3Delight: Do you still use it? Do you require it?
Scavenger
Posts: 2,674
in The Commons
Just trying to get a sense of the world out there for o reason in particular at all....
Everything coming out these days has Iray materials. Just the way it is.
Some stuff has 3DL as well..some doesn't.
Do you still use 3DL? Do you swtich back and forth depending on the types of render?
Are 3DL Materials a MUST HAVE part of a new purchase for you? (vs you just setting them up on your own).
If you use Iray, do you care one way or the other?
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Comments
Yes and Yes
Yes and preferably.
YES!
I hate that Iray produces grainy stuff more often than not.
Yes and yes
It starts to go downhill, everything has scratched aluminum panels these days, you can see that many products are actually created just for the singel purpose of looking coool when rendered with IRAY ;) and more and more promo pictures starts to look like rubbish because they did not wait for it to finish, noisy like crap, and yes, some things starts to come with IRAY only surfaces now, not a good sign.
I haven't used 3Delight for at least 6 months, I'm pretty much iray only. When doing purchase my first criteria (after deciding whether or not pruduct/item is something I would need) is, it must have iray materials. Obviously that criteria only applies to newer stuff, from the time period iray has been around.
NO, NO
No & no.
I didn't start using DS until Iray, I was using Poser. But the limitations of Firefly had me buy Octane. I imagine 3DL isn't too far different - it's not that you can't produce good renders with it, I think it's more difficult & requires more skill to do so.
PBR seems so much easier to me, just think of the material as it is in the real world, and how you're lighting it. No surface shader tricks, lighting tricks to fix renderer quirks, etc.
I use 3dl mainly for things like drawn style renders. I find it pretty trivial to convert Iray to 3dl, particularly with the free script, so I don't care much.
No and no. To me it isn't even an option
Which reminds me, I should consider making a 'supersimple' Iray shader pared down, and see how much of a difference it makes.
Yes and yes, I use both and I wouldn't want to miss 3delight. material for both is not an basolute need as I can change those if I need to but its easier and if well done looking better when made by the PA. What I need is acces to the maps used so i can do conversions
my system doent even have a graphics card ... just onboard ... so iray isnt a good choice for me.
Yes and no.
I'm used to 3DL shaders and lights, so I find them easier to understand when I'm setting up my own materials/lights or modifying the ones that came with a given product. (and I don't care about getting the lighting real-world accurate. I'm not trying to mimic photographs). Also 3DL has things like pwGhost/pwEffect and other special effects shaders that Iray doesn't have (yet) and would require multiple additional renders to pull of successfuly in postwork. Not to mention I also have better control of my skies using Skydomes than HDRI's. (I also absolutely loathe using HDRI's as environments for organic figures. The uncanny valley hits me much harder when I see those.)
But I also have no problem when I need to convert from Iray to 3DL. I just wish that the icons for Iray only materials/objects were still marked as Iray, so I can remember that I need to change them. :)
No and No.
Actually I'm beggining to wonder how much extra I'm paying for things that do have 3dl included - something I don't need or want.
Makes sense. While I can appreciate 3DL users wanting support, if IRAY only users are paying extra for the added 3DL support that would not be a good thing for IRAY only users. I would love to see seperate packages for each renderer, knowing full well that would be extra work for the PA, but it would give them a more definitive idea of if the extra work would reward them in sales and if to continue.
well I like choices and it seem the choices are being narrowed each day, be it supported applications, legacy content or render engines.
I want al la carte not a set menu
Yes and yes.
I still use both renderers — Iray is great for GPU-accelerated photorealistic rendering, while 3Delight is great for NPR (non-photorealistic rendering) and output of render passes for compositing techniques. They both have their place in DS.
I think it's nice when products contain materials/shaders for both Iray and 3Delight; a convenient bonus, but not necessarily a must have.
I came into this in the Iray era, have never rendered in 3DL, but based on side-by -side comparisons I like to look of Iray better.
Example:
vs.
The Iray color is richer, the glas renders more naturally, light reflects from surfaces more crisply.
I understand people's hardware/budget limitations, but based on comparisons I've seen I really don't understand why anyone would use 3DL for anything other than stylized rendering. Heck, everything I've done so far has been on a $130 1050ti, frankly if you can afford to shop on this site you can afford that card.
So for me it's a no/no, but again I understand some people may be married to 3DL for different reasons. What I see coming down the tracks is the Iray train or something similar/compatible that is going to eliminate 3DL materials from new releases. I don't think that will be too big an issue for 3DL users as there are free Iray conversions scripts, but I really wish people who haven't tried Iray lately would give it a shot, I've have zero issues with my Iray renders and with the free texture compression script you can fit more than you think you can in a scene.
Just my 2 cents.
yes and 'sort of '
Although I've been using Iray more than 3DL lately, there are stil scenes I do prefer 3DL for. I'm not one aiming at 'realistic' in rendering but more for 'believable' (as I'm one to say there's no such thing as photo-realistic as photographs are not real; it's just 'photo-like' or 'life-like'). 3DL can get that effect quicker in some circumstances, and in my experience, I can render more complex scenes with 3DL that would make my system crash with Iray... (and an i7-3930K with 32GB of system ram is still a quite capable render system....)
Also, older, but still going 'projects'are based on 3DL.
Until someone fixes the Big Cat 2 textures and figures out a way to TRULY make LAMH work in IRAY, yes indeed, it is still needed!
Yes and yes.
3Delight and iRay give different outcomes, different effects. Both can be photo-realistic, and if you don't use postwork it can be vitally important that your images come out perfectly real straight from the render. To me that is very limiting, I almost always use post. And perfectly photo-real isn't a very common outcome or style.
I use both as they are two different styles, akin to using watercolors vs charcoal. Different lighting skills, different strenghts, different weaknesses. I'm glad to have both available. And as daveso pointed out, some of us don't have graphics cards, so iRay can be difficult to use. But even after I upgrade my system I know I will be using 3DL, just like that now I have a camera, I still use paint and pencil.
No, I eliminate 3DL material from my installs.
I use 3Delight mainly for rendering animations and Iray for rendering stills.
You can get more photorealistic renders in 3Delight if you use gamma correction and gamma 2.2. Iray does this by default, but 3Delight still has gamma correct off by default and gamma set to 1.0. I always use gamma correction and gamma 2.2 with 3Delight.
I can't afford a good enough computer to render Iray in a reasonable time, so with few exceptions I buy 3Delight products. Child characters, such as the new Lola's Son, are among the few Iray only items I buy, since I can use other skins for them and they are so rare. Anything else I insist that they include 3Delight or I don't buy them.
No and no. Iray was what finally pulled me over from Poser, and I honestly just don't have the time or desire to learn how to use 3DL effectively. That being said, I don't want to see the option disappear for those who do use it.
I use only 3light, .. First thing I do when viewing products for sale is .. check if the item includes/supports 3Dlight format .. if not I read no further, and pass on to the next item. There are very good reasons (personal I'm fully aware) that I will not consider purchasing an 'Iray Only' product, and I am equaly aware that, with the present direction DAZ is taking, I will eventually (Soon?) have no reason to continue to buy here, but, though it sadens me greatly (I love this programme, and delighted I found it so many years ago now) I am rsigned to the consequences.
I have to be perfectly honest, I do wonder why people see it as an either or situation. It used to be that anyone wanting or needing an alternative render engine had to purchase plugins to do it. Now you have 2 render engines for the price of one, and that price has been zero for the last several years. So why not just sit back and enjoy what you have got, without trying to lose one or the other of the given render engines.
Ok, I didn't, and still don't, see this is a discussion about the render engine, but more about the material options for the content for the available render engines