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OTOY

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OTOY
Information
Type Private
Industry 3D Graphics, Cloud Technology
Founded 2008
Founder Jules Urbach, Alissa Grainger, Malcolm Taylor
Headquarters Los Angeles, California
Notable Personnel Jules Urbach (CEO), Malcolm Taylor (CTO)
Products OctaneRender, Render Network, Brigade, LightStage, X.IO
Website https://home.otoy.com/

OTOY is a cloud graphics company based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded by Jules Urbach (CEO), Alissa Grainger (President) and Malcolm Taylor (CTO) in 2008.[1][2] OTOY's technology has moved high-end graphical processing to the cloud. Using clusters of multiple GPUs, OTOY renders 3D graphics and streams them to its clients, such as filmmakers, game developers and animators, in real time. Its products include OctaneRender, a GPU path-tracing renderer, and it created the Render Network, a distributed GPU rendering network.[1][3]

In addition to its rendering technology, OTOY has LightStage, a facial scanning technology, and X.IO, a service that allows the user to run Windows desktop applications in the cloud.[4][5]

Render the Metaverse, a VR art competition from April 27 to July 26, 2015, was run by OTOY and sponsored by Oculus.[6] OTOY's other VR and AR work includes OctaneVR, the ORBX media format, early light field capture for virtual reality, a six-degrees-of-freedom video pipeline built with Facebook, and The Archive, a Star Trek app for the Apple Vision Pro.

Reviewed 27 September 2026. Checked every dated fact, product, person, price and figure against its cited source (OTOY pages, PR Newswire releases, CG Channel, Road to VR, UploadVR, AppleInsider, GfxSpeak, Next TV, USC Stevens, the Brigade paper) and the prior page content. About review dates.

History

OTOY's own company page names Jules Urbach as founder, CEO and chairman and Malcolm Taylor as co-founder and CTO; Alissa Grainger's author biography at HuffPost describes her as president and co-founder, responsible for the company's financings, acquisitions and partnerships.[1][2]

In 2008 OTOY licensed the Light Stage facial capture technology developed at the University of Southern California and opened a capture facility in Burbank, California.[4][7] The Light Stage developers received a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2010, and the technology was used in films including Spider-Man 2, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Avatar.[7]

Autodesk invested an undisclosed sum in OTOY in October 2011, saying it wanted to accelerate OTOY's development and integrate its technology into Autodesk's media and entertainment products. At that point OTOY's portfolio included Octane Render (then developed jointly with Refractive Software), the Brigade real-time path tracer, LightStage and cloud streaming products.[8] OTOY lists Autodesk and Yuri Milner among its major investors.[1]

On 13 March 2012 OTOY announced that it had acquired Refractive Software, the developer of OctaneRender. Octane's lead developer, Terrence Vergauwen, became OTOY's chief graphics architect, and the announcement said the combined company would have about 40 employees.[9] Brigade had been created by Jacco Bikker and Jeroen van Schijndel; their 2013 paper on the renderer states that it was being integrated into OTOY's cloud service so that game developers could use path tracing without owning the hardware.[10]

OTOY announced X.IO App Streaming on 12 August 2014. The service ported Windows desktop applications to the cloud without code changes so they could be opened in a browser on any Internet-connected device.[5] On 17 March 2015 the company announced OctaneRender 3, OctaneVR, OctaneRender Cloud services and the open source ORBX media file format for HTML5, VR and AR platforms.[11][12][13]

OctaneRender for Unity was released in December 2017 for Unity 2017.1 and later on Windows. It was free on a single GPU, with paid subscriptions for multi-GPU use, and its recorder included presets for rendering VR and AR content.[14] The Render Network (originally RNDR) was unveiled in 2017 as a distributed GPU rendering network built on the Ethereum blockchain. After two years of closed beta it opened to the public in April 2020 alongside OctaneRender 2020.1; users could buy rendering or earn credits by offering their own GPUs as render nodes.[3] On 2 November 2023 the Render Foundation announced that the network had moved its infrastructure from Ethereum to Solana.[15]

