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..+1
l have everything I suggested (even the latest update of the AweShader kit) for those who still work in or are thinking of moving back to 3DL due to likely increases in price for high VRAM GPUs due to Nvidia's announcement they will be scaling back on consumer GPU production .
Just need a good high core count CPU and decent memory for support.
Is there a way to render in 3dlight other then Daz I will have to learn Iray rendering if not
And now with DS6, Mac users can use FilaToon and Filament also.
Awesome. I was just wondering if that was going to work. Hopefully this is all I need to get some of my fav 3DL products to work in the new version of DAZ. Thanks!
Material converters and such should still work. AFAIK, it's only the actual 3DL renderer that is now gone in the 4.24.04 builds.
...the current version of 3DL is different from the version Daz had integrated in Studio as it uses a different shader language,knopen as OSL:- Open Shading Language (the version in Daz Studio used RSL - Renderman Shading Language). Hence shaders would need to be converted to the new language
Software that has the current version of 3DL integrated includes Autodesk Maya, Foundry Katana, SideFX Houdini, and Cinema 4D (all rather pricey software and that is only available via monthly/annual subscription).
[edited for clarificaion]
Thinking out loud here. What if an end user WANTS to use 3Delight. Can DAZ 3D at least prepare a plugin option for using 3DL within DS? Seems plausible. They wouldn't be breaking any rules and I think the stand alone version of 3DL offers allot more than what we had to work with in the version that was licensed for DS. Did a tiny bit of research and found the company name that made 3Delight (I think) Illumination Research. Can't find the direct website to find the stand alone version of 3DL.
The current versions of 3DL are very different from the ones DS used, for example the material system completely changed and is not compatible at all with the RSL shaders DS uses. So writing a plugin which would enable you to export a scene to render with the current 3DL standalone would not be that simple.
Would it be doable? Most likely, though the shader conversion part might be tricky.
Would Daz be interested in doing so? Well considering they never did the work which would have been required to integrate the new versions of 3DL in DS in all the years since those changes were implemented, I wouldn't count on it.
I suppose anyone suitably talented could write a plugin to use 3DL once the 2026/DS6 SDK is available. IIRC there were two options to use the LuxRender engine back in 2011 - 2013 - the Luxus plugin which did a best effort to alter the materials in the scene to match the LuxRender requirements, with the ability to do fine tuning; and Reality - which, IIRC, required manual definitions be made for all materials.
I tried them both - gave up on Reality almost immediately, and never really got comfortable with Luxus. But I think these were the driving force behind Daz going with Iray.
So - feel free to try writing a plugin for 3DL if you wish; fairly certain Daz won't be doing it.
As in previous replies, the issue is that the current version of 3Delight - going back some time - does not support the RSL shaders used by DS, so it would be as big a jump as from 3Delight to Iray - but without the material conversion tools that Daz wrote for 3Delight (RSL) to Iray (MDL).
Filament works on my Motherboard iGPU on both my intel and AMD PCs but sadly Filatoon doesn't on the Win7 i7 Filament itself does
Iray does render on CPU (without acceleration granted) but we Mac users have survived.
...years ago I performed a controlled test comparison using the same scene and rendered it in both 3DL and Iray
For the 3DL test I used AoA's Advanced Lights and IBL Master For the Iray version I optimised the shaders using the Iray Uber settings and Sun/Sky mode.
I ran several preliminary tests to make sure the sun angle and tone mapping between both marched as closely as possible. The render included elements such as glass, reflective metal, transmaps (hair and foliage) skin, rough and smooth surfaces. I also had elements behnd the camera to be relected in the glass.
At the time I did not have a GPU capable of rendering Iray (a 1 GB GTX 460) so I had to render it on the CPU (4 core 2.8 GHz i7 930 at the time). Both scene files rendered at the same size
The final test in Iray took about two hours and forty minutes.
The 3DL version took about 22 minutes (which included about 8 minutes for the initial optimisation pass) and came very close in quality to the Iray test. The reflection in the windows of the elements behind the camera was slightly better than in the Iray test.
Filament is by far not a replacement for IRAY.
