Octane 2019 Previews & Roadmap

Archive notice: This article was originally published on April 1, 2019. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.

Like other software manufacturers, Otoy presented their new features for 2019, as well as the roadmap for upcoming updates to their GPU renderer, at this year’s GTC 2019 conference. There are now also previews of the first two updates – OctaneRender 2019.1 and a Vulkan Preview Build. Alongside layer support and vector displacement for 2019.1, the Vulkan Preview (planned for 2019.2) only includes support for Nvidia’s RTX architecture for hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

Octane 2019.1 Features

Volume AI Denoiser

The AI denoiser is now equipped with improvements when rendering volumes and is supposed to be up to 3x faster. In the forum and the video shown here, Otoy has published several examples.

Material Layering

With the new layering system, you can finally create more complex materials and add a current maximum of 8 additional layers to the respective base layer. The Universal Material from 2019.1 onward also has a Thin Wall option, making it easier and more realistic to create surfaces such as soap bubbles.

New nodes for this: layered material, diffuse layer, specular layer, sheen layer, metallic layer, layer group nodes.

Vertex Displacement: OSL & Procedural

With 2019.1, you can now display procedural and OSL displacement either as height or vector displacment before rendering. With the new Displacement Mixer node, vector and displacement maps can also be combined.

Vertex displacement works with various inputs, including procedural textures, OSL texture, images and projections.

OSL Volume Shader

Until recently, static colors could only be used for absorption, scattering and emission in volumes – but now arbitrary textures can be used for volumes.

Further Features

Other new features for 2019.1 include a new system for rounded edges, a new universal camera with support for distortion, DOF, thin lens / fisheye, new control options for Bloom/Glare features, as well as the ability to add simple geometries.

2019.2 and RTX Vulkan Preview Build

The new functions of OctaneRender 2019.2 include support for hardware-accelerated ray tracing based on Nvidia’s RTX architecture: according to current user tests, rendering speeds are supposed to be between 1.1x and 7.5x times higher.

Beispiel Renderings

RNDR will also become the new universal framework and SDK for all internal and external developments. This includes all existing services and offerings – including Octane itself.

Prices and Availability

If you own a licent, you can download the previes via the links in the following Otoy forums:

• The 2019.1 preview here.
• 2019.2 RTX | Vulkan preview here

In Q1 2019, Otoy is expected to provide further details about the pricing models as well as the announced free version (limited to two GPUs) of OctaneRender 4. OctaneRender Standalone currently costs 399 US dollars – for a perpetual license. A DCC plug-in must then be paid for separately in each case. It remains to be seen when the published preview versions will make it into an official stable version – Otoy has repeatedly had problems keeping their promises regarding the stated release periods.

More information about the pricing models and Otoy: To the website