Yes, I don't think the problem is not MoI, and I am sure Something is happening with the export from Maya (2009). I will have to investigate further over at the Octane forum (as I said before, it renders fine in mental ray). Octane is just very picky about things. I was looking at the section where they have screenshots of all the different 3d apps export settings, but no Maya (am I an odd-ball using Maya? How dare I?). Anyway, off to continue my hunt for an answer/solution. Nice renders PHILBO!

It is recommended that you use the Maya plug-in instead of manually exporting. This will also give you access to Animation functions as well. You can then post specific questions on the plug-in in the Maya section of the Plug-In Discussion / Support section of the Customer Forums at www.refractivesoftware.com/forum/.

I will give the exporter a try. I was hesitating on that because I am on Linux, and the exporters don't always work correctly. I will also play with exporting FBX from MoI. I need Maya for texturing. I only have a license for MoI v1, and I am thinking very hard if $100 is worth v2 for "styles" and the other newer functions.

I tried to just use 1.0 after using the Beta V2.0 for so long. I couldn't hack it and had to pony up the $100 for the upgrade.

If things don't work out on the Linux side of things, please post it to the forums so they can get resolved.

Just sprang for the v2 upgrade license. MoI puts real fast wheels on my production time and Michael deserves it (if not more - the price is WAY reasonable).

Thanks Phr0stByte, I hope that you will get some good use out of v2!

There's quite a lot of new stuff in there, there is a collection of all the notes on new and improved features in v2 here:
http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/doc/V2releasenotes.html#V2-out

- Michael