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If your render times were short, you were most likely not using those effects that are heavy on raytracing. The "progressive" mode invokes a completely different (newer) 3Delight module actually, specifically optimised for raytracing. It gives a noticeable speed boost when there is a lot of raytraced effects in the scene. When there aren't many of those, it will not indeed help much.
WIth all due respect I think you missed the point of his comment.
However I will concur that Progessive rendering works again in Daz Studio. I have used it for all my 3DL car promos so I can see what Im getting long before its really done. Though I would also agree with Havos that I dont see the significant speed increase.
But the difference between you and me is that I dont understand any form of programming language. I have looked at the shader builder in the past and was completely confused by it.
There is some communication but not all of us talk to each other for different reasons.
Wowie is the exception to the rule. He does not represent the vast majority the user base in any way. He would be a good candidate to do advanced 3DL shaders that support the newer code and such.
Finally...found a high enough density model to do some timing runs that are meaningful...
It's an over 500,000 TRIANGLE (537,404 tris) model. The shader is one of my own imports. It's an 'oldschool' shader that is a simple clay shader. Lighting is an environmental light shader (no, not UberEnv, but Kettu's one).
In 'standard'/REYES/old school mode:Total Rendering Time: 10 minutes 29.81 seconds
In 'Progressive'/raytrace/'new' mode: Total Rendering Time: 50.41 seconds <<<< That's right, under 1 minute!
Using the raytrace mode, with caching enabled, by way of scripted rendering: Total Rendering Time: 22.40 seconds <<<Yep, half the time than without caching.
Iray: Total Rendering Time: 4 minutes 1.9 seconds
All renders are using the same 4 core AMD CPU and 8 GB of RAM system, Iray is running in CPU only.
Edit: because I didn't think something through.
Update/ Edit:
Removed some poorly written sentences to focus on the main points and avoid further confusion. Thanks for pointing this out.
@ Potential target audience of the 3Delight company
It seems the target audience of 3Delight was at least in the past big studios who had the money to pay 100'000s up to millions of dollars for 100-400+ licenses to render scenes on huge render farms.
3Delight may not have been intended to be used on just one computer. It could look absolutely stunning when you have 400+ pc rendering.
But what kind of help is that if your personal home office only has access to one pc?
compare:
http://www.3delight.com/en/index.php?page=pricing_and_licensing_faq
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@ one shader for multiple render engines
I applaud all companies who are working with industry partners to support one common shader language which in its basic form can be read by many different render engines.
Nvidia Iray uses the MDL - Material Definition Language. Many other companies including Otoy have announced their support for MDL.
Speculation:
In the best case scenario this could mean that somewhere in the future artists will only have to create one shader for their products and its basic components will be recognized by most up to date render engines.
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@ which render engines will become popular in 2017?
The partner company of DAZ3D called Morph3D is providing 3d assets for unity. In 2017 OctaneRender will become a free basic render engine option for unity.
Speculation: One could assume that users shoping in the Unity store would expect products to be sold with OctaneRender materials from then on...
As explained by others in this thread creating materials for a second render engine takes time.
So how is that time best spent?
-> My personal impression is that in the near future some DAZ3D artists could get more value out of their time if they would learn how to create detailed OctaneRender materials and start adding OR materials as a second material option instead of 3Delight.
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-> Of course each artist has to deceide for themselves how to invest their time.
Iray is the default renderer for Daz studio. Octane definitely isn't happening at all. Realize octane is still at least $250 for entry for use in DAZ Studio. These are two totally different programs and putting 3-4 (Iray, 3delight, Poser, now octane?) material sets in a product is out of the question.
MDL would be transferrable between the Allegorithmic products (like substance designer), and the plugins for Maya, Modo, 3dsmax, etc... and DAZ Studio. That's the value of learnng iray. The conversion could most likely come from the substance designer export to support something like Unity.
I wrote the last post considering the potential number of users of a render engine not just in DAZ Studio but across all other software.
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But if you want to discuss prices:
http://www.3delight.com/en/index.php?page=3DSP_pricing
My impression is:
One pc is not enough to get the optimal quality out of 3Delight.
-> Advanced users are forced to purchase additional licenses for network rendering.
Those additional "Additional Eight-core license" for 3Delight range in price from 400$ to 1'200$.
Then keep in mind that the cost for one additional computer is far higher than the cost of purchasing an updated graphic card.
Estimate another 1'000 -7'000+ $
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What I am trying to say is:
Not all but many DAZ Studio users may want to consider "upgrading" their render solution at some point during their learning process
- to either an other software that uses the same render engine
- to a more expensive computer, workstation or video card that speeds up render time.
