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Iray for idiots?

LeatherGryphonLeatherGryphon Posts: 12,094
edited September 2017 in The Commons

Color me stupid but I finally bit the bullet and updated to the latest(?) DAZ Studio (4.9.4.122 ) and decided to actually try out Iray.  I also installed the G8 Male and created a trivial scene with him and one spotlight and I tried to render using Iray.

I give up!  I looked for a way to enable it.  No luck.  I found a thread in the forums that points to a zillion other threads about Iray but I'm nearly 70 years old and I don't have much time left to read them all. 

All I want to do is switch from 3Delight to Iray and do a render.  No twidling, no surface magic, no scripts, no praying to the graphic gods.  I just want to try it. indecision

Where is it hidden?  (*sigh*) crying  Help. sad

I'm on a Win7 system, 8GB RAM.  Not a super graphic card, so I'm willing to let it just default to CPU rendering.

Post edited by LeatherGryphon on

Comments

  • kaotkblisskaotkbliss Posts: 2,914

    Open the render tab

    There will be 3 tabs along the top next to the render button (Presets, Editor and Advanced)

    Click on Editor

    Right under those tabs is a dropdown that says Engine and next to it (on yours) it should say 3delight. Click the dropdown and change to Iray

  • LeatherGryphonLeatherGryphon Posts: 12,094
    edited September 2017
    kaotkbliss said:

    Open the render tab

    There will be 3 tabs along the top next to the render button (Presets, Editor and Advanced)

    Click on Editor

    Right under those tabs is a dropdown that says Engine and next to it (on yours) it should say 3delight. Click the dropdown and change to Iray

    Thank you.  See, I told you I was an idiot. blush  Hmmm... "Engine"... surprise  I need younger eyes.  frown

     

     

    Post edited by LeatherGryphon on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 6,055

    Lets keep is simple for the first step

    You change render settings to NVIDIA Iray,

    Your G8 Male loads with Iray materials as standart, for starters just let him stand there as the creators made him ;)

    now, you don't need any lights you usually need: in your reder setting tab there is a selectable called Environment select either sun sky only (draw dome on and further down draw ground on) hit render : there he stands on a grey plane and the background is some offwhite blue

    or you select  Dome only or dome and scene (draw dome on adn draw ground on) hit render: similar but the background is some blurry colours in grey green yellow blue.

    If you want to go further some checks at surfaces will be necessary. Latest DS will turn all your surfaces to Iray material while rendering but its faster if you tell it in advance to make it Iray.

    You can do that by chosing your Item (lets say trousers) in the scene tab, choose them as well in the surface tab and then find the shader presets in your content library, there is the Iray /DAZuber select the uppermost !Iray Uberbase and apply to the trousers ( and everything welse that doesn't come with the blueisch styled surface sliders

    Lights, for starters forget about them and use the lights from the environmetal sun ( there is a dial in the Environment showing the time of the day and you can rotate the dome to get the light from a different direction.

    Happy trying!

  • LeatherGryphonLeatherGryphon Posts: 12,094
    edited September 2017
    Linwelly said:

    Lets keep is simple for the first step

    You change render settings to NVIDIA Iray,

    Your G8 Male loads with Iray materials as standart, for starters just let him stand there as the creators made him ;)

    now, you don't need any lights you usually need: in your reder setting tab there is a selectable called Environment select either sun sky only (draw dome on and further down draw ground on) hit render : there he stands on a grey plane and the background is some offwhite blue

    or you select  Dome only or dome and scene (draw dome on adn draw ground on) hit render: similar but the background is some blurry colours in grey green yellow blue.

    If you want to go further some checks at surfaces will be necessary. Latest DS will turn all your surfaces to Iray material while rendering but its faster if you tell it in advance to make it Iray.

    You can do that by chosing your Item (lets say trousers) in the scene tab, choose them as well in the surface tab and then find the shader presets in your content library, there is the Iray /DAZuber select the uppermost !Iray Uberbase and apply to the trousers ( and everything welse that doesn't come with the blueisch styled surface sliders

    Lights, for starters forget about them and use the lights from the environmetal sun ( there is a dial in the Environment showing the time of the day and you can rotate the dome to get the light from a different direction.

