Hi The Mad Hatter,

I wouldn't suggest a render engine like octane to start with

- it's in early beta stage (crash ?)
- There are tons of missing features (quite normal)
- it's 'just' a renderer ...
- for the moment it even don't play that well with MoI geometry (that will be fixed really soon I'm sure)
- you need a good mid-level gfx card to really enjoy it.

Sure, things will be fixed with the time, but it's not ready for production ...

You need something that will give you more freedom, and much more tools like :

- UV tools (to prepare/adjust texture coordonate)
- Maybe a 3D painter (so you can paint on you model)
- a render engine that giving you a lot of freedom (lights, hdr, GI, render pass, speed)

Freeware : Blender
Mid price : Modo (There is a 30 days unlimited demo)