The release archive contains everything you need to run OctaneRender® for Houdini®, including the Octane libraries, plugin binaries, menu shelf, HDAs, etc. A step-by-step tutorial video can be found here. 

Compatible Houdini Products

The OctaneRender for Houdini build must match your Houdini install to avoid problems.

The OctaneRender for Houdini plugin requires Houdini Indie®, Houdini FX®, or Houdini Education.

While running in Houdini Indie, the plugin limits the sequence rendering resolution to 4k, and it disables the scene export and cloud features.

Houdini Apprentice® cannot run the OctaneRender plugin as they lack support for third-party renderers.

Plugin Installation

To install OctaneRender for Houdini, decompress the archive you download from the OctaneRender website and copy the resulting uncompressed files somewhere. The installation process via the Houdini env is no longer needed or supported. Instead, users can install Octane for Houdini using the .bat file on WIndows or the .sh file on a Mac. 

  • On Windows, double-click on the .bat file and follow the prompts in the terminal window. 
  • On MacOS/Linux, open a new terminal window, type "sh" and then drag the .sh file into the terminal window. Press Enter and follow the prompts. 

For manual installation, copy the Octane.json file to the Houdini package path (for ex document/houdini21.0/packages). Then the path needs to be updated in the json to the octane folder path - make sure to use “/” not “\” (as this will stop it from working). If you have used the houdini .env installation method in the past, you will need to make sure to remove any octane related paths from the env to avoid a conflict.

SOLARIS NOTE

Octane for Solaris is a separate plugin developed by a separate team, and is not included in the Houdini plugin. You cannon install both of them at the same time, but the Solaris installation will include a recent compatible build of the main Houdini plugin.