Rendering Engine Options for Daz Studio Users
StratDragon
Posts: 3,167
WIP : Updated 06/27/14:
While the built in rendering engine (3Delight) for Daz Studio (DS) is a very powerful and capable rendering engine it is not the only option. There are several other options available, some free and some for purchase. Most commercial and non-commercial 3D rendering package support Colada or OBJ formats and both these files can be exported from DS for rendering of some sort.
This list provided shows rendering engines that have more commonly used working relationship with DS and it's various incarnations.
Please feel free to add any additional information to this list, price, platform and additional information.
Please note:
No two rendering engines are the same (unless one was open source and some dev ripped off the code and repacked it)
explanation of what biased and unbiased rendering engines are can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbiased_rendering
All rendering engines that support CPU (Microprocessor) and/or GPU (Graphics Card) require RAM as well.
Some GPU support requires NVidia CUDA enabled Video Cards.
..
Rendering Engines for DS
• 3Delight (stand alone)
http://www.3delight.com
free for up to 4 cores and $2,500.00 US for unlimited cores (and network rendering)
Note: 3Delight is the rendering engine that comes with DS and is licensed to use all cores on a single computer. Daz3D licenses this engine from 3Delight which allows it to run with all cores provided the render occurs in DS
Please note the standalone version will not offer any improvement or sacrifice to the render the way it would appear in DS but the standalone version has been reported to render faster under some conditions (e.g. running in Unix/Mac OS), allow renders to be packaged and expedited to other systems and allow users to render scenes that were crashing due to limited RAM. As mentioned before the free version is limited to 4 cores
Daz3D does not nor did it ever develop 3Delight, it is owned entirely by 3Delight (www.3delight.com)
Biased: Supports CPU
Mac OS X (32/64 bit versions) / Windows (32/64 bit versions) /Unix
..
• LuxRender
http://www.luxrender.net
free
Unbiased: Supports CPU and GPU (see below)
supports network rendering on multiple platforms
Mac OS X (32/64 bit versions) / Windows (32/64 bit versions) / Unix
LuxRender is unique as you can not directly render from DS to LuxRender without a conversion program to bridge Studio's data to LuxRender.
Bridges for LuxRender include the following three (3) plug-ins for DS that are shown in red bold text
Note: Reality, Luxus, and LuxRenderDS are not in any way, shape, or form Rendering Engines!
.,
Reality 2.5
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/reality-2-for-daz-studio/92598/
http://preta3d.com/reality-2-0/
Reality 2 is $33.90 (at the time of this writing) two versions 2.23 (DS3) and 2.5 (DS4)
Reality 1 users can upgrade both Reality 2.23 (DS3) and Reality 2.5 (DS4) for $9.99 (Note: Reality 1 is no longer available for purchase.)
The developer will release a Reality 3 for Daz Studio at it has been in beta testing at the time of this writing,
the Poser version was Released in 2013
Mac OS X (32/64 bit versions) / Windows (32/64 bit versions) / Supports GPU and Open CL enabled rendering
License allows multiple versions on multiple 32 and 64 bit platforms
..
Luxus
http://www.daz3d.com/luxus/
$19.95
Requires DS 4.5
Mac OS X (32/64 bit versions) / Windows (32/64 bit versions) / Supports GPU and Open CL enabled rendering
License allows multiple versions on multiple 32 and 64 bit platforms
..
DSLuxRender
http://tofusan.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2011/06/luxrenderds-eab.html
free, but it will not work with any version of DS4, you need the 32 or 64 bit version of Daz Studio 3.1.2.32 and you need LuxRender 0.7 - 1.0 which are still available from www.luxrender.net.
Windows (32/64 bit versions)
..
• Octane 2
http://render.otoy.com/
Octane is GPU rendering engine will only work with NVidia CUDA enabled video cards.
379 € (Engine, Exporter for Daz Studio, and User License)
299 € (Standalone Engine and User Licenses, without Daz Studio Exporter)
99 € upgrade from Octane 1
Mac OS X (32/64 bit versions) /Windows (32/64 bit versions)
..
• PovRay (Persistence of Vision) ver 3.6
http://www.povray.org/
free
Biased: Supports CPU
Mac OS X (32 versions) /Windows (32/64 bit versions) / Unix
..