    Happy trying!

    Thanks, I'm sure others will profit from this but it's too complicated for me now.  For example:  What's an "environmenal sun"?  What's a "shader preset", what's a "DAZuber".  I'm old school DAZ (since Version 1).  I've got a DAZ original spotlight, a G8 male (nude), no floor, no props, no scenery and mild curiosity but no real interest in Iray until and if I outlive my current hardware. 

    Post edited by LeatherGryphon on
  • agent unawaresagent unawares Posts: 3,513
    Most of that is overkill for newbie rendering in Iray. Just switch the render mode to Iray. That's it. There will be an HDR already loaded for lighting. If you want to use additional lights add them the same as normal DS lights. If you want just your own lights without HDR set lighting to scene only. If you only want HDR set it to dome only. Grab a couple free HDR and check them out.
  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,258
    edited September 2017

    A simple and quick test render:

    1. Load G8 into an empty scene
    2. under Environment, set Environment Mode to Dome and Scene (default)
    3. set Dome Rotation to 80 (light straight on)
    4. turn off Preview Lights (ctrl+L).
    5. render

     

     

     


     

    Post edited by Taoz on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 6,055
    agent unawares said:
    Most of that is overkill for newbie rendering in Iray. Just switch the render mode to Iray. That's it. There will be an HDR already loaded for lighting. If you want to use additional lights add them the same as normal DS lights. If you want just your own lights without HDR set lighting to scene only. If you only want HDR set it to dome only. Grab a couple free HDR and check them out.

    hmmmmm, ok, I think what I tried to to is explain what is already there and doesn't really need any changes

    The thing with the lights though is that the standart DS lights that come from old time 3delight rendering will not do to light an iray scene ( you would have to change the photometriv value, but you won't need them as there always is light already given in iray.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,258

    If you use a camera, it will nornally have the Headlamp turned on. Turn that off (Parameters > Headlamp Mode > Off), and use Preview Lights (ctrl+L on/off) instead. Then when you want to render, turn Preview Lights off first which will turn all Iray shaders black.

  • agent unawaresagent unawares Posts: 3,513
    Linwelly said:
    agent unawares said:
    Most of that is overkill for newbie rendering in Iray. Just switch the render mode to Iray. That's it. There will be an HDR already loaded for lighting. If you want to use additional lights add them the same as normal DS lights. If you want just your own lights without HDR set lighting to scene only. If you only want HDR set it to dome only. Grab a couple free HDR and check them out.

    hmmmmm, ok, I think what I tried to to is explain what is already there and doesn't really need any changes

    The thing with the lights though is that the standart DS lights that come from old time 3delight rendering will not do to light an iray scene ( you would have to change the photometriv value, but you won't need them as there always is light already given in iray.

    Standard DS lights work fine, but yes strength has to be adjusted just like always. Your explanation was very good I just wanted to make it clear that someone does not need to know all those settings when just jumping in.
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 6,055
    agent unawares said:
    Linwelly said:
    agent unawares said:
    Most of that is overkill for newbie rendering in Iray. Just switch the render mode to Iray. That's it. There will be an HDR already loaded for lighting. If you want to use additional lights add them the same as normal DS lights. If you want just your own lights without HDR set lighting to scene only. If you only want HDR set it to dome only. Grab a couple free HDR and check them out.

    hmmmmm, ok, I think what I tried to to is explain what is already there and doesn't really need any changes

    The thing with the lights though is that the standart DS lights that come from old time 3delight rendering will not do to light an iray scene ( you would have to change the photometriv value, but you won't need them as there always is light already given in iray.

     

    Standard DS lights work fine, but yes strength has to be adjusted just like always. Your explanation was very good I just wanted to make it clear that someone does not need to know all those settings when just jumping in.

    guess you are right ;)

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,924

    Here's a step by step tutorial I did. Training was my field, so it's very baby-steps. You can accomplish wonderful things with the Tone Mapping section alone. For other references, this post of my thread had a categorized list of help topics.

