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Thanks for the response - I wasn't expecting any promises! Well done to everyone at DAZ for securing this.
My 3rd test render with Iray (2nd render is here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/53690/P97)
I’ve been trying different light set ups and trying to improve the skin shader. I definitely like the skin shader sss on this one better than the last render, also added a bit of SSS to the hair too. I traded the sun light for a mesh light, and turned the lights in the hall into emitters (eis profiles). Now it’s time to move onto another scene that I kind of have a handle on how lights and the optimized skin shader works.
I have been busy with other things, I just want to ask here quickly. Is there an equivalent of iRay for ATI cards?
i think only Luxrender so far but the GPU Support is a little to buggy at the moment and is not as performant as iRay (my opinion)
I should rephrase my question, is ATI working on something similar to Iray?
The reason I ask is that at this point I think I am exiting AMD/ATI all together.
if its any consolation I still prefer Octane as while Iray blows 3Delight out of the water Octane render is still much faster for animation which I do.
I only have the 1.2 version of your DS plugin though as I kinda dislike DAZ studio but handy for things I HAVE to use it for,
I am a die hard Carraraite I am afraid
I have found Reality4 and Luxrender to be much easier on my PC resources than even 3Delight was with only CPU rendering. It will take a little longer, but you will get the same results in the end than if you had GPU help. Another thing I like better is once you hand it off to Luxrender you can close Daz out all together and Luxrender will then be able to utilize more of your CPU resources. All I have is a dual core processor with a standard Intel HD Graphics system so I'm a little hesitant to jump on the Iray train right now, especially since I can multitask with Luxrender running better than I could with Daz/3Delight.
In my opinion the Daz/Reality4/Luxrender path seems more feasible for those with smaller computers that Daz and Iray unless Daz comes up with a way to optimize it for smaller computers or moves toward the cloud/networking route as an added option. I would really love to see a network cloud option myself, because it will give us will smaller computers more of a fighting chance at the rendering.
Just a thought, and I don't know if anyone has already suggested it, but you could use DIM for just this one piece of software, nothing else, and use DIM to remove it once the general release is out.
-- Walt Sterdan
I thank you for trying to answer my question, but... I know all about LuxRender, 3Delight, etc. My renders can be seen here:
http://www.beammeup.net/blog/
I don't have a low end computer. Maybe I should be more clearer, it seems that NVidia is the place to be and ATI is falling behind. I would like to see a similar DAZ Studio move to a similar render platform for ATIs. I went looking for info and found nothing similar. It seems that I will need to move from ATI to NVidia as it seems every one from Octane on is on the NVidia platform.
In my opinion if LuxRender wants to be in the competition it needs to provide full GPU rendering without muss or fuss.
I would have preferred something hardware agnostic like Indigo. (Although that is CPU and Hybrid, no GPU only mode.)
But I'm not complaining :-)
I'll probably still be going with an R9-290 next as I run Indigo from Cinema anyway.
there are no competitors btw.
if - for example - i had created an octane plugin for studio, devoting some 12k work hours into it, to bring a world class renderer directly into ds, then daz has of course nothing to lose - they can only win because users can do high end renders (and in much less time). and that content creators can also push their promos to new quality levels (where render time counts three times as much) is even directly driving daz content sales.
if now daz is including something more or less similar _for free_, they quite obviously won't make direct money out of it, and even content sales will not go right through the roof just because of that - but it is of course going to hurt the other thing, maybe badly.
in other words: from a daz pov there was no competitive situation whatsoever, thus some informal note would have been a kind gesture the least, not to mention that they even could have looked for some possible synergy.
it still might explain some other things; i.e. lets ask paolo how much fun it is to create "just" an exporter with the "recent" = 3 years old studio sdk (which then was only a more or less refreshed v3 sdk), not to mention how much more fun it is to build a fully integrated renderer with realtime output out of it - where both still need to support all the bells and whistles they have added in the years since then.
if i were one of these 3rd party plugin devs, i would be extremely pissed now - not because daz is trying to make studio better (i second that), but because they apparently don't care about others that were out on the same mission...
