Cloud services firm Otoy buys Refractive Software
Cloud services provider Otoy has acquired Refractive Software, developer of the GPU-based unbiased render engine Octane Render.
The acquisition was officially announced on the Octane Render forums by company founder Terrence Vergauwen after the story emerged via new media business site VentureBeat last week.
Otoy, which develops movie and games-on-demand services, signed a deal with Refractive last year to deliver a separate “cloud version” of Octane Render.
According to Vergauwen, the offline version of Octane Render “is not being changed or tampered with; we are not dropping plug-in support for any third-party products [the developer has a 3ds Max plugin in commercial beta, and is working on plugins for Maya, Softimage, AutoCAD and DAZ Studio] and we are not altering the price point of the final 1.0 product (€199), nor changing any promises we have made regarding beta licenses”.
‘Autodesk has nothing to do with this’
Otoy signed a deal with Autodesk last year to integrate its technologies into Autodesk’s own tools, with Autodesk’s press release specifically mentioning Octane Render.
In his forum post, Vergauwen denied that the buyout would enable Autodesk to influence Octane’s development: “Autodesk HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS … They have no say or any contact at all with the Octane team. They cannot interfere with it either, as they do not have any control whatsoever.”
User reaction has been mixed. While most of the posts on the official Octane Render forum support the deal, this thread on CGTalk includes more negative views. The CGTalk thread also reproduces what appears to be the original, longer version of Vergauwen’s post on the Octane Render forum.
Read Terrence Vergauwen’s official announcement and FAQ