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..so then why would I want to sit and wait for long CPU render times when I can get quicker results with 3DL? There are instances where rendering with even UE (like just using the area lights) can take less time than Iray CPU based ones.
...exactly. Adjusting surfaces in Iray can be a more complex than 3DL due to the additional channels Iray uses, the different values/scales employed, and the fact the lighting is physically (realistically) based. To get the wide variation in styles and effects "in render" with 3DL usually requires more postwork when using Iray
...for the most part, it is a gimped version compared to the standalone. Iray for Daz is also "gimped" as well compared to it's standalone. The best solution is an external render engine with a plugin bridge like Luxrender and Reality. Unfortunately licences for the standalone versions of both 3DL and Iray cost more than many here could afford.
3DL was used in movies like Planet of the Apes. Just the fact that people refer to it as none-photoreal in Daz Studio is pretty weird and must mean that it doesn't have much more than the name in common with the real thing. Whereas Iray seems way less gimped, or if anything gimped the other way around, as in not providing all the settings to optimize performance?
...yeah, that was an issue in the 3DL vs. Iray test I did. In the scene, there is a helicopter in the background (actually scaled very far down to look like it's in the distance). the scene also uses a photo backdrop on a plane. In eh 3DL version I could simply turn cast shadows for the helicopter "off". In the Iray version it cast a shadow on the backdrop. Having no way to eliminate that I had to move it further towards the centre offsetting the relationship of scene elements in order to hide the shadow behind one of the girls. I couldn't move the position of the sun as I needed the angle of the shadows it cast in the foreground it to match those in the photo.
...one of the words I keep hearing about 3DL and its shaders is they do not have the same level of "quality" as Iray. I find that very subjective. If in your mind photoreal is what you as after, then yes Daz 3DL is "deficient" for the the desired result. On the other hand, if like myself and others here, you desire a more illustrative, cartoony, or painterly style, then 3DL and its shaders fit the bill better than Iray.
Part of the debate here is also the fact as I and others have mentioned, it is much easier for the artist to go from 3DL to Iray than it is to go from Iray to 3DL. This is one of the vexing issues those of us who use 3DL face and why content with Iray only materials turns some of us off. Now if there was a really solid "Uber 3DL" conversion tool/routine (even as a plugin) that produced more accurate results than the script. then "debate over".
...but sadly, there isn't.
The 3Delight in DAZ Studio hasn't been updated in a couple years and it was always a step or more behind the current release. I believe it still works with the free 8-core renderer they offer to experiment with. You can access some stuff we don't easily see with the DAZ version's scripted render. The good things about 3Delight in DAZ Studio are it has motion blur, Iray doesn't, and you can use as many cores as you have on one PC - no limit. We don't have easy access to many of the other neat features unless you are great at coding. 3Delight is a movie studio level renderer but we don't have the techs they have to work wonders with code. That has always been the disadvantage. And 3Delight now has more advanced shaders and lights. Don't know if we'll ever see those in Studio. But if you know your way around it, like Kettu, wowie, and Parris and a few others, you can rival Iray and not have the memory limitations a GPU has, and you have displacement, not to forget that.
... and so the topic descends into vitriol and "mine is longer than yours".
All you to-may-to vs. to-mah-to people, is that really neccessary?
Those render engines are both tools, nothing more. Crayons or water colours, they both nake images. You use the one that helps you express yourself, your story, your imagination best.
Maybe if you focus back on the topic... and on why there aren't more PAs coming from those who are really good now with 3Delight, making those 3Delight sets for existing items? Just think about the possible collaborations. If the resulting 3DL texture setting is great, why wouldn't a PA allow you to sell it as an add-on for their product?
Well, I hope that DAZ doesn't drop 3DL altogether. For people like me that are on a Mac, iRay is not an option.
...we've been hearing from PAs and the opinion is pretty much providing shaders for both engines is more work than it is worth in light of Iray becoming the "go to" render engine, particularly by newer users who never worked with 3DL.
