3Delight - The slowest rendering engine.

agent unawares

Parris said:

This year I got the opportunity to work with the 3delight team on this issue, and the remedy reveals that it was not about the 3delight render engine itself, but rather about a conflict between the Image Based Light shaders and the surface shaders we commonly use.

But, the problem does not only occur with IBL.

Kevin Sanderson

Check this thread out: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/215066/ibl-master-image-based-lighting-control-for-both-renderers-a-new-ibl-for-3delight-commercial/p1

kyoto kid

Oso3D said:

ChuckM said:

Could you tell me more about the "EZ Fog Atmospheric camera," please?

http://www.daz3d.com/atmospheric-effects-cameras-for-daz-studio

I only ever use the EZ volume camera and sometimes the depth camera.

Now, the set is slightly broken -- there's supposed to be a way to flag lights by things like light strength and whatnot, which no longer works. HOWEVER, you can still use 'category' to flag lights as foglights.

What am I talking about?

You can set the camera to add in the effect of fog but to only take into account certain lights. So, I can type in 'foglight' into the category field of, say, a distant light, and when the camera fills in fog effects, it ONLY pays attention to where the distant light is coming from, and ignores ambient light, bounce lights, or whatever else I might be using.

One trick I like is to have two distant lights -- one with Shadow softness set to 0% and category 'foglight,' the other with shadow softness 100% or 200%. The first light makes for sharper, more obvious godray effect, the second has a softer lighting that works better on figures.

 

...yeah flagging when using the SSS shader hasn't worked since Daz 4.7. It still can be used but you sort of have do so in "reverse" (flagging all the elements of the scene rather than the characters) which can be pretty tedious in a big scene.  There have been some fixes that get the Colour and Vignettte caemras working again.

kyoto kid

mjc1016 said:

Remove the DoF and the godrays from the 3DL one, make it the same size and see how long it takes...DoF, by itself can double render times.

Make it the same aspect ratio.  And if you really want to get into, adjust the bucket size of the 3DL render so it is doing full buckets in the last row (column) depending on which bucket order you are using.  By adjusting the bucket size to fit exactly you aren't wasting the time making a row/column of partial buckets...that basically shaves as much time as it takes to render a row   (difference between rendering 9 row or 8 rows...because it's still going to render 9 rows even if only 8.5 'fit' the image, unless adjusted to fit).   Also enable progressive rendering in 3DL to enable the much faster raytrace hider (rendering mode).

Comparing render speeds needs to be done using the same effects and settings (or as close as you can get) in order to be a valid comparrison.

...that is what I did with my girls at the bus stop test back when Iray was first introduced. I essentially used the exact same scene, just that I saved one copy with an "I" after the name (for Iray as) in which I converted all the shaders over manually to corresponding Uber Iray ones and a free set of Iray car paint shaders (as that was all I had at the time) so it didn't have to perform that task while rendering (which I learned slowed the process down). 

The differences:

For lighting the Iray scene I just used the Iray Sun/Sky (positioning with with the Sun Dial) with Dome "on" for the GI component.  For glowing items I used a minimal luminosity emissive shader (in the 3DL version I simply increased the Ambient channel). 

The 3DL version also used SSS as well as AoA's advanced Ambient and two Distant lights (one to "fake" bounce lighting form the road/pavement surfaces).  I also ran the optimisation pass for 3DL separately. 

Both versions had reflective elements (the windows of the shelter, the car paint/chrome, the bus windows/chrome, a concave traffic mirror, and the bottle by the trash bin), as well as scene elements behind the camera to create reflections in the shelter windows.

The results, the 3DL scene rendered in just under 15 min.  The Iray one in the neighbourhood of 2hrs 10 min.   Even adding in the 3DL optimisation pass, that would have only increased the time by about 3 - 4 minutes.  Both scenes looked good though, on closer examination, the surface textures in the Iray one appeared flat and somewhat featureless (due to there being a difference in scale values between the engines for displacement and bump which I learned about later).

