OTOY announces availability of OctaneRender 3 and OctaneRender Cloud, previews Brigade/OctaneRender integration coming in 2017

World’s best production-ready GPU renderer set to get even better with introduction of flexible OctaneEngine/ORBX ecosystem, OctaneImager for post-processing and compositing, and Brigade integration coming in 2017 to make noise free real time path tracing a reality in game engines and VR

SAN JOSE, Calif. – April 5, 2016 – Cloud graphics company, OTOY Inc., today announced a colossal update to the OctaneRender ecosystem, including the pricing and availability of its highly anticipated OctaneRender 3 software and OctaneRender Cloud (ORC) rendering service, and a detailed roadmap outlining the future of Octane’s development towards a 4.0 release in 2017 with full integration of OTOY’s advanced real-time path tracing engine, Brigade.

OctaneRender 3 and OctaneRender Cloud

OctaneRender 3 is a state-of-the-art VFX juggernaut that incorporates a wide range of emerging industry standards for GPU rendering, including Open Shader Language (OpenSL) and OpenVDB for particle simulation, and introduces features never before seen in any production renderer, including volumetric light field primitives and deep motion buffers for high frame rate VR rendering. OctaneRender 3 will be available May 15th at a price of $399 for new customers, and $49 for customers upgrading from OctaneRender 2.x. More information on the new features of OctaneRender 3 are available here.

Seamlessly integrated into OctaneRender 3 and also available May 15th is support for OctaneRender Cloud (ORC), an on-demand cloud rendering service harnessing from 20 to 2,000 GPUs depending on the size of the job. ORC is available on a subscription basis and includes high speed storage, ORBX/OCS file versioning, OctaneRender live app and plug-in delta synching, HTML5 cloud desktop access, Dropbox and Google Drive integration, plus 1,200 GPU minutes of render time starting at $9.99/month. ORC also allows users to pause and resume rendering of Octane film buffers (OXR files), enabling cloud rendering to easily augment any local render jobs, or cloud-based renders to be resumed and completed locally.

“With OctaneRender 3 and ORC, OTOY is delivering something that’s never been seen before: an on-demand cloud rendering solution, seamlessly integrated into the workflow that can instantly harness thousands of GPUs,” said Vladimir Shumsky, Head of Cloud Rendering, OTOY. “This technology has been built from the ground up to be future-ready, able to handle the most demanding workloads and ready to fuel content creation in the VR era like nothing else.”

What to expect in OctaneRender 3.1

OTOY is already hard at work on its first big update to OctaneRender 3 that introduces several new features in the coming months:

• Native plugin ecosystem: OctaneRender will enable easy loading of plugins through ORBX modules that continuously update the host application with new features. New plugins will also enable support of different shader languages beyond OpenSL, including support for Nvidia’s Material Definition Language (MDL).
• Native support for bone and skin animation: New functionality in OctaneRender 3.1 adds native bone and skinned mesh support for fast character animation and glTF support in ORBX scenes.
• CPU support: For those systems that don’t have an Nvidia GPU, Octane Render 3.1 will include fallback support for CPU rendering.

An alpha for OctaneRender 3.1 is expected to be released this summer.

The future of Octane

OctaneRender 3 and 3.1 introduce a wide range of community-requested features that cement its reputation as the world’s best GPU renderer. OTOY will continue to push the state of the art beyond version 3.1, rolling out even more incredible innovations over the coming year:

• OctaneEngine, a new way to enjoy the latest Octane technology: In addition to the OctaneRender standalone application and OctaneRender Cloud, OTOY will introduce OctaneEngine, a new subscription-based offering that provides new flexibility and functionality in content creation. Features include:
  • Network rendering: OctaneEngine will enable users to use other GPUs on the network to complete rendering tasks.
  • Octane as a service: OctaneEngine can be run on any system in a network and deliver functionality to Octane plugins without requiring a GPU on the local machine. For example, a workstation without a GPU could run the Octane plugin for Autodesk Maya and complete renders using the GPU of the workstation that hosts OctaneEngine.
  • Asynchronous rendering: OctaneEngine will enable the ability to set multiple renders in the background that can be cued for use as needed.
  • Web API for new Octane-based services: OTOY will be exposing a Web API around OctaneEngine enabling new types of web services and applications to be created using standards such as WebGL.
• Brigade’s high-speed real-time path tracing will be coming to OctaneRender: OTOY is listening to the community and integrating Brigade’s revolutionary real-time path tracing technology into OctaneEngine. Using the OctaneEngine API, content creators will be able to produce completely interactive, photorealistic 3rd party game engines.
• OctaneImager, a powerful post-processing and compositing application: OTOY is responding to the community’s requests to do even more with Octane with the creation of OctaneImager, a new post-processing and compositing application designed for exceptional quality and speed for use on its own or paired with OctaneEngine. Features include:
  • Standalone ecosystem: Just as OctaneRender and OctaneEngine will continue to have plugins that enable new features and functionality, OctaneImager will support its own plugin ecosystem for effects such as toon shading or other advanced post-processing techniques.
  • Bringing the best of OctaneRender into OctaneImager: Elements of OctaneRender such as light field rendering and high-speed decoding will be exposed in OctaneImager enabling broad support for VR workloads, foveated rendering, and content that will support new kinds of displays.
  • New compositing tool chains when combined with OctaneEngine: By combining OctaneEngine and OctaneImager, artists will be able to build entirely new compositing tool chains that enable layers powered by OctaneEngine and composited by OctaneImager on the fly.

• Broad cross-platform support: Using OTOY’s CUDA cross-compiler, OctaneEngine and OctaneImager is expected to support all possible CPU and GPU devices and platforms, including support for Mac platforms, and AMD GPUs.

About OTOY Inc.

OTOY Inc. is the definitive cloud graphics company, pioneering technology that is redefining content creation and delivery for media and entertainment organizations around the world. OTOY’s Academy Award®-winning technology is used by leading visual effects studios, artists, animators, designers, architects, and engineers, providing unprecedented creative freedom, new levels of realism, and new economics in content creation and distribution powered by the cloud. For more information, visit www.otoy.com.

Additional Resources:

• Read more about the features of OctaneRender 3 and OctaneRender Cloud on the OTOY blog here.
• Follow OTOY on Facebook and Twitter.