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Product file sizes

TaozTaoz Posts: 10,253
in The Commons

Total product file size on disk after installation:

G9 Character 1, HD: 297 MB
G9 Character 2, HD: 7.4 GB  (other characters from this PA are of similar sizes)

G9 pose set 1, about 1000 presets: 91.1 MB
G9 pose set 1, about 500 presets: 632.9 MB

I think DAZ should teach some of their PAs how to do things right.  

Comments

  • MissLeahMissLeah Posts: 206

    7.4 GB for a character?! surprise Yikes!

    I, for one, would love to know before I buy how much disk space the files will take. The other store shows that information on the product pages. There are things I've bought here that I wouldn't have if I'd known how huge the files were. indecision

  • Matt_CastleMatt_Castle Posts: 3,004
    edited October 29

    Taoz said:

    I think DAZ should teach some of their PAs how to do things right.  

    The real question is "which ones?"

    A lot of PAs use JPG for their textures, and while that saves space on disk, Iray replaces all compression with its own when it comes to renders, so the file type on disk does not save any VRAM, but can result in quality loss.

    From my perspective, with terabytes and terabytes of storage (I have most of my libraries junctioned to keep the presets and the geometry on an SSD, but the textures on HDDs), I'd rather the vendors gave me lossless textures rather than using artefacty compressions like JPG.

    That said, I *do* agree that approximate install sizes should really be presented on the store pages.

    Post edited by Matt_Castle on
  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,575

    Matt_Castle said:

    Taoz said:

    I think DAZ should teach some of their PAs how to do things right.  

    The real question is "which ones?"

    A lot of PAs use JPG for their textures, and while that saves space on disk, Iray replaces all compression with its own when it comes to renders, so the file type on disk does not save any VRAM, but can result in quality loss.

    From my perspective, with terabytes and terabytes of storage (I have most of my libraries junctioned to keep the presets and the geometry on an SSD, but the textures on HDDs), I'd rather the vendors gave me lossless textures rather than using artefacty compressions like JPG.

    That said, I *do* agree that approximate install sizes should really be presented on the store pages.

    I would rather they stick to jpg. As long as they have not massively compressed them it is very unlikely you will see any difference compared to using png, or worse of all tiffs, which are just massive. I have a 2TB very fast SDD drive for putting on my installed content, and that is woefully inadequate. Other stuff I have to put on a slower HDD drive.

    So I am not a fan of massive installation sizes that offer no real quality increase. No matter how much disk space you have, you will run out.

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,745

    Havos said:

    Matt_Castle said:

    Taoz said:

    I think DAZ should teach some of their PAs how to do things right.  

    The real question is "which ones?"

    A lot of PAs use JPG for their textures, and while that saves space on disk, Iray replaces all compression with its own when it comes to renders, so the file type on disk does not save any VRAM, but can result in quality loss.

    From my perspective, with terabytes and terabytes of storage (I have most of my libraries junctioned to keep the presets and the geometry on an SSD, but the textures on HDDs), I'd rather the vendors gave me lossless textures rather than using artefacty compressions like JPG.

    That said, I *do* agree that approximate install sizes should really be presented on the store pages.

    I would rather they stick to jpg. As long as they have not massively compressed them it is very unlikely you will see any difference compared to using png, or worse of all tiffs, which are just massive. I have a 2TB very fast SDD drive for putting on my installed content, and that is woefully inadequate. Other stuff I have to put on a slower HDD drive.

    So I am not a fan of massive installation sizes that offer no real quality increase. No matter how much disk space you have, you will run out.

    Yes I have an external drive in the 12 TB drive and will have to upgrade soon...

  • IceCrMnIceCrMn Posts: 2,319

    So the character by itself was 7.4GB or was that the whole bundle?

    Which character is it?

  • Matt_CastleMatt_Castle Posts: 3,004

    Havos said:

    I would rather they stick to jpg. As long as they have not massively compressed them it is very unlikely you will see any difference compared to using png

    As someone who has spent part of today painting out colour banding on JPG textures, I have nothing nice to say about them.

    High-quality JPGs frequently do not actually save that much drive space over PNG, and in some cases JPGs can actually take more space - PNG compresses things with crisp areas of flat colours very efficiently, so blank space on textures compresses well, and in cases like a black and white opacity mask, it will likely take less space in PNG than JPG.

    Vendors also do frequently use low quality settings, or use JPGs for grossly inappropriate purposes. Bump and normal maps get seriously messed up by lossy compression, to the point that Iray actually always excludes them from its own VRAM compression, yet some people will supply them compressed to oblivion.

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,575

    Matt_Castle said:

    Havos said:

    I would rather they stick to jpg. As long as they have not massively compressed them it is very unlikely you will see any difference compared to using png

    As someone who has spent part of today painting out colour banding on JPG textures, I have nothing nice to say about them.

    High-quality JPGs frequently do not actually save that much drive space over PNG, and in some cases JPGs can actually take more space - PNG compresses things with crisp areas of flat colours very efficiently, so blank space on textures compresses well, and in cases like a black and white opacity mask, it will likely take less space in PNG than JPG.

    Vendors also do frequently use low quality settings, or use JPGs for grossly inappropriate purposes. Bump and normal maps get seriously messed up by lossy compression, to the point that Iray actually always excludes them from its own VRAM compression, yet some people will supply them compressed to oblivion.

    I agree pngs should be used where they make sense, eg opacity maps or when there is a limited number of colors in the map.

    Another bad thing are those solid black maps, that eat up disk space and VRAM, and should not be in the product at all.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,253
    edited October 30

    Matt_Castle said:

    Taoz said:

    I think DAZ should teach some of their PAs how to do things right.  