True the shadows in the Iray scene appeared more "real" and the reflection in the parabolic mirror looked cleaner.  The GI of course was also better lending to a more "photographic" quality.  Howeve,r the 3DL one came pretty darn close and with a few adjustments (slightly changing the shadow colour and intensity while using a 10% softeness setting) as well as slightly turning up the ambient light a small percentage, the two would have looked pretty similar to each other without affecting the render time of the 3DL much or at all.

outrider42

You know, with everybody talking about how slow or fast one of these engines is, very few are actually listing what hardware they are doing this with; because that kind of matters...a LOT. These are completely different engines, and it should be fairly obvious that a machine designed around Iray probably isn't the best for 3DL. And if you do not have a decent Nvidia GPU, then Iray is a very painful experience. So arguing about which is faster is pretty pointless because the hardware requirements are totally different. 3DL is CPU only, so you need a good high core CPU to best take advantage of it. Or servers. While Iray can use a CPU, make no mistake it is geared towards Nvidia's brand of GPU, so you need a good Nvidia GPU to really make the best use of it.

Mainstream CPUs have been stuck on 4 cores for a very, very, long time. Its only in the past year that CPUs with more than 4 fast cores have become a true reality for desktop use. While the Daz user base has wildly different hardware and GPU setups, I would be willing to bet that vast majority of that same Daz user base has a CPU with just 4 cores, whether it be a Core 2 Quad from 2007, or a brand new i7. Obviously a new i7 will stomp a Core 2 Quad, but the advance in hardware is not as extreme as the jump from a high end GPU from 2007 versus a new GPU like the 1080ti.

To hammer that point home, you can render Iray on a Core 2 Quad. You cannot render Iray with a GTX 8800. Nor can you realistically run a modern video game with a GTX 8800, but you could run a modern game with a Core 2 Quad based machine if you have a newer GPU in it (granted, it would not play well, it would bottleneck badly, but it is still possible to play many games that way if you really wanted.)

Oso3D

Iray in CPU renders about as fast as 3dl, currently, assuming you are trying to do similar things.

That may change, or you might prefer the default settings of 3dl so it’s less work.

But if you want fairly realistic images, you can just as easily use Iray, even without an NVIDIA card.

kyoto kid

outrider42 said:

You know, with everybody talking about how slow or fast one of these engines is, very few are actually listing what hardware they are doing this with; because that kind of matters...a LOT. These are completely different engines, and it should be fairly obvious that a machine designed around Iray probably isn't the best for 3DL. And if you do not have a decent Nvidia GPU, then Iray is a very painful experience. So arguing about which is faster is pretty pointless because the hardware requirements are totally different. 3DL is CPU only, so you need a good high core CPU to best take advantage of it. Or servers. While Iray can use a CPU, make no mistake it is geared towards Nvidia's brand of GPU, so you need a good Nvidia GPU to really make the best use of it.

Mainstream CPUs have been stuck on 4 cores for a very, very, long time. Its only in the past year that CPUs with more than 4 fast cores have become a true reality for desktop use. While the Daz user base has wildly different hardware and GPU setups, I would be willing to bet that vast majority of that same Daz user base has a CPU with just 4 cores, whether it be a Core 2 Quad from 2007, or a brand new i7. Obviously a new i7 will stomp a Core 2 Quad, but the advance in hardware is not as extreme as the jump from a high end GPU from 2007 versus a new GPU like the 1080ti.

To hammer that point home, you can render Iray on a Core 2 Quad. You cannot render Iray with a GTX 8800. Nor can you realistically run a modern video game with a GTX 8800, but you could run a modern game with a Core 2 Quad based machine if you have a newer GPU in it (granted, it would not play well, it would bottleneck badly, but it is still possible to play many games that way if you really wanted.)

...very slowly.  Even with my old first generation i7 (4 physical plus 4 virtual cores) Iray takes a long time. A core 2 quad, I'd say at the very least 50% slower than what I currently experience. 

On another front, apparently there was an update to 3DL recently that allows UE to run more efficiently (and thus a bit faster).  I'll have to try re-rendering one of my UE scenes to check this.

