Otoy releases OctaneRender 2.0
Originally posted on 28 March. Scroll down for details of Octane Render 2.0’s release.
Otoy has previewed OctaneRender 2.0, a sizeable update to its GPU-accelerated renderer, adding features ranging from After Effects support to displacement mapping, object motion blur and faster hair rendering.
The announcement was made at this week’s Nvidia GPU Technology Conference and came less than a week after the release of OctaneRender 1.5.
After Effects integration
According to Otoy, OctaneRender 2.0 will feature “application support” for After Effects, including “the ability to import a complete 3D scene into the After Effects timeline which can then be edited in real time”.
That sounds like something of a departure from the existing OctaneRender plugins, which let you render a scene natively from within one of the 14 current host applications. More details when we find them.
New advanced rendering features
In the render engine itself, new features include support for displacement mapping, per-object motion blur independent of camera movement (shown below), and a new optimised hair primitive.
Otoy claims the latter reduces memory usage “by 20 times compared to previous processes” – a striking claim, since it lacks the usual press-release disclaimer of “up to”.
OctaneRender 2.0 will also incorporate Pixar’s OpenSubdiv subdivision surface libraries; also now supported in a range of its partner 3D applications.
The release also adds shader-based edge rounding, enabling artists to change the apparent curvature of an edge without affecting the underlying geometry.
Under-the-hood improvements
There are also a number of less glamorous, but practical, additions like support for region rendering, network GPU rendering, and deeper integration with Brigade, Otoy’s cloud-based real-time path tracer for games work.
Updated 10 June: OctaneRender 2.0 is shipping. The 3ds Max, Modo and Poser plugins have been updated, with other plugins – which include Blender, Cinema 4D, LightWave and Maya – to follow in “the next few weeks”.
New standalone licences cost €299 (around $400); the price of plugins varies. Anyone upgrading to version 2.0 can currently upgrade an extra plugin licence for free, or receive a voucher for when the plugin ships.