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I would not say that I get sad or depressed. Disappointed, yes. It would be nice to use some products right out oft he box without having to do extensive retexturing and reshading work myself. (it bothers me more when materials zones aren't laid out in an intelligent fashion but I digress). But PAs have to cater to the market demand, and I am not quarreling with that. If the market wants stereo rather than mono and colour instead of black and white that's what the producers of content must provide if they want to remain viable.
Personally, I always view the render itself as just a starting point for retouching and postwork anyway. I come at this from a photography background, and no one I know takes a photo as is straight from their camera and claims it's finished without postprocessing on some level. With that in mind, 3DL suits me just fine.
...is that with UE? I've had "straight" 3DL renders take under 30 min, even for a fairly busy scene.
...same here when it comes to Iray only textures.
Technology changes. It's ok to be sad about it, it's ok to even be mad about it. I remember when Wal-Mart stopped selling VHS tapes - my step-dad went nuts. We dragged him into DVD kicking and screaming - in the end, though, he fell in love with his DVD player and never even watches his VHS tapes (even though he still has a VCR set up - I kid you not lol). Technology never stands still, and the market changes with the technology. We can go gracefully or we can go kicking and screaming, but unless we want to stop buying content altogether, we change with the times.
Well said.
I never thought I would read a book on a tablet, but now since getting one I've not opened a real book.
There is a lot to love about 3DL that Iray doesn't have...like simple motion blur, turning off shadows, etc. Likewise, Iray does some things a lot simpler. I find it super easy to set up lighting in Iray, where I'm forever tweaking light settings on 3DL and sample-rendering to get it right. Still, I have a low end GPU, so unless I'm doing a super simple scene with no more than 1 character, 3DL is just way faster. A render that can take two hours in Iray, can be done in less than ten minutes using 3DL with progressive rendering switched on.
I'm stlll doing a 3DL version of my packs wherever possible, but I have to agree with Rawn - it's hard. It sounds easy - set up the materials and you're good to go - but that's only half the story for me. I do a full set of props in Iray and 3DL, plus the presets, and once you include all the tweaking and test renders, it becomes a major operation. Not to mention the fact that I'm never exactly thrilled when I compare the results.
Still, for the foreseeable I'm keeping it up. If 3DL demand drops significantly, I'll rethink it.
I guess that just shows how much stuff changes over time. I must be missing something. I mean not to long ago there was once a time that all the pa's and venders created was 3dl mats until iray came out. this is just my opinion . But it seems if the pa's & venders that were always use to making 3dl mats before iray came out to begin with, then as a PA' to me it would sense to make those 3delight mats first, then just. convert them to iray using uber-iray setting I would think doing 3dl first and converting to iray would be easier, then there would be mats settings for both render engines for the product or be easier to use in a third party software as well.. . to me it appears that Daz has gone specialized just for the iray render engine only now?, In which case I guess that would cut other software and render engines from using these products anyway. that can't be good for sales to folks that don;t use daz iray. is it? I dunno? I'm not a PA or a vender so I don't really know what I am talking about when creating products. I am just going by my own experience from using 3dl and Iray and converting mats for my own use. So if I ( A flunky) can convert mats, then I would think it would be a cinch for a PA to booster their sales. but like I said I'm not a PA or a vender so I don't really know what I am talking about when creating products, I just use them.....if i can.
There's much more to making 3DL mats look optimal in Iray then just applying the Iray uber shader to 3DL mats. You CAN do that, but in my experience it doesn't look fantastic. It sometimes looks "OK", but to make it look as best as possible, it usually requires quite a bit more work than that.
"like I said I'm not a PA or a vender so I don't really know what I am talking about when creating products, I just use them.....if i can."
Yeah it doesnt really work that way. The two are very very different, yes you can apply the Iray Uber and various BASIC settings from DzDefault carry over but its not at all optimal or smart. Creating good materials has a lot more to it than that, and you need to tailor it to the engine. But I agree, it is in everyones best interests that the two native render engins are supported. Many computers dont have a good GPU, and not suitable for iray and Daz/Poser is a hobbiest market, not everyone has the greatest hardware or money to aquire it. You dont have to get fancy in the engine you not familiar with. eg. for Iray focused vendors just use DzDefault with basic material settings with the Bump, Spec and Diff, its not hard, doesnt take long. Dont have to use fancy Uber Surface 2 and AoA Subsurface. Just a basic option and everyone is happy. Advertise for Iray, include and note "Basic 3delight Materials included" Win-Win!