Parris

scorpio said:

algovincian said:

Oso3D said:

When are those fixes due to be implemented?

And, will they be adopted formally as the new "DAZ default 3DL" shader?

- Greg

And is it only the default shader what about Uber surface 2 layered shader AoA shaders etc.

I'm going to presume that its any transmapped item leaves etc were another problem trees always slowed down 3dl renders then add hair and you could be waiting forever.

Sorry, it was not my intention to be ambiguous. I just wanted to contribute something relevant to the OP and others dealing with the same issue (to offer some good news, not a solution to everything). But since no one had posted here since June of 2016, I wasn't expecting this much inquiry so fast.

@Oso3D: The fixes come in the form of the product I'm offering called IBL Master. The commercial thread is here (as Kevin Sanderson pointed out; Thanks Kevin): https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/215066/ibl-master-image-based-lighting-control-for-both-renderers-a-new-ibl-for-3delight-commercial . The release date has been scheduled. Sorry I'm not allowed to say when, but "soon" seems reasonable.

@algovincian: Surface shaders will not need to be changed because the workaround exists in the new IBL shader that comes with the product. Essentially, it knows what to ignore.

@scorpio: You are correct. All transmaps were effected, not just hair.

In the commercial thread, I do provide specific stats (comparing my old GPU which is driving the 3delight results to my high cuda core Nvidia card which is driving the Iray results). To be clear, I am not presenting a cure all or suggesting that one render engine is better than the other. I'm just offering a product which gives Daz Studio users improvements whether they use Iray, 3Delight, or both. Both the team at 3delight and Daz helped me get this done. This is good news I promise you. Below is one stat example:

kyoto kid

...3DL in Daz only renders on the CPU.

algovincian

Parris said:

@algovincian: Surface shaders will not need to be changed because the workaround exists in the new IBL shader that comes with the product. Essentially, it knows what to ignore.

I was thinking about it from an adoption/support standpoint - like maybe PAs would be more likely to include 3DL mats if the default 3DL shader in DS were more robust.

- Greg

Parris

algovincian said:

Parris said:

@algovincian: Surface shaders will not need to be changed because the workaround exists in the new IBL shader that comes with the product. Essentially, it knows what to ignore.

I was thinking about it from an adoption/support standpoint - like maybe PAs would be more likely to include 3DL mats if the default 3DL shader in DS were more robust.

- Greg

Got you. I can't speak to what Daz or other PAs will do. In either case I would speculate they have plenty on their plates. But personally, I would like the opportunity to develop new shaders for 3DL (physically based, energy conservative, etc.). Time will tell, but I'm hopeful.

I think the DS Default was very solid for it's time (still is in many ways). But no doubt you are aware that PAs use other shader resources included with DS besides the DS Default, specifically shaders developed by AoA and Omnifreaker for example. So this fact adds more to the presedent for what you are suggesting.

Ivy

Angel - Wings said:

I have used 3Delight, iray, and reality for some time now. I've come to the conclusion that 3Delight is the slowest render engine out there. This isnt true if you use the very botton of the line basic settings, but add any sort of quality to 3delight and you go from a 4 minute render, to a 10 hour long render. Add SSS and Uber surface, with uber lighting with enough samples and shading rate to clear all the noise, and your looking at at least 8 hours, for a moderate sized image. Where as iray, and reality, you can get the same image, with higher quailty, in half the time... It's amazing that what was once was the fast engine, is now one of the slowest. I've waited a few time, upwards to 2 and a half hours just for the SSS to calculate in a scene, before it was willing to even render... I love 3Delight, for its diversty, but I can't stand how long it take to make anything with and sort of quality. I hope they update 3delight one of these times, to be more competitive... though... I doubt that will ever happen now that iray is the primary render engine for Daz. Those are my thoughts on 3delight.

