Tell me why 3Delight is awesome, please?

Thadeus72

Havos said:

Are these what you need?

http://www.daz3d.com/advanced-light-presets-for-aoa-s-lights

yes thanks a lot !

 

kyoto kid

...I guess since I worked with 3DL for about seven years before Iray, as well as a lighting tech/designer in RL, I don't find lighting as overwhelming as others do. Personally, I feel the lighting in Iray is far more "finicky" and sometimes inconsistent.   In 3DL I have 0 to 100% just like with the light board s I used, simple and straightforward.  Tedious sometimes to set up, yes, but so was lighting for a major stage production,

...oh and one benefit with 3DL over RL theatrical lighting, I don't have to climb up a rickety ladder 40' - 50' above the stage to physically adjust heavy and very hot light units.

BeeMKay

Stryder87 said:

dreamfarmer said:

I now understand about flagging surfaces but not what part of that is broken now?

I don't understand what you would be flagging a surface for, how you do it, or what effect it has on the finished product.  That aspect of it is a total mystery to me.  I load a light, point, adjust brightness, colour, shadows and render.  Is this flagging done to accomplish effects similar to those Specular/Diffuse only type lights I asked about in another thread?

 

The others already made great examples; there's also some great info in the manual, for example, the spotlight: http://docs.daz3d.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/public/read_me/index/17409/17409_advanced-spotlight.pdf

That of course still has the "unbroken" info in it.

exstarsis

kyoto kid said:

...I guess since I worked with 3DL for about seven years before Iray, as well as a lighting tech/designer in RL, I don't find lighting as overwhelming as others do. Personally, I feel the lighting in Iray is far more "finicky" and sometimes inconsistent.   In 3DL I have 0 to 100% just like with the light board s I used, simple and straightforward.  Tedious sometimes to set up, yes, but so was lighting for a major stage production,

...oh and one benefit with 3DL over RL theatrical lighting, I don't have to climb up a rickety ladder 40' - 50' above the stage to physically adjust heavy and very hot light units.

That is an advantage! But I'm thinking of how the 3DL lights don't, by default, _cast shadows_, y'know? And what was sad earlier about 3DL emissive surfaces taking a variable amount of time to render... and so on. 

Though really the whole thing is hard. Figuring out the lumen issue on Iray (and scene and dome rendering) is also a headache.

ModernWizard

timmins.william said:

I had a lot of trouble with lighting and included lighting in 3DL stuff. But understand that 3DL covers a huge range of time, and a lot of different stuff was 'in' at various points. One of my big reasons to move to Iray, originally, was that a lot of 3DL lighting was like a dozen different distant lights and diffuse lights and specular lights and UE doing backflips with weird HDR and this and that and OMG MY HEAD IS EXPLODING. Iray seemed way easier.

But I've learned stuff. Now it's just set two lights, most of the time. Maybe meshlight if I'm feeling hugely ambitious and want specific weird effects.

AoA Distant light, 200% shadow, 75% intensity. Maybe give it a little color. Rotate it however I want.

AoA Ambient light, set light range to 0 (so it affects everything), 50% intensity, maybe a little color (sometimes I set distant light to be very slightly yellow and ambient to be very slightly blue, to create color contrast).

 

Bam. Done.

Gets a LITTLE more involved indoors or if I want to use candles or something, but even then... not so bad.

Indoors, distant light from outside, then maybe one or two point lights (AoA spotlight given broad range).

 

And it renders FAST

Hmmmm, maybe this combo will work for my requirement for general, even lighting on everything. [I've decided to embrace the grainy DOF and lack of shadows as part of my toony style. :p ]

--MW

DaWaterRat

dreamfarmer said:

kyoto kid said:

...I guess since I worked with 3DL for about seven years before Iray, as well as a lighting tech/designer in RL, I don't find lighting as overwhelming as others do. Personally, I feel the lighting in Iray is far more "finicky" and sometimes inconsistent.   In 3DL I have 0 to 100% just like with the light board s I used, simple and straightforward.  Tedious sometimes to set up, yes, but so was lighting for a major stage production,

...oh and one benefit with 3DL over RL theatrical lighting, I don't have to climb up a rickety ladder 40' - 50' above the stage to physically adjust heavy and very hot light units.

That is an advantage! But I'm thinking of how the 3DL lights don't, by default, _cast shadows_, y'know? And what was sad earlier about 3DL emissive surfaces taking a variable amount of time to render... and so on. 

Though really the whole thing is hard. Figuring out the lumen issue on Iray (and scene and dome rendering) is also a headache.

The AoA lights do cast shadows by default.

I'm still waiting for some decent special effects for Iray that aren't just "apply a texture and make it emissive"  For example, the sword in this image... there's no easy way (other than postwork) to do that in Iray.  pwEffect, on the other hand, sets it up just fine.

Otherwise, this scene has 1 ambient light, 1 AoA distant light (that has little effect in the long run and I could probably drop) and three AoA spot lights.  Granted, this is after some postwork, but most of the postwork was focused on getting it more comic/painted.  (I added the original file as well for comparison)

exstarsis

Yes, but the AoA lights aren't included with the software, unlike the Iray rendering engine. :).

