We will see 3D VR modelling and sculpting primarily for the overly expensive pro grade software and workstations as it will take a fair amount of horsepower to drive it. It will take time to "trickle down" to us hobbyists with our little desktop PCs/Macs, and like our render engines, most likely will not be as "robust".
I used to paint and draw until arthritis took that away from me which is why I became involved in 3D CG. I have no issue with rendering to a 2D format that I can then print and hang at an art exhibition for many to view at once, unlike VR which is a "one on one" experience. Oh, I agree, VR will be great for games and animations, for still images...meh...not so much.
I've arrived at the point that I don't care to compete against those with professional level software and systems. I just want to create the best works I can with what I have at my disposal. We seem to be drifting towards a consensus here where the tools apparently do seem to matter more than the hands and minds that use them.
Pro tools are pro tools because they have been designed to increase productivity and break new barriers, but that's not to say the same things can't be done with non-pro tools. I can render a photorealistic photo (or any other kind that I want) perfectly well in DS Iray. It will tie up my computer, it may take longer and I will have to use other software for special affects, but it certainly be done and if I have a small budget, I can't beat free. Pros need tools to help them work faster, but they are essentially the same type of tools that can be had at a lower cost somewhere else, albiet with some compromises and limitations.
As for VR, imagine walking through an virtual art gallery with your artwork hanging on the walls. You can scale your work to any size, walk around and view it from any angle and hold exhibitions for others to come and see it (without paying a musem rental cost). This is the future of "2D" art. I have seen it for myself, and it was very impressive.
As of last week, I am rendering in Arnold.... and I'm never going back unless Daz Studio pulls a miracle out of its pocket for version 5.
Cool!! are you using Arnold with C4D??
No. I'm using that plugin you referred me to. It's not officially released yet, but I've been working with the developer for the last week or so while he's ironing out the bugs. It works great. Also, Redshift leaves me breathless, its so fast. So I'm running two instances of Maya. For character scenes, especially closeups, I'm using Maya and it's beautiful skin shaders (It's pretty fast too). In the other instance, I'm rendering another scene with Redshift on my GPU. My poor render machine. I work her so hard.
Excellent!!
Hope to see you post some samples when you get the time
When I have something I am comfortable sharing, I will post something. Right now, I am just being bowled over by the software. I am using Redshift renderer for test renders (I'm talking about 45 minutes to render 10 second videos at a good medium quality). What's amazing that its only using 50% of my gpu. I sat here watching the gpu-z app and I never saw the GPU load go past 59%! What kind of voodoo can make such blazing fast renders on half my card?? So while I'm rendering, I'm free to continue editing my scene, and even open another instance of Maya and render again! I haven't tried two simultanous instances of rendering in Redshift yet. Only Redshift and Arnold together. Maybe I'll try that next. Also Arnold has the most beautiful shaders I have ever seen. Its a subjective opinion, but I love the quality of renders it creates. This and the fact that now I can work with an IK/FK model that isn't broken, I'm really so happy I was able to break out of Daz Studio. That being said, I really hope Studio 5 has some real improvements. One of the drawbacks of Daz characters being out of their own natural environment is that I have to create my own JCMs. That's not fun, but the developer is working on that problem and he thinks it can be solved.
As of last week, I am rendering in Arnold.... and I'm never going back unless Daz Studio pulls a miracle out of its pocket for version 5.
Cool!! are you using Arnold with C4D??
No. I'm using that plugin you referred me to. It's not officially released yet, but I've been working with the developer for the last week or so while he's ironing out the bugs. It works great. Also, Redshift leaves me breathless, its so fast. So I'm running two instances of Maya. For character scenes, especially closeups, I'm using Maya and it's beautiful skin shaders (It's pretty fast too). In the other instance, I'm rendering another scene with Redshift on my GPU. My poor render machine. I work her so hard.
Excellent!!
