Octane render demo

[Llamamey]

Hey everyone,

Octane render by Refractive software is the first GPU based, un-biased, physically based renderer that you can download and try

Please take a peek at the forum and see it for yourself

Also notice that Octane render is actually in demo release (alpha) so please look at the FAQ before posting anything

The beta gonna be available for February, you can see a list of the features you can except here

Happy rendering

[StereoMike]

I'm already testing it, renders are very nice. for 99,- it's a no brainer.

[SonK]

i'm buying a copy also!

[philnolan3d]

It looks awesome at first. Looking into it further I wonder if it can render animation, all I see is loading an OBJ file. The speed in the videos doesn't seem much faster than FPrime. Of course it's cheaper than FPrime.

Edit: I got an object loaded from 3DC and I don't really know how this things works yet but the render seemed a lot slower than FPrime really.

[SonK]

It looks awesome at first. Looking into it further I wonder if it can render animation, all I see is loading an OBJ file. The speed in the videos doesn't seem much faster than FPrime. Of course it's cheaper than FPrime.

Edit: I got an object loaded from 3DC and I don't really know how this things works yet but the render seemed a lot slower than FPrime really.

Your comparing apples to oranges though, yes F-prime is faster but it's not an unbiased renderer like Octane.

[philnolan3d]

I was just comparing because it looks like the same kind of rendering technique, plus they're saying it's entirely GPU based, so I'm assuming that's meant to say it's fast.

[AbnRanger]

It looks fine, but I never was a fan of having to export objects out to a stand alone renderer, especially when it's not clear if you can render animations.

I recently upgraded finalRender R3, which has a new Interactive render...but it's totally unusable as it crashes all the time. Not sure what to make of all these stand alones.

[SonK]

It looks fine, but I never was a fan of having to export objects out to a stand alone renderer, especially when it's not clear if you can render animations.

I recently upgraded finalRender R3, which has a new Interactive render...but it's totally unusable as it crashes all the time. Not sure what to make of all these stand alones.

Animation will be done thru batch rendering(whatever that mines). I'm gonna buy it for mostly still renders(consumer electronics,etc) for 99 euros it's a steal compare other unbiased renderer(Fry/Maxwell) and its damn fast too.

Only down side to Octane is you have to down clock ur GPU,and bring up the fan to 100% or else your screen turns black..

[geo_n]

Tried the demo crashes a lot. The interface is so slow even when paused its hard to edit materials. I have an old card 8800 but everything slows down even browsing the net. I wonder if its possible to configure an sli setup to just render octane on one card and the other to do pc stuff.

It is faster than other unbiased renderers but you still have to leave it a few hours to get a clean noiseless render. I'll wait for luxrender to catch up.

The fastest IPR I've tested is still hypershot though its unbiased it still looks amazing.

[philnolan3d]

Hmm.. I did have it crash a few times but I didn't see any of these other things. I didn't have to down clock my GPU (good thing, I don't know how) or anything. It just didn't render very fast.

[StereoMike]

@ Phil:

They will support multi GPU in the final release, so when you have a board with 2, 3 or 4 PCIe slots, you could easily make yourself a cheap rendermonster by adding some GPUs. Of course your windows gets unresponsive, cause the GPU can't care for your display any longer.

[Llamamey]

Octane, because of the speed, is aimed for animation !

The command line version is coming soon specially for that

Octane will support animation (.rib) and maybe .fbx also

LAN rendering gonna be supported also for both animation AND stills

Windows is not responsive because you only have one GPU its totally normal

Octane don't need SLI, you can plug five GPU in a motherboard and start rendering

You don't need to clock down your GPU, if you need to clock it down its because its overclocked by the manufacturer

(you get screwed by the GPU vendor or you done wrong overclocking, Refractive software can't do anything about that)

Before asking questions and before making silly comparaisons (like Octane vs Fry) or before judging Octane as a final version:

please read at least the Octane forum / Features list / and FAQ

Notice that Octane is in alpha, not even beta stage

Notice also that Octane is Unbiased and not Biased !

