It is technically proficient, incredibly reliable, and will produce beautiful, physically accurate renders. However, the lack of AI denoising and slow volume rendering makes it inefficient for modern production schedules. If you have a copy collecting dust on a hard drive, it is perfect for rendering static product shots or low-noise stylized work. If you are paying for a subscription, skip this and get Octane 2024.
Fog and smoke render substantially slower than in V4+ due to a less optimized volume step size algorithm. Rendering a simple cloud scene can take 3x longer than in Octane 2020. Octane Render 3.07 R2 Plugin for Cinema 4D
The plugin still heavily relies on the classic C4D shader tree and the "Octane Tag" system. You do not need to dive into the complex node editor for basic tasks (diffuse, gloss, specular). This makes it much faster for motion graphics artists coming from the Standard/Physical renderer. It is technically proficient, incredibly reliable, and will