dr_bernie opened this issue on Nov 18, 2013 · 23 posts
dr_bernie posted Tue, 19 November 2013 at 6:03 PM
Here are some numbers to evaluate if Octane for Carrara makes any sense. I will use the list price or discounted price from manufacturer's web site (when available), or from Amazon.
1. Carrara ($285 from Daz web site) + Octane & Octane plugin ($470 at today's exchange rate from manufacturer's web site) + A hefty NVidia GTX 660 ($209 from Amazon) = $964.- OR a top of the line NVidia GPU that could run you around $1,000.- for a toal of $1,755.-
So an installation for Carrara and Octane renderer could run you anything between $964 to $1,755.-, give or take a few bucks.
At these prices you get a dying dinosaur (Carrara), Octane and its plugin, and close to nil job prospects for the Carrara expertise.
2. Shade Professional ($499 from manufacturer's web site) + Poser Pro 2012 to be used with Poser Fusion ($138 from Amazon web site) = $637.- .
At $637.- Shade Professional + PP2012 offers everything that one could wish for in a midrange 3D app , including Daz/Poser conternt support and a world-class renderer. The job prospects for Shade expertise are not great, at least not in the US, but the price is very good for a hobbyist.
Lightwave+PP 2012 is actually cheaper than the $1,755.- Carrara using Octane on high-end NVidia board. Lightwave is a world class 3D app, used by prominent production studios worldwide, and the job prospects for Lightwave experts in many parts of the world are very good.
Cinema 4D Broadcast edition (which has Embree integrated) + PP2012 is only marginally more expensive than the $1,755 Carrara using Octane on a high-end NVidia GPU.
Job prospects for Cinema 4D? Please don't argue with me on that.
So from where I am standing, a dying dinosaur called Carrara + Octane & plugin are more expensive or about the same price as world class applications like Shade, Lightwave or Cinema 4D Broadcast edition, all of them used in conjunction with PP2012 for PoserFusion functionality.
There are still other issues to be considered:
With Octane, in order to fit your scene into the GPU RAM, you may have to reduce your textures resolution from 2500x2500 to 256x256, eventually leaving parts of your scene untextured. You may also need to decimate your meshes to reduce the poly count, so it all fits in your GPU RAM. So what's the point of using high-res textures and meshes to get photorealistic renders in the first place?
How likely is Octane which, after several years of development, is still at its 1.2 version, to survive and make it into version 2.0 and beyond? How likely is the Octane plugin for Carrara to ever mature into a version 2.0 and beyond? What if, G-d forbid, something happens to the lone plugin developer. What if he is suddenly unable or unwilling to do any more work on the plugin? Sure, the plugin will be perfect in its 1.0 release and will work flawlessly everafter. Sarcasm is intentional.
By comparison Embree's survival prospects are very good since it is part of Intel's core technologies, it is already in its 2.0 version, and it is open-source anyway.
From where I'm standing, Octane for Carrara may be a cute toy to play with when I have nothing better to do, but as a useful tool in my workflow that I can use on a consistent basis day-in day-out for some serious projects? Hmmmm, I'll think about it.