Take a look to the manual, some parts are marked as “Not available”.
For more details better use Octane forum, some questions better answered form the developer.
Cheers, mib.
Mib…I know nothing about Octane, but I have read where it is fast for animation. Since you mentioned you were a beta tester for this… If you had to take your best guess
If you did a complex scene in cycles (lots of objects, many with maps) and took that same scene and converted it to octane materials and rendered it… how much faster is it than cycles, and does it reduce the noise better and quicker?
and does it reduce the noise better and quicker?
Yes, because of better render methods (MLT) but this is the only answer I have for you.
It depends on so much things how fast is a render of a scene I cant answer this.
I test multimillion poly scenes and Octane start render very fast but Cycles is better integrated.
Best is to wait for the Demo and test yourself.
Keep in mind you need Blender Octane + Standalone Engine = 279 € and later 400 €.
Cheers, mib.
@arexma, I ask the developer and he told me they try to follow Blender release cycle as close as possible.
Cheers, mib.
Any word on if buying the full Blender release includes Brigade source code?, And more importantly if AMD DX11 capable cards are supported like eg HD 5850? If not lux renders new release looks a nice short term free alternative.