Likelihood to Recommend I would 100% recommend Inkscape to anyone starting out with graphic design or illustration, as it isn't that difficult to get the hang of on the first day of using it. I am not recommending Inkscape for beginners alone, even experts in the field can use Inkscape professionally as it cuts of the expense of needing to buy a paid graphic design software which provides almost the same features. Inkscape is also great for beginners because it can be treated like a stepping stone to move onto a paid graphic designing software like
Adobe Illustrator , so Inkscape can be used to test the waters before making the leap. Inkscape and Illustrator are almost the same so there wont be any difficulty in switching later on.
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 Creating mockups using all kinds of graphic elements together. Creating Video thumbnails and thumbnail templates. Online 'how to' resources help a great deal. 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 Can be tricky to get the hang of at first UI is not always naturally intuitive but generally it is good May require reading documentation and watching tutorials to skill up before using it efficiently 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 Alternatives Considered Inkscape is easier to use and learn, and results are outstanding.
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 Inkscape has eliminated our expense on graphic design software, which is great. We can perform all necessary jobs in Inkscape, thus not needing for a better paid software Although Inkscape is a great software, it is not recognized for professional use like Adobe Illustrator for example 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