I wonder if it can be done with Blender.
Yes it can, you get a 3 month licence of OctaneVR and Blender for OctaneVR for free.
It is Windows only. 
Cheers, mib
So there is no free Octane, but there is an add-on to render from Blender in Octane ?
I guess if Octane had some subscription based license, it would be sweet to get it - monetary incentive is generous 
Hi motorsep, if you subscribe you get a standalone and Blender for Octane VR licence.
It is a special package for the contest.
Cheers, mib
To clarify for those not familiar with octane, you cannot use octane with standard Blender, you use the Blender version provided by Otoy. The additional code which interfaces with the octane server is compiled C or C++, not python. Interactive rendered viewport performance is very good.
Interesting. Since that additional code is used with GPL code, it automatically falls under GPL and thus could be requested by BF and implemented into Blender itself.
The code is available but would only be useful for other, primarily closed source render engines as it provides a sort of network interface to connect to other applications without compiling/linking to blender. I don’t think there is any functionality that cycles does not already have natively. It would be nice if the Blender Foundation co-ordinated with the makers of commercial render engines to maintain this sort of thing in trunk, and nice if the render companies kicked in some funding or employee time to do so, but I don’t expect that to happen any time soon.
Otoy programmers have created a new space type for their material library based on the outliner, but I think the asset browsing project will become the equivalent and more. (eventually.)