heavy scenes

Comments

• Herald of Fire Posts: 3,504

  December 2012 edited December 1969

  I've worked on some pretty memory intensive scenes myself, and Daz certainly does slow down considerably when using larger sets. The problem isn't so much the information in the scene, as what's actually being displayed in the window. Some important things to realise when working with Daz is that there are subdivided and smoothed models being used often. Sometimes these also have their own collision detection, especially in the case of clothing for characters. That's a lot of work and calculation to be done, so you need to minimize it as much as you can when working on the scene, then add it up later to calculate collisions.

  With that said, here's a few tips to keep things moving more swiftly.

  1) Texture-Shading is not always your friend. It's nice to be able to see what you're working with easily, but using a texture shaded window in large scenes can really chew your machine up.

  2) Bounding Box is difficult to work with, but allows you to quickly move around without worrying. Useful for shifting cameras around or repositioning your perspective viewport. It's useful for getting the camera into place before making character or set changes.

  3) High poly counts cane the viewport. The most obvious troublemaker in the scene you posted are the trees, which likely use high poly counts in the leaves. Knowing which items cause the most drag is useful as you can be more creative with their use to keep things swift without losing quality.

  4) High memory won't help you much. Memory is great for storing all the information, and the more the better for the rendering. It won't help much with the viewport however. I believe (don't quote me) that the viewport is drawn entirely software based , which means your CPU rather than your GPU is working to render the working scene. This would at least be consistent with my observations since using the software. It basically means you should minimize the amount of work your processor is trying to do at the same time. This will speed things up.

  I don't pretend to know the inner workings of Daz Studio, so take my word with a pinch of salt. Still, I've done scenes with a ton of characters and props before, so I know how badly it can slow down when working. Best of luck minimizing the grind.
• texjones Posts: 0

  December 2012 edited December 1969

  Thanks for the information, stuff to keep in mind. I just tend to go at it. The camera presets, I should keep that in mind more often as I create scenes that tend to get so spread out. Needless to say this scene goes beyond the starting floor square layout. The one thing I have learned is give Daz the chance to catch up, especially when bringing the scene back in. I have created scenes that take almost a minute to load, as the log tells. I know there's a lot of math invloved working with the program and any 3D system. I just gotta learn and understand much more about it all. Any good reference material that would help?

  

  

  another_view_of_courtyard2.jpg

  600 x 450 - 190K
• Tramp Graphics Posts: 2,404

  December 2012 edited December 1969

  texjones said:

  Thanks for the information, stuff to keep in mind. I just tend to go at it. The camera presets, I should keep that in mind more often as I create scenes that tend to get so spread out. Needless to say this scene goes beyond the starting floor square layout. The one thing I have learned is give Daz the chance to catch up, especially when bringing the scene back in. I have created scenes that take almost a minute to load, as the log tells. I know there's a lot of math invloved working with the program and any 3D system. I just gotta learn and understand much more about it all. Any good reference material that would help?

  A minute? That's all? You've got it easy. I've had scenes that take more than twenty minutes to load.
• mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

  December 2012 edited December 1969

  One thing not mentioned so far...

  'Big scene' is a relative term...what may be positively unworkable in one hardware configuration may be 'tiny' in another.

  So, before we go off...what is your config? CPU, RAM, OS (and bit count), video card (and memory size) and so on...
• texjones Posts: 0

  December 2012 edited December 1969

  Tramp Graphics said:

  texjones said:

  Thanks for the information, stuff to keep in mind. I just tend to go at it. The camera presets, I should keep that in mind more often as I create scenes that tend to get so spread out. Needless to say this scene goes beyond the starting floor square layout. The one thing I have learned is give Daz the chance to catch up, especially when bringing the scene back in. I have created scenes that take almost a minute to load, as the log tells. I know there's a lot of math invloved working with the program and any 3D system. I just gotta learn and understand much more about it all. Any good reference material that would help?

  A minute? That's all? You've got it easy. I've had scenes that take more than twenty minutes to load.

  Well I am glad to hear that sorta. If it takes more than a minute I'll think there's something wrong. I did have a scene of the town laid out wide and huge it took a while to load, I thought there was something wrong and deleted it to start over. I had to anyways because I messed up in too many areas to fix. So when I start a new layout, this time I gots to be VERY patient. But that's the kind of thing that makes me worry if it'll kill my computer.
• texjones Posts: 0

  December 2012 edited December 2012

  Well, now that I've gotten to understand about the Log File ,now here is my computer etc... the current memory usage here is because of open programs and web pages.