Where I tend to say hey" "waitaminute" is when someone alludes to 3DL being "inferior" to Iray or being "yesterday's news", and that people need to "get with the times". I use both engines. I prefer 3DL for my illustration work as I can get the style I need with very little fuss partly as i have been working with it for just over a decade. I don't do scripting, I push limits with the controls I have available to me. Yes, I think it is great that Daz also has a PBR render engine just that for my production work. I immediately installed the 4.8 beta (and I usually don't deal with betas) and was amazed that this little free programme could produce images on par with the pro software, and not take days/weeks like Lux did to get those results. Yes, its fun to experiment with, but not suitable for the illustration work I do and the long render times are a bit of a drag.
As you say it's a tool like any other tool, however it is becoming increasingly difficult to use as less and less content is being released with compatible 3DL materials. Iray materials look like rubbish in 3DL whereas Iray will even optimise 3DL materials on the fly (taking longer to render than if they were native Iray shaders).
This is a legitimate concern not only for those with older hardware who cannot afford the "latest and greatest", but those who choose to us 3DL as it is better suited to the work. Daz provided an easy base fix for converting 3DL to Iray as back when the 4.8 beta was released, those were the only shaders we had. However now that Iray only content releases are begnning to outnumber those which still offer 3DL materials, we are not given a suitable conversion to go the other way that works just as well. What this means, as some have mentioned, is not purchasing new content that is Iray only as it is a real pain to convert the materials by hand compared to just clicking on an icon and everything's ready to render in Iray. If such a plugin were available, then as I mentioned, this whole discussion would be moot. The Iray camp would be satisfied, as well the 3DL camp.
Gemini: that’s not true. You can render in CPU mode in reasonable time frames.
Standalone 3DL is free, albeit limited to 8 cpu cores. After 8 cores, you'll have to fork up another 600 or so to get unlimited cores.
...is that 8 physical cores or 4 Physical plus 4 virtual CPU threads?
KK from their FAQ:
3Delight does not look specifically if hyper-threading is enabled or not. It only asks the computer how many cores are available. It means on a quad-core computer, if the user has NOT enabled hyper-threading, 3Delight will be told there are 4 cores available and if the user has enabled hyper-threading, 3Delight will be told there are 8 cores available (even if only 4 cores are "real" and the 4 additional cores are "virtual" cores).
DAZ Studio's 3Delight has unlimited cores on one PC.
I suppose you are right, but it does seem really slow. I am still hoping that eGPU support will become viable soon with the new MacOS updates and that it is compatible with Thunderbolt 2 so I can go that route with my 2013 MacPro. I imagine being able to setup even one good Nvidia eGPU will make a big difference when trying to use iRay.
So go to the Apple forum and let them know that you would like more hardware options to render in Iray. I really mean it, they need to know. If nobody ever tells them and just accepts whatever they throw on the market, nothing will change and you'll still be rendering in 3DL in 20 years when the world has moved to quantum realtime rendering that sadly requires a Schrödinger 7000 GPU that Apple won't support because it can't fit into their 1 x 1 inch iMac Pro Ultra.
While they could do that, I suspect some folks simply don't have the time to learn another render engine and want it to be supported by the PAs even when there aren't enough additional sales from it to justify doing so.
Thanks for sharing these thoughts and for supporting 3DL! Your recording studio is on my wishlist, was very excited when I found it, and I hope to move it into my cart any day now!
3DL is roughly similar to Iray in CPU mode for comparable renders.
It's just that 3DL, by default, is really stripped down and Iray, by default, is set to high detail.
Or you use the one your current system can handle. But basically I agree about them being tools;)
Op was asking for advice and thoughts, these comments are thoughts as far as I know.
There seem to be some really good things going on with 3DL atm, this product will be for both render engines and possibly groundbreaking: ibl-master-image-based-lighting-control-for-both-renderers-a-new-ibl-for-3delight-commercial#latest
Also some very intresting stuff going on in the 3DL Laboratory thread:
wowie said:
Almost done. Now we can have raytraced reflections, raytraced subsurface scattering in minutes with opacity mapped surfaces. Still with the old DS 4.7 and UE2 IDL/bounceGI.