Sorry to hear your experiencing slow 3delight renders. But if 3dl was the slowest RE(render engine) in the land .  I would never get any animations rendered. 3dl to me is much faster than iray. I have a ton, lot more control over shadows, light colors, and dramatic lighting effects.   The biggest thing I found about 3delight its not the graphic card power you need its how many CPU cores or how fast/powerful your CPU is. add that to how huge your render size and you can get some long renders,       An i5 3700 dual 4 cores is much slower rendering 3delight  than a i7 2400 quad 8+ core with Hyper-threading enabled.  More CPU core the faster 3delight renders, its just like Iray the more GPU cores you have the faster Iray renders, its all relevant to your system & scene set up.

I can usually render a 300 keyframes( of PNG renders)@ 1920 x1080 with 3delight in about a hour and a half average render time with my set up. that is with my typical UE2 light dome & 6 ights  I also use low bump  SSS maps or no bumps maps at all for my characters.   if I have a lot of characters or props in the scene then it will take obliviously longer to finish.  But 3DL is just like IRAY its all relevant to your system & scene set up. one thing i can tell you from experience though with 3dl is it does render most long hair props very slow. especially if you have the bump maps values set high.  But then again my set up and needs are much different than someone rendering portraits or art work for print or promo work.. I don't need my renders as defined in details for animation.

 

algovincian

Parris said:

algovincian said:

Parris said:

@algovincian: Surface shaders will not need to be changed because the workaround exists in the new IBL shader that comes with the product. Essentially, it knows what to ignore.

I was thinking about it from an adoption/support standpoint - like maybe PAs would be more likely to include 3DL mats if the default 3DL shader in DS were more robust.

- Greg

Got you. I can't speak to what Daz or other PAs will do. In either case I would speculate they have plenty on their plates. But personally, I would like the opportunity to develop new shaders for 3DL (physically based, energy conservative, etc.). Time will tell, but I'm hopeful.

I think the DS Default was very solid for it's time (still is in many ways). But no doubt you are aware that PAs use other shader resources included with DS besides the DS Default, specifically shaders developed by AoA and Omnifreaker for example. So this fact adds more to the presedent for what you are suggesting.

Looking forward to your future work @Parris - cheers!

- Greg

aikido_s

Parris said:

scorpio said:

algovincian said:

Oso3D said:

 

Sorry, it was not my intention to be ambiguous. I just wanted to contribute something relevant to the OP and others dealing with the same issue (to offer some good news, not a solution to everything). But since no one had posted here since June of 2016, I wasn't expecting this much inquiry so fast.

@Oso3D: The fixes come in the form of the product I'm offering called IBL Master. The commercial thread is here (as Kevin Sanderson pointed out; Thanks Kevin): https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/215066/ibl-master-image-based-lighting-control-for-both-renderers-a-new-ibl-for-3delight-commercial . The release date has been scheduled. Sorry I'm not allowed to say when, but "soon" seems reasonable.

@algovincian: Surface shaders will not need to be changed because the workaround exists in the new IBL shader that comes with the product. Essentially, it knows what to ignore.

@scorpio: You are correct. All transmaps were effected, not just hair.

In the commercial thread, I do provide specific stats (comparing my old GPU which is driving the 3delight results to my high cuda core Nvidia card which is driving the Iray results). To be clear, I am not presenting a cure all or suggesting that one render engine is better than the other. I'm just offering a product which gives Daz Studio users improvements whether they use Iray, 3Delight, or both. Both the team at 3delight and Daz helped me get this done. This is good news I promise you. Below is one stat example:

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't IBL the same as using an HDR? and if so, why everyone is saying 3delight doesn't support IBL...uberenvironment can use HDRs!!

 

kyoto kid

...just re-rendered the girls at the bus stop scene in 3DL after making a couple changes to the lighting and shadows, and it sitll finished in under 15 min.

ColemanRugh

Uber and AoA lights make 3DL take forever to render. Without them it takes mere minutes. 3DL does incredible shadows without much light manipulation at all. Better than Poser at its best. I'd say shadows is 3DL's true power. It's incredibly forgiving with shadows in any light set-up. Uber and A0A stuff has nothing to do with 3DL... they were guesswork work arounds to the lazy rendering habits of most hobby render artists that at the time DAZ had to deal with.