Hope to see you post some samples when you get the time
When I have something I am comfortable sharing, I will post something. Right now, I am just being bowled over by the software. I am using Redshift renderer for test renders (I'm talking about 45 minutes to render 10 second videos at a good medium quality). What's amazing that its only using 50% of my gpu. I sat here watching the gpu-z app and I never saw the GPU load go past 59%! What kind of voodoo can make such blazing fast renders on half my card?? So while I'm rendering, I'm free to continue editing my scene, and even open another instance of Maya and render again! I haven't tried two simultanous instances of rendering in Redshift yet. Only Redshift and Arnold together. Maybe I'll try that next. Also Arnold has the most beautiful shaders I have ever seen. Its a subjective opinion, but I love the quality of renders it creates. This and the fact that now I can work with an IK/FK model that isn't broken, I'm really so happy I was able to break out of Daz Studio. That being said, I really hope Studio 5 has some real improvements. One of the drawbacks of Daz characters being out of their own natural environment is that I have to create my own JCMs. That's not fun, but the developer is working on that problem and he thinks it can be solved.
yes I would to like see some of your work as well I love all types of animations. 45 minutes for a 10 seconds scene is what I am getting for a med range quailty render in Iray using daz with my iterations set around 1000 to 1500, Unforunetly I can not comtribute to how things work in third party software. because at this point with my feeble animation skills Daz & poser hobby software works fine for my needs.
I just did this film took about 2 weeks to complete including rendering and hand keyframing. I did this animation completely in daz studio. So like you said it does not matter really pro or semi pro or even hobby tools . you still have to know how to use them . the more you get to know the software the better you can use them to create the content you like. some tools work better. for work flow but have a much steeper learning curve. its all trade offs :)
I've enjoyed this conversation of this thread . its great to hear & see how others are doing things
As of last week, I am rendering in Arnold.... and I'm never going back unless Daz Studio pulls a miracle out of its pocket for version 5.
Cool!! are you using Arnold with C4D??
No. I'm using that plugin you referred me to. It's not officially released yet, but I've been working with the developer for the last week or so while he's ironing out the bugs. It works great. Also, Redshift leaves me breathless, its so fast. So I'm running two instances of Maya. For character scenes, especially closeups, I'm using Maya and it's beautiful skin shaders (It's pretty fast too). In the other instance, I'm rendering another scene with Redshift on my GPU. My poor render machine. I work her so hard.
Excellent!!
Hope to see you post some samples when you get the time
When I have something I am comfortable sharing, I will post something. Right now, I am just being bowled over by the software. I am using Redshift renderer for test renders (I'm talking about 45 minutes to render 10 second videos at a good medium quality). What's amazing that its only using 50% of my gpu. I sat here watching the gpu-z app and I never saw the GPU load go past 59%! What kind of voodoo can make such blazing fast renders on half my card?? So while I'm rendering, I'm free to continue editing my scene, and even open another instance of Maya and render again! I haven't tried two simultanous instances of rendering in Redshift yet. Only Redshift and Arnold together. Maybe I'll try that next. Also Arnold has the most beautiful shaders I have ever seen. Its a subjective opinion, but I love the quality of renders it creates. This and the fact that now I can work with an IK/FK model that isn't broken, I'm really so happy I was able to break out of Daz Studio. That being said, I really hope Studio 5 has some real improvements. One of the drawbacks of Daz characters being out of their own natural environment is that I have to create my own JCMs. That's not fun, but the developer is working on that problem and he thinks it can be solved.
I've been playing around with Redshift and Houdini and it's really amazing how fast it is. I haven't tried converting a DAZ character to Redshift shaders yet, have you? DAZ models have so many surfaces and maps it's kind of daunting doing it by hand. I've been thinking of making some sort of script to convert Iray shaders to Mantra and Redshift...
As of last week, I am rendering in Arnold.... and I'm never going back unless Daz Studio pulls a miracle out of its pocket for version 5.
Cool!! are you using Arnold with C4D??
No. I'm using that plugin you referred me to. It's not officially released yet, but I've been working with the developer for the last week or so while he's ironing out the bugs. It works great. Also, Redshift leaves me breathless, its so fast. So I'm running two instances of Maya. For character scenes, especially closeups, I'm using Maya and it's beautiful skin shaders (It's pretty fast too). In the other instance, I'm rendering another scene with Redshift on my GPU. My poor render machine. I work her so hard.
Excellent!!
