Loading...
> >

Octane X in the Mac App Store

bytescapesbytescapes Posts: 1,851
in The Commons

There's a feature article on the Mac App Store today, announcing the release of Octane X for Mac. It requires Big Sur, but will run on Apple Silicon. The blurb says:

[Otoy] built Octane X from the ground up for Mac, optimizing it for Apple's Metal graphics API and the Apple M1 GPU. It also integrated plug-in support for Cinema 4D, SketchUp, Maya, Houdini, Blender, Modo, Nuke, Unreal Engine, Unity and other 3D content-creation tools.

It sounds as if you need to pair the (free) renderer with a subscription to make use of it. It does come with a free one-year subscription to Octane X Enterprise or Octane X Prime. Enterprise seems to run you about EUR40/month once your one year sub runs out, so you'd need to like it quite a lot to make it worthwhile. Prime offers a free tier for 'personal and non-commercial use' with some limitations. Otoy have more info on their site.

Compatibility with Apple Silicon is interesting, although the requirement for Big Sur leaves DAZ users hanging: current versions of DAZ Studio won't be Big Sur-compatible until later this year (according to DAZ), and I don't believe that any of DAZ's other tools -- Carrara, Hexagon, Bryce -- are or probably ever will be Big Sur compatible. Maybe you'll need to export from DAZ Studio to Blender, then use the Octane/Blender integration to render your images on that fancy new M1 Mac you just bought. Sounds like a lot of work.

But it may hint at things to come: if Otoy are going all in on supporting Apple's hardware and APIs, that makes Octane a potentially interesting rendering platform for Mac fans. And if people start using it, then Otoy may see some value in offering inexpensive subscriptions to hobbyists (better than the free tier, but less expensive than Enterprise) and DAZ may think about offering tighter integration with Octane in future. Which sounds good.

People who know more about Octane will be along shortly to tell you what this all means, but I thought I'd just point it out as something possibly of interest.

Comments

  • SevrinSevrin Posts: 6,310

    bytescapes said:

    And if people start using it, then Otoy may see some value in offering inexpensive subscriptions to hobbyists (better than the free tier, but less expensive than Enterprise) and DAZ may think about offering tighter integration with Octane in future. Which sounds good.

    Daz Studio already works with the Octane plugin on Windows, which most Daz customers use.  I don't think adding the smaller Apple user base will make much difference, and I wouldn't hold my breath regarding PA support.  There's barely support for 3DL anymore.  Still, it will be nice for Apple fans to eventually have an alternative to Iray CPU or cloud rendering, even if it does require more effort.

  • leemoon_c43b45a114leemoon_c43b45a114 Posts: 879

    Otoy had mentioned in their forums that development of a Mac version of the DAZ Studio plugin was not in their short term plans, but might be further out.  At present, for us Mac owners, it's feasible that an exported DAZ Studio scene could be imported into Octane X and rendered there.  Without the plugin version, you'd miss seeing Octane Previews inside DAZ Studio.  That would probably mean going through an export->import cycle when you wanted to see changes to materials, lighting, etc.  Unless that was all taken care of after the geometries and texture maps were imported from DS and conversion to Octane materials and such were tweaked inside Octane.  That might be a less bothersome workflow, though not ideal.

    I have an Intel MacBook Pro on macOS Catalina running DS and also an M1 MacBook Air on macOS Big Sur.  It seems feasible to do the export and import between the 2 Macs to see how/if Octane X works with exported DS files.  Until DS is updated for Big Sur and/or Apple Silicon, where it can be done on one Mac.  I'm no longer the brave soul who tries it first.  At least, not yet! LOL

    Lee

  • joseftjoseft Posts: 310

    I can see why Otoy would not rush to support the Daz plugin. Of all their plugins, i think the Daz one would have the smallest userbase. That or the Poser one. 

    Be interesting to see some speed comparisons though. I believe Redshift were the first to get a working version of their renderer that runs on Mac/Metal out there, and the speed differential on somewhat comparable hardware is still pretty big

Sign In or Register to comment.