Luxrender still has a few arguments : runs on any OpenCL enabled device, text editable scenefiles; ability to stop and restart a render, free network rendering.
For Octane I don't really know as I don't have it but from what I've seen so far, I'd say speed, material database at least. And as with Luxrender, the rendering process is outside DS which means that you can stop DS or begin working on something else while rendering
However I don't think it's about competition. It's about making things better and not just stay stuck once you reached a certain point. If you think so, you're like dead as technology always evolves.
From my POV, this was only a matter of time, and this will benefit the end user. If you're a 3rd party developer, you should be prepared to see that coming. And one thing not to forget : it's not about a mission, it's a business. And if you want to think in term of "competitors" I'd ask how do Poser users feel? A lot of Poser Users were frustrated with the Genesis line not being native to their software of choice. How is it now that DS has a free built in pathtracer? (Not even talking about Bryce, Carrara or Hexagon which development are slow or frozen)
there are no competitors btw.
if - for example - i had created an octane plugin for studio, devoting some 12k work hours into it, to bring a world class renderer directly into ds, then daz has of course nothing to lose - they can only win because users can do high end renders (and in much less time). and that content creators can also push their promos to new quality levels (where render time counts three times as much) is even directly driving daz content sales.
if now daz is including something more or less similar _for free_, they quite obviously won't make direct money out of it, and even content sales will not go right through the roof just because of that - but it is of course going to hurt the other thing, maybe badly.
in other words: from a daz pov there was no competitive situation whatsoever, thus some informal note would have been a kind gesture the least, not to mention that they even could have looked for some possible synergy.
it still might explain some other things; i.e. lets ask paolo how much fun it is to create "just" an exporter with the "recent" = 3 years old studio sdk (which then was only a more or less refreshed v3 sdk), not to mention how much more fun it is to build a fully integrated renderer with realtime output out of it - where both still need to support all the bells and whistles they have added in the years since then.
if i were one of these 3rd party plugin devs, i would be extremely pissed now - not because daz is trying to make studio better (i second that), but because they apparently don't care about others that were out on the same mission...
Luxrender still has a few arguments : runs on any OpenCL enabled device, text editable scenefiles; ability to stop and restart a render, free network rendering.
For Octane I don't really know as I don't have it but from what I've seen so far, I'd say speed, material database at least. And as with Luxrender, the rendering process is outside DS which means that you can stop DS or begin working on something else while rendering
However I don't think it's about competition. It's about making things better and not just stay stuck once you reached a certain point. If you think so, you're like dead as technology always evolves.
From my POV, this was only a matter of time, and this will benefit the end user. If you're a 3rd party developer, you should be prepared to see that coming. And one thing not to forget : it's not about a mission, it's a business. And if you want to think in term of "competitors" I'd ask how do Poser users feel? A lot of Poser Users were frustrated with the Genesis line not being native to their software of choice. How is it now that DS has a free built in pathtracer? (Not even talking about Bryce, Carrara or Hexagon which development are slow or frozen)
How do you do network rendering with Luxrender? Will that be faster?
You can begin with the Luxrender Wiki http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Network_rendering. The more rendering server you have, the quicker it should be. The gain varies with hardware power and network speed penalty
I can believe that.
It's the bang per buck of the 290's that's hard to resist.
...plus, big price drops are expected in the next month or so when the R9-300s officially launch. Which will only make the 290s even more tempting.
I can resist anything except temptation!
There should be networking options in the luxrender program once you export your scene to it. In terms of speed, it won't be faster than gpu rendering. When I first started making promos for my products here I used Luxrender and Amazon's remote computer service (forgot what it's called since it's been a while since I've used it) and I installed the network client for luxrender there. Once they spoke to each other, I have several cpus on the 'cloud" rendering the scene and sending back the results.. so a render that would take a few days to do, just took a few hours. But unless you have computers with the same cpu speed and memory at home, you'll be racking up a bill at the end of the month using online services.. as this is really the key to using network rendering: The machines you use have to be the same or greater than the local machine.
