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Tutorial - GPU Rendering using MachStudio Pro 2.0 - When you have a few spare hours to spend :)

mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
edited December 2012 in Freebies

tis the holiday season, so what better than visiting ghost web sites and trying your hand at GPU-Accelerated rendering !

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts2/machstudiopro

before embarking on this voyage, you could check the demo videos StudioGPU made in 2009

https://www.youtube.com/user/machstudiopro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoBgyPn71Tg&list=PLD5550FF75D19AE89

this software used to cost 4000$ and run on workstations with ATI FirePro video cards

but it was made free, and it works on DX11 cards which you very likely have :)

the project/software was apparently stopped, the documentation is hard to find, so i created a page showing what i did to get it working


the image below was rendered in 1 second or so

the installer for MachStudio Pro 2.0 is 504 megabytes

───────────────────────────────
───────────────────────────────
───────────────────────────────
Breaking news

───────────────────────────────
───────────────────────────────
───────────────────────────────
thanks to Daz3D user 3drendero , there's a rather complete archive of the StudioGPU site, which includes big samples (assets) !

anyways, there are some more live downloads here, including 500+MB of tutorial assets:

http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110807034322/http://www.studiogpu.com/machstudio/tutorials

The manual:
http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20111017005218/http://www.studiogpu.com/download/machstudio-pro-user-guide.php

note that i saw people with less than 1GB on their video card report that it works anyway


System Requirements
Operating System:

Microsoft Windows 7 - 32 bit or 64 bit
Microsoft Windows Vista Business - 32 bit or 64 bit (SP1 or higher)

Hardware Minimum Requirements:

Intel Pentium 4 or higher, AMD Athlon 64, or AMD Opteron processor
2 GB RAM
2 GB of available disk space
1 GB DirectX 11 compliant video card (tested w/ ATI and NVIDIA)

jopa_CAM-000A_Master_BTY_0000.jpg
1280 x 720 - 272K
Post edited by mCasual on
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Comments

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    Casual said:
    tis the holiday season, so what better than visiting ghost web sites and trying your hand at GPU-Accelerated rendering !

    https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts2/machstudiopro

    before embarking on this voyage, you could check the demo videos StudioGPU made in 2009

    https://www.youtube.com/user/machstudiopro

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoBgyPn71Tg&list=PLD5550FF75D19AE89

    this software used to cost 40000$ and run on workstations with ATI FirePro video cards

    but it was made free, and it works on DX11 cards which you very likely have :)

    the project/software was apparently stopped, the documentation is hard to find, so i created a page showing what i did to get it working


    the image below was rendered in 1 second or so

    Maybe you should mention that the d/l for Mach Studio weighs in at half a gig?

    Oh, I just did...:cheese:

    It would probably be easier to do in Poser (since it uses Python, natively), but it would be nice to see some sort of direct scene converter. Too bad the project has pretty much went the way of the dinosaurs.

  • AeonicBAeonicB Posts: 165
    edited December 1969

    I was looking for this renderer a week ago. Thanks. :)

    No idea if it'd work here, checking to see if I have DX11 support, but I have other test subjects now. :)

  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 2012

    mjc1016 said:
    .... ....

    Maybe you should mention that the d/l for Mach Studio weighs in at half a gig?

    Oh, I just did...:cheese:

    It would probably be easier to do in Poser (since it uses Python, natively), but it would be nice to see some sort of direct scene converter. Too bad the project has pretty much went the way of the dinosaurs.

    another issue is that apparently ( unless it's a problem with the installer ) they didn't include the material libraries
    i spent an hour googling and could not find an install file with a size larger than 504MB, and could not find someone with material packages

    but there's a shader builder similar to daz's shader builder which, i guess, produces OpenCL code

    i hope the hair shaders are included since that's one of the coveted features
    --

    the one feature that stands out for me is, it can render (screen-space? and volume?) ambient occlusion very fast, and it's adjustable, and there seems to be support for baking
    --

    as something to experiment with it's a great playground

    Post edited by mCasual on
  • bighbigh Posts: 8,147
    edited December 1969

    I had this forever and could not fine documentation - didn't get when I downloaded it ( dumbbell ) - so might have a go - with out blender .
    Thanks

  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 1969

    bigh said:
    I had this forever and could not fine documentation - didn't get when I downloaded it ( dumbbell ) - so might have a go - with out blender .
    Thanks

    machstudio seems to only accept scenes and objects in their proprietary format

    the sample scenes on their site are so far un-downloadable

    i know Blender is a scary place, but in this case all we do is Import obj followed by export to machstudio

    in 2013 (now that we're done with the end of the world ) i may make an exporter script for Daz Studio

    but i'm doing this here mainly a service for people on December 25 at 4 am who want to waste time :)

