Can we ever expect pre-4.9 characters to be updated to look good?

mambanegra

I'm surprised that I haven't seen any more frustration about these fairly new characters that have never gotten any updates so that they don't look like garbage when rendered "out of the box" in DAZ 4.9 due to the changes in IRAY and the SSS stuff. Yes, I know how to sort of fix it, but I never can come close to making them look as good as they look in 4.8. For a long time, I was sticking with 4.8 in large part because of this, but not all of the new characters have legacy textures, so you are stuck with some that only look good in one or the other unless you spend time fixing these yourself. 

This morning, I loaded up a character that I purchased back in February (and yes, I purchased her when she was released, so she was released some time after the official release of 4.9). I've just spent about an hour tweaking the settings to get her to look good enough in 4.9. That's an hour that I shouldn't have had to spend, IMHO. At least for a general setup for a one off picture that is going to end up being used as a picture in a frame in a different render...But, if I hadn't, she would have looked like a freakin' corpse, which wasn't exactly the look I was going for;)

So, now I have a decent shader, and I'll save it alongside the stuff that I paid for so that I can have a pseudo automatic fix that I can click on next time I use her...but...should I really have to do that? And, this is just one. I have quite a few that haven't been updated, some of which were favorites when 4.9 was released and resulted in my keeping 4.8 around long after I should have been able to toss it. I quit using those after some time with the expectation that the artists would eventually fix them, but at this point, I have no expectations that they plan to. Apparently DAZ is OK with selling products that look like garbage when using the latest version of DS and so are the artists. If I were new to DS, though, and I picked up one of these characters, I'd immediately request a refund and would probably pay attention to the artist's name so that I could avoid their "inferior" products (not knowing the reason they looked so bad). 

 

 

Oso3D

I picked up Iray Skin Converter.

I saved the skin settings and it takes me literally 5 seconds to apply to any earlier product, including Victoria 4.2. Here, I'll do it right now...

 

mambanegra

I have one I created for myself that sets the primary problem color for me. So, my initial starting point isn't too bad (there are posts here telling you what a typical color should be). The problem I've found, though, is each skin is different, so those settings are just the start, and then you tweak and render, tweak and render. And, on my mac, those renders take 5 or 10 minutes before I can really see much, so it can take forever just to get it acceptable. I don't think I have purchased any that are specifically for G3 figures, so those might be worth considering if they exist. 

Oddly, the G2 stuff I use never has this problem. I think those shaders don't use the more advanced stuff which changed from 4.8 to 4.9 (the G2 is converted using one of those shader converters that I purchased here) I am very happy with those results, but I think they are much simpler than what is being set up for G3, probably due to lack of the right texture maps. 

V3Digitimes

mambanegra said:

I have one I created for myself that sets the primary problem color for me. So, my initial starting point isn't too bad (there are posts here telling you what a typical color should be). The problem I've found, though, is each skin is different, so those settings are just the start, and then you tweak and render, tweak and render. And, on my mac, those renders take 5 or 10 minutes before I can really see much, so it can take forever just to get it acceptable. I don't think I have purchased any that are specifically for G3 figures, so those might be worth considering if they exist. 

Oddly, the G2 stuff I use never has this problem. I think those shaders don't use the more advanced stuff which changed from 4.8 to 4.9 (the G2 is converted using one of those shader converters that I purchased here) I am very happy with those results, but I think they are much simpler than what is being set up for G3, probably due to lack of the right texture maps. 

Indeed, G3 stuff suffered more the render engine update because the base effect used in skins by Daz and PAs was often "scatter transmit" instead of the "scatter only" which was more used on G2.

As Will mentioned (well not totally) in my skin converter and manager product, I included to make an automatic Daz Studio version detection to take into account the best way possible the render engine update when necessary. There are also skin tone (color) tools using either base color manager or base translucency presets and manager. But it seems that your issue is not setting the color but rendering when testing what you just set.

What I would advice to you is to test skin this way : with only the figure in your scene and nothing else (no props, no outfits, no hair, no nothing - well yes, you must have lights of course). For this figure you test, you set it to "base resolution" with "subdivision level 0" (you find this in parameters/ mesh resolution). This will make test renders much faster, and it is enough to see the global result. Then when you are ok and finally render, you come back to normal subdivision and resolution.

