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You made my day with this =D
It's so funny that I am actually a hobbyist too. I don't have a degree in graphics or even IT. Only in engineering and applied physics, with a minor in linguistics.
What I am saying is that a properly implemented PBR workflow takes at least 75% of evaluating out of the equation.
I'm not sure I understand your take on engineering vs math (unless you mean software engineering). It may be because of my very specific Russian training that uses a solid applied physics background as a foundation for mechanical engineering. So the way I see it, from this "hard" standpoint, both 3Delight and Iray offer a very similar experience: they both support programmable shading. 3Delight has RSL and now OSL (although DS is missing the new API), Iray has MDL which is also a very cool and flexible language.
What exactly did you mean by saying 3Delight makes more sense "technically"? Do you prefer RSL to MDL? Or were you talking about something else I didn´t get?
Seriously? You don't think that might have something to do with you understanding the more complex shader systems, hmmm?
I'm not talking about programming shaders. To me, 3Delight feels like it's built up from a very theoretical view of how light interacts with surfaces, Diffuse/Specular/Ambient. Iray feels to me like it's working from a much more engineered solution derived from photography and other lighting situations. With 3Delight I feel like I can work my way up from pure theory, while with Iray I feel like I need to have a much greater knowledge base to be able to make adjustments. For someone with knowledge of photography/cinematography/stage lighting, there's a lot of knowledge that's more directly transferable to Iray, but for someone like me, it feels like I'm always running up against my lack of non-theoretical knowledge.
Maybe what I'm saying will make sense this way: imagine 3Delight and Iray as cameras. My 3Delight camera has dials labeled in a way that makes sense to me from a purely theoretical standpoint. I know what increasing light intensity 10% means. I know what halving the opacity means. I understand how higher glossiness results in smaller, sharper highlights. And I can build up from that understanding a little at a time with concepts that are more based in real-world engineering, like camera focal lengths. With Iray I constantly feel like I need to understand a ton of information about F-Stops, Tone Mapping, light temperature, camera speed, metallicity, roughness, and so on. Whenever I try to make adjustments in Iray, the dials are unfamiliar or don't work the way I expect them to. If I make an adjustment in 3Delight and it doesn't do what I expect, I can usually reason out what's going on; in Iray, I never feel like I have enough background knowledge to figure things out.
Alright I probably see it better now, thanks for explaining. So basically you mean the terms in DS integrations are unfamiliar, right? Because, say, "specular" is the same as "reflection", and "glossiness" that you see in DS 3DL shaders is the inverse form of "roughness". "Metallicity" is just current CG slang for lack of a better word, it means how strong the metallic reflection is for a specific point. You don't even have to use that model.
Tonemapping (the whole physical camera model thing), now that's a bit different, yeah. 3Delight is a VFX tool, for those who make movies basically, so there is no physical camera model (yet?..) because the render result is expected to be composited with footage in something like Nuke, and these compositing tools will handle tonemapping. Iray is more "archviz" oriented so it does come with the physical camera model.
Not in the least bit. We never focused on the applied aspects of optics. It took me quite some time to integrate the theory and what it really means IRL. Knowing the equations for how waves behave when they cross the boundary between media and realising that it's the reason why you see the bottom of the puddle when it's right under your feet but a reflected tree when the puddle is 20 m away - these are two different things.
Besides, we're talking PBR here and it's not "complex" for the TD ("technical director" - shader writer). It's complex in terms of development of actual shading models (what's the best mathematical way to get it realistic-looking enough but fast enough at the same time), but it's what CG researchers and renderer developers handle. The TD just puts shadeops together to make the material they need (a layer of this, a layer of that...).
UPD: supposing we were speaking about fluid simulation, rigid/soft body physics, particles, etc, then yes these are fields where I have a definite advantage over an average user. But not optics.
I like 3DL for complex stuff so yes I use it. For close ups and fast renders I do Iray.
...but if the fish are not biting that day, he still goes hungry.
Unfortunately PBR shaders lack a couple of channels that RSL and Poser use which is what makes it more difficult to go from Iray to 3DL (and Carrara in the case of Poser shaders) than in the opposite direction. It's easier to subtract than to add.