Hope to see you post some samples when you get the time
When I have something I am comfortable sharing, I will post something. Right now, I am just being bowled over by the software. I am using Redshift renderer for test renders (I'm talking about 45 minutes to render 10 second videos at a good medium quality). What's amazing that its only using 50% of my gpu. I sat here watching the gpu-z app and I never saw the GPU load go past 59%! What kind of voodoo can make such blazing fast renders on half my card?? So while I'm rendering, I'm free to continue editing my scene, and even open another instance of Maya and render again! I haven't tried two simultanous instances of rendering in Redshift yet. Only Redshift and Arnold together. Maybe I'll try that next. Also Arnold has the most beautiful shaders I have ever seen. Its a subjective opinion, but I love the quality of renders it creates. This and the fact that now I can work with an IK/FK model that isn't broken, I'm really so happy I was able to break out of Daz Studio. That being said, I really hope Studio 5 has some real improvements. One of the drawbacks of Daz characters being out of their own natural environment is that I have to create my own JCMs. That's not fun, but the developer is working on that problem and he thinks it can be solved.
yes I would to like see some of your work as well I love all types of animations. 45 minutes for a 10 seconds scene is what I am getting for a med range quailty render in Iray using daz with my iterations set around 1000 to 1500, Unforunetly I can not comtribute to how things work in third party software. because at this point with my feeble animation skills Daz & poser hobby software works fine for my needs.
I just did this film took about 2 weeks to complete including rendering and hand keyframing. I did this animation completely in daz studio. So like you said it does not matter really pro or semi pro or even hobby tools . you still have to know how to use them . the more you get to know the software the better you can use them to create the content you like. some tools work better. for work flow but have a much steeper learning curve. its all trade offs :)
I've enjoyed this conversation of this thread . its great to hear & see how others are doing things
That's a cool video Ivy. Your animation style looks like claymation stop motion in some parts. Daz Studio's implementation of Iray can't directly compare with production rendering engines because it lacks some features. For example, I was rendering 45 minutes for 10 seconds of video with heavy motion blur (it is a high speed space dogfight battle scene). DS doesn't even have motion blur, so we can't compare but features like motion and camera blur and DOF bring a ray-tracer to its knees. Redshift just keeps on sprinting. But I saw in your video that you developed a work-around for the lack of motion blur. Bravo! I hope you continue to do more.
As of last week, I am rendering in Arnold.... and I'm never going back unless Daz Studio pulls a miracle out of its pocket for version 5.
Cool!! are you using Arnold with C4D??
No. I'm using that plugin you referred me to. It's not officially released yet, but I've been working with the developer for the last week or so while he's ironing out the bugs. It works great. Also, Redshift leaves me breathless, its so fast. So I'm running two instances of Maya. For character scenes, especially closeups, I'm using Maya and it's beautiful skin shaders (It's pretty fast too). In the other instance, I'm rendering another scene with Redshift on my GPU. My poor render machine. I work her so hard.
Excellent!!
Hope to see you post some samples when you get the time
When I have something I am comfortable sharing, I will post something. Right now, I am just being bowled over by the software. I am using Redshift renderer for test renders (I'm talking about 45 minutes to render 10 second videos at a good medium quality). What's amazing that its only using 50% of my gpu. I sat here watching the gpu-z app and I never saw the GPU load go past 59%! What kind of voodoo can make such blazing fast renders on half my card?? So while I'm rendering, I'm free to continue editing my scene, and even open another instance of Maya and render again! I haven't tried two simultanous instances of rendering in Redshift yet. Only Redshift and Arnold together. Maybe I'll try that next. Also Arnold has the most beautiful shaders I have ever seen. Its a subjective opinion, but I love the quality of renders it creates. This and the fact that now I can work with an IK/FK model that isn't broken, I'm really so happy I was able to break out of Daz Studio. That being said, I really hope Studio 5 has some real improvements. One of the drawbacks of Daz characters being out of their own natural environment is that I have to create my own JCMs. That's not fun, but the developer is working on that problem and he thinks it can be solved.
I've been playing around with Redshift and Houdini and it's really amazing how fast it is. I haven't tried converting a DAZ character to Redshift shaders yet, have you? DAZ models have so many surfaces and maps it's kind of daunting doing it by hand. I've been thinking of making some sort of script to convert Iray shaders to Mantra and Redshift...
To tell you the truth, I haven't tried yet because my characters look so good in Arnold. But I have a plugin to convert Daz figures to Maya Human IK rigged figures. It also converts the materials to Arnold automatically. Redshift is very adaptable when it comes to materials. It will usually use the materials in the scene and render them nicely. At least it does so with Arnold and MentalRay shaders. Since iRay is MentalRay's cousin, it shouldn't be a problem.