You can use directlighting (biased) in the new demo 0.8a to get even more impressive speed

For anyone judging speed here's a little math that everyone can do

Notice that you can use multiple GPU, notice also that next gen GPU GTX300 are two time faster than GTX200 series for GPU computing

a single 2.4ghz quad core CPU (Q6600)

= 0.392 MS/s = 392'000 samples per second

render an image in 10 hours

a single GTX260

= 10.8 MS/s = 10'800'000 samples per second (10mio)

render an image in 21 minutes

The result at the end is pixel-by-pixel the same !

[Llamamey]

by joelegecko on Daz3D forums (original thread)

by joelegecko on Daz3D forums (original thread)

Not bad for an alpha

No SSS and no Metropolis Light Transport

Notice that the second picture is lit only by an HDRI, could be even faster and less noise using Physical sky

Now we need to see 3D coat artists making renders in Octane

edit: Octane gonna support Dr.Queue and other render-queue systems !

[SonK]

I have a standard EVGA GTX 260 216 core, normal clock and once Octane renders everything becomes laggy until the screen turns black(the temps get too high at this point). I'm not the only one with this problem check octane forum. The solution was to bring the fan to 100% and under clock the GPU abit(maybe 5%-10% less) with EVGA Precision 1.9.1.

Still not sure how animation is done, since i dont know what "batch rendering" means. can we render character animation somehow?

[Llamamey]

everything becomes laggy

That's because you are using only one GPU

Solution is to use two GPU with one dedicated for Octane

Without that its just a renderer where you can't do anything else while rendering

Kinda like all the other renderers around

Still not sure how animation is done

By loading .rib file or even .obj sequences (like realflow)

But Octane could support any animation format, its only a matter of time

Make features request in the forum if you use another format

can we render character animation somehow

Yes but not in current demo

Edit: My username in Octane forum is Sam

[geo_n]

How close is it to release?

Are there plans to integrate it within a program?

I know max and lightwave will probably be out of the question because of the rewrite but it would be cool to have integrated.

[philnolan3d]

Actually if they look into LightWave CORE the new architecture would probably make it even easier to include it. I'm not sure how interested they would be though since Octane has its own system for handling lighting, and materials, and all that.

[Llamamey]

Radiance just said today:

Octane is not a 'bedroom operation' by myself, and there are at this time multiple developers working on an animation capable rib pipeline and compositing outputs, as Octane will be used on a few film productions during this year

How close is it to release?

Beta starting this month for 99 euros (include full v1 license)

Are there plans to integrate it within a program?

Not currently, refractive software work first for intern Octane features

But if you work for another software company you can contact refractive software and work with them

There are supposed plans for better reading of materials from other package but its not 100% sure yet

Octane is not aiming first for exporters, its aiming at supporting various formats like OBJ and RIB (animation)

But later everyone gonna be able to write exporters, Im sure refractive software will provide enough documentation for it

[Llamamey]

Another good news, message from Radiance

Octane will allow you to use RIB for rendering animations.

We're developing a complete rib import pipeline that imports camera, models, transforms, instances, motion blur and materials.

It's well under way and will be available in the commercial versions and beta's only in a few weeks.

[Digital777]

This looks great, although i notice a lot of renders seem to have a grainy look to them when viewed full/larger size. Im guessing this grain can go with certain render settings though hopefully although you don't notice it with the previews so you could probably just downscale them if you don't need a large render.

[Llamamey]

Yes unbiased renders are often grainy because people doesn't let the render cook enough.

Its also because of the algorithm it use.

Browse Maxwell or Fryrender gallery, there's plenty grain-less examples but its often 3+ hours of render !

Also notice that Octane use the same algorithms (just needing full MLT) than other unbiased renderers.