  +++++++++++++++ DAZ Studio 4.5.1.6 starting +++++++++++++++++
  Platform bits: 64
  Qt Version: 4.8.1
  Running on Windows 7, Build 7601, Service Pack 1
  CPU String: AuthenticAMD
  Stepping ID = 3
  Model = 5
  Family = 15
  Extended family = 1
  CLFLUSH cache line size = 64
  APIC Physical ID = 2
  The following features are supported:
  SSE3 New Instructions
  MONITOR/MWAIT
  x87 FPU On Chip
  Virtual-8086 Mode Enhancement
  Debugging Extensions
  Page Size Extensions
  Time Stamp Counter
  RDMSR and WRMSR Support
  Physical Address Extensions
  Machine Check Exception
  CMPXCHG8B Instruction
  APIC On Chip
  SYSENTER and SYSEXIT
  Memory Type Range Registers
  PTE Global Bit
  Machine Check Architecture
  Conditional Move/Compare Instruction
  Page Attribute Table
  Page Size Extension
  CFLUSH Extension
  MMX Technology
  FXSAVE/FXRSTOR
  SSE Extensions
  SSE2 Extensions
  Hyper-threading Technology
  CPU Brand String: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 630 Processor
  Cache Line Size = 64
  L2 Associativity = 8
  Cache Size = 512
  Total Physical Memory: 3839 Mb (4025782272)
  Available Physical Memory: 2085 Mb (2186944512)
  Total Virtual Memory: 8388607 Mb (8796092891136)
  Available Virtual Memory: 8388413 Mb (8795888885760)
  Current Memory Usage: 45%
  Thu Dec 27 18:47:19 2012
  Temp folder: C:/Users/Selander/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4/temp
  Total temp disk size: 702932 Mb, Available: 193879 Mb
  Locale: en_US

  Current OpenGL Version:
  3.3.10834 Compatibility Profile Context

  
  OpenGL Provider:
  ATI Technologies Inc.

  
  Hardware:
  ATI Radeon HD 4200

  
  Features:

  MultiTexturing
  Supported

  Shadow Map
  Supported

  Hardware Antialiasing
  Supported

  OpenGL Shading Language
  Supported

  Pixel Buffer
  Supported

  
  Pixel Buffer Size
  Not Enabled

  
  Maximum Number of Lights
  8

  Number of Texture Units
  8

  Maximum Texture Size
  8192 x 8192

  Post edited by texjones on December 2012
• Tramp Graphics Posts: 2,404

  December 2012 edited December 1969

  texjones said:

  Tramp Graphics said:

  texjones said:

  Thanks for the information, stuff to keep in mind. I just tend to go at it. The camera presets, I should keep that in mind more often as I create scenes that tend to get so spread out. Needless to say this scene goes beyond the starting floor square layout. The one thing I have learned is give Daz the chance to catch up, especially when bringing the scene back in. I have created scenes that take almost a minute to load, as the log tells. I know there's a lot of math invloved working with the program and any 3D system. I just gotta learn and understand much more about it all. Any good reference material that would help?

  A minute? That's all? You've got it easy. I've had scenes that take more than twenty minutes to load.

  Well I am glad to hear that sorta. If it takes more than a minute I'll think there's something wrong. I did have a scene of the town laid out wide and huge it took a while to load, I thought there was something wrong and deleted it to start over. I had to anyways because I messed up in too many areas to fix. So when I start a new layout, this time I gots to be VERY patient. But that's the kind of thing that makes me worry if it'll kill my computer.I only start over on a piece if simply loading it crashes DAZ completely. I have .daz scenes in excess of 50mb, so a 5 mb file isn't anything. Each one of the characters I've made (all saved as .Daz files, and completely textured and clothed) is over 9mb at least, some exceeding 16mb.
• Herald of Fire Posts: 3,504

  December 2012 edited December 1969

  Tramp Graphics said:

  I only start over on a piece if simply loading it crashes DAZ completely. I have .daz scenes in excess of 50mb, so a 5 mb file isn't anything. Each one of the characters I've made (all saved as .Daz files, and completely textured and clothed) is over 9mb at least, some exceeding 16mb.

  The DUF format seems pretty space conserving. Even my larger scenes only take up a few Mb and that's because the characters aren't saved with the file as with other formats, but rather loaded when the file is. Of course, this does mean it can actually take longer for files to load, as it's effectively importing the necessary figures on the fly.

