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I want to ask, will the 3Delight items that I had purchased still be downloadable from the "Orders" page on my account after 3Delight is gone in 2026?
Yes, and you can use them in 3Delight if you make a back up copy of the installers (application and plug-ins). It's only the application that is going away, because the license to distribute 3Delight will end, it doesn't have any bearing on the content packages.
I'd like to ask, how do I create a backup copy of the installers - application and plug-ins included?
As in, what path would I have to take in order to create backup copy of the installers with the application and plug-ins?
I did download the .exe installer file of DAZ Studio 4.24 a while ago. Will I be able to install my copy of such EXE file in 2026?
If so, what do I do about creating backup copies of plugins?
As studio doesn't require an internet connection to activate, you should be fine.
I won't guarantee it will work with what ever version of windows or macOS you may have at the time though.
For plugins, simply download them and store them where ever you want. Most can be downloaded via DIM. Those that are in EXE format, you'll need to go to your account page and manually download them.
Be sure to use 3-2-1 for backups(raid is not a backup)
3 copies, 2 different storage mediums, 1 off site.
NEVER ASSUME PRODUCTS WILL ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD!!
Also, I would recommend copying and pasting the serial numbers to any purchased plugins onto a text document in Notepad, put it in the same folder as the downloaded plugins, and keep the plugins and notepad document containing the serial numbers in mutliple storage mediums and one off-site.
The link to the serial numbers can be found on the "My Account" tab.
PA plug-ins should not be an issue, geenrally they do not get updated with each DS update - it is the Daz "own brand" plug-ins that must match. The serials do not chnage with each version, so the post 3Delightectomy ones will still be the same (not that i advise a gainst making backups, but it isn't specifically relevant here).
Well, there may be one exception regarding plugins. I did purchase Face Transfer a few years ago, but the problem is I thought I had purchased "Face Transfer" and I know I definitely have "Face Transfer Unlimited" as it appears in the Orders page on My Account. I am having a hard time trying to use Face Transfer again. Was there ever a plugin called simply "Face Transfer" for Genesis 8, but it had been replaced by "Face Transfer 2" for Genesis 9?
And regarding PA plug-ins, what does PA stand for?
Face Transfer is for Genesis 8, Face Transfer 2 is for Genesis 9 - it isn't a matter of one replacing the other. You get the base Face Transfers free with DS, each allowing three saves (but an unlikited number of tries without saving) - I assume they call the full licenses unlimited because they remove the limitation on uses, but they don't change the actual working of the tools.
Published Artist (usually, it has varied) - in other words the tools not built by Daz and not sold with Daz listed as the vendor.
Don't forget your studio serial in that doc.
Personally, i add a text doc with the serial for the plug-in to the zip file.
My personal opinion is that iray is capable enough to convert 3delight shaders, indeed this is how we import 3dl in blender converting it first to iray. There may be some bump map to adjust as iray can't convert the bump height correctly, or some complex materials may need some adjustement too, but in general the conversion is good. As for the speed iray used with the cpu is far superior to 3dl with full ray tracing, while for 3dl without raytracing you can use filament instead, though in this case the shader conversion is not that good unfortunately as filament can't do most iray features, particularly transmapped hairs don't come good with filament.
The real advantage of 3dl is memory, as iray requires a vast amount of ram to render the scene while 3dl is tiled thus a small ram is enough. But ram alone doesn't cost much and most PCs can be upgraded for that.
We hope there's a good replacement for 3delight, like Pixar's Renderman, to keep things running smoothly.
Just my two cents here, but i don't think there's going to be a replacement. There's just too many technical hurdles, and, getting any kind of support from PA's is going to be difficult.
The drop off in 3delight support after a few years of iray in studio, kinda shows what the interest in alternative render engines is. Not to mention the Reality plug in, and Octane, which basically had/have 0 support by PA's.
Integrating renderman, wouldn't do anything of the sort to "...keep things running smoothly". WIthout getting way too technical, there's basically no difference between renderman and iray.
I have a question about this backup. I am not that great with computers and don't know a lot about files and backing up, etc.
1. When I backup the DazStudio424 to another SSD, am I copying ONLY the program or am I also coping the content that I have purchased?
