Cloud graphics pioneer, OTOY Inc., this week announced the availability of OctaneRender™ 2.1, the latest release of its advanced real-time rendering software with several improvements and community-requested features. For readers who may not be familiar with OTOY’s technology, OctaneRender is one of just a few GPU hardware accelerated applications for advanced photo-realistic rendering, powering the rendering process off the graphics processing unit (GPU) rather than the CPU.
MORE: Why OTOY will change our 3D world: A conversation with Jules Urbach
OctaneRender runs as both a stand-alone application for Mac OS X and Windows as well as a plugin for leading 3D and CAD applications (see list below). This latest release was earlier previewed at the 2014 NAB Show and the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference this year. The new features include:
- Render pass output for lighting layers — Enabling greater fine-tuning of lighting settings following rendering, this feature allows users to produce images for each render pass that constitutes an image such as reflections, normal, direct and indirect lighting, among others
- Undo system — A new Undo system allows for improved workflow during scene setup, letting users backtrack to an earlier state prior to the latest applied settings
- Improved Sampling — a new sampling method is used to efficiently reduce the noise for Direct Lighting and Path Tracing kernels together with a new “coherent mode” resulting in many scenes rendering 30 percent faster or more
- Scriptable node graph SDK for developers — For developers, new scriptable nodes within OctaneRender remove the barriers to what the program can be used to create. Using LUA-based scripting, OctaneRender can have practical applications beyond graphics, such as incorporating physics engines like Pixelux’s Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) or interactive engines like Epic’s Unreal Engine.
OctaneRender 2.1 can be downloaded now with updated plugins rolling out over the next few weeks. OctaneRender works as a standalone application and a 3D plugin working in the following applications: 3ds Max, AutoCAD, Cinema 4D, Inventor, Maya, Revit, Softimage, SketchUp, ArchiCAD, Blender, Daz Studio, Lightwave, Poser, Rhino, modo and Carrara. A plugin for Nuke is forthcoming.
01 – OctaneRender now at version 2.1 offers render pass output for lighting layers and more.
To learn more about OctaneRender 2.1 please visit them online here: http://render.otoy.com/