Your skin does not glow in the dark like 3DL is made to do with Uber and AoA stuff. SS in 3Dl also makes the skin have a 'bulge' effect accentuating bump/displacement... it's doing all kinds of uneccesary render work.

Yes... with SSS and crazy high res fiber mesh hair 3DL bogs down... but who needs that? Vendors have gotten lazy. They used to have to model with constraints of mesh in mind. IRAY alleviates all their concerns and they don't need to make any complicated textures ( which they didn't have to ake for 3DL either but everyone jumped on the SSS bandwagon and made them think they had to ). So, I can totally understand why vendors love IRAY.

The 3DL HSS skin is actually... fine. And it renders in minutes. Can IRAY do that?

kyoto kid

...both the girls' skin in the scene I described have SSS applied. I also used the AoA lights instead of UE.

Sven Dullah

ColemanRugh said:

Uber and AoA lights make 3DL take forever to render. Without them it takes mere minutes. 3DL does incredible shadows without much light manipulation at all. Better than Poser at its best. I'd say shadows is 3DL's true power. It's incredibly forgiving with shadows in any light set-up. Uber and A0A stuff has nothing to do with 3DL... they were guesswork work arounds to the lazy rendering habits of most hobby render artists that at the time DAZ had to deal with.

Your skin does not glow in the dark like 3DL is made to do with Uber and AoA stuff. SS in 3Dl also makes the skin have a 'bulge' effect accentuating bump/displacement... it's doing all kinds of uneccesary render work.

Yes... with SSS and crazy high res fiber mesh hair 3DL bogs down... but who needs that? Vendors have gotten lazy. They used to have to model with constraints of mesh in mind. IRAY alleviates all their concerns and they don't need to make any complicated textures ( which they didn't have to ake for 3DL either but everyone jumped on the SSS bandwagon and made them think they had to ). So, I can totally understand why vendors love IRAY.

The 3DL HSS skin is actually... fine. And it renders in minutes. Can IRAY do that?

I had a look at your profile and noticed you've been here since 2003. This post of yours is a piece of art in itself.

Parris

aikido_s said:

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't IBL the same as using an HDR? and if so, why everyone is saying 3delight doesn't support IBL...uberenvironment can use HDRs!!

No, aikido-s, you're not wrong. Speaking for myself, I am definitely not saying 3delight doesn't support Image Based Light using a High Dynamic Range image. It does, and very well I might add.

What I am saying (fact not opinion) is that Daz Studio's implementation of IBL with 3delight has been limited until now, because controlling lighting direction has not worked properly until now (no one's fault because it was an issue that was very difficult to diagnose). The programming teams at Daz and 3delight helped me fix it, and the fix is in IBL Master.

There is also an issue with speed in UE caused by a conflict with the surface shaders we commonly use and transmapping. IBL Master get's around that by ignoring certain extraneous data without effecting the quality of the render. So it is significantly faster.

Another issue with UE2 is that the UVs for the preview/background sphere are inside-out and it is rotated arbitrarily to compensate.

UE2 also doesn't handle specular and ray traced reflections, so you need to add other lights to compensate. Not so for IBL Master.

Additionally there is a problem with how UE2 mixes occlusion with transmission when dealing with modern HDRs because it is very old and uses 3DL functions that are now depreciated. The result is broken looking shading like you see below.

dynagirlsdaddy_c70e7535d2

I've been seeing these debates on 3Delight vs Iray, and have kept out of it... But I have to say, I either have had far better computers than most of the users on here(which I doubt), or something else is going on, because even when I've maxed out settings on 3Delight renders, they usually take like 10 minutes or less to render. Even though I prefer Iray, at baseline settings takes at least an hour(unless the lighting is set up for a space shot then it takes 30 minutes or less). If I put the settings at half maximum, I'm looking at 8-10 hours minimum. Max them out, and I've stopped renders at 16 hours. So I just don't get where this complaint about 3Delight being slow and crappy comes from. I prefer Iray, only for the photorealism. But at least for me and my friend Jon(who will NOT use Iray, unless for cg fx), 3Delight is clearly faster, and I have seen and done myself renders with it that look amazing, with far less time than Iray.

