Digital Art Zone

A question for those of you who use DAZ Studio seriously:  How do you manage your time?  I find myself spending half my hours setting up a scene and the other half of my hours waiting for the computer to render the scene.  As I get more experienced, I use more powerful lighting and shading tools, and the ratio is staying the same.  Is there a way, perhaps using other software tools, to render in the background while continuing to use DAZ Studio to set up another scene?  Is there a way to run multiple copies of DAZ Studio at the same time?

Please don’t suggest the solution is buying another high-end computer!    I tried that idea ... it didn’t get very far!

MrWizard1024

You can do that in Poserpro with Queue Render ... no way in Dazstudio.
You can try to add a feature request here:
https://bugs.daz3d.com/
Needs it’s own login and password.

If your machine is powerful enough why do not start a second instance of DAZ Studio and let the first rendering your image while creating a new scene in the second one?

You can export to a RIB file and run an external instance of 3Delight, so the renderer is running in the background (but you’re limited to two cores using the free version of 3Delight). There was a tutorial on the old forum on how to do this.

OR

You can use LuxRender to do your rendering via the Reality Plugin. LuxRender will use the full resources available, but runs in the background.

If you are on Windows, start two instances of DS, and set the one that is going to render to “Below normal” priority in the Task Manager (I’d load the scene first, though). I believe there is a similar solution for Macs.

Aelfric - 11 July 2012 04:31 AM

You can export to a RIB file and run an external instance of 3Delight, so the renderer is running in the background (but you’re limited to two cores using the free version of 3Delight). There was a tutorial on the old forum on how to do this.

OR

You can use LuxRender to do your rendering via the Reality Plugin. LuxRender will use the full resources available, but runs in the background.

Many thanks, Aelfric.  I’m definitely going to get LuxRender as soon as they are compatible with the new, upcoming 4.5 release of DAZ Studio.  In the meantime, how does one get a copy of a Macintosh external version of 3Delight?

ReDave - 11 July 2012 07:46 AM

If you are on Windows, start two instances of DS, and set the one that is going to render to “Below normal” priority in the Task Manager (I’d load the scene first, though). I believe there is a similar solution for Macs.

Many thanks to you, also, ReDave.  I didn’t think you could run the same application twice simultaneously on a Mac, because of issues of competition over preference and system resource files.  If someone knows how to do this in a stable way, I’d be grateful.

Thanks to all—this has to be one of the more challenging aspects of moving DAZ Studio away from the occasional hobbyist issue into the realm of serious use.  I remember the challenges early in the PC era of not being able to print in the background on the very early word processing apps in the 1980’s.  Of course, in those days, we had to march 20 miles every day through the woods and the snow to split logs to fire the boilers that powered our early Apple II’s and TRS-80’s!

MrWizard1024

MrWizard1024 - 11 July 2012 09:59 AM

Aelfric - 11 July 2012 04:31 AM

You can export to a RIB file and run an external instance of 3Delight, so the renderer is running in the background (but you’re limited to two cores using the free version of 3Delight). There was a tutorial on the old forum on how to do this.

Many thanks, Aelfric.  I’m definitely going to get LuxRender as soon as they are compatible with the new, upcoming 4.5 release of DAZ Studio.  In the meantime, how does one get a copy of a Macintosh external version of 3Delight?

From the 3Delight.com download page.

You’ll also find the 3Delight external rendering walkthrough thread on the old forums useful.

Note that the free licence for 3DElight is limited to two cores, and it gets very expensive to get more cores:
$250 for a quad core licence (by upgrade from the free dual core licence);
$850 for a hex or more core licence (by upgrading from the free dual core licence to a quad core licence, then to an unlimited core licence).

MrWizard1024 - 11 July 2012 09:59 AM

ReDave - 11 July 2012 07:46 AM

If you are on Windows, start two instances of DS, and set the one that is going to render to “Below normal” priority in the Task Manager (I’d load the scene first, though). I believe there is a similar solution for Macs.

Many thanks to you, also, ReDave.  I didn’t think you could run the same application twice simultaneously on a Mac, because of issues of competition over preference and system resource files.  If someone knows how to do this in a stable way, I’d be grateful.

You can try setting up a second user, and starting the second copy of DAZ Studio under that user. As long as DAZ Studio plays by the rules (i.e., puts everything it wants write access to in your user folder), there should be no problem, but I make no guarantees (even some of Apple’s own programs don’t play nicely—iTunes is a case in point if you’re trying to share the music library itself).

I cast a vote for two instances of DS4.  I routinely do this on my newer PC so I can work on multiple projects or multiple parts of one project.  It works great provided you have a multi-core CPU and it’s not an AMD.  I say this because I used AMD processors for three computers before my current switch to Intel’s Core i7, and every one of them lagged the entire system hard when rendering was going on, whereas on the current system I can do other things while DS4 renders.

Another thing to consider, if Macs can be networked, is to buy new before you have to (if possible; I had to save for 6 months to get parts to build my new build) and network the two machines together.  This allows data transfer between them and also lets you work on one while the other renders.  I use one keyboard/mouse/monitor combo and switch between them with a KVM switch I got on Newegg.

You can either run two instances of Studio and allow half your cores to each instance (  Task Manager > Processes Tab > right click desired program > Set Affinity in Windows ) or spend 50% building / 50% rendering.

I wouldn’t trust two instances of DS running together, especially if rendering is involved ( both programs share the same temp folders ). For me, it’s: scene building, detais, lighting, shading, rendering ( with rendering taking about 50% of my work time ). I’d love DS to support network rendering like Vue or Carrara…

joelegecko - 11 July 2012 09:10 PM

I’d love DS to support network rendering like Vue or Carrara…

I know, right?  I heard some mumbles about being able to do that through Reality but I don’t remember it being definitely possible.  Besides, it’s main product promos that take the most render time for me, and those can’t be Reality because not enough of the customer base has it.

SickleYield - 11 July 2012 09:12 PM

joelegecko - 11 July 2012 09:10 PM

I’d love DS to support network rendering like Vue or Carrara…

I know, right?  I heard some mumbles about being able to do that through Reality but I don’t remember it being definitely possible.  Besides, it’s main product promos that take the most render time for me, and those can’t be Reality because not enough of the customer base has it.

LuxRender supports network rendering, so that is possible - but of course that would, for good or ill, be a LuxRender render, not a 3Delight render.

ruekaka - 11 July 2012 01:13 AM

If your machine is powerful enough why do not start a second instance of DAZ Studio and let the first rendering your image while creating a new scene in the second one?

It works as long as you don’t render in the second session, then weird things happen with the rendering process.