As of last week, I am rendering in Arnold.... and I'm never going back unless Daz Studio pulls a miracle out of its pocket for version 5.
Cool!! are you using Arnold with C4D??
No. I'm using that plugin you referred me to. It's not officially released yet, but I've been working with the developer for the last week or so while he's ironing out the bugs. It works great. Also, Redshift leaves me breathless, its so fast. So I'm running two instances of Maya. For character scenes, especially closeups, I'm using Maya and it's beautiful skin shaders (It's pretty fast too). In the other instance, I'm rendering another scene with Redshift on my GPU. My poor render machine. I work her so hard.
Excellent!!
Hope to see you post some samples when you get the time
When I have something I am comfortable sharing, I will post something. Right now, I am just being bowled over by the software. I am using Redshift renderer for test renders (I'm talking about 45 minutes to render 10 second videos at a good medium quality). What's amazing that its only using 50% of my gpu. I sat here watching the gpu-z app and I never saw the GPU load go past 59%! What kind of voodoo can make such blazing fast renders on half my card?? So while I'm rendering, I'm free to continue editing my scene, and even open another instance of Maya and render again! I haven't tried two simultanous instances of rendering in Redshift yet. Only Redshift and Arnold together. Maybe I'll try that next. Also Arnold has the most beautiful shaders I have ever seen. Its a subjective opinion, but I love the quality of renders it creates. This and the fact that now I can work with an IK/FK model that isn't broken, I'm really so happy I was able to break out of Daz Studio. That being said, I really hope Studio 5 has some real improvements. One of the drawbacks of Daz characters being out of their own natural environment is that I have to create my own JCMs. That's not fun, but the developer is working on that problem and he thinks it can be solved.
I've been playing around with Redshift and Houdini and it's really amazing how fast it is. I haven't tried converting a DAZ character to Redshift shaders yet, have you? DAZ models have so many surfaces and maps it's kind of daunting doing it by hand. I've been thinking of making some sort of script to convert Iray shaders to Mantra and Redshift...
To tell you the truth, I haven't tried yet because my characters look so good in Arnold. But I have a plugin to convert Daz figures to Maya Human IK rigged figures. It also converts the materials to Arnold automatically. Redshift is very adaptable when it comes to materials. It will usually use the materials in the scene and render them nicely. At least it does so with Arnold and MentalRay shaders. Since iRay is MentalRay's cousin, it shouldn't be a problem.
yea I hear yea. I have a studet version of Autodesk suite 2012 . but it leave water marks so I never work with it besides I'm just a hobbest artist so I really have no need for investing in large expensive software , though it would be nice if daz offered tools for effect and stuff, but everything to make daz work in animation has been either a third party script or plugin , so I would expect if daz were to have any kind of new effects tools at all it would mostly like come from a vender or a third party plugin not from daz3d.com it self. I think that is why animate 2 is starting toreally show its age because it has not been updated since daz 3. I have a old daz 3 software that has partical effects which work pretty good. but no longer works in daz 4 . it is my belief that is why properly no new tools for animation has been developed in a long time. because the way daz keeps breaking things with each new update version of studio. it gets rather exspensive after awhile trying to keep up so thats why i work with what I have
We will see 3D VR modelling and sculpting primarily for the overly expensive pro grade software and workstations as it will take a fair amount of horsepower to drive it. It will take time to "trickle down" to us hobbyists with our little desktop PCs/Macs, and like our render engines, most likely will not be as "robust".
I used to paint and draw until arthritis took that away from me which is why I became involved in 3D CG. I have no issue with rendering to a 2D format that I can then print and hang at an art exhibition for many to view at once, unlike VR which is a "one on one" experience. Oh, I agree, VR will be great for games and animations, for still images...meh...not so much.
I've arrived at the point that I don't care to compete against those with professional level software and systems. I just want to create the best works I can with what I have at my disposal. We seem to be drifting towards a consensus here where the tools apparently do seem to matter more than the hands and minds that use them.