Daywalker Designs

ColemanRugh, every tutorial I've seen on making content for DAZ Studio (and probably to a lesser extent Poser) stresses economy of polygons, meaning use the fewest you possibly can to accomplish your goal. My personal target for an item is under 10k depending on what it is; shirts or pants/skirts will be about half that, whereas a full bodysuit may go a little over. As for the topic, the only time I've seen slow renders is if I'm using UberEnviroment with a lot of glass or transmapped hair; I've never seen this with AoA lights.

kyoto kid

...same with the test I ran.  The scene had hair, foliage, glass, and reflections along with eh SSS for the skin.

I will be running another test using SBP to build the skins for the characters (which I didn't have when I did the initial test years ago).

akmerlow

So, 2 years later, what's general opinion?
Btw i can't see that Modo vs Iray comparison from linkedin, was there a mirror?

Oso3D

My opinion:

Comparing apples to apples, 3DL is roughly on par with Iray with CPU.

If you have a GPU, Iray is generally better. If you are happy with very simplified light models, 3DL is better; you can adjust Iray toward less realism, but it can't simplify past a certain point.

Like I'd say 3DL's realism dial goes from 1-8, while Iray's realism dial goes from 3-10.

 

akmerlow

And what you advise to study for those who come? I've read discussions and there were so many things (AoA, HSS, SSS, UE, HDRi...) for both worlds, so head feels overburdened

3141592654

Hmmm ... I do not know if this has been mentioned before, but one of the benefits of Daz Studio is an unlocked version of 3Delight. So, just like buying a GPU with more Cuda cores brings increased speed, buying a CPU with more cores brings increased speed. My new system has 14 cores and it moves along quite nicely ... and I know there are systems with 32 or possibly even more cores out there. So it is difficult to compare apples to apples. For example, if you have a 2 or maybe 4 core CPU but an nvidia 1080ti graphics card - there will be no comparison, but compare a 4 core system with a more modest nvidia 960m (my laptop) and comparisons can occur.

akmerlow

My computers are following:

1)  laptop from ~2012:
i7-2620m @ 2,7 ghz / 4 gb ram / nvs 4200m (up to 1 gb? perhaps)

Surely i only use 3delight on that, and ram is a bottleneck now, can't handle genesis2 or modern hair well etc

2) desktop from ~2015
i5-6500 @ 3.2 ghz / 16 gb ram / nvidia 960 gtx (4 gb)

Surely quicker for 3delight, and i also try iray on it too...  Though, as i understand, it's just 4 cores ?!

kyoto kid

Oso3D said:

My opinion:

Comparing apples to apples, 3DL is roughly on par with Iray with CPU.

If you have a GPU, Iray is generally better. If you are happy with very simplified light models, 3DL is better; you can adjust Iray toward less realism, but it can't simplify past a certain point.

Like I'd say 3DL's realism dial goes from 1-8, while Iray's realism dial goes from 3-10.

 

..the first statement is true, if you are also using UE in 3DL (which is very resource demanding), and not reducing render/image quality in Iray.

Been pushing 3DL to "9" here (without UE).

deleted user

Once you have a GTX 1070 and beyond, 3DL becomes irrelevant. Not just quality wise, but rendertime as well... I wont say iray is photoreal... I think we have a long way to go before photorealism hits free public access. iray is a leap forward forsure but... I hope iray isnt the endgame of Daz3D. iray has some serious bugs, and rendering weirdness... espeically when rendering human skin against an enviorment that isnt an HDRI. Skin in iray is .. funky, to say the least. The skin either renders like translucent chocolate, a pale hard stone, like chalky cement. And the inbetween is no more realistic then 3DL in many cases. You can pretty much forget rendering pale skin, realisticly in iray. I've been trying for years and not been successful once...

deleted user

Not to mention the decline of skin sets in modern times... the new look of skin is like synthtic barbie Andrioids... You have to put the bump value to 50 to see any detail and then its just noise... You may as well just pic a diffuse color and click the render button.. you get about the same level of detail.