Unity and Octane

by | Aug 8, 2017 | AR, Software, VR

I’ve been following the integration of the Octane render engine with Unity since it was announced in November 2016. Unity released an alpha version and some of the results look extremely promising. The Unity/OTOY roadmap points toward an early 2018 rollout and that couldn’t work better for me to really start digging into what it can do in design, animations and user interfaces. The thought of having real-time rendered physical rendering is VERY appealing to push interfaces beyond the Minority Report and Iron Man type futuristic translucent panes and glowing text combined with animation for animation’s sake. Though it may be years before real-time physical rendering will be available across the mainstream and without the need for specialized and/or multiple GPUs it has to start somewhere and the appeal of Unity integration is the tools proliferation and combination of features like timelines and cinematic effects beyond its game engine roots. Exciting times for interactive animation, interfaces and user experience!