  • bighbigh Posts: 8,147
    edited December 1969

    Casual said:
    bigh said:
    I had this forever and could not fine documentation - didn't get when I downloaded it ( dumbbell ) - so might have a go - with out blender .
    Thanks

    machstudio seems to only accept scenes and objects in their proprietary format

    the sample scenes on their site are so far un-downloadable

    i know Blender is a scary place, but in this case all we do is Import obj followed by export to machstudio

    in 2013 (now that we're done with the end of the world ) i may make an exporter script for Daz Studio

    but i'm doing this here mainly a service for people on December 25 at 4 am who want to waste time :)

    cool beans :-)

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    Casual said:
    but i'm doing this here mainly a service for people on December 25 at 4 am who want to waste time :)

    You mean, you're doing this so I have something other than 'insert tab A into slot 325' when I can only find slot 324?

  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 1969

    mjc1016 said:
    Casual said:
    but i'm doing this here mainly a service for people on December 25 at 4 am who want to waste time :)

    You mean, you're doing this so I have something other than 'insert tab A into slot 325' when I can only find slot 324?

    well, you can do it before or after tabbing the slots

    ( slot 325 is on third, slot 324 is pitching )

  • AeonicBAeonicB Posts: 165
    edited December 1969

    Trying to install on a Win 7 64 bit machine here. It acts like installs, enters all proper folders, registry entries, etc., but just... doesn't install the real program?

  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 1969

    Ariaso said:
    Trying to install on a Win 7 64 bit machine here. It acts like installs, enters all proper folders, registry entries, etc., but just... doesn't install the real program?

    in my case when i started the install, it said "this is the 32 bit version, would you like to install the 64 bit version instead?", i answered yes and it installed itself in c:\program files\studioGPU\MachstudioPro

    later i installed the 32 bit version hoping it would install the neat materials like wood, but they're apparently not included anymore

    the 32 bit version went in c:\program files(x86)\studioGPU\MachstudioPro

  • AeonicBAeonicB Posts: 165
    edited December 1969

    Casual said:
    Ariaso said:
    Trying to install on a Win 7 64 bit machine here. It acts like installs, enters all proper folders, registry entries, etc., but just... doesn't install the real program?

    in my case when i started the install, it said "this is the 32 bit version, would you like to install the 64 bit version instead?", i answered yes and it installed itself in c:\program files\studioGPU\MachstudioPro

    later i installed the 32 bit version hoping it would install the neat materials like wood, but they're apparently not included anymore

    the 32 bit version went in c:\program files(x86)\studioGPU\MachstudioPro

    It did that too. I've tried both 32 and 64 bit installations, thrice each, to no avail. It makes the proper folders on my J drive (a secondary hard drive, installed internally) and the last two times, I tried it on my internal, and still all it does is give me all the proper entries and no program files.

    Argh?

  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 2012

    Ariaso said:

    It did that too. I've tried both 32 and 64 bit installations, thrice each, to no avail. It makes the proper folders on my J drive (a secondary hard drive, installed internally) and the last two times, I tried it on my internal, and still all it does is give me all the proper entries and no program files.

    Argh?

    when you install it, there's the option to install it "custom"
    then you get a list of the things to install
    since i already had most of the components, i only left checkmarked machstudio

    the rest was things like Quicktime and directx and windowsinstaller and visualc++ runtimes

    if the install is really complete, you are offered to run the program and display the readme.rtf

    --------
    maybe, just a wild guess, it really really wants to be installed in C:\Program Files

    ------
    i'm not 100% sure the machstudioinstall.exe came from CNET

    today (again in the hope of getting the material library) i downloaded and installed machstudioinstall.exe from
    https://s3.amazonaws.com/MachStudioPro/MachStudioInstall.exe
    but it's probably the exact same installer i used initially

    i cant vouch for the security of amazonaws.com but my McAffee didn't notice anything scary

    note that the file size of a complete installer is 504 MB

    when i dowbloaded it ( and didnt have dx11 ) i remember some download attempts were incomplete


    --


    image : real-time GoBo in MachStudio

    gobo.png
    1920 x 1200 - 220K
    Post edited by mCasual on
  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 2012

    Casual said:

    today (again in the hope of getting the material library) i downloaded and installed machstudioinstall.exe from
    https://s3.amazonaws.com/MachStudioPro/MachStudioInstall.exe
    but it's probably the exact same installer i used initially

    i cant vouch for the security of amazonaws.com but my McAffee didn't notice anything scary

    note that the file size of a complete installer is 504 MB

    Here's the md5sum from the C'net version...

    bf45e31855d6e74865041d2f14743388 MachStudioInstall.exe

    I'm getting a missing d2d1.dll error trying to run it under WINE.