Pro tools are pro tools because they have been designed to increase productivity and break new barriers, but that's not to say the same things can't be done with non-pro tools. I can render a photorealistic photo (or any other kind that I want) perfectly well in DS Iray. It will tie up my computer, it may take longer and I will have to use other software for special affects, but it certainly be done and if I have a small budget, I can't beat free. Pros need tools to help them work faster, but they are essentially the same type of tools that can be had at a lower cost somewhere else, albiet with some compromises and limitations.
As for VR, imagine walking through an virtual art gallery with your artwork hanging on the walls. You can scale your work to any size, walk around and view it from any angle and hold exhibitions for others to come and see it (without paying a musem rental cost). This is the future of "2D" art. I have seen it for myself, and it was very impressive.
...I saw a prototype of a VR system where you could essentially walk into your scene pose/move/morph figures and props change hair, skin, clothing, textures etc. Yeah that would be nice, but don't count on it for our desktops anytime soon as it takes a fair amount of horespower to drive and is still at the experimental stage.
A virtual gallery works nice if you have your own server up and running for the public to access (and of course it is promoted on the Net). I tend to use coffee shops, Sci Fi/fantasy convention art shows, etc where I display actual prints. Not a big moneymaker as digital prints are not a "limited" series, but it still gives me some extra spending coin and a small commission now and then. If I wanted to do this at the pro level I would have gone for a degree in commercial art and design long ago and joined that rat race (which usually meant working for an advert agency).
I'm really so happy I was able to break out of Daz Studio. That being said, I really hope Studio 5 has some real improvements. One of the drawbacks of Daz characters being out of their own natural environment is that I have to create my own JCMs. That's not fun, but the developer is working on that problem and he thinks it can be solved.
Is this a plugin that is availlable somewhere?? It would be great to be able to easily use Genesis figures in Maya.
I'm really so happy I was able to break out of Daz Studio. That being said, I really hope Studio 5 has some real improvements. One of the drawbacks of Daz characters being out of their own natural environment is that I have to create my own JCMs. That's not fun, but the developer is working on that problem and he thinks it can be solved.
Is this a plugin that is availlable somewhere?? It would be great to be able to easily use Genesis figures in Maya.
It hasn't been officially released yet, but I bet if you contact the developer, he will sell you the beta. It's not finished yet but it transfers Daz figures just fine. If you want to break Victoria out of Daz Studio, this is your tool.
"...need to change the title of the thread
to "What Did You Abandon Daz For and Why?"
as seeing very little love for their programnes."
This thread has NOTHING to do with emotional issues like "abandonment" and "love"
Some of us ,particularly animators, have technical reasons to want to render in in other programs.
Daz studio is a great resource for highly versatile humanoid figures.
However its camera& lighting system alone makes it unusable
for professional animation rendering.
Anyone who has actually used a professional program Like Maya or C4D knows exactly what I
am talking about.
As far as the other DAZ programs (Bryce, hexagon)??
again anyone, who owns a pro level application like Maya,MAX or C4D,lightwave etc.
would have very little use for those Old tech applications that are languishing in the developmental
"This and the fact that now I can work with an IK/FK
model that isn't broken, I'm really so happy I was able
to break out of Daz Studio. That being said, I really hope
Studio 5 has some real improvements. One of the drawbacks
of Daz characters being out of their own natural
environment is that I have to create my own JCMs. "
Although I personally dont care about HD morphs tranferring
to C4D in my .obj MDD pipeline,
people will be curious if the Daz to Maya plugin,
can at least import Hi SubD levels with Genesis rigs... can it ??
...yeah I guess I may be in the minority here as I don't do animation, partly because I do not have the hardware to support it nor the software/plugins to do sound and voice syncing. My attraction is just being able to create pictures again after arthritis took that away from me with regards to traditional are media. When I first saw this thread I thought it was dealing with the topic on a more general level so apologies for coming accross so defensively as I did for Daz Studio and Carrara. This all I have to work with unless I run into some kind of a windfall or Blender totally revamps it's UI (both seemingly rather unlikely). Maybe add "For Animation" to the title.
I don't know about Bryce, but Carrara is not stuck in the 32-bit era.
...yes and is amazing. The one thing I like is it will use as many CPU cores for rendering as you can throw at it and it supports networked rendering. Oh for a dual 32 core Epyc workstation. The only trouble we'd need a Linux versuon of Carrara which sadly ain't going to happen.
I don't know about Bryce, but Carrara is not stuck in the 32-bit era.
