Opinions On Elderwood Cathedral?
miladyderyni_173d399f47
Posts: 3,209
in The Commons
I am very tempted by https://www.daz3d.com/elderwood-cathedral. It makes me want to do Tolkien inspired art. If anyone has had a chance to play with it, I want to know what you think of it before I buy. Is it resource heavy? Do windows, doors & such (if any open & close)?
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Comments
I've only downloaded the file. It is 1.4 G.
?!!!!!!
I'm tired of these bloated files that disrespect my memory. Disk space has doubled in price. RETURNED.
It does have 74 4K maps. You can of course down-size them, while the reverse is not true.
Blame Cloudflare for duplicate posts
Usually the What's Included section will list the number and size range of the texture files at the end - that was where I got the 74 4K images in my last post from.
I was afraid of that. Guess I will pass. These giant files are becoming a big problem. And AFAIK, there isn't a way to see the file sizes before buying. I've only seen them on product download pages.
I just bought an outfit I've wanted a long time. The DIM download keeps failing & I think it's because the files are so large. I'm trying once more & if it doesn't work, I am returning it.
Super-Size me - NOT!
I would do that, if the set would download. I plan to try that with some outfits with similar large files that did download.
Separate 4K & 2K files--like KitBash3D does it--give me the flexibility I need.
That would make the download bigger unless they had it in 2 download files.
Hence, "Separate 4K & 2K files."
Yes, PA, please understand that file size has become a serious problem. I'm reducing my purchases because there's no space to install them, and I have to use the money I would have spent on DAZ products to buy an expensive SSD.
That said, the atmosphere of this building is truly fantastic. I love the feeling of ruins with plants entwined around it, and the price is absolutely wonderful.
...the price of DDR5 memory has shot up nearly tenfold since last fall. Even DDR4 (which is considered legacy technology) had gone up in price almost sevenfold. As to GPUs, an RTX 4090 today goes for between 4,400 - 4,500 USD (price at release was 1,599 USD).That is up there with the RTX 4500 Ada Pro grade card.
The current cost for the upgrade I need [new MB, CPU+Cooler, Memory, 1 TB M2 boot drive, and WIn 11 Pro] is now 4,940 USD (actually bought a lottery ticket at the grocery market today), Feel like I'm back in the 1980s again when a base IBM PC-XT with 128KB of memory and 10 MB HDD was around the same price.
You can ask Daz Studio to compress some files by using the Batch Convert tool, the data folder being the one where you can gain the most.
But only do it on PA folder at a time, asking DS to do the whole data folder in one go will likely result in Daz Studio being stuck listing every file inside that folder for hours…
I don't think it's meant to be a ruin
at least it doesn't look like one
more a cathederal made of trees trained to form an arch with stonework around them
...today's Better Than Daz+ item is even worse than Tuesday's with 129 4096 resolution textures. While it;s nice to have a new daily 1.99 item as an option to QG and the OS to increase your punches (particularly with the Doorbusters essentially being just another set of "Debut New Releases"), but these "weighty" textures almost make them useless for many of us who donlt have a high VRAM (> than 12 GB) GPU and boatload of memory. .
https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer
Seriously, it doesn't matter how many ways there are to reduce file size after download, if the files won't download in the first place.
I just downloaded them without issues.
what sort of internet do you have!
I am in Adelaide Australia on 5G and don't have any issues, and that's not the greatest at times
(I used to have a 3G dongle back in the day then later used my phone as a hotspot!)
(buffering on my TV during popular times not unusual)
I thought every developed country had better internet than Australia and that's the fibre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds
I have very good, swift fiber optic that is up to the scary-giant
files. With our old DSL, it often took DIM long times and multiple tries to download nearly anything due to slow speeds and dropping. Since we got fiber (& a laptop with an RTX4050), it has only taken seconds to install via DIM. The 1.2G outfit in question is the only product I can't install. I actually just made a return ticket because my vain DL attempts had taken away my enthusiasm for the outfit.
(I hear you on bad Internet speeds. We live in a very rural US area & those have always been underserved with internet; not just speed, but access. Our area is lucky because the local rural electric co-op decided to offer the service and build the infrastructure from the ground up (the way these co-ops brought electricity to the rural US a century or so ago).)
This might be something that can help with file size if Daz decides to support it.
It's big. It looks good from what I've seen of it. I managed to export it to Blender entire (48G RAM + 8G VRAM) using Diffeomorphic.
It technically is a ruin, but not an abandoned one. Part of the ceiling and supporting arches are broken or missing. But there isn't fallen stone. It's been cleaned up, and some of the missing parts are replaced by branches: someone apparently has been practicing tree-shaping: the set implies intentional past action to put it in its current condition, after it began to fall. I haven't done a full render, but I like the look of the stonework I've seen so far.
It's heavy enough when the whole thing is loaded that's it's awkward to move freely in Blender on my laptop -- much easier to skip around from camera to camera. It's usually way easier and faster to move around a large set in Blender than it is in Daz Studio (one of the reasons I've been exporting), so I don't think I'd try to do anything with this in Studio. But for $2 I got it and another freebie, and I'm happy with it.
Yes, the environment is 1.2GB, but it stays that size after downloaded. Today I download three hairs and each expanded at least twice or three times the size of the zip file, into 900+MB to 1 - 2GB sizes. And this is common now. I had absolutely no problems downloading any of these files with DIM on my Mac or my Windows 11. But I have also learned to handle the larger files carefully and do them one at a time for the past year.
On my MacMini M4 I rendered the cathedral with Skies of Gaia and it took 1 hr, 45 minutes. It is only 1000 square.
It is gorgeous. And worth it.
Mary
it took a while to load the exported obj into Twinmotion, but once loaded and materials consolidated, most of the maps used (I skip the bump files as no slot for them) it only used 9000MB of VRAM rendering with Lumen
not sharing resulting video as I want to work more on the ambience, a HDR background didn't look good, will go for volumetric clouds and realistic sky instead I think, in D|S it uses sun only not dome and I see why
I rendered a few still in D|S just using the included camera shots for reference and it wasn't particularly demanding, 5000MB VRAM, I have 11GB on my 2080Ti
I did use instancify on it though
I had the download fail once, then it did complete on the second attempt. Big files can be an issue, certainly.
It's not 'highly optimised' - so that's a good idea
It also benefits from Scene Optimizer (because it large enough set - especially if you're using DOF)
If there was a useable gallery it would be popular - it makes some gorgeous stills