Cross posting. but this is what it will have:
Some other important features ;
Plus some other stuff. Mostly having to deal with specular/reflection. Plus visibility overrides and light categories.
If I can muster the last 10 % of features.
Yes, and my question is, if the PAs who create the "original" don't do 3Delight textures, why are there not PAs who specialize in creating 3DL textures for existing Iray sets? Of course, not every PA is willing to do this, but I'm sure some are game, as long as it's a separately sold package, maybe with "extra textures" rather than trying to emulate the Iray version.
There obviously appears to be a market. But no one here seems to be willing to do it, but instead it's pointing fingers in all directions.
A vocal minority doesn't usually make a market. There are a ton of Iray materials on the market, are there no 3DL ones? If so, can't one just apply these to an Iray surface? I ask since I don't use 3DL, but I do it ALL the time with products that don't have Iray materials and they work great 99% of the time.
Of the 3DL renders I have seen over my time here at DAZ, I have only seen a handful that look amazing and made me wonder about even trying 3DL. I think it would be interesting to post some sort of benchmark scene where users could d/l it and add their own lighting and shaders to the scene, using either renderer and then we see the posted results.
LOL ... regarding the 1x1 inch iMac Pro Ultra ... Don't you mean the 65" inch 10K screen 256-Core iMac Pro Ultra! The perfect size for anyone's desk and a resolution that will make you feel like you are literally inside the screen.
Apple has already listened to the complaints of users from what I can tell at least from the stand point of adding unofficial support for Nvidia back into the OS (again I think this has to do with the eGPU development on the horizon) but they are still in bed with AMD and the new Radeon Vega I am sure will be great for the folks using Maya and Cinema4D.
Unfortunately for me, I am still paying off my MacPro trashcan so not getting a new computer anytime in the near future. Hence my comment about hoping to add an eGPU at some point. But still fingers crossed that 3DL still has some life left here in DAZ land for a few more years.
..thanks. I was hoping if it was 8 real cores, as then I could use an 8 core Xeon with 16 threads.
Ths advantage of the standlone is it has more options than the embedded Daz version and since it runs indpendently, once the RIB file is submitted, the scene and Daz programme can be shut down freeing up extra memory resoruces. I used to use it on my old 32 bit duo core notebook so I could devote the full 2 GB memory allownce to rendering, Helped me avoid experiencing even more render crashes back then.
Well I've been told over and over again that this is a tedious and boring job but I thought too there would be a market for it. And no I'm not willing to do it because it's beyond my skills and I don't have time for it. As for the finger pointing, not sure what you mean. It's interesting to read both consumers' and publishing artists' opinions and reasons to do what they do. I think this discussion has been pretty healthy so far.
I think it would be fun to be a PA. But it seems like a really steep learning curve for me to create my own custom products. And like most things in the creative world, there is always that fear if you will actually be able to make a living at it or not.
Well everything is possible if you have a passion for what you do. I have a passion for making, arranging and recording/ mixing music as well as performing live. Done it for 30 years now and it's kept me and my family alive (barely). I also have a passion for making obscure pictures and animations but that is purely recreational, no desire to try to make it a full time job. Maybe when I retire, who knows...
I have the deepest respect for any publishing artist who can create amazing products and make it possible for people like me and you to have fun and be creative. If that's what you wanna do, then go for it!
I thought 3Delight was the same with all versions in regards to features. I thought the coding was the key, e.g. scripted render unlocks the features if you know the code. I'm not a code maven like Kettu or wowie, but I thought it could do the same. That way you could upgrade properly.
I am in the same boat. I was using ds3 for years and now upgraded and paid a lot, but as much as I like iray, it irks me when items only come in iray materials. With textures, I can do the adjustments fast enough, but for sets. I won't buy if they are not in both iray and 3 delight.
...I have the full Renderman which was given away for free last year, just waiting for some enterprising coder to write an RIB plugin.
The version of 3DL Integrated in Daz is, as mentioned earlier, still somewhat gimped compared to the commercial engine. Scripted rendering does open more possibilities but the version in Daz is older than what one can purchace from Renderman and doesn't comply with the new shader language.