There's a lot of people rendering at 2048 samples in Octane work in progress forum

That's like QMC (Quasi Monte Carlo or brute force) at 2048 samples

That's not enough for 100% noise less pictures

But if you try QMC at 2048 samples in a software like Modo you will see the render getting to something like 1h-2h for 1024*768 pictures even if its biased

Octane benefits of the speed and can produce the same images than Maxwell or Fryrender (beside some missing things like SSS) but in less time

Every picture in the Maxwell or Fryrender gallery can be rendered using Octane (v1 not demo) and if you find a nice image and you see a render time like 5h

Well Octane can render it in 30x (GTX285) or 80x (GTX380) or even higher speed using multi-gpu

Three GTX285 are like 100 time faster than one CPU (quad core) at 2.4ghz

That's like having 100 CPU in one computer

That's why Octane is aiming animation, its because its the first Unbiased render with usable render times for animations

You will be able to have multiple computers with multiple GPU rendering the same image in a network, or better each computer rendering a single frame or 1 frame per gpu per computer

There's a lot of possibilities with these speeds

[Klaus Nordby]

I don't even have a CUDA card, so I can't yet test Octane. But I'm certainly watching this fascinating GPU rendering stuff closely, and will buy a CUDA card when the next nVidia generation comes out in March or so. I might even plunk down the modest fee for Octane, just to support it and try it out on some projects -- even though what I really want is for my beloved Maxwell Render to come out with a GPU version! No matter what happens, we 3D guys have good times ahead!

[geo_n]

This looks great, although i notice a lot of renders seem to have a grainy look to them when viewed full/larger size. Im guessing this grain can go with certain render settings though hopefully although you don't notice it with the previews so you could probably just downscale them if you don't need a large render.

That's unavoidable in unbiased renderers. Fry and maxwell would iterate their renders for almost 20 hours and there would still be grain. I'm guessing to get noiseless renders in octane for a mid end pc would take an hour. That's still better than 20 hours in other renderers.

[Llamamey]

That's unavoidable in unbiased renderers. Fry and maxwell would iterate their renders for almost 20 hours and there would still be grain. I'm guessing to get noiseless renders in octane for a mid end pc would take an hour. That's still better than 20 hours in other renderers.

Here we speak in Millions samples per seconds (MS/s)

a single 2.4ghz quad core CPU (Q6600)

= 0.392 MS/s

render an image in 10 hours

two GTX260

= 21.6 MS/s

render an image in 10 minutes 30 seconds

three GTX260

= 32.4 MS/s = 100 time faster than the CPU

render an image in 7 minutes

a single FERMI or GTX480??

= 31.06 MS/s

render an image in 7 minutes 30 seconds

So yeah to get the same result for a 10 hours image GPU are very fast. Notice that the next GPU from Nvidia (FERMI and GTX470 GTX480) are all 2x faster than GTX200 series

20h is a lot even for Maxwell and Fryrender, 10h is more common, most renders that ive seen are 4-5h

GPU bring render time down for animation, even more if you use multiple computers in LAN

GPU is indeed the futur but Octane and the current GPU solutions are all advanced in their time, meaning that they will be standards in 1-2 years

But why waiting 1-2 years, just wait for GTX400 (yes next GPU from Nvidia are not 300 but 400) and FERMI or buy now GTX200 series

Im waiting for next GPU only for memory (I need around 3gb or more) but I could buy GTX260 because its already fast enough

[Digital777]

Well i tested it last night and i think this was mainly down to not having a higher end computer/graphics card for it but this program did not work as well as i was expecting when i tested it.

With a single GeForce 9600 GT, the viewport movement seemed un-usable for me due to the lag as even if moving the mouse just slightly it would rotate a huge amount. This is normal i guess for when a computer is using a load of cpu so maybe my card is just not good enough. I tested in both octane8000 and 9000 but the same thing happens, in the readme say my cards range is low end so im guessing i just need a much better/multiple cards for this.

It would always keep cpu up high after adding in a scene even after clicking pause. So even when it's paused it's like the render is still going.

It crashes as soon as i try to drag a wires center point, i also had a few other crashes just navigating around the GUI controls like the slider bar as it rendered.

Although it renders most of of the view it would leave visible gaps for the ChessSet scene with a custom view, these go the more you leave it rendering though but for me even after fully rendering it had some left in view. The SpaceShips scene had much less of this though so it possibly changes with the materials etc but the gaps are not something other apps render like so it could have been a bug maybe.

