Anyone using the new Free version of Octane?
billyben_0077a25354
Posts: 771
Just saw where Octane has a free tier now for DAZ Studio. It is limited to one GPU and I believe it has some feature limits too. Just wondering if anyone was using it and how you like it.
Post edited by billyben_0077a25354 on
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Oh, well, now, that's an interesting bit of news!
As soon as I finish preparing this year's tax returns, I'll dig around.
So, apparently, never.
...from what I've read on their site it seems you have to be online when using it which sounds like working in the cloud. That includes the paid subscription versions as well.
Can anyone verify that, as I would actually like to be wrong on that assertion?
I can verify that for the free tier, you have to be online. In my tests, iray was a bit faster to render, and it looked a lot more realistic. Maybe if I spent months researching all the various settings and learned about the materials, I might be able to speed it up and make it look better, but aint got the time for that.
...went to their site and from what I gather about the 19.99€ (22.52 USD) monthly Studio subscription (2 GPUs) and even the 199.20€ (244.40 USD) Studio annual track, you still need to be online when working. Only the Enterprise Annual licence at 299€ (336.90 USD), offers the option of a USB key that allows you work offline 49€ (55.20 USD) extra. The USB dangle also needs to be updated every 4 months as well (not sure if there's a fee for that or not, didn't see one but sounds like a micromangament bother).
Yeah, really had my hopes up (particularly because ot Octane's Out of Core Rendering) until I looked at the conditions.
Nope, no working in/on the cloud for either the free tier or the paid version, everything is done on your computer. You just need to be online so the software can authenticate with their license server (and download updates to the shader DB). It re-authenticates everytime you start the plugin, my guess is it's only done when the software is started, but I've not had any reason to test it to see if it checks again after starting.
To answer the OP, I've used Octane a lot in the past, but much less since DAZ introduced Iray. It has many features that Iray doesn't, and is designed for a much wider audience than Iray. A full suite of Canvas/render pass options, dynamic hair (no help with DS, but can be used in Carrara), motion blur, true volumetrics, an AI denoiser that really uses AI (and provides outstanding results), AI lighting that can speed up rendering a great deal, and a host of other features that I haven't mentioned. The downside to using Octane is that you will need to tweak most shaders the get the best quality images, and there is a real learning curve because it is designed for professional use, and is more complex than rendering with Iray in DS. It is generally faster than Iray, and can be a lot faster, but again that relies heavily on the users knowledge and understanding of the software.
...I've worked with Realty/Lux before Iray so I became fairly accustomed with converting textures. The major downside was that render times in Lux were measured in geologic time even compared to Iray CPU mode or 3DL with UE, but you could render outside of Daz and in background mode as well once the scene was submitted to Lux which saved memory and processing resources.
I tried it.
It didn't suite me, my workflow, or I just didn't like the integration; I can't be sure why I didn't like it, I just found it to be too much of a hastle.
I prefer using Cycles in Blender; not without it's learning curve (even as an experienced Blender user), but it just suites me and my workflow.
Edit:
I just realised why; I have to be online for it to work.
... No thanks.
I bought a perpetual Marvelous Designer licence because, well I hate renting software.