Seeking Octane un-FAQ answers

protovu

Hi All,
I am getting ready to take an Octane plunge here. Just upgraded the graphic card.
I could use a few answers to the following, if anyone has them:

Is the live Database available with the Octane demo? I can't seem to figure out where or how on that, even though my account is activated.

Can we animate shaders in Octane to the extent we can in Carrara? Perhaps more, I hope.

Using operators, I often need to mix between two or more texture maps in either the color or alpha channels.
Really would like to test this before buying. Has anyone here done some of this? Say you have a hand object, and you
want to animate just the thumb going transparent. In Carrara, this is easily done using a mixer with white and the thumb-placed
black in the alpha channel - transitioning using a value.

Can layers be drawn on objects in shaders, as with Carrara?
Can the content, scale, and placement of these layers be animated, as with Carrara? Please see image below.

I am not seeing keyframes being generated regarding the camera focus point. What camera functions are keyframed in Octane for Carrara?

Same question for lighting?

Thanks for your help,
Rick