...one of the best methods to speed up Iray rendering is getting a high memory GPU with a decent amount of memory for the types of scenes you do, which for many sadly has to be skipped because of the cost.
...maybe in Daz 5.0?
I was recently amazed at the difference a light set can make in a 3DL render. The original render with standard UE2 and the default D/S distant light:
Revised render using the same character, repositioned, and the Reflective Radiance lights, midmorning setting. I added a pointlight to brighten her face and colored light on her hand (before adding the special effect in post work). I'm really impressed with Reflective Radiance and the Iray like results. It does take longer to render than AoA's Advanced lights, but they look fabulous. This render at 3404x1260 took 14 minutes.
Oh, and notice that I fixed the "boob armor" effect.
Weirdly, I understand 3DL lighting better than I do Iray, but reverse in the shaders.
I use 3DL and I generally refuse to buy something that doesn't have 3DL textures. I passed on many products because they were IRAY only.
That said, I do use IRAY for some things. But the increase in time to do so lowers my work flow so, that is more my "play" time than my "work" time.
Technically, the difference is because we are not talking about a "light (pre)set", but rather about a different shading model.
Speaking of pre-built shaders, you could achieve similar results using the IDL or bounce modes of UE2. "Could" because UE2 is not viable in that regard anymore due to some obscure algorithms it uses - it's so damn slow unless you use point clouds. And "similar" because I frankly suspect that Reflective Radiance uses a (not exactly physically based) linear bounce because of how much colour bleed I usually see in renders people post. It could also be the result of the fact that very few users have adopted linear workflow and realistic albedo values, though.
Congrats on fixing the "boob armour", BTW =)
Which channels do you mean?
Thanks for the clarification, Mustakettu85. UE2 bounce sounds interesting, but I may not have the time to explore that. Like most artists, I have WAY too many things to learn and not enough time to learn them!
To fix the boob armor problem, I used a combination of Fit Control and small bust morphs to reduce the breast size (the figure is Genesis, by the way). I think the most rediculous experience I've had with boob armor is heavy plate showing a nipple protrusion.
I keep trying iray but ultimately sticking with 3delight. I like the lighting in iray and the render results are gorgeous, but it takes way too long to render and frequently crashes my computer. I have an Nvidia card, but it's pretty low end, but it's enough that I genuinely feel bad for anyone trying to render on CPU only. So yes, I use 3DL. And even if I didn't I still think it's something that should be supported, as iray just isn't a viable option for everyone.
You're welcome =) I'm generally jealous of artists, but sometimes I am kinda happy I'm not one =)
Oh my. That must've been hilarious. I don't really render much plate armour, but when I need to, I prefer to detach the armour (metal proper) bits from any underlying clothes they may be built into, and just parent those bits to body parts, so that they won't conform, autofit or do other things that armour isn't supposed to.
...Specular Strength, Specular Colour, Lighting Model, UV Set, and Smooth Angle.
...yeah, having a lifetime of experience in the traditional art media can be a real pain sometimes when working in 3D CG.
Could be, but I simply meant the fact that my income does not depend on anything artistic.
Well, UV set is a feature of geometry pipeline. When you use DS, it doesn't matter which renderer, all meshes that have different UVs loaded will have this switch working.
Smooth angle is a remnant of the dinosaur age. I know some people still like using tricks depending on that, but IMHO it's much more reliable to just use proper geometry.
Lighting model makes you actually select between a number of different shaders, similar to what the "spec/gloss / metallicity / weighted" switch does in the IrayUber.
Specular strength and colour are just converted to matching params of reflection/gloss/whatever the renderer calls it. You may remember that this "oldschool" specular is largely an approximation developed at the time when computing full glossy ("blurred") reflections was technically unfeasible. If you want some "magic" materials where there are multicoloured highlights (spec and reflection coloured differently), you just use several reflective layers with different colours. Or the thin film model.
I only use 3Delight. No need to render in Iray.
And the more the artits offer just Iray Products the less I will buy at the store and I am a very good customer so far.
