Iray to 3Delight?
WF3D
Posts: 44
in The Commons
As much as I like the visual style of Iray, I do not have an Nvdia card, so Iray is way too slow for me. 3Delight is a far better alternative for me in terms of speed. However, I am seeing more and more really interesting characters and items being offered (here and elsewhere) which are Iray-only. Is there a reliable way to convert Iray textures to 3Delight format?
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Comments
No one has yet programmed an Iray to 3DL converter.
You're best bet is to do it by hand. Tedious. But that's all you've got right now.
Can someone point us in the direction of basic instructions and principles on how to go about that?
Thanks.
Wow thanks Will! Can you just select all the shaders together and apply ubersurface 2, then tweak individually as desired?
I know the phone thing. Mine won't let me put spaces in.
Not for nuthin', but what about considering getting an Nvidia card?
Good news is the 1070 & 1080 have just hit the market, so what was current generation only weeks ago now has dropped in price. New, or lots of people unloading their old cards.
Yeah, I've got everything except the card. The 1000 series from Nvidea doesn't have support for Iray at the moment so I won't invest until everything sorts itself out there. Also 3 delight doesn't use a GPU, it's a CPU only render engine. I know I can render in Iray with the CPU, but I really like the effects available from rendering in 3delight as well. I figure if I just keep learning 3delight for now, then when I get a GPU it will make learning Iray quicker, just from the perspective that it will be faster.
Funny, been using DS for years and have never done a full render in 3Delight, always luxrender, Octane or Iray.
The answer is pretty simple: Where ever Iray is mentioned people start talking about their Graphic Cards. So Iray Discussions are always boring, artists lose interest and remember how much they enjoy 3Delight. ;-)
Good for all of you who enjoy good discussions about Grapic Cards, but now back to topic! What about conversion of Iray Shaders to 3Delight? Is Timmins Williams the only one who did it?
Are there easy ways? More difficult ways but worth the effort? Simple but effective tricks? Or just forget it and do not buy products with Iray only materials?
Actually, I suppose I'm using 3delight more for the not realistic effect. I'm really keen to explore aspects of both in Iray.
So basically you just convert the shader base and tweak any settings that need it.
Maybe I would enjoy both Render Engines too, but good informations about Iray are burried between everyones Hardware Specs. Novica tried to filter out the good informations in the Iray Organized References. But her last post is from September 2015, so I guess she gave up on this. Noone can blame her, reading through hundreds of pages about other peoples hardware specs is just a waste of time. Respect, that she made it so far!!!
There is a script out there to prepare 3Delight Shaders for rendering in Blender with the Cycles Engine. Luxus and Reality convert 3Delight Shaders to LuxRender Materials. And there is also Octane wich converts 3Delight Shaders. Even in Iray we can render 3Delight Shaders with decent results. So it looks like 3Delight Shaders are the most versatile thing we have in DAZ Studio. While products with Iray Only Materials are pretty useless, unless you buy the latest Nvidia Graphics Card.
Thanks for the suggestions to convert a single prop, but what about the larger Environment Sets? Apply the UberSurface Shader Base and tweak each single surface? Waste your time with Iray to 3Delight Conversion just to figure out it is not worth the effort? Or is it worth the effort? Can someone show examples?
If noone can provide an acceptable workflow for converting Iray Shaders to 3Delight, I stick with my own prefered method: I do not care about Iray and care even less about products with Iray Only Materials. Saves time and money!
MN-150374, thanks heaps for the heads up on the script for Blender Cycles. Thats another thing I want to do when I get ahold of that GPU.
Well one thing that is at least worth a try is to just try a render in 3delight with the iray material still on the objets. I'm sometimes surprised at how good that works, but (yes there is always a but) some Iray materials just don't work in 3delight and some look wacky and on top render time goes up. But with the results of that try you can alter more precisely what needs altering and stop wasting time. I just got the UE2 so I'm not sure how good it works with applying that, will try that in the near future. Critical part is where emissive surfaces were used in Iray. You can dial up the ambient for that ( make it unlimited) but its still not emissive. so you nead to cheat with a light of some sort if you want that.
Really? That's pretty offensive. Some artists also happen to be tech geeks. Kind of goes with the territory of computer generated, doesn't it?
Will gave a pretty good summary, I don't agree with all his points, but that's a difference of opinion not fact.
Not everyone is going to have UberSurface 2. You might be using AoA's subsurface shader, so your priorities are going to be different.