Your work looks nice!

exstarsis

Ok here's another question. Has 3Delight always been the Daz rendering engine? When you go back far enough in the store you reach a point where stuff isn't just for Poser but there's no mention of 3Delight in the materials. I am pretty sure with more recent stuff that there was just no reason to specify. But some of the terminology on older stuff has been just different enough that I've been wary. 

BeeMKay

dreamfarmer said:

Ok here's another question. Has 3Delight always been the Daz rendering engine? When you go back far enough in the store you reach a point where stuff isn't just for Poser but there's no mention of 3Delight in the materials. I am pretty sure with more recent stuff that there was just no reason to specify. But some of the terminology on older stuff has been just different enough that I've been wary. 

Yes, it always was 3DL, at least for Versions 3.9 and 4....

Leana

dreamfarmer said:

Ok here's another question. Has 3Delight always been the Daz rendering engine? When you go back far enough in the store you reach a point where stuff isn't just for Poser but there's no mention of 3Delight in the materials. I am pretty sure with more recent stuff that there was just no reason to specify. But some of the terminology on older stuff has been just different enough that I've been wary. 

Yes, 3DL was already the rendering engine in the first public beta ever released (and probably in the previous alphas too).

mjc1016

Leana said:

dreamfarmer said:

Ok here's another question. Has 3Delight always been the Daz rendering engine? When you go back far enough in the store you reach a point where stuff isn't just for Poser but there's no mention of 3Delight in the materials. I am pretty sure with more recent stuff that there was just no reason to specify. But some of the terminology on older stuff has been just different enough that I've been wary. 

Yes, 3DL was already the rendering engine in the first public beta ever released (and probably in the previous alphas too).

And ever since then has the argument raged...'3DL isn't 'good' enough'...when DS taps into 1/2 or less of 3DL's full potential.

TabascoJack

kyoto kid said:

 

...oh and one benefit with 3DL over RL theatrical lighting, I don't have to climb up a rickety ladder 40' - 50' above the stage to physically adjust heavy and very hot light units.

Holds true for Iray also.   I hated going up those ladders...

Oso3D

mjc1016 said:

And ever since then has the argument raged...'3DL isn't 'good' enough'...when DS taps into 1/2 or less of 3DL's full potential.

Nearly all of the 'Daz should do something!' complaints are nonsense, because Daz has absolutely no control over most stuff.

This... is the big exception. Daz is totally responsible for how well-supported the 3DL engine is.

 

Blood-PawWerewolf

i like 3Delight for it's ease of use and it's better for people that have lower to lower-mid range GPUs or AMD cards. iray is only for higher-mid range and high end NVIDA GPUS which not a lot of people can afford.

BeeMKay

Blood-PawWerewolf said:

i like 3Delight for it's ease of use and it's better for people that have lower to lower-mid range GPUs or AMD cards. iray is only for higher-mid range and high end NVIDA GPUS which not a lot of people can afford.

 

3DL doesn't do GPU Rendering. Just saying.

mjc1016

Blood-PawWerewolf said:

i like 3Delight for it's ease of use and it's better for people that have lower to lower-mid range GPUs or AMD cards. iray is only for higher-mid range and high end NVIDA GPUS which not a lot of people can afford.

Or no GPU...3DL works just fine on a totally 'headless' system.

chrisschell

3Delight (aka 3Dl) like any other tool is only as good as the person making use of it. If you take time to learn the ins-and-outs of working with it, 3Dl can be extremely powerful as a rendering engine. I don't use anything else for my own renders. This was done in 3Delight using only basic surface settings and lights (no special shaders or light sets) as were all the images in my gallery...

Midnight_stories

I must say I'm always in conflict with doing Iray and 3Delight materials ! I can never get them to look like each other, 3Delight always looks like plastic over all, while Iray is a lot easier to distinguish between material types. I am only just supporting 3Delight but I hate doing it as it always looks worse, but for now I will keep it in my work flow.

chrisschell

Midnight_stories said:

I must say I'm always in conflict with doing Iray and 3Delight materials ! I can never get them to look like each other, 3Delight always looks like plastic over all, while Iray is a lot easier to distinguish between material types. I am only just supporting 3Delight but I hate doing it as it always looks worse, but for now I will keep it in my work flow.

In 3Dl if you set the Specularity Glossiness to about 65-75% it'll look more like the Iray material does...

I set the Glossiness to 75% for the leathery Bodice parts of this image in 3Dl, which has it looking fairly close to the look of your Iray surfaces in terms of the "shine"...

Midnight_stories

In 3Delight I have Glossiness at 75 and spec at 85 I even have Lantios lights 2 for light set, so that as good as it gets where in Iray it's just default lighting.

chrisschell

I kept spec at 100 but with the 75% gloss... but yeah... there are some major differences in surfaces between the two..

dracorn

Midnight_stories said:

I must say I'm always in conflict with doing Iray and 3Delight materials ! I can never get them to look like each other, 3Delight always looks like plastic over all, while Iray is a lot easier to distinguish between material types. I am only just supporting 3Delight but I hate doing it as it always looks worse, but for now I will keep it in my work flow.