I do a lot of mixing 3D renders and 2D painting, so 3Delight is my preferred render engine - renders using iRay or Reality/Luxrender usually end up requiring more painting over than those done using 3Delight, so while they may appear to give better/more realistic results, they don't actually suit the purposes of my art too much (sure I could cope with only having them, but it's simply easier with 3Delight).
One weird thing here. I use exclusivley Iray, so no 3delight at all, but to me 3delight shaders on hair look better when rendering in Iray, than Iray shader.
Does somebody know if the agent hair for satin which is Iray works in 3Delight? With DS default shader?
....sounds like a lot of hit and miss experimentation. I know of the script but as I understand it still takes a lot of extra tuning to get the materials to look even passable in 3DL.
Yes with blender because it has particles, hair, physics etc...lots of features you don't have in DS
For the record, the renders I provided are made inside DS
I took the time to do the scene with Iray. Started from scratch as I forgot to save the 3delight scene last time. The scene is approximatively the same.
As I saw the scene had too much noise in photoreal mode, I rendered in Interactive mode. Made a few adjustments to try to get a clean render as quickly as possible (Dome scale at 50, Noise filter etc...) but failed to get that in less than 10 min.
Here is the rendered picture at 14 min
I also repost the 3DL pics for comparison
First the 3 min render
Then at 9"30
The Iray render may be a bit better in the reflections but in term of quality and speed, for me 3delight wins in CPU mode hands down. Notice that the 3DL render is more crisp also at the same resolution
What stuff?? I agree most people compare apples with pies but I think I've just proven the point. And there are few speed up tricks I didn't even use with 3DL. Just did brute force with both engines
Stemcell is just a converter and an attempt from TS to expand their market with their own standard. I don't see why DAZ would allow a bigger store to eat it's market
I think you should read the book. There is not less tweaking and that wasn't the purpose of PBR. And anyway lots of vendors here don't know what they're doing in term of shading. But they are not in the "Pro" league, they are in DAZ market and most were hobbbyists before.
I don't see where Stemcell brings anything better. It's still the purpose of click and render and doesn't bring any skill development or critical thinking.
Not everyone wants to learn something new. Most DAZ users want to render a picture and that's all. When I go to the restaurant I don't want to learn how to cook. I want to eat. If you drive a car you don't necessary need to know how the whole thing works and create one from scratch.
That sort of thinking is a bit intrusive. That leads to some bad thing notably in Africa
That is already more or less the case with PBR. What you need in all renderers is the same Ubershader. Pixar made one with it's principled shader. Iray Ubershader is based on it and I guess you have more or less the same derived shader in all other renderers. Or at least there is the possibility to create one
I find that strange. If you like math/pure science, then Iray and PBR should make more sense as all that theory is mostly math and more accurate than the actual 3delight model available in DS
You need to read a bit of physics to get where all these come from, but once you have the background knowledge, everything is logical. I'll admit that not everybody can understand the Math and Physics underneath. I also guess that DAZ didn't make it easy with the documentation
I mainly use 3DL so it is a case of yes and yes..
StemCell is a _standard_ implemented so that conversion could be made easily.
Nobody ever said anything about TurboSquid eating the DAZ market.
So are you for or against skill development?
And that Africa thing was... really, I have no business or personal ties to Africa. How do you expect me to understand your vague references? Oh, and don't forget that politics is outside TOS here.
I'm afraid the professional world who cite massive artist time reduction since their studios adopted PBR would disagree with you re:less tweaking.
Unless you mean something else by "tweaking". Are you by any chance using translation software?
Now, the book. Yes technically it is for developers, like a more hands-on Glassner. But there is a chapter on history where they contrast the "cheat-based" oldschool way of doing things and the "new" (at the time of writing) physically based one. Before their work, there were more like singular scattered attempts, not a whole "movement". Afterwards, the "new" way started gaining traction in the VFX industry and, in a somewhat simplified form to account for realtime, in gamedev.
All because it allows the user to develop flexible, reliable materials in less time.
Businesses do not adopt new practices that do not cut down on resource use, and time is literally money.