• Cycles (using blender 2.7.x and Casual’s exporter.)
Mac OS X (32/64 bit versions) / Windows (32/64 bit versions) / Unix
Casual's script for conversion can be downloaded here
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjteleblender-for-ds1-2-3-4
Blender is free, Cycles comes with Blender, and Casuals scripts are free./em]
Unbiased: Supports CPU/GPU NVidia (AMD/ATI currently in development)
Mac OS X (32/64 bit versions) / Windows (32/64 bit versions)
Blender can be downloaded here
http://www.blender.org
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
These are ones with exporters for DS...in the case of 3Delight, the render to RIB option is the exporter.
That also means that the RIB, with some effort...it's not seamless, can be used by other Renderman compliant renderers. This includes Pixar's offering, Aqsis, Pixie and others. The problem with those is manual conversion or replacement of shaders.
PoseRay is a 'scene converter'...it converts DS and Poser scenes to PovRay or Kerkythea scenes...the Kerkythea conversion is somewhat experimental. Also Kekythea seems to be a stalled project, as there hasn't been an update in a long time. Actually ended, in favor of it's commercial sibling. With the Kerkythea conversion, materials can be somewhat of a problem and may require manual conversion/editing of files.
Kerkythea was 'replaced' with a commercial version known as Thea (cost of €295.00 for a base license...not sure if it supports import of Kerkythea scenes). Thea does have a number of import plugins, but not a Poser/DS one, directly.
Of course, with manual set up of materials, a DS scene can be rendered in any renderer that has obj support.
The easiest options are the standalone 3Delight and Reality/Luxrender
It should also be noted that 3Delight Stand Alone is virtually seamless when using DS's render to rib. It produces the very same results you get with DS with the notable exception of background colour and backdrop images.
And under certain conditions, can be considerably faster...even with just the 2 core free license.
I want to say there is a switch for alpha channel colors somewhere but for what I was using it for I was going straight to photoshop and dropping in backgrounds so I don't recall ever using it.
The bridge to cycles is very straightforward and very simple. It may require some slight tweaking on the blender side or some pre tweaking in Studio but the amount of time needed to prep work from Studio to Cycles (via Blender) compared to LuxRenderDS or Reality to Luxrender is night and day. For anyone just wanting to see what breaking from 3Delight is like that's what I would recommend, but only after some familiarity with navigating Blender.
My preferred tools: Reality 2 to LuxRender.
To use Octane you need a standalone license. To use the forthcoming DS plugin you will have to pay for that as well(and still have a standalone license). The beta price for the plugin will be 99 Euros.
This statement is not entirely true.
About a month ago I found that some non-native DAZ lights will not render in 3D Delight Stand Alone.
My specific examples being all of InaneGlory's Photo Studio lighting rigs. I was trying to render out quick reference examples of each set up using the "Render to RIB" option. I would then transport these to another computer to batch render while I continued working.
The results were all the various RIBs rendered exactly the same. They ignored the IG Lights and rendered with only the default light.
To further the experiment (and rule out a missing temp or transport file) I installed the stand alone 3D Delight on my work computer (the one that had initially made the RIBs) and rendered them. They turned out the same as the previous renders on the rendering machine.
Finally, to rule out a DS issue, I rendered the exact same files within DS. These rendered with the IG lights functioning properly.
Since then I have given up on the RIB render and maintain two installations of DS on both machines. I transport the working project files from machine to machine along with a dump of the temp files that show up in the data\autoadapted directory.
Legionair, I understand it.
becaues ALL IG rig light (rigged light set and each light) are not triax weight type figure.
so that IG offer light set and each light (not rigged) as old daz scene files.
when I use IG rig light sets in the scene,
and save the scene as duf, the scene file need to the
geometry files of IG rig light .
Then ds make geometry dsf for IG rig light in auto-adapted ,,
I tried to change individual light save as duf prop and figure.
As you know we need surface group of geometry,
to apply UAlight .)
about individual light, I can change and save it as duf prop.
(it write geometry data in light.dsf in data folda of the item)
and these light prop can apply preset files without problem.
