3DApprentice said:

DAZ_Rawb said:

As for the final Daz Studio 5 release:
- The timeline for this is to have it out near the very end of this year.
- Features and enhancements will be rolling in through the rest of the year.
- Anyone who has Daz Studio 4 in their account will be able to keep it. You'll be able to continue to download and use it for the foreseeable future.

I hope everyone is just as excited about Daz Studio 5 as we are.

So that was back in 2021... We are now here in 2023 and there is still no Daz Studio 5 - what happened? Can we get an update?

To be fair, that timeline was based on needing to get a pre-beta to Mac users to be able to use DAZ Studio at all and the end-of-year 2021 version would have been bare bones for everyone, with the bell and whistles being added throughout 2022 so that by now we'd have a fully-functional, all the bells and whistles version with about a half-year of updates by now.
The "good news" was that they got help from Apple and no longer needed to match that hectic, two-year update plan, which puts us here today, waiting. I believe someone heard in the release video for Victoria 9 that they'd hoped to have DAZ Studio 5 out this spring, but it's less than a month until summer so, that's doubtful.

I've been waiting for the Filament rendering engine since November, 2020, but at this point, I've stopped waiting. I've also stopped investing time and money in DAZ until D|S 5 comes out.

I took stock last month and realized that I've spent almost $70,000 over the decades at DAZ and I really have more than enough assets to do what I want without spending another dime (especially when you add in money spent at other sites over the decades).

It all came down to, "What am I waiting for?".

Well, this is what we *know* is coming in DAZ Studio 5:

1. It will use a much-newer version of Qt than D|S 4 uses, which will solve some UI issues some people have and possibly add some new UI features.

2. The Mac version will have Filament available.

3. The Mac version will use Apple's Metal library, but other than possibly replacing OGL, no one has said any more regarding Metal.

4. They were going to *try* to make the Mac version native.

5. ???

As far as I know, that's all that I've heard about what's coming in D|S 5. If anyone knows any more about what's been promised or actually planned, please update the list, I really would like to know.

As it stands, it looks like I'd continued to wait and invest in DAZ for the last couple of years when the only sure-thing coming for me was Filament. I've also started having more and more issues opening old characters due to updates to D|S and/or older base models, like Genesis.

I would love to hear of anything else planned (for whenever) as to what's coming down the pipe, but if that's it, I'm going to pass for now.

My only other big want would be a 64-bit version of their Mimc-based lip sync; I have yet to see anything as well-done out elsewhere. Honestly, I'm getting a little tired of keeping my 2012 machine running just to be able to lip sync.

I'm hoping to hear good news in the near future, but I'm just not investing in the mere possibility anymore.

-- Walt Sterdan
 

Edited two times for typos.

Mouser said:

I keep running into Iray render engine limits that almost any other render engine can do.

Are their other render engines that can use Iray materials?

Yes I tried the conversion scripts (3Delight, Filament etc) and it just not working out.

What limits in the Iray render engine? 

I tested a complex scene with Filament but found no problem either. I'm not able to reproduce the issue for the time being... Let's see if sb. ever had the similar experience of these issues and found a resolution.. 

Mouser said:

I keep running into Iray render engine limits that almost any other render engine can do.

Are their other render engines that can use Iray materials?

Yes I tried the conversion scripts (3Delight, Filament etc) and it just not working out.

Most render engines can't use shaders from a different engine without some kind of converter. You can try Diffeomorphic and try rendering your scenes in Blender Cycles. Keep in mind that no converter is perfect and there will likely always be shaders that need tweaking once converted.

I keep running into Iray render engine limits that almost any other render engine can do.

Are their other render engines that can use Iray materials?

Yes I tried the conversion scripts (3Delight, Filament etc) and it just not working out.

I usually use filament, yes sometimes there are many vertices but there have always been and didnt get that happening before I updated to the new version

Kitsumo said:

brainmuffin said:

lostindebian said:

After spending days with bottles and wine-staging I got it working with Lutris. This is how I think I did it.

My system.

• DAZ Studio 4.21.0.5
• Debian 11.
• ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 12GB DUAL OC V2.
• NVIDIA-SMI 470.161.03
• Driver Version: 470.161.03
• CUDA Version: 11.4

My steps.

1. Install NVIDIA drivers for Debian. Not sure which, but the recommended that you use for everything.
2. Install "Lutris".
3. Install "DAZ Studio".
4. Start "DAZ Studio" and set the viewport to NOT use "filament". Else it will crash later!
5. Download and extract "nvidia-libs-0.7.7.tar.xz" and enter folder in terminal.
6. Run the script "WINEPREFIX=/home/user/Games/daz ./setup_nvlibs.sh install".
7. Start "DAZ Studio" and the GPU rendering WORKS!. At least I think it works.