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,973
    Novica said:

    Here's a step by step tutorial I did. Training was my field, so it's very baby-steps. You can accomplish wonderful things with the Tone Mapping section alone. For other references, this post of my thread had a categorized list of help topics.

    +1 Tone Mapping is your friend (it took me far too long to figure that out lol). 

  • agent unawaresagent unawares Posts: 3,513

    That is a great tutorial!

  • ByrdieByrdie Posts: 1,783

    Thank you! This is exactly the sort of thing I need. smiley

  • nemesis10nemesis10 Posts: 3,788
    edited September 2017
    LeatherGryphon said:
    Linwelly said:

    Lets keep is simple for the first step

    You change render settings to NVIDIA Iray,

    Your G8 Male loads with Iray materials as standart, for starters just let him stand there as the creators made him ;)

    now, you don't need any lights you usually need: in your reder setting tab there is a selectable called Environment select either sun sky only (draw dome on and further down draw ground on) hit render : there he stands on a grey plane and the background is some offwhite blue

    or you select  Dome only or dome and scene (draw dome on adn draw ground on) hit render: similar but the background is some blurry colours in grey green yellow blue.

    If you want to go further some checks at surfaces will be necessary. Latest DS will turn all your surfaces to Iray material while rendering but its faster if you tell it in advance to make it Iray.

    You can do that by chosing your Item (lets say trousers) in the scene tab, choose them as well in the surface tab and then find the shader presets in your content library, there is the Iray /DAZuber select the uppermost !Iray Uberbase and apply to the trousers ( and everything welse that doesn't come with the blueisch styled surface sliders

    Lights, for starters forget about them and use the lights from the environmetal sun ( there is a dial in the Environment showing the time of the day and you can rotate the dome to get the light from a different direction.

    Happy trying!

    Thanks, I'm sure others will profit from this but it's too complicated for me now.  For example:  What's an "environmenal sun"?  What's a "shader preset", what's a "DAZuber".  I'm old school DAZ (since Version 1).  I've got a DAZ original spotlight, a G8 male (nude), no floor, no props, no scenery and mild curiosity but no real interest in Iray until and if I outlive my current hardware. 

    When you are ready to mke the leap, we would all be glad to help you.  Some of this things will be obvious to you when you see them in context.  3delight is a lot like lighting a stage set and a little like painting; while IRay is a bit more like photography.  iF you went out in the middle of the day and took a photo, you would expect that there would be ambient light outside; iRay replicates this.  A shader preset is a preset that changes color and texture of something; loosely, I think of shaders as the generic such as bronze metal while a material as the combination of a shader applied to a specific geometry such as bronze arrowhead.  Daz Uber shaders are as old as Michael and Victoria 4 (I think); they give attributes like translucence, light emission etc... Iray's are very sophisticated with normal maps, and all sort of cool things. The best thing about them is that they are physically based which means that you can derive new shaders by understanding the old ones since they follow set rules. An opal texture in 3Delight is a complex thing since some physical effects have to fudged or fake; in Iray, you can figure out the physical principles of an opal from an engineering text and just set it up.  

    I decided to do a quick render to see how simple it could be.  I created a new scene, added a Micharl 8 character from the store, Marcelo, dressed him, added hair, added a pose and primitive, added a backdrop prop, added textures to the backdrop and primitive by selecting the surfaces and applying a shader, added a HDRI background to the enviroment (the HDRI is a multicolored abstract pattern that adds a faux skydome that produces both diffuse and highligt lights.  All of this took all of 7 minutres and I told the computer to render.

     

     

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    Post edited by nemesis10 on
  • fastbike1fastbike1 Posts: 4,078
    edited September 2017

    @nemesis10 "I decided to do a quick render to see how simple it could be"

    It's simpler than that. Load character, load clothes, load hair, load pose. Don't mess with shaders or textures. No added lights or cameras. Turn Render Dome ON.

    test.png
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    Post edited by fastbike1 on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,924

    @agentunawares  @byrdie    My pleasure.   

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