...yes and is amazing. The one thing I like is it will use as many CPU cores for rendering as you can throw at it and it supports networked rendering. Oh for a dual 32 core Epyc workstation. The only trouble we'd need a Linux versuon of Carrara which sadly ain't going to happen.
Well, up to 20 cores unless you get the Grid for Carrara which then puts it up to 100 cores. I can't seem to exceed 100 cores no matter what I do, so think that's the current limit, which of course is more than enough, but I had to tinker and find out (I've got a little mini render farm just picking up used workstations off ebay at very low prices; my main driver for this little hobby is an hp z620 which has 32 cores; it is very cool to see all those rendering cores appear on screen :) It is possible to pick up a z600 dual xeon that can be expanded to 24 cores on ebay at an insanely low price (I got one for $150, although it admittedly did not come with very good Xeon CPU's and I then bought a pair of better Xeons to bring it up to 24 cores, also not tremendously expensive). It's very cool how Carrara can natively use so many cores from several different machines for rendering, even if you've just got an old laptop or desktop you don't use anymore you can put a Carrara rendernode on it and make it part of a mini renderfarm (that's how I started out, before I got obsessed seeing how many more cores I could add lol)
...yeah I guess I may be in the minority here as I don't do animation, partly because I do not have the hardware to support it nor the software/plugins to do sound and voice syncing. My attraction is just being able to create pictures again after arthritis took that away from me with regards to traditional are media. When I first saw this thread I thought it was dealing with the topic on a more general level so apologies for coming accross so defensively as I did for Daz Studio and Carrara. This all I have to work with unless I run into some kind of a windfall or Blender totally revamps it's UI (both seemingly rather unlikely). Maybe add "For Animation" to the title.
My guess is that you are actually in the majority, at least amoungst users of Daz Studio. I would be very surprised if still renderers are not the large majority of its users, but I have no idea how one would work out the actually percentage split of the two groups.
I don't know about Bryce, but Carrara is not stuck in the 32-bit era.
...yes and is amazing. The one thing I like is it will use as many CPU cores for rendering as you can throw at it and it supports networked rendering. Oh for a dual 32 core Epyc workstation. The only trouble we'd need a Linux versuon of Carrara which sadly ain't going to happen.
Well, up to 20 cores unless you get the Grid for Carrara which then puts it up to :'(100 cores. I can't seem to exceed 100 cores no matter what I do, so think that's the current limit, which of course is more than enough, but I had to tinker and find out (I've got a little mini render farm just picking up used workstations off ebay at very low prices; my main driver for this little hobby is an hp z620 which has 32 cores; it is very cool to see all those rendering cores appear on screen :) It is possible to pick up a z600 dual xeon that can be expanded to 24 cores on ebay at an insanely low price (I got one for $150, although it admittedly did not come with very good Xeon CPU's and I then bought a pair of better Xeons to bring it up to 24 cores, also not tremendously expensive). It's very cool how Carrara can natively use so many cores from several different machines for rendering, even if you've just got an old laptop or desktop you don't use anymore you can put a Carrara rendernode on it and make it part of a mini renderfarm (that's how I started out, before I got obsessed seeing how many more cores I could add lol)
...100 cores, that is still pretty impressive. Personally looking at a dual Sandy Bridge 8 core setup for the main system. Not into notebooks for 3D work (particularly rendering) as they have crappy cooling unless you drop a couple thousand on an ASUS ROG one.
...yeah I guess I may be in the minority here as I don't do animation, partly because I do not have the hardware to support it nor the software/plugins to do sound and voice syncing. My attraction is just being able to create pictures again after arthritis took that away from me with regards to traditional are media. When I first saw this thread I thought it was dealing with the topic on a more general level so apologies for coming accross so defensively as I did for Daz Studio and Carrara. This all I have to work with unless I run into some kind of a windfall or Blender totally revamps it's UI (both seemingly rather unlikely). Maybe add "For Animation" to the title.
My guess is that you are actually in the majority, at least amoungst users of Daz Studio. I would be very surprised if still renderers are not the large majority of its users, but I have no idea how one would work out the actually percentage split of the two groups.
I suspect the Kid is talking about participants in this thread, not more generally.
