Thursday, July 5th, 2012 Posted by Jim Thacker

Refractive Software releases OctaneRender for Maya



OctaneRender for Maya. As yet, there’s no footage of the new plugin version of the GPU-accelerated renderer.

Refractive Software has released OctaneRender for Maya, a new plugin embedding its GPU-accelerated physically based renderer inside Maya. Previously, the software communicated with Maya via export scripts.

The developer released a similar 3ds Max plugin late last year.

The plugin requires the standalone version of OctaneRender to be installed on the host machine, and is compatible with Maya 2011 and above, although it’s currently Windows-only.

OctaneRender for Maya is available now in open beta, price €99 (around $125), rising to €199 ($250) on its full commercial release. Bundle deals are available for anyone also buying the standalone version of the renderer.

Buying sight unseen?
At the time of posting, there was no demo video or trial edition of the software available: a fact that has caused some raised eyebrows on the company’s forums, given Refractive Software’s policy of charging for its betas.

According to Refractive staff, a video is in the works, although the release info only states that it will be available within “several weeks” of the commercial release, but the FAQs seem to rule out a demo entirely.

Read the OctaneRender for Maya release thread on the Refractive Software forum

Visit the OctaneRender website