2. Also, when I download the newer versions of Daz, will I have 2 different shortcuts on my screen so I can select the version I want?
Thanks in advance for your help!
The advice is to back up the installers, the DIM downloads, for the application and the Daz plug-ins.
No, unless you use the General Release for one and the Public Build (Beta) for the other. You should have only one version of either release channel installed at any one time.
Iray dosn't do anything in that context, Daz wrote code to convert 3Delight materials to Iray materials.
It's all very confusing.
I wonder if we're obliged to upgrade to these latest versions ?
I don't think Daz cares. When they no longer distribute a Daz Stufio version that has a 3DL render engine, they are assumably fullfilling the license.
Technically there will be people out there that might no longer be active, and haven't upgraded their DS versions in years, but still have it installed.
I personally don't care about the end of 3delight.
I keep deleting immediately every 3delight material folder with every product.
The reason, I changed from Poser to DAZ Studio has been a supirior Genesis 3 figure and IRAY.
In fact I never liked 3delight, which didn't look any better to me, than Poser's firefly renderer.
Daz may not distribute the 3Delight render engine, that doesn't mean you can't use it by having the slightly older version installed; otherwise there would have been no point in telling people to back up the installers.
So is the Daz store finaly going to ad a filter for the items render formats that we do not use, want or are now unusable?
Use Filament, its better if you need fast renders. Adobe Lirghtroom Classic to 'fake things'...and... it works, belive me. And have some IAs now to help you to improve renders.
Filament is great for previews, for final renders, no thanks.€
That will depend on what you want – the purpose. I can help you organize that. If the idea is character consistency, not even AI surpasses photorealism (I mentioned photorealism, and that's limited by current technology – but the trend is for that to change in the coming years). This is different when it comes to 'less realistic' styles, such as 'concept art/digital art' (which is my specialty). In other words, you'll be able to maintain the consistency of your character using some specific techniques with AI and digital painting (use Krita – it's absolutely free, and you won't have licensing problems because you're probably using a product legally acquired from the DAZ Store for a specific purpose – renders). But as I said, if the idea is 'approximation' and not rigid photorealism, there's a way to use 'filamenting', working, of course, within parameters in DAZ and post-production in Lightroom (or something similar). I think that even for photorealism, perhaps image manipulation specialists can produce things that are surprising, but since I'm not one of those in Photoshop, etc... I can't say anything for sure. Krita's AI is very helpful, there's the 'flux kontext' (exclusive for image editing), lighter models like NOOB-IA-XL for 'concept art', various Loras in different styles, etc. Nothing compares to Iray - I use it a lot precisely for that reason, including when talking about external renderers, because the work you'll have to do to assemble something outside of DAZ is equivalent to several renders in DAZ.
I really hope for more advancements in 'filament' and things involving textures/shaders (like hair), global illumination or something similar without depending on lights (and their limitations, 8 spotlights in a scene with shadows), etc.
Thanks for posting this information - it is helpful. Your workflow would be a great thread or tutorial (free or commercial), as it seems you've figured out how the puzzle pieces go together in an effective way.
This edge of the industry is moving so fast, I've already got a couple of obsolete pipelines that I set up and never got to using before something better came along.
Back On Topic - If any of our 3DL are/were using it to its full capacity - from toon to photo-real, filament probably isn't going to suffice, but if basic renders were being generated for story-boarding and/or AI reference sorts of uses, then filament is a pretty decent tool to fill that new void.
2c and cheers,
--ms
Even if you can download all of it, the problem is that the version with 3Delight support will no longer be maintained. No bug fixes, no security updates. Nothing
Personally, I think those of us who still use 3Delight and prefer a biased rendering engine for whatever reason should bombard Daz with messages about how terrible this idea is. Not all artists want physically accurate Iray rendering.
Filament isn't ready for production use. It still crashes on a routine basis with many scenes. And even if it were ready for production use, it can't provide the lighting effects that 3Delight can.
DS 4 is unlikely to get updates anyway.
I just wish they would continue to include some type of biased rendering engine. I mean if not 3Delight, what about Eevee? Granted, I can render using Eevee if I export to Blender. But that is kind of a pain. It seems to me they could bundle Eevee. It's free and open source, after all.
(Edited by mod for language)