Well the 8th Generation Entry Level Intel Chips are going to 4 true cores for i3 and 6 true cores for i5. AMD is having impact. That's good for 3D programs.
Comments
Pro tools are pro tools because they have been designed to increase productivity and break new barriers, but that's not to say the same things can't be done with non-pro tools. I can render a photorealistic photo (or any other kind that I want) perfectly well in DS Iray. It will tie up my computer, it may take longer and I will have to use other software for special affects, but it certainly be done and if I have a small budget, I can't beat free. Pros need tools to help them work faster, but they are essentially the same type of tools that can be had at a lower cost somewhere else, albiet with some compromises and limitations.
As for VR, imagine walking through an virtual art gallery with your artwork hanging on the walls. You can scale your work to any size, walk around and view it from any angle and hold exhibitions for others to come and see it (without paying a musem rental cost). This is the future of "2D" art. I have seen it for myself, and it was very impressive.
When I have something I am comfortable sharing, I will post something. Right now, I am just being bowled over by the software. I am using Redshift renderer for test renders (I'm talking about 45 minutes to render 10 second videos at a good medium quality). What's amazing that its only using 50% of my gpu. I sat here watching the gpu-z app and I never saw the GPU load go past 59%! What kind of voodoo can make such blazing fast renders on half my card?? So while I'm rendering, I'm free to continue editing my scene, and even open another instance of Maya and render again! I haven't tried two simultanous instances of rendering in Redshift yet. Only Redshift and Arnold together. Maybe I'll try that next. Also Arnold has the most beautiful shaders I have ever seen. Its a subjective opinion, but I love the quality of renders it creates. This and the fact that now I can work with an IK/FK model that isn't broken, I'm really so happy I was able to break out of Daz Studio. That being said, I really hope Studio 5 has some real improvements. One of the drawbacks of Daz characters being out of their own natural environment is that I have to create my own JCMs. That's not fun, but the developer is working on that problem and he thinks it can be solved.
yes I would to like see some of your work as well I love all types of animations. 45 minutes for a 10 seconds scene is what I am getting for a med range quailty render in Iray using daz with my iterations set around 1000 to 1500, Unforunetly I can not comtribute to how things work in third party software. because at this point with my feeble animation skills Daz & poser hobby software works fine for my needs.
I just did this film took about 2 weeks to complete including rendering and hand keyframing. I did this animation completely in daz studio. So like you said it does not matter really pro or semi pro or even hobby tools . you still have to know how to use them . the more you get to know the software the better you can use them to create the content you like. some tools work better. for work flow but have a much steeper learning curve. its all trade offs :)
I've enjoyed this conversation of this thread . its great to hear & see how others are doing things
I've been playing around with Redshift and Houdini and it's really amazing how fast it is. I haven't tried converting a DAZ character to Redshift shaders yet, have you? DAZ models have so many surfaces and maps it's kind of daunting doing it by hand. I've been thinking of making some sort of script to convert Iray shaders to Mantra and Redshift...
That's a cool video Ivy. Your animation style looks like claymation stop motion in some parts. Daz Studio's implementation of Iray can't directly compare with production rendering engines because it lacks some features. For example, I was rendering 45 minutes for 10 seconds of video with heavy motion blur (it is a high speed space dogfight battle scene). DS doesn't even have motion blur, so we can't compare but features like motion and camera blur and DOF bring a ray-tracer to its knees. Redshift just keeps on sprinting. But I saw in your video that you developed a work-around for the lack of motion blur. Bravo! I hope you continue to do more.
To tell you the truth, I haven't tried yet because my characters look so good in Arnold. But I have a plugin to convert Daz figures to Maya Human IK rigged figures. It also converts the materials to Arnold automatically. Redshift is very adaptable when it comes to materials. It will usually use the materials in the scene and render them nicely. At least it does so with Arnold and MentalRay shaders. Since iRay is MentalRay's cousin, it shouldn't be a problem.
yea I hear yea. I have a studet version of Autodesk suite 2012 . but it leave water marks so I never work with it besides I'm just a hobbest artist so I really have no need for investing in large expensive software , though it would be nice if daz offered tools for effect and stuff, but everything to make daz work in animation has been either a third party script or plugin , so I would expect if daz were to have any kind of new effects tools at all it would mostly like come from a vender or a third party plugin not from daz3d.com it self. I think that is why animate 2 is starting toreally show its age because it has not been updated since daz 3. I have a old daz 3 software that has partical effects which work pretty good. but no longer works in daz 4 . it is my belief that is why properly no new tools for animation has been developed in a long time. because the way daz keeps breaking things with each new update version of studio. it gets rather exspensive after awhile trying to keep up so thats why i work with what I have
...I saw a prototype of a VR system where you could essentially walk into your scene pose/move/morph figures and props change hair, skin, clothing, textures etc. Yeah that would be nice, but don't count on it for our desktops anytime soon as it takes a fair amount of horespower to drive and is still at the experimental stage.