At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on 4 June 2019, OTOY announced Octane X, a version of OctaneRender rebuilt in Apple's Metal graphics API for the Mac Pro and iPad Pro.[16] Octane X launched on the Mac App Store on 9 March 2021 with support for Macs running macOS Big Sur, including M1 models.[17]

OTOY announced Octane 2026 on 28 November 2025. Its 2026.1 release added path-traced rendering of Gaussian splats, a neural radiance cache, a meshlets system for streaming large scene geometry, and native MaterialX and OpenPBR support; the company also opened a closed beta of Octane 2027.[18] OctaneRender 2026.4, released in July 2026, added support for the SPZ 4 Gaussian splat format and extended the neural radiance cache to macOS and network rendering. OctaneStudio+ subscriptions cost 23.95 euros per month, and a free Prime edition is limited to one GPU.[19]

Products

Product Introduced Description
LightStage 2008 (licensed by OTOY) Facial scanning technology that captures geometry and separate diffuse and specular skin reflectance[4]
OctaneRender Acquired 2012 GPU path-tracing renderer; runs on Windows and Linux with NVIDIA CUDA GPUs and on Apple silicon Macs and iPads as Octane X[9][20]
Brigade By 2011 Real-time path tracer for games, created by Jacco Bikker and Jeroen van Schijndel[8][10]
X.IO App Streaming 2014 Cloud service that streams unmodified Windows desktop applications to any device[5]
OctaneVR 2015 Edition of OctaneRender for rendering 360-degree VR images and animations[12]
ORBX 2014 (interchange format), 2015 (open media format) Scene interchange format designed with Autodesk and Mozilla, announced in 2015 as an open source media file format for HTML5, VR and AR platforms and played back with the ORBX Media Player[21][11][13]
Render Network 2017 (unveiled), 2020 (public) Distributed GPU rendering network, moved from Ethereum to Solana in 2023[3][15]
Octane X 2019 (announced), 2021 (Mac App Store) OctaneRender rebuilt on Apple's Metal API[16][17]
The Archive 2024 Star Trek spatial app for Apple Vision Pro[22]

Light fields

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YouTube

OTOY described its demonstration as the first capture of a spherical light field of a real-world environment used to produce a navigable scene in Virtual Reality. It was presented by Paul Debevec, then OTOY's chief scientific consultant, at FMX 2015 in Stuttgart in May 2015.[23][24] Its light field sampler system rotates 2 cameras in a circle to capture the light field data of the entire spherical area around it. The data is processed and rendered with OTOY's technology to create a virtual environment that can be explored by a user wearing a head-tracking HMD. When Road to VR tried the system on the HTC Vive in October 2015, the rig used two DSLR cameras on a spinning mount, although only one was capturing in that demonstration and the other acted as a counterweight. The captured scene gave stereoscopic depth and parallax with positional tracking, and OTOY said a 1-meter light field cube could be compressed to 5-36 MB.[25] OTOY said its ORBX format kept the light field file size manageable while supporting the high frame rates VR needs.[23]

The technology can be used to create real time, live action VR.

In April 2017 OTOY and Facebook announced a partnership to bring OTOY's rendering and publishing tools to Facebook's Surround 360 x24 and x6 cameras, which captured volumetric 360-degree video with six degrees of freedom. OTOY said the pipeline tied the cameras into its ORBX ecosystem and its cloud rendering and light field streaming service.[26] UploadVR reported that OTOY was building Octane-based templates for the camera workflow and a player that fills in depth gaps the camera array did not capture.[27]

OTOY was a founding member of the Immersive Digital Experiences Alliance (IDEA), formed with CableLabs, Light Field Lab and Visby around the 2019 NAB Show to write royalty-free specifications for immersive media including light fields. The alliance's Immersive Technology Media Format (ITMF) started from OTOY's ORBX scene graph format.[28]