I'm not that happy about IRAY either, but unlike Filament, it gives at least some konda-realistic results.
Migrating from DAZ 3Delight to DAZ Filament (based on Google Android Filament) is not that difficult. There are tutorials on YouTube and 3 products in the DAZ store that can assist you. It is possible to get good looking lighting results in Filament when compared to DAZ 3Delight.
https://www.daz3d.com/rssy-3delight-and-iray-to-filament
https://www.daz3d.com/the-creative-cart--filament-and-filatoon-fundamentals
https://www.daz3d.com/filament-pro-lights-and-rendering-secrets--2-new-lights--video-tutorial
Some links for your general reference:
https://digitalartlive.com/daz-studio-render-engines-a-comprehensive-guide/
https://www.daz3d.com/filament-information-page
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/690191/what-is-filament
https://google.github.io/filament/Materials.md.html
and there is Carrara
Genesis 9 with a couple of tweaks works in Carrara
I actually like filament, and I hope that Daz will continue to develop their implementation of it. The toon thing is a side show for me. I'm pretty sure filament can do a lot more than what it's currently doing in DS.
3Delight, Filament - not Daz 3Delight, Daz Filament.
Non-Filatoon Filament would have SO much potential if they could just fix the hair problem.
Well that wasn't my greatest move ever.... I downloaded every previous version of DAZ Studio I might ever need... except version 4.22 that I have installed and am actually using. If I ever get a new computer, I will have to install a newer version and just see what doesn't work anymore, or see what new place they've managed to put ads.
...my concern as well, Not very impressed by Filament, and not thrilled about returning to glacial CPU rendering times with Iray
Nvidia moved Maxwell cards (which includes my Titan X) to obsolete status (end of life) this past October. As costs for upgrading have skyrocketed out of sight (mainly due to a big price jump for both DDR5 and even DDR4 memory) it will take a lot longer to save up for. Hence I am thinking of returning to the 3DL setup I used in the comparison tests I mentioned above (I do have the Iray to 3DL conversion tool).
I find these products help a lot with hair in Filament FSL Realistic Hair Shaders for Iray and Filament | Daz 3D and Oso FilaToon Kit for Genesis 9 | Daz 3D
Thank you for the suggestion. I have https://www.daz3d.com/fsl-realistic-hair-shaders-for-iray-and-filament . The reason for my suggestions was due to the maturity of Filament in DAZ (which I insist on calling DAZ Filament
because it is a Windows implementation of Filament that was designed for Android). At this point with the tools and tutorials available, in my opinion, Filament can replace DAZ's legacy implementation of 3Delight and provide equivalent, or better, results. However, there is a learning curve and it does use the active viewport which means it works best with multi-monitor setup because you must not obstruct the viewport during rendering.
Who knows, with Nvidia plans for the 50xx series for 2026 ( https://www.techpowerup.com/344578/leaks-predict-usd-5000-rtx-5090-gpus-in-2026-thanks-to-ai-industry-demand ) and therefore send prices into far earth orbit, Filament may get more attention for DAZ development.
Just to clarify Filament does use the GPU for viewport rendering, but it is not as restricted by GPU performance as Iray because it implements PBR rendering through a more streamlined method. Iray gives more realistic results with very little effort, but with an effort 3Delight and Filament can give realistic results.
Regardless of which method I use everything goes through Affinity Studio ( https://www.affinity.studio/ ) post-render editing.
Comparison of Render Engines
PBR
SOURCE: https://digitalartlive.com/daz-studio-render-engines-a-comprehensive-guide/
Another alternative to 3Delight is shifting your scenes to Blender which can use AMD ATI and Nvidia graphics cards, but that is a lot of work.
We don't know what the future holds, don't know for sure that article is true. You could buy a 50xx gc now, though it depends of your system can handle it. Plus we're kinda spoiled. Back in the day you could buy a 286 with a 20mb hard drive for the low low price of $6000, and in dollars from the 1980s. Madness by modern standards, but that was state of the art then.
Licenses have to be compatible, for one thing - you annot necessarily bung even two bits of open source code together, let alone open source and proprietary.