If DAZ Studio users deceide they want to upgrade to a more advanced rendering setup 3Delight is far more expensive than Iray or OctaneRender.
-> From that point of view it makes no sense to me to keep supporting 3Delight and at the same time ignoring the allready established OctaneRender user base.
I find this interesting in that until Iray came along 3DL was the mainstay for many using Studio and now it is pretty much getting dumped on by just about everyone.. One thing Iray is not cheap by any means you are looking at least $2000 for a decent system, hopefully with a video card decent enough to be able to handle large scenes.. If on the other hand you are just upgrading to a better video card you can be looking at up to and over a $1000 depending on what it is..
And while OctaneRender may be expensive it does a better job of utilizing system ram if the video cards ram is full..
Really all this is doing is dividing the community even more something that this community does not need..
and this is why I use Octane!
but also why I do not want iray shaders!
and we'll be loving every minute of it. :)
Until Octane is natively supported in DS, I can not see many of the users here being interested, it is just much easier using a renderer built into the app. Whilst Unity may be supporting Octane at some point, that is likely to be only of interest to animators, who represent a small percentage of most hobby users of DAZ's models. The bulk of the buyers render stills, and will stick with iRay.
yeah sadly thats the case by looks, some of us are apparently a weird minority, I still use my earlier figures too but sales showing everyone wants the newest latest, I certainly have bought those too and sometimes use iray too, 117 pages in my product library!
I personally like choices, lots and lots of them, not the newest latest only.
I am a Carrara, Poser, iClone, DAZ studio, Octane, 3Delight occasionally and even Reality on odd occasions user and have a pile of other 3D software with their own render engines installed on my PC, yes have stuck stuff in Unreal game engine and used that too!
I even use Blender Cycles when in a crazy mood and can get past the user interface!
anyone one for carrara shaders?
examples:
Tango Alpha's store
KellyLodge comes with carrara shaders.
Except that the version of 3Delight included with DS, while not the latest, is current and does have most if not all of the new features enabled, and Daz has made them available in DS. You are arguing from false premises.
Ghost12: until Iray came along I was struggling and cursing at 3DL for being so hard to figure out and for the results to be so unpredictable. And a lot of the cool effects turned into hours of rendering. Again, due to normal DS implementation.
I mean, great, proper cutting edge 3DL should be better, but that's not what I have access to.
When Iray came along, I was ECSTATIC. Yes, it's hard to light things well, but almost everything in Iray, once I figured out what was going on, made sense and wasn't arbitrary. And was _consistent_.
Now I've come to appreciate 3DL again, but the idea that everyone was happy with 3DL... I think a lot of folks simply had no choice, and 'frustrated with 3DL and learning how to use it' was indistinguishable from 'frustrated with CGI and learning how to make it.'
Personally, I don't buy anything that's Iray only, with the only exception being Terra Dome 3, after Will Timmons discussed the 3DL converstion. Frankly, I'm holding out for a 3DL addon for TD3 coming out before I get to that. However, with Bluebird 3D's YouTube tutorials, that might change quickly. Must clone myself or find a Time Lord to extend my time available for research and practice! Christmas break cannot get here fast enough.
My computer is fast enough, now, to use 3DL or Iray easily. However, with a huge catalog of older content and currently focussing on non-photorealistic renders, I can't see the advantage of converting all that to Iray.
If there were a script to automate conversion, I would happily pay for it!
Okay, I think you're saying that all that is needed for 3DL in DAZ Studio to match Iray is new shaders that meet the more modern capabilities of the render engine.
When Iray first came out I was estatic as well that I had such a tool to use and would render what ever I could and it was fun.. Then one day while doing a series of renders my video card decided to pack it in, and when a friend gave me their 650GTX to replace my now dead card I did not want to toast that card as well and as such I have not used Iray since.. And with the work that I do (making comics) I don't have the need for Iray plus I don't have the cash to buy a decent video card..
It should be noted that all my problems with 3DL come from attempts at photorealism. 3DL CAN do photorealism (or close), but in Daz's implementation of 3DL there are numerous significant hurdles.
When it comes to _anything else_, 3DL is far superior.
(See all the not-photorealistic stuff in my DA gallery, using PWToon and Linerender)
Daz3D is a customer of DNA Research. Just becasue Daz provides 3DL for free does not mean they get it for free.
Morph3D is the child company of Daz3D. All assets in the Morph3D store are Unity related and have nothing to do with Daz Studio. The Octane for Untiy will be for Unity and it will have zero effect on Daz Studio content.
