Octane GPU Renderer

[redmotion]

New version of the GPU renderer has been released.

Available on Linux, Mac and er... Windows. ...And 99 euros.

http://www.refractivesoftware.com/downloads.html

Octane Render v1.022 beta2.2 Release Notes
------------------------------------------

Released on: Wednesday May 26 2010

Changes since v1.021 beta2.1
----------------------------

NEW FEATURES
------------

- Support for multiple GPUs, you can use as many GPUs as your system can handle.
They can be a mix of different types of GPUs. (Currently Nvidia Only)

- Plugins for Autodesk Maya, 3Ds Max, XSI and Blender, with Sketchup and C4D coming in development

- Recursive Textures

- Many new procedural texture nodes and mixing/scaling textures, when combined these allow for very detailed
texturing, while consuming only a few kilobytes of GPU memory.
* checks
* clamptexture
* cosinemix
* mix
* scale
* invert
* marble
* ridgedfractal
* turbulence (aka Fbm)
* saw, triangle and sine waves for gradients

- extended command line arguments for batch rendering / network rendering

- Improved Material preview object


CHANGES and Bug Fixes since v1.021 beta2.1
------------------------------------

- new saturation slider in the camera imager/tonemapper
- blocky horizontal artifacts/shading problem is fixed
- GPU memory management bugs solved
- it's faster. ;)
- this version refuses to open 2.1 or older scene files as they are not compatible and would only cause problems/confusion.
- bump mapping works, can be scaled with float or float2
- turbulence procedural can be scaled with float, float2 and float3
- crash on exit on windows 32bit, linux and mac should be fixed
- resolution change crashes fixed
- render display shows card having 0MB video ram on some systems (win32) fixed
- CTRL key on linux now works for panning viewport and zooming mousewheel
- focal length command line argument is working (for controlling from export/plugin scripts)
- OBJ's MTL file can contain spaces and a path (for rhino's OBJ exporter)
- linux multi-gpu works, no more error/exit
- linux and mac loading of OBJ without vertex normals is fixed (no more black objects)
- autofocus differences between single and multi-gpu modes is solved
- turntable animation without motion blur is fixed
- Rhino compatible OBJ import fixes
- Vertex normal interpolation flip in the render core fixed,
so CAD and Moi3D normals with supplied vertex normals should render with accurate shading
(you must export from Moi3D with the option to weld the edges turned off!)
- make the node inspector not jump back to the top after changing something fixed.
- UV scale float2 node issue fixed
- rgb swatch does'nt update after node parameter change fixed
- make reset camera remember last loaded camera position and last command arg given camera position fixed
- make root project tab's name update the project root node's name fixed.
- many nodegraph connections fixed
- many other bugs are fixed

[Hirazi Blue]

I assume you've already tried the (X)SI-Plugin... Anything to report? ;)

[redmotion]

Well, I was pretty happy to use it without a plugin so the plugin is a bonus.

Videos about it can be found on Stephan Woermann's (author) vimeo site: http://vimeo.com/user2509578

Basically, it exports an obj file from XSI, camera position and sunlight position, opens Octane and renders the current frame. So pretty much similar to most other thirdparty rendering plugins. Materials are not edited in XSI (just textures and material assignments) and have to be set inside Octane. But this is faster anyway.

No light sources yet (I say that, but it looks like you can fake illumination by boosting a HDR map like this: http://vimeo.com/12058815).

Also:
- Scene size is more limited with pathtracing (unbiased) though and you can easily run of GPU memory if you have lots of hi-res textures and/or geometry (and a mid-low range GPU).
- There is a major "firefly" problem (bright pixels) right now with certain scenes - so not entirely reliable ATM.

[redmotion]

Good news for people wondering whether to dip their toe into a beta for an unfinished next-gen-renderer.

http://www.refractivesoftware.com/purchase.html

There's a one week discount to 49 euros until the 4th June.

[Rork]

Hi all,

Just to revive this little thread, is there anyone who actually dabbled with this software?

I had a little demo yesterday, and was quite surprised with the speed and quality of the renders.
I found some more info on vimeo etc. and started wondering about workflow(issues), exporting your scene etc.

Price wise it's a no brainer ;-)

Any information is appreciated, esp. archviz wise.

rob