My strongest advice is to go and find material presets that you like that use the shader you prefer. There are hundreds of options available for FREE as well as purchase. Getting good materials is difficult and no matter how hard someone tries, no one is going to be able to give you everything you need to know in a series of forum posts. So take advantage of available resources! They are out there. Once you find things that you like, you can either continue to use them, find similar ones, or learn from them how to get the results you want.
In all art, that there is a standard dictum: learn from the masters. This art is no different. That often means copying. Copy from what you like until doing it for yourself is second nature.
Speaking of masters: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/55128/3delight-laboratory-thread-tips-questions-experiments
Oh... and learn what Gamma Correction is and embrace a linear workflow.
And in the department of "I wish I had thought of that before": some artists actually write their own shaders. How's that for geek?
I actually really like doing renders in both and combining in post work. Both 3delight and Iray are great tools to get the look you want in a render.
There is no need to be offended, it is just my observation and not an attack at someone. There are several topics dedicated to the appropiate hardware in this forum. Which is fine, I will not hold people back participating. Do so if you like! Good and sometimes expensive hardware speeds up the process, we all know that. As long as you create artwork, I do not care if it took 24 minutes or 24 hours to render.
Sorry, but basicly I am more interested in the software itself and how to get more out of it. You can consider me as a software geek only! ;-)
I didn't say I was offended. I said the statement was offensive: "real artists are bored by tech and we use 3Delight anyway." Perhaps I should have said, instead, that it seemed a narrow-minded perspective.
If I had been offended, I wouldn't have offered my advice. Which I hope you will consider as it was freely given. And I appreciate that people are looking for ways to do it rather than just crying that they are being left behind.
Text communication is difficult. Attempts at clarity are often interpreted as rudeness for some reaon.
With artists I meant people like me, someone who is trying to create art. Searching for infos about Render Settings, Surfaces and Lights. I was not talking about the real artists! :-)
We're all the same. We're all "real" artists. Don't sell yourself short. There's enough people out there willing to cut you down at a moment's notice, you don't need to help them do it!
PS: I looked in your gallery. You're an artist. You have vision.
AoA has two specular channels. Daz Default does not. UberSurface, if I recall correctly, has two but it functions differently from UberSurface 2 which has two specular channels but you have to turn on the second layer to get at them both. Right? I haven't done 3Delight since the Iray beta... so... I am really rusty. Specular is one of those things that is really important and functions VERY differently across the available shaders, even in the Uber family. Specular is going to be the hardest to get right.
I agree with your assessment in the broadest of strokes. I don't agree with your requirements for metals, but that's opinion not fact, as I said.
And I'm thinking that a better method for learning to do it yourself (I don't really see someone programming a converter) is as I recommended: find the materials out there, they have already been made for all these different shaders. And learn to use Ctrl-Click so you can keep your images in place.
Dimension Theory has done a bunch of great shaders and materials that make great use of 3Delight options that not in use anywhere else. His Nature Shaders and the Urban Construct... those would be an awesome place to start for anyone who wanted to wholesale redo materials on a large scale.
http://www.daz3d.com/dimensiontheory
Yeah, learn from the masters. I know these are paid products, but... if you are looking to buy you could do a lot worse.
No... that's not really a valid interpretation. Its a second layer of the shader that has different blend modes to achieve different effects. If you are going to use US2, you want to enable that second layer. A lot of the power of US2 is in that second layer.
A couple more really good, versatile resources are the Advanced Metal Shaders and Advanced Wood Shaders from V3Digitimes.
And of course Stonemason's Dirt Shader, to add that extra verisimilitude.
If you are Platinum Club, Jen Greenless has a whole line of shaders for everyday (fabrics, leathers, glass, metal, you name it) purposes and I am pretty sure they are all in both flavors: 3DL and Iray.
And of course, the key really is: you can keep your textures by using CtrlClick. This will apply the shader and settings, and keep the images. You may need to reassign specular maps, but things generally go where they belong. And you DON'T have to use the image maps, either... you can completely redo the surfaces.
If someone made a Iray to 3DL script that worked even 80% of the time, it would probably sell really well. I've been using Iray when I want somthing hyper-realistic, but most of what I do is more painterly and 3DL with AoA is both faster and more versatile on my system, and I also use VUE, Poser, Carrara and Bryce, so I try to avoid Iray only items as much as possible.