A virtual gallery works nice if you have your own server up and running for the public to access (and of course it is promoted on the Net). I tend to use coffee shops, Sci Fi/fantasy convention art shows, etc where I display actual prints. Not a big moneymaker as digital prints are not a "limited" series, but it still gives me some extra spending coin and a small commission now and then. If I wanted to do this at the pro level I would have gone for a degree in commercial art and design long ago and joined that rat race (which usually meant working for an advert agency).
Is this a plugin that is availlable somewhere?? It would be great to be able to easily use Genesis figures in Maya.
http://www.3dtoall.com/products/daztomaya/
It hasn't been officially released yet, but I bet if you contact the developer, he will sell you the beta. It's not finished yet but it transfers Daz figures just fine. If you want to break Victoria out of Daz Studio, this is your tool.
Yeah! I love the Daz figures, but I'm a filmmaker. There is nothing Daz Studio can do for me in its current form.
well the opening post is stating this is a thread for other render engines or software
nobody abandoning DAZ studio has its uses just not as the renderer in this case.
I require DAZ studio in order to use my content my preferred softwares
my main use for it is to set up stuff for export to iClone and convert to Carrara friendly forms
This thread has NOTHING to do with emotional issues like "abandonment" and "love"
Some of us ,particularly animators, have technical reasons to want to render in in other programs.
Daz studio is a great resource for highly versatile humanoid figures.
However its camera& lighting system alone makes it unusable
for professional animation rendering.
Anyone who has actually used a professional program Like Maya or C4D knows exactly what I
am talking about.
As far as the other DAZ programs (Bryce, hexagon)??
again anyone, who owns a pro level application like Maya,MAX or C4D,lightwave etc.
would have very little use for those Old tech applications that are languishing in the developmental
dead end of an anachronistic 32 bit wasteland.
I don't know about Bryce, but Carrara is not stuck in the 32-bit era.
Although I personally dont care about HD morphs tranferring
to C4D in my .obj MDD pipeline,
people will be curious if the Daz to Maya plugin,
can at least import Hi SubD levels with Genesis rigs... can it ??
I wonder what animation program Disney / Pixar uses?
They used to use an internally developed software
Called Marionette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marionette_(software)
They may have moved on the another internally developed
package though.
At any rate nothing commercially available to the public
thanks
Well, up to 20 cores unless you get the Grid for Carrara which then puts it up to 100 cores. I can't seem to exceed 100 cores no matter what I do, so think that's the current limit, which of course is more than enough, but I had to tinker and find out (I've got a little mini render farm just picking up used workstations off ebay at very low prices; my main driver for this little hobby is an hp z620 which has 32 cores; it is very cool to see all those rendering cores appear on screen :) It is possible to pick up a z600 dual xeon that can be expanded to 24 cores on ebay at an insanely low price (I got one for $150, although it admittedly did not come with very good Xeon CPU's and I then bought a pair of better Xeons to bring it up to 24 cores, also not tremendously expensive). It's very cool how Carrara can natively use so many cores from several different machines for rendering, even if you've just got an old laptop or desktop you don't use anymore you can put a Carrara rendernode on it and make it part of a mini renderfarm (that's how I started out, before I got obsessed seeing how many more cores I could add lol)
My guess is that you are actually in the majority, at least amoungst users of Daz Studio. I would be very surprised if still renderers are not the large majority of its users, but I have no idea how one would work out the actually percentage split of the two groups.
I suspect the Kid is talking about participants in this thread, not more generally.
I only render in Daz Studio Iray.
Well the 8th Generation Entry Level Intel Chips are going to 4 true cores for i3 and 6 true cores for i5. AMD is having impact. That's good for 3D programs.