    The real question is "which ones?"

    A lot of PAs use JPG for their textures, and while that saves space on disk, Iray replaces all compression with its own when it comes to renders, so the file type on disk does not save any VRAM, but can result in quality loss.

    If Iray recompresses them, it might, from a picture quality perspective, be an idea if NVidia released a library or something so image files could be saved directly in Iray format.  But that's another story and I don't know if that's feasible, just a thought.

    From my perspective, with terabytes and terabytes of storage (I have most of my libraries junctioned to keep the presets and the geometry on an SSD, but the textures on HDDs), I'd rather the vendors gave me lossless textures rather than using artefacty compressions like JPG.

    I totally agree, and I have stated that several times in other contexts.  But with a character with a total file size of 7.4 GB I thought there must be something wrong here, probably with file compression.  I have seen that with other products.  I suspect that also may be the reason for the huge size difference with the pose sets I mentioned - compressed vs uncompressed DUF files.

    So I've now analysed the character's image files.  It's mostly PNG mixed with a small amount of JPG, and most of them look reasonable in size.  However there are 48 PNG files of 116 MB or more each - a total of 5.41 GB.  I opened one, a 4096x4096 lip texture, in IrfanView, and it was completely black (transparency) except for the lip texture in the middle which is about 560x345.  

    PNG compression is lossless however, so a 4096x4096 PNG which uncompressed is normally about 48 MB, or 64 MB it you use alpha transparency, can be compressed to max level (9) without losing quality.  I tried to save the original file using both no compression and max compression, with background color for alpha transparency, they ended up being respectively 64 MB and 329 KB, the latter being almost 200 times smaller than the uncompressed.  I tried to load both versions in DS and the quality looks the same (which it should with lossless compression), but for some reason the lip color is very different and much lighter than when using the original file, no matter what PNG and transparency settings I use.

    The odd thing is the size of the original files, why are they 116+ MB instead of the normal 64 MB for a 4096x4096 image?  I did some googling and found this: 

    "PNG32 includes alpha transparency, and as such, is best for advanced stuff, like creating a transparent gradient or shadow, which allows really cool stuff, like casting shadows on other elements on a page. Be careful though, because files can quickly get quite big."

    https://beamtic.com/png-bit-depth

    But that should compression take care of, or what? 

    That said, I *do* agree that approximate install sizes should really be presented on the store pages.

    Yes, I agree. 

     

    etana_png_lip_texture_test.png
    783 x 1177 - 1M
    Post edited by Taoz on
  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,253

    IceCrMn said:

    So the character by itself was 7.4GB or was that the whole bundle?

    I don't know if it's part of a bundle, but the one I have installed is just a character.

    Which character is it?

    https://www.daz3d.com/hlme3d-etana-hd-for-genesis-9

     

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,253

    Matt_Castle said:

    Havos said:

    I would rather they stick to jpg. As long as they have not massively compressed them it is very unlikely you will see any difference compared to using png

    As someone who has spent part of today painting out colour banding on JPG textures, I have nothing nice to say about them.

    High-quality JPGs frequently do not actually save that much drive space over PNG, and in some cases JPGs can actually take more space - PNG compresses things with crisp areas of flat colours very efficiently, so blank space on textures compresses well, and in cases like a black and white opacity mask, it will likely take less space in PNG than JPG.

     I do prefer PNG as well, and if compressed the file size isn't a huge problem. But uncompressed - ugh.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,253

    Havos said:

    I agree pngs should be used where they make sense, eg opacity maps or when there is a limited number of colors in the map.

    Another bad thing are those solid black maps, that eat up disk space and VRAM, and should not be in the product at all.

    I was considering those black maps as well, as a possible cause of the size here.  I haven't checked for that, though.

  • MimicMollyMimicMolly Posts: 2,322
    edited October 30

    When buying characters I'm wary of two things the number of maps listed and the map sizes. Etana has too many maps, IMO. (Sometimes these are useless black maps that don't do anything. They should've been removed by the vendor to "optimize" them for DS.) The average ones that are roughly under or around 200 MB have like 40 or 44 maps. 8k textures make the file size bigger but it depends of it's .jpg or not, which would increase it further. That's not counting CBS's/JCMs, or if there's HD morphs involved.

    I too would prefer an approximate download size stated on the product page. That way I can make an informed decision. It's why I feel more comfortable buying at other 3D stores that state it, instead of here where it's a gamble.

    Post edited by MimicMolly on
  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,720

    Well this one does have a small clue on the product page:

    Notes

    • This product includes:
      • 3 DSON Core Installer
  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,253
    edited October 30

    MelanieL said:

    Well this one does have a small clue on the product page:

    Notes

    • This product includes:
      • 3 DSON Core Installer

    Actually it has 4, so apparently you can't trust that information.

     

    etana_installers.png
    676 x 253 - 29K
    Post edited by Taoz on
  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,720

    Taoz said:

    MelanieL said:

    Well this one does have a small clue on the product page:

    Notes

    • This product includes:
      • 3 DSON Core Installer

    Actually it has 4, so apparently you can't trust that information.

     

    Oh, even worse! I have bought a few products that claim to have 1 installer then turn out to have multiple, which is annoying. And then of course a few that have only 1 installer but it's gigantic.

    I agree 100% that it would be much better if they stated the (at least approximate) installer size(s) and ideally the installed size on the product page before you buy.

  • Ron KnightsRon Knights Posts: 2,072

    I decided many years ago to get the largest hard drive I could afford for my DAZ content.

    For years I got by with a 3TB hard drive for content and another 3TB hard drive to back it all up.

    Recently I switched to two 8TB hard drives. (Original install and backup.) I won't run out of room in the foreseable future.

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