Octane GPU render farm: VFXRendering Recommendation
Are you looking for an Octane GPU render farm to speed up the renders? If so, let’s discover VFXRendering recommendation for GPU render farm for Octane rendering.
Table of Contents
What is Octane Render?
Octane started life in New Zealand. It was created by Terrence Vergauwen of the startup company Refractive Software LTD, then sold to OTOY Inc. in 2012. OTOY has been developing the program ever since then.
About Octane Render
Octane Render is a popular GPU render engine among 3D artists with its unbiased rendering. It is supported by a bunch of major 3D software, such as Cinema 4D, Houdini, Maya, Blender, 3ds Max, Revit, Modo, and more.
Why do many artists choose Octane for their renderer? Let’s find out the features and its pros.
Octane GPU Technology
It is true that Octane Render is the first unbiased render engine to work exclusively on the GPU available on the market. That is why Octane Render is so much quicker than rendering methods that rely on CPUs. It was designed from the very beginning to take advantage of the GPUs’ massive and low-cost processing and rendering power.
In addition, this render engine runs exclusively on NVIDIA’s CUDA technology. Octane X for macOS Big Sur, on the other hand, runs on Intel Skylake, AMD Polaris/Vega/Navi, or Apple M1 graphics cards. In terms of the NVIDIA GPU model, the GeForce series has a higher clock speed and renders faster than Quadro and Tesla GPUs. But Quadro and Tesla GPUs often have more graphics card memory.
Although Octane does not use the CPU for rendering, a faster CPU will speed up scene voxelizing. So, a strong multi-core CPU is not really necessary.
One amazing feature of Octane is that it scales almost linearly with each GPU you add. Therefore, with Octane as your renderer, it’s best to get a multi-GPU workstation in order to maximize the performance.
Unbiased GPU render engine
From above, we know that Octane is “unbiased”. What does “unbiased” mean? It is a way of calculating final rendered images that aim to be photo-realistic. If you have used Arnold, Corona, or Indido Render which all use unbiased rendering algorithms, you can imagine how realistic the renders will get. However, there is a limitation of unbiased render engines. To deliver a clean, noise-free image, it takes a long time for them to do so. In several cases, the rendering process may take hours/days, or need a render farm to complete.
Well, Octane is different. How is it different? First, Octane is totally GPU-based, it does not use CPU while rendering. Normally, GPU ray tracers sacrifice that accuracy in order to provide performance. By combining the power of GPU and unbiased algorithms, Octane delivers to its users both speed and quality. Besides realism, Octane GPU features interactivity – users are able to view a rendered scene almost in real-time. Any changes are updated immediately, whether an object, a texture is changed, or a light is added.
In short, the Octane GPU ray tracer is capable of increasing render speed, 10 – 100 times faster, without cutting corners on accuracy.
The benefits of Octane GPU render farm
Although Octane is so fast, the rendering process still takes a long time if you have a lot of rendering tasks, or your projects are too complex. The other reason may be that your PC’s configuration is just average – enough for basic operations and simple renders. You can upgrade your computer or purchase a totally new high-performance workstation. However, this way is extremely expensive. Building a good PC for GPU rendering jobs normally costs around $3000-$5000.
So, there is one solution that is more optimal and straightforward to accelerate the render times. That is using an online GPU render farm for Octane.
Here are the benefits when using an Octane GPU render farm:
- Super fast renders.
- Save money. You don’t have to invest a lot of money in upgrading, or buying a new PC/workstation as your current computer is still okay for creating projects.
- Flexible. Use render farm whenever, wherever you need.
VFXRendering Recommendation for Octane GPU render farm
iRender Farm
iRender Farm is a satisfaction-oriented technology company that builds value for customers through a dedicated team and high-end infrastructure. They provide powerful cloud render farm service for almost all 3D software, render engines, and plugins. Such as 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Blender, Redshift, Octane, V-Ray, Arnold, Corona, etc. Based on IaaS, iRender is an excellent GPU Octane render farm.
| Hardware | RTX 4090 / RTX 3090 |
| Pricing | From $5.76/hour/node (1 GPU) to $42/hour/node (8 GPUs) |
| Software support | Octane with any host applications (Cinema 4D, Houdini, Blender, 3ds Max, Maya, etc) |
RANCH Computing
RANCH Computing is a powerful CPU and GPU render farm. They support most mainstream 3D software, render engines, and plugins: 3ds Max, Blender, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Maya, Redshift, Octane, V-Ray, Arnold, Corona, and much more. Their team and servers have been based in Paris, France since 2006. RANCH, too, is a great render farm for Octane GPU.
| Hardware | Unknown |
| Pricing | From €0.009/Obh (Standard) to €0.016/Obh (Highest priority) |
| Software support | Cinema 4D + Octane |
Other options
RebusFarm
RebusFarm is a great CPU and GPU render farm. They provide service via an easy-to-use interface for a wide range of 3D applications and plugins. The support includes 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Maya, Blender, Vray, Corona, Redshift, Octane, Arnold, etc. RebusFarm was established in Cologne, Germany in 2006.
| Hardware | GPU with 217 Octanebench |
| Pricing | From 0.55 cent/Obh (Standard) to 1.425 cent/Obh (Highest priority) |
| Software support | Cinema 4D + Octane 3ds Max + Octane Maya + Octane |
Drop and render
Drop and Render is a Dutch render farm dedicated to Cinema 4D rendering. It integrates various render plugins for Cinema 4D and Blender like: Redshift, Arnold, Octane, Cycles4D, Corona, Thea, Vray and more. Drop and Render is a SaaS render farm it checks all your settings, submits the job, and sends back the result.
| Hardware | RTX 3090 / GTX 2080 Ti |
| Pricing | From €0.0053 Obh (Standard) to € 0.0160 (Highest priority) |
| Software support | Cinema 4D + Octane Blender + Octane |
Conclusion
Compared to other GPU render engines – Redshift, Octane is not supported widely among render farms. However, there are still a few options for you to select. VFXRendering recommends some online Octane GPU render farms, that is iRender, RANCH Computing, RebusFarm, and Drop and Render. Hope they help you render faster with your Octane projects.
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