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Computer choking on wings and hair

mavantemavante Posts: 734
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Okay, so maybe the title isn't the best choice of words, but it is descriptive of what I'm trying to find a way to fix.

I'm trying to create an angel. (Well, three angels, but I'll get to that in a minute.) I've been trying to do it with a G8 female character, using Feathered Wings For All and Angel Glam Hair.  I'm on an iMac with a woefully inadequate (and not upgradeable) nVidia card, and while it had done well with some pretty big scenes, for some reason this combination is slowing it to a crawl.

I ran Scene Optimizer on the wings and hair, set to 8, but it is still shuddering and stuttering when I try to do anything with the character.

Are there any tricks or gimmicks or workarounds I can do with either the hair or the wings (or both) that would reduce the load on my resources? I saw someone, somewhere, mention something about reducing translucency on hair that can help, but I can't find that now.

Are there any low-res wings that might work, or maybe good but lower resolution hair? I'm considering even falling back to "a lesser Genesis" if that might help the cause.

As it stands, the thought of having three such characters in a scene together, and animating them, has become ridiculous, but that's my assignment. Any help, tips, or ideas would be gratefully, nay, prayerfully, received.

Comments

  • rrwardrrward Posts: 556

    Are you running draw mode in Iray Preview mode or in Texture Shaded? I tend to stay in Texture Shaded or Smooth Shaded when I'm working on posing and positioning and only move to Iray when I'm working on the lighting.

  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 5,001
    edited March 2020

    Try using the eyeball in the scene tab to turn Angel Glam Hair off until you're ready to render. I've found that the actual geometry in Neftis' more recent hairs is somehow complex enough that depending on how much RAM you have, the workspace can basically come to a halt whenever you move anything and it has to do the calculations. Even using Sonia hair -- which is not even half as long as Angel Glam -- I had to turn it off to move the character around without my computer seizing up for many minutes at a time.

    Also, depending on how they're interacting, you might consider doing your images in layers, with each character on its own layer, and then composite in post.

    Post edited by vwrangler on
  • mavantemavante Posts: 734
    edited March 2020

    rrward:

    Are you running draw mode in Iray Preview mode or in Texture Shaded?

    I work in Texture Shaded every minute I can

    vwrangler:

    depending on how they're interacting, you might consider doing your images in layers, with each character on its own layer, and then composite in post.

    They are interacting as a group of background singers. Think doo-wop with Angels. They are being animated, and they need to cast shadows on each other.

     

    Post edited by mavante on
  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 5,001
    edited March 2020
    mavante said:
     

    vwrangler:

    depending on how they're interacting, you might consider doing your images in layers, with each character on its own layer, and then composite in post.

    They are interacting as a group of background singers. Think doo-wop with Angels. They are being animated, and they need to cast shadows on each other.

     

    Oh, I see.

    Well, test turning off Angel Glam to see if that improves workspace/animation response time. If so, I would change the hair, because I frankly can't imagine any recent Neftis hair working both for animation and in a memory-restricted environment. They're simply too heavyweight in the workspace for animation, I suspect. If Angel Glam is slowing things down, the issue is the geometry rather than the textures -- or the textures alone, anyway -- and without something like Decimator, I can't see how you could address that.

    Nesena might be a vaguely similar hair that could be much easier on your computer: https://www.daz3d.com/nesena-hair-for-genesis-3--8-females

    OOT Claudia hair might be easier on your computer, but I'm not sure it will be enough, since his hairs have been a bit heavier lately, if not as heavy as a Neftis hair: https://www.daz3d.com/claudia-hair-for-genesis-3-and-8-females -- that said, the OOT "weight" is pretty much consistently due to textures, so Scene Optimizer might take care of all of that.

    Hope some of that helps.

    If not then ... I got nothin' else, I'm afraid. Dropping back to an earlier Genesis version probably won't help, unless they're very undistinguished background, because the earlier Genesis versions are generally somewhat higher poly than later ones. It does depend on what characters/morphs you have for the earlier versions, but generally, it may not help.

    Post edited by vwrangler on
  • SevrinSevrin Posts: 6,314

    Maybe something like Elegance Hair or some other older item with some Iray shaders would be better if you're trying to animate 3 models with your rig.

  • mavantemavante Posts: 734
    vwrangler said:

    Well, test turning off Angel Glam to see if that improves workspace/animation response time. If so, I would change the hair, because I frankly can't imagine any recent Neftis hair working both for animation and in a memory-restricted environment. They're simply too heavyweight in the workspace for animation, I suspect. If Angel Glam is slowing things down, the issue is the geometry rather than the textures -- or the textures alone, anyway -- and without something like Decimator, I can't see how you could address that.

    Yeah, I think you're absolutely right: Most of my problems are being caused by that hair. Thanks for the tips on possible replacements. I'll be searching through my files and the store looking for others. I'm also going to put different hair on each of the angels, so I will be looking at ones that cause as little strain as possible. As I've said, they will be animated, almost always with some camera motion, and so I think I can get away with a lot in terms of the resolution. I just liked the style of Angel Glam, for this first divine creature, but I see there are other side-styled hair products that will do just fine.

    vwrangler said:

    Dropping back to an earlier Genesis version probably won't help, unless they're very undistinguished background, because the earlier Genesis versions are generally somewhat higher poly than later ones. It does depend on what characters/morphs you have for the earlier versions, but generally, it may not help.

    Well that's news to me. I was thinking that very thought: dropping back to an earlier character. I even found an old V4-based character, Calliope, that even comes with wings. I hoped I could adapt her to three different looks. So are you saying that G8, perhaps using base resolution only and not HD, might be less of a strain? I would love to hear or read more about this. Is there documentation anywhere on the various generations and their relative poly counts?

    Thanks very much for your help.

     

  • mavantemavante Posts: 734
    Sevrin said:

    Maybe something like Elegance Hair or some other older item with some Iray shaders would be better if you're trying to animate 3 models with your rig.

    Thanks Sevrin. Great tip.

  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 5,001
    mavante said:
    vwrangler said:

    Dropping back to an earlier Genesis version probably won't help, unless they're very undistinguished background, because the earlier Genesis versions are generally somewhat higher poly than later ones. It does depend on what characters/morphs you have for the earlier versions, but generally, it may not help.

    Well that's news to me. I was thinking that very thought: dropping back to an earlier character. I even found an old V4-based character, Calliope, that even comes with wings. I hoped I could adapt her to three different looks. So are you saying that G8, perhaps using base resolution only and not HD, might be less of a strain? I would love to hear or read more about this. Is there documentation anywhere on the various generations and their relative poly counts?

    Thanks very much for your help.

     

    For M4/V4 through G3, this thread includes those counts: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/64609/polygon-count-list-of-gen-4-g1-2-3

    This thread notes that G3 and G8 are virtually identical: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/283441/genesis-3-vs-genesis-8-polygons

    So base G8 or G3 should be less of a strain than any preceding generation.

  • mavantemavante Posts: 734
    vwrangler said:

    For M4/V4 through G3, this thread includes those counts: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/64609/polygon-count-list-of-gen-4-g1-2-3

    This thread notes that G3 and G8 are virtually identical: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/283441/genesis-3-vs-genesis-8-polygons

    So base G8 or G3 should be less of a strain than any preceding generation.

    Thanks again, vwrangler. I had seen that first linked article, referred to me by someone, somewhere, but it's a bit confusing because of the two different polycount numbers for each of the generations. (Sigh)

    In any case, all things considered, I think you're right: Base G8 or G3 should work best (as counterintuitive as that may seem in some regards).

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