Daz did not hinder it. Having read through this thread, its all there, you have to know what your doing with 3DL. Though if you are like me, not a programmer/scripter of any kind then you are stuck with what you can get your hands on for shaders, lights and camera effects.
Bluebird 3D has posted on her thread ( http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/73749/bluebird-3d-tv-new-daz-studio-quick-tip-convert-iray-surfaces-to-3delight-in-seconds/p7 )how to change iray to 3dl mats .. that should help a lot of people it did me. the following comment I made is a repost on that thread.
The best thing with these tips Charlene has provide is now I know how to do this myself & I won't have to depend on the Pa's model to provide 3dl shaders for their content if I maybe interested in buying it for a project. That should make you Pa's happy actually. Pa's have to take in concideration not all of use know how to do this stuff.
If I may explain some of why I get so frustrated & shaders already applied to models are so important to me. When I do a animation I always do a story board first .. this allows & shows me what assets I need to gather & need for the film. I have in the past spent hundreds of dollars in buying asset i need for single film before. It use to be a time i could find and buy what I need for my films, or if i need to find a alternative or a work around. i knew how to do that. Iray is fairly new to me and working with it in animation has proved not to be my best choice for rendering long running animated short films. The first thing is I am afraid of burning up my very costly graphics cards if it runs for days and days at 100% rending just 1 - 300 keyframe scene .Now add 100 plus of those scene to complete the film. . 3dl does not drive my system as hard as Iray. when working in 3dl for animation the last thing i want is to have the render take longer than is needed, or cook out my PC for maxing out my pc resources... there is a lot more to making animation than there is to still art rendering than most daz users & Some Pa's can relies. Then add the issues Iray has only compounded that 10x. when it comes time to render the scene in animation. I will admit I am not a good modeler that is why I buy my assets. I am not very good at shaders , That is why I try to find my assets already to use out of the box. with little tweaking. I'm not a lighting expert and I use a lot of light presets. Iray light presets are set up for still art rendering. 1 still render can take days with Iray where in 3dl just a few minutes,
This is properly why most Professional movie animation studios have 100's of teams of people working on a single film, from modeler to texture artist, all the way down to lighting specialist. Buying assets at daz helps me over come the need for having a team of 100's people to complete a film ..I really wish I could explain this better to those people & Pa's that are still art render people only that hock me on this issue. Okay some most people here using Daz has their chosen art form with daz as still realistic rendering. Mine is cartoon animation, neither quest for our art is wrong. its just one art form is much much harder to do than the other. . Its to bad some people that say that's my problem don't relies that it is everyone's problem if they are trying to create a serious animation with Daz Studio and looking to buy assets. Usless you have a million dollars to spend on a killa system or render time on a GPU render farm. which I don't . So when my choice of art form using daz for animation has become greatly harder because a new type shader seems to causing the Pa's to much work to make both versions of the Shaders I need. its makes it very very frustrating to someone like me trying to keep up with the technologies and seems like my (rhetorical fantasy) daz animation team of PA'S I need to complete a film is working against me. I am as passionate about creating animation my art form as you are doing your style of art. If the people you were buying & getting your assets from were making this harder for your work flow to get your products out, because the stuff you need to create your art was causing them to much work. in turn making it 10x harder to do your art, & you never make anything off it for your efforts then top that with getting trolled and Hocked on for your efforts,add that to people telling you its your problem.. you maybe as frustrated as I am. That is why it is important i know how to do it myself and save me some money, cut out a few pa's out f my work flow and improve my skills. I have actually thought about giving daz up completely many time for this reason since Iray has came out.. I maybe going with anime studio in the future because I feel I am being pushed out of my art form here. not everyone wants to use Iray. maybe thats where i am heading and just give up daz with a alteritive program in the end.
If you never have seen one of my daz studio animation then you may want to take a look , my animations are not silly 3 second dancing girls and I have 77 animated short films created with daz studio. with full credits which I would have thought Pa's would have appreacited. you can see them here https://www.youtube.com/c/IvySummers
Peace Out
Again thank you very much for your respectful conversation with me it is very appreciated, I hate putting people on Ignore. and I am sorry in advance for my bad English.
Alright, and would you say that the majority of the PAs are like you? I'm just honestly trying to gauge the reasons why there are roughly two people in the forums writing shaders and about as many historical PAs who wrote shaders for sale - out of all the thousands of users. Would you say that 3D has become an "un-geeky" hobby/freelance gig these days?
Sounds a bit depressing actually...
I know he's considering it. But it's probably in the "DAZ soon" timeframe. =)
Thank you Mike for the comparison =)
BTW, where does the model come from? It's a cool one.
Exactly =)
Blendswap....the original poster has some really nice models.