OctaneVR

OctaneVR was announced in March 2015 as a version of OctaneRender for "cinematic virtual reality". It exported images and animations that could be viewed in the Oculus 360 Photos and Oculus 360 Videos apps on the Samsung Gear VR, or as ORBX files in OTOY's ORBX Media Player. OTOY first announced it as free; when it shipped for Windows, OS X and Linux it was released as a three-month trial, with plugins for Blender and Poser.[12] OTOY's announcement said the ORBX Media Player was being used for a Batman: The Animated Series VR project OTOY was building for Warner Bros. and for a hockey game OTOY had produced with the NHL, and that support for Microsoft HoloLens and WebVR was planned for the fourth quarter of 2015.[13]

OctaneVR was given free to entrants of Render the Metaverse, who produced 360-degree panoramas viewable on the Samsung Gear VR Innovation Edition for the Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. The judges were Oculus CTO John Carmack, comic artist Alex Ross and Jules Urbach. Monthly winners received up to 10,000 US dollars, and the overall winner received an additional 25,000 US dollars.[6]

Apple Vision Pro

On 2 February 2024 OTOY released The Archive for the Apple Vision Pro, developed with Paramount Game Studios and Roddenberry Entertainment. The app contains nearly two hours of Star Trek content, including recreations of locations, artifacts and items from across the franchise. OTOY states that it uses 1-meter by 1-meter light field cubes displayed at 90 frames per second in 4K resolution per eye, rendered with OctaneRender, authored in Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) and using the Render Network.[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "The Company". OTOY. https://home.otoy.com/the-company/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Alissa Grainger". HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/author/alissa-grainger. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Jim Thacker (2020-04-28). "Otoy launches RNDR, its distributed GPU rendering network". CG Channel. https://www.cgchannel.com/2020/04/otoy-launches-rndr-its-distributed-gpu-rendering-network/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "LightStage". OTOY. https://home.otoy.com/capture/lightstage/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "OTOY unveils X.IO App Streaming service to effortlessly bring the most powerful workstation apps to every Internet-connected device". PR Newswire. OTOY Inc.. 2014-08-12. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/otoy-unveils-xio-app-streaming-service-to-effortlessly-bring-the-most-powerful-workstation-apps-to-every-internet-connected-device-270889501.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "OTOY unveils "Render the Metaverse" virtual reality art contest featuring legendary artist Alex Ross and Oculus CTO John Carmack as judges". OTOY. 2015-04-27. https://home.otoy.com/otoy-unveils-render-the-metaverse-virtual-reality-art-contest/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Light Stage". USC Stevens Center for Innovation. https://stevens.usc.edu/success-stories/light-stage/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Randall Newton (2011-10-21). "Autodesk invests in Otoy to advance rendering, compression, and cloud use". GfxSpeak. https://gfxspeak.com/archives/autodesk-invests-in-otoy-to-advance-rendering-compression-and-cloud-use/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "MAJOR NEWS: OTOY Inc. acquires Refractive Software LTD". OTOY Forums. 2012-03-13. https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=15367. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Jacco Bikker, Jeroen van Schijndel (2013). "The Brigade Renderer: A Path Tracer for Real-Time Games". International Journal of Computer Games Technology, vol. 2013, article 578269. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/578269. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "OTOY unveils OctaneRender 3: Massive upgrade to the world's best GPU renderer defines the state of the art for VFX in films, games and beyond". PR Newswire. OTOY Inc.. 2015-03-17. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/otoy-unveils-octanerender-3-massive-upgrade-to-the-worlds-best-gpu-renderer-defines-the-state-of-the-art-for-vfx-in-films-games-and-beyond-300052040.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Jim Thacker (2015-04-28). "Otoy releases OctaneVR". CG Channel. https://www.cgchannel.com/2015/04/otoy-unveils-octanevr/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 "OTOY unveils OctaneVR, the world's first production-ready renderer for VR, AR and Holographic Cinema - completely free for commercial use". PR Newswire. OTOY Inc.. 2015-03-17. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/otoy-unveils-octanevr-the-worlds-first-production-ready-renderer-for-vr-ar-and-holographic-cinema--completely-free-for-commercial-use-300052038.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  14. ↑ Jim Thacker (2017-12-18). "Otoy releases OctaneRender for Unity". CG Channel. https://www.cgchannel.com/2017/12/otoy-releases-octanerender-for-unity/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Render Network Completes Its Successful Upgrade To Solana". PRWeb. Render Foundation. 2023-11-02. https://www.prweb.com/releases/render-network-completes-its-successful-upgrade-to-solana-301974578.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "OTOY Announces Octane X for macOS and iOS at WWDC 2019". OTOY. 2019-06-04. https://home.otoy.com/octane-x-wwdc2019/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Mike Peterson (2021-03-09). "Octane X graphics renderer launches on Mac App Store with special offers". AppleInsider. https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/09/octane-x-graphics-renderer-launches-on-mac-app-store-with-special-offers. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  18. ↑ "OctaneStudio+ 2026 Launches with Greyscalegorilla Plus, KitBash3D and more!". OTOY. 2025-11-28. https://home.otoy.com/octane2026/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  19. ↑ Jim Thacker (2026-07-07). "Otoy releases OctaneRender 2026.4". CG Channel. https://www.cgchannel.com/2026/07/otoy-releases-octanerender-2026-4/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  20. ↑ Jim Thacker (2026-04-24). "Otoy releases OctaneRender 2026.3". CG Channel. https://www.cgchannel.com/2026/04/otoy-releases-octanerender-2026-3/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  21. ↑ "OTOY updates OctaneRender software and introduces .ORBX, a powerful new interchange file format supported across more than a dozen 3D modeling applications". PR Newswire. OTOY Inc.. 2014-03-20. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/otoy-updates-octanerender-software-and-introduces-orbx-a-powerful-new-interchange-file-format-supported-across-more-than-a-dozen-3d-modeling-applications-251199441.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "OTOY Launches Groundbreaking Multi-Hour Star Trek Spatial Experience for Apple Vision Pro, in Partnership with Paramount Game Studios and Roddenberry Entertainment". PR Newswire. OTOY Inc.. 2024-02-02. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/otoy-launches-groundbreaking-multi-hour-star-trek-spatial-experience-for-the-apple-vision-pro-in-partnership-with-paramount-game-studios-and-roddenberry-entertainment-302052236.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "OTOY demonstrates first ever light field capture for VR". OTOY. 2015-05-07. https://home.otoy.com/otoy-demonstrates-first-ever-light-field-capture-for-vr/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  24. ↑ "OTOY demonstrates first ever light field capture for VR". YouTube. OTOY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyJUg-ja0cg. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  25. ↑ Ben Lang (2015-10-20). "Exclusive: OTOY Shows Us Live-captured Light Fields in the HTC Vive". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/exclusive-otoy-shows-us-live-captured-light-fields-in-the-htc-vive/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  26. ↑ "OTOY and Facebook Release Revolutionary 6DOF Video VR Camera Pipeline and Tools". OTOY. 2017-04-21. https://home.otoy.com/otoy-facebook-release-revolutionary-6dof-video-vr-camera-pipeline-tools/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  27. ↑ Ian Hamilton (2017-04-19). "F8 2017: Facebook And OTOY's Volumetric Camera System Will Deliver Six Degrees Of Freedom In 2017". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/facebook-otoy-volumetric-camera/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  28. ↑ "Immersive Digital Experiences Alliance (IDEA) to Create Specifications for Next-Gen Immersive Media, Including Light Field Technology". Next TV. 2019-03-21. https://www.nexttv.com/post-type-the-wire/immersive-digital-experiences-alliance-idea-to-create-specifications-for-next-gen-immersive-media-including-light-field-technology. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
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