Actually that would not be easier or make sense. The Iray setup can do alot of things that are not able to be done with 3dl, so the iray setup is much more complicated. Then the iray settings would have to be dumbed down to make the 3dl version. It is easier to dumb things down than to make them more complicated. So one would generally start with the iray settings, then convert to 3dl.
But all pa's have different approaches, so the path for one may be different than for another.
If only a Kindle could get that real book *buried in a box in the attic or the garage for years and years* smell ;).
As for 3Delight, I came into DS on the tail end of it and was juuuuust starting to try and work it out before Iray popped in. I like Iray. A LOT. Having said that, I do also like non-photoreal renders too :).
Laurie
I've mostly jumped to Iray now - I only use 3DL for my toons (pwToon especially is great) - but for that I don't need advanced 3DL settings so a simple conversion is fine. I know the 3DL and Iray surfaces tabs well enough now (still learning some stuff on Iray, but getting there).
@Ivy "So if I ( A flunky) can convert mats, then I would think it would be a cinch for a PA"
I've stopped buying SWAM's recent product because they only have 3DL shaders and the standard conversion just isn't nearly as good as a dedicated Iray shader. SWAM used to be an auto buy for me, but no more.
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"like I said I'm not a PA or a vender so I don't really know what I am talking about when creating products, But talking personally if i want to convert older content to use for iray I just use the uber iray settings and get fairly good results and tweak things from there. I have seen many products I have bought just using the uber settings. So Again as I stated it was my assumption only, that products could be textured that way. before iray came out Pa's made all content for 3delight with no problems and your saying building model for those same 3dl mats is harder than using Iray mats? Then I can see why the pa's prefer iray mats if its less effort . but as a hobby user of daz it does not matter to me what you guys use. I buy what I can use and fore go that which I can't..no hard feelings.
The actual mesh construction doesn't really care what renderer is used to render it. It's the time and effort put into making the materials look the way the PA wants them to look. And with the shader set for 3DL that is accessible in Studio, that is rather limited. as far as PBR or physically based materials are concerned.
Anyone else sad so many items are now only iRay?
No.
Sadly the same can be said if you were trying to covert iray hair mats to 3dl use :(
lucky there are tons of 3dl to iray hair conversions mats My choice is Outoftouchs OOTS iray hair shaders to me they are properly the best iray shaders I have ever used on any hair peice, even hair i have bought that came with iray mats don't seem to compare to oots iray hair conversions IMO . the same can not be said for converting iray to 3dl hair mats. which to me 3dl make far better anime hair renders
Sorry I misunderstood the proccess of texturing models i guess. though I was under the asumption from stuff i have read that PBR & based renderman shaders where more versitile and gave better results I guess thats old school now days .
I'm definitely itching to try OOTs Iray Hair Shaders. I think hair might be one of those things that is easy to convert (relatively speaking). Most hair, that's not fiber-mesh, seems to be made pretty much the same or very similar from each other. And hair can be pretty forgiving when it comes to coloring and texture -while as skin (and many other things) can look very off with only slightly different coloring and/or texturing.
you won't be disppointed. I have found very few hair models that I could not use out of touches hair shaders on. I wish she make a iray to 3dl hair shader set that was as good.
I just need to catch it when it's on sale. lol I seem to have bad luck in that reguard. When I have a little extra money, it's not on sale. When it's on sale, I'm broke. lol But yeah, I'll definitely get it one of these days - I've heard several people, yourself included, recommend it. :)
They are fantastic. I've also had very good luck using PhilW's Hair Lustre shaders over the original 3delight texture sets, especially older painted ones. Sometimes that looks even better than retexturing to full Iray, sometimes not. Just depends on the hair set.