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/user/3134
Programming is a differnt beast then modeling or texturing. You're guess is as good as mine as to why there are not more people doing shaders and such
WHile its nice to be friends with fellow PAs, timezones and languages tend to seperate us the most. And we are all technically competing against one another too.
For me, the key word is optimized. As it stands now (in DS) Iray is optimized for PBR styled rendering by default, and 3delight (in DS) is not.
Since its the main thing I faff about with, take lighting: In Iray, Light falloff - automatic, Bounce light - automatic, lights with geometry - right there in the default lights.
Now I can do all those things in 3delight too, (and I have!) but setting them up takes effort, knowledge, and so many test renders :( (Seriously, I used to do so many test renders)
So if I'm doing a render with SSS and transmapped hair (which is 99.9 percent of my renders) and I want nice naturalistic bouncy light and nice big soft light sources, I can add some lights and click render in Iray, or I can add some planes parent them lights that I hide so that I can position them, remember which shader to make them emit light works the best and find it, remember it doesn't do spec > man its a good thing I have those spotlights to position them, set the spot slights to specular only and do a few test renders so the spec light levels match, add the environment light, set it to indirect or bounce light do more test renders to make sure the samples are the right level. start to render the thing I actually want to render, > oh god that hair is never going to finish change the hair shader to something that can control occlusion samples and turn off self shadowing, oh its still taking a long time... oh man, how much time have I spent already just doing test renders? (the answer is several hours, not even fiddling with settings, just waiting for my test renders to get going).
Maybe there were better workflows (the advent of IPR and the aux viewport, helped lower my test render numbers, though it seemed to spend a lot more time refreshing than the iray version does) but I don't know those workflows, and I dont have to for Iray, It just goes at a moderate pace, which is good enough for me.
And yes I have done renders with SSS, area lights, bounce light, and hair set to cast shadows in 3delight. and then I switched to cycles in blender, because it was honestly faster to export to cycles and set up all my material node groups than set up in Studio for 3delight (for me!) When Iray came, I'd already switched away from 3delight.
(on the vendor side of things, I do have a product with Iray and 3delight shaders, and setting up the 3delight version a lot of the same issues setting up: how can I make this look to he level I expect > now how can I do that using lighting other folks will be using > using a shader bundled with DS so everybody has it, and It wasnt some compex object with lots of mat zones, with something more complex I could see the issues piling up real quick)
Thats the other thing I've really found with Iray vs 3delight because of the basis in the whole PBR standard (also mostly the fact that theres basically one shader, and the light all moves the same way) In Iray, If you set up a material correctly , it will look consistent in any lighting setup (as a blenderhead I've watched several videos on PBR in blender and conservation of energy, The Iray uber shader does it pretty much automatically, I've got no ideas how to go abot it in 3delight). In 3delight when you change the lights you may be changing the lighting models which has, in my expirience, greater likelyhood of changing the look of a material. Or lets say you have a scene with 2 different shaders, and you change the lighting, lets say both shaders handle specular differently (perhaps one is metalic and works more based on reflection, and so doesnt change nearly as much when you increase the strength of a spot light), and so they both handle the change in lighting in a completely different way.
Anyways hopefully this is on topic and I didn't go on too many tangents
Also is there a light in DS 3delight that does more than one bounce of light? I swear I've done it before but I just tested and couldnt find anything
Only if you write your own RSL code. Would be extremely tedious in shader mixer. With existing shaders, you can only approximate energy conservation by using strength maps for channels, but they don't even pretend do it for real.
Like, indirect diffuse light type of bounce? In non-point-cloud mode, UberEnvironment2 will do any number of bounces, but it's really become virtually unusable a few 3Delight builds ago (it was written using very old Renderman concepts).
So there is a significant portion of those whose first language isn't English?
"Technically" or "for real"? To me it looks like every vendor has got a niche of their own. Rose-coloured glasses on my part?
And that is probably the biggest area where new shaders are needed. The basic light shaders in Studio are virtually the same code (or similar enough as to make no matter) as the old, included light shaders in 3DL...which have original copyright dates in the late 90s and are virtually unchanged original Renderman code.
One of the things I briefly mentioned...OSL. Almost all the Cycles shaders and Blender lights can have OSL versions...which means you can cook up a Cycles node network in OSL and port it to 3DL (no, not an easy process/for everyone...but doable and SHAREABLE). That would mean access to the same type of 'physically' accurate lights as Iray uses, the same types of PBR materials and so on.
Or if OSL isn't really feasible, just making a couple of transparent changes, like enabling the full raytracer, with caching, by default will tremendously boost render speed.