I think,, if you use these new saved as dsf (duf) light,
it can work in RIB
but I have not tired RIB render with UAlight, so I do not know clear.
but if every UAlight can work in RIB render,, it must work.
then,, about rig set ,, it seems difficult for me^^;
I may need rig IGlight set change as triax weight figure,,
but have not tried yet.
before I simply change it to triax figure,
the light set can not load correctly,, so I may need to set rig
and weight-map manually,,,
I hope,,, if IG offer dsf (duf) triax weight map rig light set,,, for IG user.
old type daz files seems not good for ds 4.5,.
(I have used free tool,, which can adjust gamma to clean render.
it can adjust ganmma of materials and ds light,,
but only about IG light,, it can not work still.. )
Possibly. The last time I tried to us the IG lights and an RIB export as a month ago. So it might have changed since then.
Also, the last time I checked, the stand alone 3D Delight download was an older version than the 3D Delight currently incorporated in DS.
Might want to add Luxus to your list now - http://www.daz3d.com/luxus
Cross post but I added it.
Competition is a good thing.
If anyone knows of any others or finds mistakes let me know.
About cycles,, AMD open CL can not work well with cyces still.
(I am still AMD user,, so it is too improtant for me TT;) uuu,, someone tell me good Navidida graphic card
which can fit to my Dell PC ,, I can not clearly about graphic card,,,)
Works great with Mac OS X, I am using Mac exclusively these days.
@ kitakoredaz
Any Nvidia card series 2xx or higher but that's baseline and outdated, but the bang for the buck depends on what you want to spend.
I would check out toms hardware and compare the cards available. If you want to upgrade your card make sure you have an adequite Power Supply (PSU) the power it, GPU's eat powers supplies and the current generation of bigger cards like to operate with lots of power to spare in your computer case unless you want to experience lots of Blue Screens Of Death (BSOD) during render sessions.
here's an article from yesterday
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html
it's already outdated :p
If you tell me the model dell you have I bet I can find out on the web.
@ Renpatsu
Making the update, thanks for the info. I'm guessing you can have both Mac and PC but is there a 32 and 64 bit native version for each?
Yes, 32-Bit and 64-Bit for both Windows and Mac. Four downloadable files for the plugin overall and then one for the content.
Updated this again but it's still a WIP. Please report any inaccuracies or new developments and I will reflect them in the first post.
I'd query the Octane 2 ... currently the only 'direct' link from Ds to Octane is via the OcDS plug-in which uses an in-built version of Octane 1.2. You can export a scene as a .obj and import into the standalone version of Octane, the latest version of which is 2.
If you import an ONK to the standalone what happens with the shader settings?
If you import an ONK to the standalone what happens with the shader settings?
There was a suggestion that Octane v2 was available via the plug-in.
As for what happens with an ONK? An ONK? If you mean OBJ (N and K are next to B and J, so I am guessing!) then they will come in with whatever is specified in the .mtl associated with the file. Which probably means you'd need to do a lot of checking (and possibly tweaking) of material attributes to ensure they were good. The main issue, for me at least, is the loss of camera settings and having to try and find a way of getting the view I wanted back in frame.
There was a suggestion that Octane v2 was available via the plug-in.
As for what happens with an ONK? An ONK? If you mean OBJ (N and K are next to B and J, so I am guessing!) then they will come in with whatever is specified in the .mtl associated with the file. Which probably means you'd need to do a lot of checking (and possibly tweaking) of material attributes to ensure they were good. The main issue, for me at least, is the loss of camera settings and having to try and find a way of getting the view I wanted back in frame.
Yep, I was trying to say OBJ!
Didn't see Renderman there :)
Somewhat related:
http://renderman.pixar.com/view/DP25846
Free Non-Commercial Use
With the upcoming release, RenderMan will be free for non-commercial usage.
Examples of non-commercial use-cases include evaluations, personal learning,
experimentation, research, and the development of tools and plug-ins for RenderMan.
Free non-commercial RenderMan will be availabe with the upcoming release of RenderMan
scheduled in the timeframe of SIGGRAPH 2014.
This is amazing news and it's not a bad idea to get on the mailing list (I think I signed up 20 seconds after it was announced!) if you haven't done so already. The issue right now is Studio will still require an exporter that's able to do a lot more than just write a .RIB file unless you just want textureless/shaderless modeling.
I've already hinted to Paolo C. at Preta3D and he's hinted back it's something he's interested in but until we have shader converters for this it's not going to be a usable solution to render with Studio.