Just with playing around with the same types of promo setups I use, I've been generating the same scenes in 10-20 minutes rather than hours. And that's with just the 980gtx I bought. If I swap another card in, I can speed that time up. Hopefully Nvidia will come out with cards with more than 4gb of memory.. though you can get around some issues with Texture Atlas, Depending what you throw at it, you can hit over 3gb real easy. I've been able to throw 3 G2M figures in with clothing and low poly scene and get it at 3.5gb, but it would be nice to have more room to breathe.
actually the op did raise the term "competitor" to explain why he thought daz had not given info about iray away to other render plugin creators - thus my point was, that this can't be about competition as there just is none (in this regards). it's like apple would stop giving product news to 3rd party developers, because they also develop addons - it is only counterproductive since this and that helps them to forward. but actually daz seem to think not that way.
so, if i was an interested dev, i would stay away from creating unique daz plugins, in particular such that need lots of time to make, since you may be kicked out of business by them doing it themselves, once there is some grip (and they have much better options at hand of course). don't get me wrong, daz has all the right to do so, but the plugin ecosystem of studio is going to stay a desert - not the last because of that... and since they obviously can't do all by themselves, this is maybe not perfectly wise.
All businessess big and small have to make decisions that are best for that business. No decision will be perfect and nor will it work for everyone. In short, it comes down to choosing which pile of poop do you step in. Not because every decision will be bad but becaue it wont please everyone.
DAZ3D now offers 2 render engines in its DAZ Studio software. Having one does not take away from the other and nor does defaulting to one detract from the other. All plugin developers still have the same doors open to them plus more. Once Iray gets out of Beta and has matured, there will be those who gravite towards using IRAY as their render engine of choice and those who choose to use 3Delight as their render engine of choice. And there will also be those inbetween who use both or even mix.
There should be networking options in the luxrender program once you export your scene to it. In terms of speed, it won't be faster than gpu rendering. When I first started making promos for my products here I used Luxrender and Amazon's remote computer service (forgot what it's called since it's been a while since I've used it) and I installed the network client for luxrender there. Once they spoke to each other, I have several cpus on the 'cloud" rendering the scene and sending back the results.. so a render that would take a few days to do, just took a few hours. But unless you have computers with the same cpu speed and memory at home, you'll be racking up a bill at the end of the month using online services.. as this is really the key to using network rendering: The machines you use have to be the same or greater than the local machine.
Just with playing around with the same types of promo setups I use, I've been generating the same scenes in 10-20 minutes rather than hours. And that's with just the 980gtx I bought. If I swap another card in, I can speed that time up. Hopefully Nvidia will come out with cards with more than 4gb of memory.. though you can get around some issues with Texture Atlas, Depending what you throw at it, you can hit over 3gb real easy. I've been able to throw 3 G2M figures in with clothing and low poly scene and get it at 3.5gb, but it would be nice to have more room to breathe.
They don't any cloud like service. I don't have much of a PC and can't do GPU either. I need a way I can get faster renders with what I have.
They don't any cloud like service. I don't have much of a PC and can't do GPU either. I need a way I can get faster renders with what I have.
Then you're rather looking for render farm services. There are some but you'll have to pay that. But I'm almost sure that it isn't permitted by DAZ TOS unless they changed that
I don't think this has been mentioned...
DAZ supplying Iray free is not unprecedented. And it will have a direct effect on competition.
Luxrender is also provided free. Yes, you have to buy a plug in to bridge the gap, but that is to be expected. And, for the most part, the cost of the plug ins is reasonable.
Octane is sort of an oddball out being in the pay for dynamic. I know there are a couple of other render engines out there that are also pay for, but those in general aren't geared towards hobbyists or artists.
Iray in DAZStudio raises the bar vs. Poser. I am sure the folks at Poser will have their response soon (if they don't already, I've fallen out of the Poser loop).