I found DAZ at the tail end of 3Delight. My old computer could not do Iray at all, and even 3delight renders took forever. It was usually the hair that took the longest. Looked great but drove me crazy. My current computer is a rebuild and is five years old with a 4GB card. It works fine for most of the things I want to do in Iray. I don't tend to do more than two characters in a scene. Sometimes I'll use the free "reduce textures" script to get the scene to fit on my card. Most of my Iray renders take less than an hour. A few with more intensive lighting take several hours, but that's rare. I love bloom, but don't have the patience for the extra time it takes, so I add it in postwork. (I've found the render is only half the job, the postwork is the other half.)
I don't mind converting older stuff to Iray, and often look for items I can use in Poser as well. There are some talented PAs at Rendo that make characters with 3Delight, Iray, Firefly and Superfly mats. I can't imagine the work that goes into those, but I snap them up, since I love the versatilty of being able to use four different render engines.
Just working on a little experiement. As close to an apples to apples comparison as I can for using special effects shaders in 3DL, vs. multiple passes in Iray.
I'll edit to add the images once I've done postwork, but I just finished rendering. The scene is a knight on a mountain side, but his shadow is that of a dragon.
The 3DL version was one render, 40 minutes, I had more or less full access to my computer the entire rime.
Iray render #1 (with just the knight) took only 25 minutes, but my computer was nigh unusuable for half of that, and continued to be sluggish and cranky for about five minutes afterwards (while I was trying to make the neccisary changes for Render #2). Iray render #2 (with the dragon who was just monochrome green) took 15 minutes with no side effects, Iray render #3 (with neither, which I mostly needed as a color guide) took 8.
So even with allowing that I might not need Render #3, it took the same amount of time to render in Iray the two images I'd deffinately need for this concept that it took for only one in 3DL. And that's before postwork, which will by neccesity be longer for the Iray version than the 3DL one. (I will note here that I will not be trying to make the two pictures appear to be the same image. The lights don't line up correctly for one thing, even though they're from the same set.)
Just food for thought.
I'm finding I'm using Iray a lot more than I expected. I love the way it makes older props look so much better, but there are times when I just like the effects I can get from 3DL. I expect I'll continue to use both, but I'm not upset if a vendor sells Iray only. I don't bother to instal the 3DL shaders for the newer stuff; it just takes up too much space. I think it's a perfect place right now where we have access to both, depending on our hardware and art preferences.
That's a really cool idea! I really like the snow in the first one. I'm not really seeing the dragon though? The shadow to me looks kind of abstract but I'm not seeing a dragon shape. Of course my eyesite isn't the best ever. lol
The reason it's harder is that instead of just making 3DL materials, you try to recreate (as closely as possible) the Iray materials. That may be easy for some things, but when it comes to glass, metals and a few other surfaces, 3DL never quite matches up to Iray. And trying to get the same lighting in both render engines so you can make a decent comparison isn't easy either.
Why bother? Why not just make ordinary 3DL materials? Well, because most promo renders are now done in Iray, and a customer who uses 3DL will look at the results and be disappointed. And of course, most PAs hate to put out sub-standard work.
Anyway, as I mentioned before, if I have a prop pack with 30 - 50 props in it, all with multiple materials, plus presets, I have to convert hundreds of materials, and save a complete new folder of props and presets.
I'm not looking for photoreal. In fact I didn't get Stonemason's Venice because it was too realistic. I prefer rendered (or painted) backdrops to photos as well. That a vendor prefers their stuff's look in iRay over 3DL is meaningless to me.
I'm just looking for the basics. ie, UH2 plus relevant images in their proper slots which can be done early in the process and set aside. You can state on the product page that 3DL BASIC materials are applied but will need work to look anything close to the promos.
Yeah, I should have messed with the sun angle, but I wasn't sure if the sun for Iray was going to come primarily from the HDRI or the distant light marked "sun" so I didn't want to move the lights from how they loaded in. The dragon shadow got a little lost as it stretched across the snow. It was intended mostly as an experiment/time comparison, so I didn't get as fiddly as I normally would have. (For the record, the place where the Iray version lost the race was indeed Postwork time. I spent maybe 2 minutes on the 3DL version, and about half an hour on the Iray version. Again, not as fiddly with it as I normally would.)
Of course, that's part of why I picked this set (Eazy Environments, Snowy mountain) - because it had good setups for both 3DL and Iray. Same with Arki's Rune for males.