Likelihood to Recommend Photorealistic Rendering (it takes a LONG time to render for print, but it's insanely realistic). Commercial Production Graphical Integration into print materials (and digital) We did a lot with brochures and billboards. Hi Res rendering takes hours, but the output set us FAR apart from the run-of-the-mill competition we had.
Read full review I have been able to import an environment and create realistic lighting rather quickly by using the power of GPU rendering. Paired with its ability to create instances of geometry, it makes it easy to render a megacity environment in half the time. One issue with this is the clutter that can be made with connecting nodes.
Read full review Pros Seemingly endless selection of tools clear and powerful manipulation tools effect use of hotkeys for navigating the 3D space Read full review Octane uses GPU rendering so it takes advantage of the video card. It gives you a good selection of options to tweak and refine your model rendering. It can use 3D instances so it doesn't overuse computer resources. There are plugins that can be incorporated into other 3D packages for rendering. Octane is particularly inexpensive compared to other 3D render packages. You are able to copy certain sections of nodes in order to create different iterations of the same environment or model. For example, changing the lighting or camera features. Read full review Cons Weak UV mapping interface. Redshift integration is not 100% seamless yet. Weight-mapping is a nightmare. Read full review Its user interface could use some improvement. It is node-based so there is a slight learning curve when using it as a beginner. It doesn't import FBX files. It requires a 3D model to have UVs in order to import it into Octane. At times it may not be as stable. Read full review Usability For reasons mentioned before: an intuitive interface and speed of the viewport, speed of loading, and ease of plugin integration. The MoGraph module encourages experimentation and the creation of highly modifiable scenes. Crashes are extremely rare and the support team and community are hyper-responsive to requests for help. For real... Maxon's staff hangs out in Slack and Discord communities, regularly assisting users with issues. No support ticket required.
Read full review Support Rating Maxon's staff regularly hangs out in Slack and Discord communities, ready to assist. This goes beyond the support ticket system, which is also extremely robust. Hundreds of optimizations and bugs are fixed in every patch, even when the user experience is already 99.9% smooth. This is a proactive, not reactive, support and engineering team at Maxon.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Read full review Although both have their pros and cons, Octane is far less expensive and it allows for more control over the geometry within a scene with better lighting and camera controls.
Read full review Return on Investment Producing quality training content reduces mistakes and improves ebitda for our restaurants Read full review Octane has had a huge advantage of GPU rendering. It's relatively inexpensive compared to other rendering packages. It allows for more control over the scene compared to packages like Keyshot. Read full review ScreenShots