I find it very interesting, but both I and my husband like the 3DL render better.  The colors are richer, deeper and less washed out than the Iray version.  I can also see the imperfections in the 3DL version more than the Iray.

I suppose it depends on each person's view of asthetics. 

 

chrisschell

I've been using 3Dl since I got DS back in the days of 1.2... I honestly prefer it... plus I can't afford to buy a new computer just to be able to support buying a new video card just to support a new version of DS just to support a new rendering engine, just to buy a new computer to buy a new video card to buy a new, to support a new, to buy a new... well you get the point... :)

Midnight_stories

dracorn said:

Midnight_stories said:

I must say I'm always in conflict with doing Iray and 3Delight materials ! I can never get them to look like each other, 3Delight always looks like plastic over all, while Iray is a lot easier to distinguish between material types. I am only just supporting 3Delight but I hate doing it as it always looks worse, but for now I will keep it in my work flow.

I find it very interesting, but both I and my husband like the 3DL render better.  The colors are richer, deeper and less washed out than the Iray version.  I can also see the imperfections in the 3DL version more than the Iray.

I suppose it depends on each person's view of asthetics. 

 

I'll be the first to say I'm no expert in 3Delight or even Iray, I just don't have the time to tweek 3Delight it's huge. Where as Iray has quite a few programs that put out PBR maps and you just throw them on and you're done. To me what I base most of my materials on is the default render of both Iray and 3Delight most people don't have a clue how to tweak the setting and they just use what comes with it. Now either DAZ changes the default settings for Delight to get a better start or more people with go to what looks best in a straight default render. Hopefully people are smart enough to figure out you can't render 3Delight mats in Iray and vice versa, they would be awful renders indeed. I whish I had more time to make it better in 3Delight I always feel embarrassed putting them out with my product as I can never get them up to scratch. We'll just have to see which one wins on the market as that what dictates what I done. I can only do what I can do !  

PS I tried putting the shader rate down to .10 that seem to give it sharper details !

chrisschell

Depends on what you mean by 3Delight mats... I make and sell my own items, and all I ever do is set up basic materials (bump maps etc), all stuff that takes very little effort to set up during figure creation. Keep in mind though that I deal with both DS and Poser so I need to simplify things to ensure maximum cross-compatability between the two programs. My customers have sent me renders of my products in Iray and other rendering engines and haven't reported any major issues using them in any of the various engines they've used. In just about every case only a few minor tweaks were needed... mainly things like adding a glass shader to glass areas and such (I've taken time to ask incase there were things on my end that I could do better to provide more robust functionality for the end users).

Now having said that, if you've made custom mats using advanced shaders, custom surfaces and a number of other things specific to 3Dl then yes you'll have issues converting it to Iray or another engine. Same as I know that you can use most Poser items in DS with very little trouble... unless they use Poser specific shader nodes etc. Once you start getting into custom materials and special nodes you're guaranteed to start having issues using the item in a different engine or program than the one it was designed for... :)

Midnight_stories

You've got to tweak them in some way in both. There's no equivalent to a metallic map in 3Delight so you have to work you way around it say like making that into a refection map in 3DL. Again it all depends on how simple or complex you materials are. And believe me I'm at last person who should give out advice on this stuff. Mech4D is like a god at this stuff !

chrisschell

In 3Dl you can set the reflectivity and then add raytraced reflections to get a reflective metalic surface... you can also set the sirface to a metalic type in the surfaces tab for material type... quick settings to do if you know where to look :)

Ghosty12

timmins.william said:

mjc1016 said:

And ever since then has the argument raged...'3DL isn't 'good' enough'...when DS taps into 1/2 or less of 3DL's full potential.

Nearly all of the 'Daz should do something!' complaints are nonsense, because Daz has absolutely no control over most stuff.

This... is the big exception. Daz is totally responsible for how well-supported the 3DL engine is.

 

And this is the main issue with Daz Studio is what seems to be its lack of proper support for 3Delight..  Just going to the 3Delight website you can see what it is capable of makes you wonder how much of the total 3Dleight package is implemented in Studio.

exstarsis

Oh my god, this hair. Doing a spot render on this hair in 3DL is taking way longer than a spot render in IRAY whyyyyyyyy.

mjc1016

ghosty12 said:

timmins.william said:

mjc1016 said:

And ever since then has the argument raged...'3DL isn't 'good' enough'...when DS taps into 1/2 or less of 3DL's full potential.

Nearly all of the 'Daz should do something!' complaints are nonsense, because Daz has absolutely no control over most stuff.

This... is the big exception. Daz is totally responsible for how well-supported the 3DL engine is.

 

And this is the main issue with Daz Studio is what seems to be its lack of proper support for 3Delight..  Just going to the 3Delight website you can see what it is capable of makes you wonder how much of the total 3Dleight package is implemented in Studio.

All of it...

It's just that a number of features are difficult to access.  Scripted rendering does allow much more than the basic access.  The other area is in shaders.  For the most part, the shaders in Studio are 'cutting edge' about 4 or 5 major versions  of 3Delight ago....