That said some of the results people have made look great and the interface looks really nice so im guessing this was just down to the low end specs i have to run it. If i ever do a pc/graphics card upgrade or it is more optimized for lower spec cards also in the future i will definately check it out again however as it looks like it runs smoothly if your computer can handle it ok but unfortunately mine cannot right now it seems.

[geo_n]

Is there planned a multiviewport support in octane? One view could be wireframeshade so if we pause the render viewport we can still manipulate wireframe viewport so we don't have to lose performance while getting that perfect camera view.

[GED]

worked ok for me but crashed alot when using the node graph tools I also find the node graph system a bit labourous I just want a load mesh button and then when I click on the mesh I want all the texture settings inside that and it should render automatically and if I want to change render settings I should go to the render settings option in the file menu. All these nodes seem unnecessary I dont see the advantage of a node system.

[Llamamey]

worked ok for me but crashed alot when using the node graph tools I also find the node graph system a bit labourous I just want a load mesh button and then when I click on the mesh I want all the texture settings inside that and it should render automatically and if I want to change render settings I should go to the render settings option in the file menu

Guys don't forget Octane is ALPHA now (0.8a) all the crash and bugs are tracked and reported and are going to be fixed soon !

9600 GT is clearly not enough for Octane, its like using a Celeron for raytracing, get a gtx260 and you will see the true speed (gtx260 = 28x 2.4ghz quad core)

All these nodes seem unnecessary I dont see the advantage of a node system

Look for Nuke tutorials or Digital Fusion tutorials, or even Houdini tutorials and you will see how awesome are nodes. Nodes are perfect system for a lot of things.

Currently there's not so many different nodes that's why its useless, but in the futur everyone gonna be able to code nodes and make macros.

And Octane gonna support multi-pass so you gonna use node to do compositing right in Octane, just like Blender nodes.

Is there planned a multiviewport support in octane? One view could be wireframeshade so if we pause the render viewport we can still manipulate wireframe viewport so we don't have to lose performance while getting that perfect camera view.

Ask this question in the Octane forum, not here... Im just an Octane user im not from Refractive software, im not here to answer questions

But I will answer yours, its not planned for one simple thing, Octane don't use openGL. If you want speed toggle the "clay" or "ao" mode its 5x more speed, and its gonna be even faster in the next beta

If you got a powerfull GPU its gonna be so fast that it will be like having a wireframe. Notice that Octane is best used with two GPU (one for Octane, one for the OS)

Don't forget that Octane is a "renderer" its not for animate things or modelling. You do everything in your host app and then transfer to octane.

It would always keep cpu up high after adding in a scene even after clicking pause. So even when it's paused it's like the render is still going.

That's because Octane UI is using a lot the CPU, to free the maximum GPU memory. That's why even paused your CPU is used.

But its gonna be optimized even more, and less CPU gonna be used in the futur.

Now please make accounts in Octane forum, Im not here to answer questions.

We are in 3D Coat forums...

[GED]

Guys don't forget Octane is ALPHA now (0.8a) all the crash and bugs are tracked and reported and are going to be fixed soon !

9600 GT is clearly not enough for Octane, its like using a Celeron for raytracing, get a gtx260 and you will see the true speed (gtx260 = 28x 2.4ghz quad core)

I have a GTX260 it seems good speed wise but like you say crashes alot and we dont see the benefit of the nodes yet

thanks for answering peoples questions, you didnt have to do that.

[Digital777]

Guys don't forget Octane is ALPHA now (0.8a) all the crash and bugs are tracked and reported and are going to be fixed soon !

9600 GT is clearly not enough for Octane, its like using a Celeron for raytracing, get a gtx260 and you will see the true speed (gtx260 = 28x 2.4ghz quad core)

Ok thanks, at first i thought my card might work ok but i guess not. I probably won't be buying it any time soon and other free render apps seem to work better for me but will most likely check it out in the future again if i upgrade my computer/graphics card.