Environment & Render setup
The OctaneRender plug-in seamlessly integrates all functions inside Autodesk 3ds Max which includes next to the render engine; lights, camera and materials & shaders. The render settings are very simple and the engine itself takes control about most of the stuff. However, the basic controls which affect and define the light bouncing, Global Illumination methods and samples are settable by the user. The settings also includes a „Camera“ and „Imager“ properties where you can set-up several options which affects the final result of the render such as focalDepth, camera aperuture, exposure, ISO, camera filters and more. Using these settings you can also achieve the basic effects present also in other renderers like Z-Depth. The render tab also includes the access to the material library with which help you can directly add new materials to 3ds Max without the need to leave the application. Also, the function converting materials from other renderers is accessible through the render tab menu and allows you with one click convert materials to materials compatible with OctaneRender.
User Interface
- Real-time interactive editing, monitoring and rendering of scene
- Flexible nodegraph based user interface (note: available in OctaneRender stand-alone)
- Build complex procedural objects and materials by connecting nodes (note: available in OctaneRender stand-alone)
- Sharing of material, texture and emitter macros using the LiveDB
- Executable command line parameters for automation of rendering (note: available in OctaneRender stand-alone)
- Customisable toolbars, add, remove and re-arrange items
The active shade is started from the render tab menu and shows you the computing and rendering of the current image. All changes you made are transformed immediately to the active window and the engine start to re-calculate all the changes. Using just one GPU could slow down the system and the use of two GPUs is recommend: one for the rendering and the second for the system.
OctaneRender implements also a new camera inside 3ds Max to be used with the engine allowing you to change the basic settings of a camera aperture. Mostly of these settings are also inside the render tab settings but using the camera give you a bit more control over the overall render and output.
Conclusion
OctaneRender is a true GPU based unbiased render engine for a more than a reasonable price. The price of OctaneRender comparing to other renders looks like a type mistake, but it’s really the end price. The integrated plug-in inside 3ds Max works very well and I haven’t any problems with instability or other issues while working with it. The main advantage of Octane is indeed the GPU based rendering together with the real-time function allowing you to see all the changes you do within seconds. Like this you have no problems with bad shadows alignment, lights set-up or materials because you can set-up the scene and see the changes in the render window and if you like the result just leave OctaneRender to compute the scene to a final render. I have to recommend using two GPUs with OctaneRender; one for the render itself and the second of the system. Like this you can render images and work without any lags, how cool is that! Personally I think the combination of the render capability and the price makes from OctaneRender a unique product on the CG market. Moreover, during the time I was writing the review the next version of the stand-alone version of OctaneRender was released, 1.01. In this version OTOY presented new features such as the “importance sampling” by using the hdri map as a light source were now the noise created by the map is processed a lot faster, also some postproduction options were added and a lot more. All these new features together would be implemented also in the 3ds Max plugin soon.