Iray might also help NVIDIA sell a couple of more video cards. The same way as having a "Works better on GeForce!" sticker on a video game might do.
Maybe this will also help motivate Otoy to get their DS Plug In finally released. Then almost everyone wins.
What shall we do today Brain? (Octane)
Very cute! Where did you get the blueprint? I love it...makes the scene. :)
Kat
I have found Reality4 and Luxrender to be much easier on my PC resources than even 3Delight was with only CPU rendering. It will take a little longer, but you will get the same results in the end than if you had GPU help. Another thing I like better is once you hand it off to Luxrender you can close Daz out all together and Luxrender will then be able to utilize more of your CPU resources. All I have is a dual core processor with a standard Intel HD Graphics system so I'm a little hesitant to jump on the Iray train right now, especially since I can multitask with Luxrender running better than I could with Daz/3Delight.
In my opinion the Daz/Reality4/Luxrender path seems more feasible for those with smaller computers that Daz and Iray unless Daz comes up with a way to optimize it for smaller computers or moves toward the cloud/networking route as an added option. I would really love to see a network cloud option myself, because it will give us will smaller computers more of a fighting chance at the rendering.
...ran an Iray test (CPU only as I have an old Nvidia GPU with only 1 GB) last night. Fairly complex scene with multiple characters, reflectivity, and transparency maps rendered at 1,200x 900 resolution. Total time to 100% complete 1h 55 m.
After a full night or rendering in Lux (same scene and resolution taking roughly 11 hrs) there was still a good deal of noise which compared to what I saw while rendering with Iray would have maybe been about 30% - 35% complete. Granted setting up in Reality is better, there are more parameters to work with,and yes you can close the scene and even the application once the scene is handed off to Lux, but the render time is still excruciatingly slow in comparison.
I also monitored CPU temps during the tests and with Iray they were pretty much the same as what I saw when rendering with Lux.
...as well as Lux getting the bugs ironed out of it's GPU mode
I have two AMD 7950 HDs (3 GB ea) that were given to me which are still in their box. Until Lux gets GPU rendering working properly they will continue to sit idle and Reality4 will continue to collect virtual dust on my HDD since Iray's pure CPU mode is much faster. (1.5 - 2 hours vs. nearly 2 days in Lux for the same scene).
Very cute! Where did you get the blueprint? I love it...makes the scene. :)
Kat
Its a prop of Bot Shop by antfarm.
http://www.daz3d.com/bot-shop
Oddly, Dr Mason was one of the first models I bought at Daz. At the time Daz was so buggy it couldn't render.
http://www.daz3d.com/dr-mason
Its looking mighty fine now.
Still having fun with Iray!
This is just another quick test render done while figuring things out, no post work. Nothing special for lighting, lit with a very basic studio HDRI and one mesh light. Skin shaders modified to add more specular highlights and a bit more SSS.
Rendered at 1600x1600 in a little over 18 min. on a GTX 670M (laptop). It used a little under 1.5 Gb of VRAM.
Dustrider - very nice results you are getting there! Can I ask you a question - I remember seeing somewhere you said that you applied an Iray skin preset to your character, where can I find that?
Its a prop of Bot Shop by antfarm.
http://www.daz3d.com/bot-shop
Oddly, Dr Mason was one of the first models I bought at Daz. At the time Daz was so buggy it couldn't render.
http://www.daz3d.com/dr-mason
Its looking mighty fine now.
Well you did a great job on the render! :) I have Octane as well and have the hardest time getting my head around it. :D Thank you for the info on the props!! I will have to see if I have that or if AntFarm is getting MORE of my money. :)
Kat
Thank looks great! Nice job. :)
Kat
Hi Phil - Thanks!
You can find the Iray Optimized G2F shader in the G2F Materials section (see below). It's really easy to use, just select you G2F figure, then double click on the Iray mat - no need to hold down the control key. It sets up the Iray shaders and keeps the texture maps you are using on your figure.