I hope this helps. It allows to gain time.

mambanegra

So, your converters actually generate different shaders depending on which version of Studio it is used in? If so, that's very cool! I have all of the others, but I didn't buy the G3 version for some reason. Probably because it didn't seem necessary to me at the time...arg

As for render times, the biggest problem is just that Apple doesn't sell anything with NVidea. Apparently the leadership there really do think that there is no difference in what you would need a computer for and what you would be using an iPad for is the input decides (keyboard/mouse vs touch screen). Maybe they should start eating their own dogfood for a change? So, yeah, the hair probably does double the amount of time, but it would still be minutes before I got the first pixelated image, so I wouldn't just sit there watching it anyway. But, your point is valid and I probably should do that. 

kyoto kid

...this is what has been preventing  me from updating as I have a lot of characters with skins I spent a lot of time on to get them to look as realistic as possible, some of which were created with Skin Builder Pro and LIE overlays. I pretty much am still working with G2 as I don't have the financial resources to buy a lot of individual characters to get skins for G3 since older skins are no longer compatible without some form of conversion (waiting on the release of Skin Builder Pro3).

mambanegra

kyoto kid said:

...this is what has been preventing  me from updating as I have a lot of characters with skins I spent a lot of time on to get them to look as realistic as possible, some of which were created with Skin Builder Pro and LIE overlays. I pretty much am still working with G2 as I don't have the financial resources to buy a lot of individual characters to get skins for G3 since older skins are no longer compatible without some form of conversion (waiting on the release of Skin Builder Pro3).

I could very well be wrong, but I don't think these problems affect 3Delight, which seems to be what you would be using (I am too new to DS to know much about the 3Delight stuff, so forgive me if those work with IRay). Of course, I have no idea how 3Delight runs in 4.9, but the comic shaders I've played with seem fine. 

I was solely a poser user forever and never really "got" 3Delight. I tried and was just starting to be satisfied with what I could do with it when they added IRay, which impressed me so much, that I went out and bought my first Windows computer in over 10 years, lol. 

I still use G2. Probably more often than G3, in part, thanks to V3Digitimes' scripts. They allow me to have very nice looking figures without having to really know how to work the render engine as well as 3Delight seemed to require. I would use V4 if it wasn't such a pain to switch over to the other set of runtimes...lol. Yes, I'm that lazy:O V3Digi's V4 shaders make those characters look as good as G2...and boy, do I have a ton of stuff for those old figures (well...the females...M4 probably has more than G2M, but only by a bit...)

V3Digitimes

mambanegra said:

So, your converters actually generate different shaders depending on which version of Studio it is used in? If so, that's very cool! I have all of the others, but I didn't buy the G3 version for some reason. Probably because it didn't seem necessary to me at the time...arg

As for render times, the biggest problem is just that Apple doesn't sell anything with NVidea. Apparently the leadership there really do think that there is no difference in what you would need a computer for and what you would be using an iPad for is the input decides (keyboard/mouse vs touch screen). Maybe they should start eating their own dogfood for a change? So, yeah, the hair probably does double the amount of time, but it would still be minutes before I got the first pixelated image, so I wouldn't just sit there watching it anyway. But, your point is valid and I probably should do that. 

Yes the converters do not apply the same shader if you are in 4.8 or 4.9. The main difference relies on the way scattering  parameters are set up (because it's the essential part touched by the render engine update). Maybe it is not necessary to have the product if you're ready to tweak the scattering parameters. There are if I remember well less than 10 to  play with. Yet you will not have the same skin results in 4.8 and 4.9. I prefer the ones in 4.9 even if the ones of 4.8 are more robust to texture sets changes. You can approach 4.8 results in 4.9 working on the scattering parameters but you will never reach the exact same skins.

If you are on a Mac, I know already a few people who managed to install a titan or a 980 video card on their Mac. I don't know very well Mac but it maybe possible to add a Nvidia card. Maybe there is already a thread about that on the subject? But yes it's a pity there is no basic Mac products already with Nvidia in.

 

kyoto kid said:

...this is what has been preventing  me from updating as I have a lot of characters with skins I spent a lot of time on to get them to look as realistic as possible, some of which were created with Skin Builder Pro and LIE overlays. I pretty much am still working with G2 as I don't have the financial resources to buy a lot of individual characters to get skins for G3 since older skins are no longer compatible without some form of conversion (waiting on the release of Skin Builder Pro3).

I can understand this choice. As a PA I had no choice but if I was a user I would have had the same wonders as you have. I don't regret my update, on the contrary, but you should have seen my head the day I discovered I was going to have to develop and script two shaders! My mouth fall off my head! I think the danger is mainly for people who make graphic novels or things like that. Not being able to get the same skin is impossible for them. Well maybe you'll update later on when you'll feel more ready.