    Post edited by mjc1016 on
  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 2012

    if MachStudio with the non-negligible help of Windows 7 crashes with a message talking about the video driver having crashed
    it's due to the fact that windows7 and vista have a timeout of only 2 seconds, after this delay , it panic and do all sorts of disgraceful things

    for Windows 7 i used this method, on the web

    if you never used Regedit, dont try this solution, it's too dangerous

    personally i pumped up the TdrDelay to 16 seconds

    the 1920x1080 render shown below takes 8 seconds to render because it uses High-resolution Ambient Occlusion + blur and high-resolution Global illumination + Blur

    and it used to crash before this fix


    I've just resolved this issue on my work PC - was getting driver Timeout and Detection Recovery when logging on to my work PC remotely, probably because of the longer response times for the GPU to update when using the remote connection.

    I did the following to resolve it:
    Resolve Timeout Detection and Recovery - WINDOWS 7 (32/64 bit)
    Create a registry key in Windows to change the TDR settings to a higher amount, so that
    Windows will allow for a longer delay before TDR process starts.
    Open Regedit from Run or DOS.
    In Windows 7 navigate to the correct registry key area, to create the new key:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>SYSTEM>CurrentControlSet>Control>GraphicsDrivers.
    There will probably one key in there called DxgKrnlVersion there as a DWord.
    Right click and select to create a new keyDWORD, and name it TdrDelay. The value assigned to it is the number
    of seconds before TDR kicks in - it is currently 2 automatically in Windows (even though the reg. key value
    doesn't exist until you create it). Assign it with a new value (I tried 4
    seconds), which doubles the time before TDR. Then restart PC. You need to restart the PC before the value will work.

    mcjScene001_CAM-000A_Master_BTY_0000.JPG
    1920 x 1080 - 54K
    Post edited by mCasual on
  • AeonicBAeonicB Posts: 165
    edited December 2012

    I got the CNet download, through the direct link. :P I'm gonna try it again, and I've already installed it on my C:. I have even let it try and boot the program after install every time, and it still does nothing.

    I swear, I'm a smart user! I have A+ training! Regedit and Event Viewer are my friends! :D ... Just none of them tell me what's going on here! XD; >.<</p>

    Also, Amazonaws.com is Amazon's cloud service =P

    Post edited by AeonicB on
  • Gusf1Gusf1 Posts: 252
    edited December 1969

    Did you get any of the tutorials? I downloaded this in August of 2011 and I have several tutorials that come with assets. The program file is the same size though. I have never used this, so I don't know if this would help or not.
    Gus

  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 1969

    Ariaso said:
    I got the CNet download, through the direct link. :P I'm gonna try it again, and I've already installed it on my C:. I have even let it try and boot the program after install every time, and it still does nothing.

    I swear, I'm a smart user! I have A+ training! Regedit and Event Viewer are my friends! :D ... Just none of them tell me what's going on here! XD; >.<</p>

    Also, Amazonaws.com is Amazon's cloud service =P

    wild guess : maybe your antivirus (wrongly) detects something the .exe as containing a virus and immediately removes the exe on-sight
    so you could go look in the quarantine to see if it ended there

  • jorge dorlandojorge dorlando Posts: 1,156
    edited December 1969

    Hi,
    I had never heard of this Mach Studio.
    I'm impressed that you rendered this in just one second.
    But ... The question is: it works for poser?
    or rather, it renders animations for poser?
    thank you

  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 2012

    moved post

    Post edited by mCasual on
  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 2012

    jorge dorlando said:
    Hi,
    I had never heard of this Mach Studio.
    I'm impressed that you rendered this in just one second.
    But ... The question is: it works for poser?
    or rather, it renders animations for poser?
    thank you

    it seems to have been the most active around 2009 and was selling for $4000 so i guess it was mostly known in movie/games/architectural circles. Note that it’s now basically abandoned.

    Since Poser can export scenes as .obj, you could use the method ( Blender import/export ) outlined on my web page.

    In the case of animations I’m not sure i didn’t try it yet.

    if you watch the videos in my first post you can see they did use it for TV series and ads and architectural fly-throughs.

    Maybe for high end programs ( Maya, Max, Softimage SketchupPro) they have better support than the Blender Export script i used

    Machstudio itself is scriptable, so maybe there’s possibilities for animations using this.

    Rendering fly-throughs is easy, you simply animate a camera after you fixed all the materials and lighting.

    Maybe animated characters are FBX or Collada, but MachStudio seems to only allow loading it’s own file formats.

    Post edited by mCasual on
  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Casual,

    I wondered when will somebody pickup using MachStudio Pro.
    Have you tried using FBX export yet?