  Generally DUF files are far smaller than their DAZ counterparts, but no less intensive when loading depending on the complexity of the scene. Even one of my scenes with the highest poly count, and the largest number of props and figures loaded only comes to a few Mb. Though oddly, the recent Daz 3D group shot wallpaper I did only comes to 1.6Mb, far less than a simpler scene which is almost double the size!

  The DUF format has some oddities with file sizes, but generally even complex scenes can be reduced to a few Mb. Animation is a sure fire way to ramp up the file sizes though. My largest is around 8Mb so far.
• ReDave Posts: 815

  December 2012 edited December 1969

  HeraldOfFire said:

  I've worked on some pretty memory intensive scenes myself, and Daz certainly does slow down considerably when using larger sets. The problem isn't so much the information in the scene, as what's actually being displayed in the window. Some important things to realise when working with Daz is that there are subdivided and smoothed models being used often. Sometimes these also have their own collision detection, especially in the case of clothing for characters. That's a lot of work and calculation to be done, so you need to minimize it as much as you can when working on the scene, then add it up later to calculate collisions.

  With that said, here's a few tips to keep things moving more swiftly.

  1) Texture-Shading is not always your friend. It's nice to be able to see what you're working with easily, but using a texture shaded window in large scenes can really chew your machine up.

  2) Bounding Box is difficult to work with, but allows you to quickly move around without worrying. Useful for shifting cameras around or repositioning your perspective viewport. It's useful for getting the camera into place before making character or set changes.

  3) High poly counts cane the viewport. The most obvious troublemaker in the scene you posted are the trees, which likely use high poly counts in the leaves. Knowing which items cause the most drag is useful as you can be more creative with their use to keep things swift without losing quality.
  All correct, good post.
  4) High memory won't help you much. Memory is great for storing all the information, and the more the better for the rendering. It won't help much with the viewport however. I believe (don't quote me) that the viewport is drawn entirely software based , which means your CPU rather than your GPU is working to render the working scene. This would at least be consistent with my observations since using the software. It basically means you should minimize the amount of work your processor is trying to do at the same time. This will speed things up.

  I don't pretend to know the inner workings of Daz Studio, so take my word with a pinch of salt. Still, I've done scenes with a ton of characters and props before, so I know how badly it can slow down when working. Best of luck minimizing the grind.

  
  Point 4 is wrong, though. DS uses the GPU in the viewport, not the CPU. A better videocard will help you having less of a drag with bigger scenes. You can also drag a slider towards Performance to increase responsiveness (Edit->Preferences->Interface tab->Texture Resources); and there's the Display Optimization option (but I haven't heard much good about it; it usually fixes things for people when they switch it off! ;-) ). Also switching Off Backface Lighting should speed up everything if you have transmaps.
• Herald of Fire Posts: 3,504

  December 2012 edited December 1969

  Curious then that my GPU usage is quite minimal when using Daz Studio (as in almost none at all) even when using rather large scenes. I'll have to check the preferences to see if something I've done has disabled it.
• texjones Posts: 0

  December 2012 edited December 2012

  Then I suppose the next question would be how large of a field do you work on? Since I am trying create a village. I decided this time to start first with the foundation with primitive planes that would equal 1 mile x 2 miles, scaled to 50%, and just that alone the system drags just trying to adjust that layout over the starting center graph. When I created the village before, I scaled everything to 50%. That's where I definitely used the camera presets to focus in on certain areas. For me it's all about the animation, so I know it would take HOURS to render a 30 sec piece with such a large field.
  The drag I refer to is simply trying to move the stuff into position or turning the layout so I can get a look at it and certain points, that's where it drags, when the scene gets bigger with more stuff added. I know Daz has to check everything as it loads the scene, and number repeated items. I finally understand the duplicate IDs I had mentioned before. It simply means there are two items in the scene that may be different but have the same name, and there is where, as in this scene, ALL of the rooms have assigned number and everything in the room has that same number. I mean rooms are empty but counting the door handle, the window, the curtain, etc. I had to stop with the three buildings as it was starting to drag to much. Sorry to keep adding pics but I just love this scene, this is where I love working with Daz.

  

  

  another_view_of_courtyard.jpg

  600 x 450 - 208K

  Post edited by texjones on December 2012
• BWSman Posts: 0

  December 2012 edited December 1969

  Textures can eat up a lot of memory (especially the photo-realistic 12 -16 megapixel textures).