  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 2012

    wowie said:
    Thanks Casual,

    I wondered when will somebody pickup using MachStudio Pro.
    Have you tried using FBX export yet?

    i saw FBX import mentioned, but so far i have the impression it's one of the goodies that was stripped off the free version 2.0
    the other being the material library

    just now i noticed there's a MachStudioRender.exe in machstudio's folders that could prove to be interesting

    Post edited by mCasual on
  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 2012

    wowie said:
    Thanks Casual,

    I wondered when will somebody pickup using MachStudio Pro.
    Have you tried using FBX export yet?

    oh correction ! it does work

    it's just that when i did a create / Load object
    it only offered me to load 2 types of files, the *x* and the .hair file formats

    but if i select an .fbx file it is indeed loaded ! thanks :)

    here i loaded the Appolo rocket from NASA's free .obj collection

    who knows, maybe it can even load obj an collada

    mcjScene001_CAM-000A_Master_BTY_0000.JPG
    1280 x 720 - 36K
    Post edited by mCasual on
  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,017
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for the heads-up, forgot about MachStudio that I downloaded some time ago.

    Anyways, there are some more live downloads here, including 500+MB of tutorial assets:
    http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110807034322/http://www.studiogpu.com/machstudio/tutorials

    The manual:
    http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20111017005218/http://www.studiogpu.com/download/machstudio-pro-user-guide.php

  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 1969

    3drendero said:
    Thanks for the heads-up, forgot about MachStudio that I downloaded some time ago.

    Anyways, there are some more live downloads here, including 500+MB of tutorial assets:
    http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110807034322/http://www.studiogpu.com/machstudio/tutorials

    The manual:
    http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20111017005218/http://www.studiogpu.com/download/machstudio-pro-user-guide.php

    thanks millions, i'm running there !


    image: second FBX import test, u drumsel from 3DWarehouse which (i think) was converted to FBX using Autodesk FBX Converter

    Hoobastank_CAM-000A_Master_BTY_0000.JPG
    1280 x 720 - 71K
  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 1969

    ───────────────────────────────
    ───────────────────────────────
    ───────────────────────────────
    Breaking news
    ───────────────────────────────
    ───────────────────────────────
    ───────────────────────────────
    thanks to 3drendero , there's a rather complete archive of the StudioGPU site, which includes big samples (assets) !

    anyways, there are some more live downloads here, including 500+MB of tutorial assets:

    http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110807034322/http://www.studiogpu.com/machstudio/tutorials

    The manual:
    http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20111017005218/http://www.studiogpu.com/download/machstudio-pro-user-guide.php
    ───────────────────────────────
    ───────────────────────────────
    ───────────────────────────────

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,017
    edited December 1969

    You are welcome, thank you for all your efforts.

    Here are some exporters:
    http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110806111139/http://www.studiogpu.com/exporters

    Some info about the FBX import, I am getting geometry from Carrara, but no cameras, textures, lights or anything else:
    HypeTsu Posted: 29 May 2011 08:26 PM [ Ignore ] [ # 1

    We do not support animation import through fbx - only static geometry.
    The fbx file can be opened directly in MSP. It’s a good idea to break it down prior to import for better scene management.
    If a static fbx file doesn’t open or is unrecognized by MSP, try saving to a prior fbx format in your 3D app.

  • mCasualmCasual Posts: 4,604
    edited December 1969

    3drendero said:
    ... .... exporters: .... FBX import ... static geometry.

    the Blender 2.49 Exporter worked for me, the other exporters (i found later) were included in the MSP installation

    maybe i'll end up writing python scripts to render animations, a bit like i did for Blender Cycles http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/2877/

    ---

    in other news i have to find time to play with the free Shade ( Shade 13 but stripped down a bit ) for Unity
    http://www.mirye.net/shade-3d-for-unity-overview

  • bighbigh Posts: 8,147
    edited December 1969

    3drendero said:
    Thanks for the heads-up, forgot about MachStudio that I downloaded some time ago.

    Anyways, there are some more live downloads here, including 500+MB of tutorial assets:
    http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110807034322/http://www.studiogpu.com/machstudio/tutorials

    The manual:
    http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20111017005218/http://www.studiogpu.com/download/machstudio-pro-user-guide.php

    thank you so much - looked for months for this :-)

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,017
    edited December 1969

    All files are available on
    http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110807041006/http://www.studiogpu.com/download/index
    Like the main program, tutorials, assets and so on.
    Only the eseminars are missing, but the 1GB of tutorials should be enough...

    Their facebook page mentions that they uploaded everything on Demonoid, but that torrent tracker is now offline after a fed raid.

    The Daz Studio FBX export seems to import well into MSP.
    Not going to good with the Carrara FBX export...

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