Big thanks to this thread. Could not have done it without you!
   

I'm running Mint and do have Studio running under Lutris, but not sure where to get this extra file and where to put it.

https://github.com/SveSop/nvidia-libs/releases

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/7942656/#Comment_7942656

It's been a while since I used DS in Lutris, but as far as I can remember the setup is pretty much the same as with regular wine-staging.

Downloaded 0.7.9 and ran nvml_setup.sh. Still renders, but doesn't use GPU....hmmm....

Bezinex said:

Thank you Crosswind! Much better, although i came to understand it also has to do with filament PBR, which i apperently can't get because i work on a mac. 

Ha~ I even don't know Filament does not work on Mac as I never use Filament 

Thank you Crosswind! Much better, although i came to understand it also has to do with filament PBR, which i apperently can't get because i work on a mac. 

brainmuffin said:

lostindebian said:

After spending days with bottles and wine-staging I got it working with Lutris. This is how I think I did it.

My system.

• DAZ Studio 4.21.0.5
• Debian 11.
• ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 12GB DUAL OC V2.
• NVIDIA-SMI 470.161.03
• Driver Version: 470.161.03
• CUDA Version: 11.4

My steps.

1. Install NVIDIA drivers for Debian. Not sure which, but the recommended that you use for everything.
2. Install "Lutris".
3. Install "DAZ Studio".
4. Start "DAZ Studio" and set the viewport to NOT use "filament". Else it will crash later!
5. Download and extract "nvidia-libs-0.7.7.tar.xz" and enter folder in terminal.
6. Run the script "WINEPREFIX=/home/user/Games/daz ./setup_nvlibs.sh install".
7. Start "DAZ Studio" and the GPU rendering WORKS!. At least I think it works.

Big thanks to this thread. Could not have done it without you!
   

I'm running Mint and do have Studio running under Lutris, but not sure where to get this extra file and where to put it.

https://github.com/SveSop/nvidia-libs/releases

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/7942656/#Comment_7942656

It's been a while since I used DS in Lutris, but as far as I can remember the setup is pretty much the same as with regular wine-staging.

my whole scene disappears sometimes in Filament on my Win7 with only integrated Intel graphics 

I have close DAZ studio and sometimes reboot the PC to get it back

that's simply my sad OpenCL driver being overwhelmed 

lostindebian said:

After spending days with bottles and wine-staging I got it working with Lutris. This is how I think I did it.

My system.

• DAZ Studio 4.21.0.5
• Debian 11.
• ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 12GB DUAL OC V2.
• NVIDIA-SMI 470.161.03
• Driver Version: 470.161.03
• CUDA Version: 11.4

My steps.

1. Install NVIDIA drivers for Debian. Not sure which, but the recommended that you use for everything.
2. Install "Lutris".
3. Install "DAZ Studio".
4. Start "DAZ Studio" and set the viewport to NOT use "filament". Else it will crash later!
5. Download and extract "nvidia-libs-0.7.7.tar.xz" and enter folder in terminal.
6. Run the script "WINEPREFIX=/home/user/Games/daz ./setup_nvlibs.sh install".
7. Start "DAZ Studio" and the GPU rendering WORKS!. At least I think it works.

Big thanks to this thread. Could not have done it without you!
   

I'm running Mint and do have Studio running under Lutris, but not sure where to get this extra file and where to put it.

PerttiA said:

You can use 3DLight or Filament, but it's not just a matter of selecting an other renderer. DS can convert the textures on the fly and does a pretty decent job at it except for transparent and mirror surfaces, but for example the lights work differently and probably need to be changed.

At one year shy of sixty, I have considered myself a youngster here as there are people here that have been working with computers for a living in the 60's and 70's

ok thanks,  i'll try(and error :D ) with that ...

I'm autodidact when it comes to computers... been in artistic branche all my life (painting, drawing, sculpting ...) so i tought to give it a go on computers as well :D  started early 2000 with computers as a 'deeper' interest and poser 3, 4,....    not considireing myself 'old' but it feels sometimes like waking up in the morning and  'what the heck ?? 64 already ???"  :D 

alexanderlshah_b8ebfb31f1 said:

Here in the two screenshots, you can see my problem. I have created a new DAZ file and just inserted the basic stone wall tunnel element into the scene, just to test the render. So, when I choose FILAMENT (PBR) it renders something closer to what I want (though it is very pale), but as soon as I hit NVIDIA (LRAY) -- the render preview turns black !?!?! WHY? I have included both the Distant Lights and the Spotlight in front ... and yet ... pitch black :-((((

What is going on ? My settings are normal, as you can see on the left of the screenshot...

 

And which lights is there in the scene? 

Here in the two screenshots, you can see my problem. I have created a new DAZ file and just inserted the basic stone wall tunnel element into the scene, just to test the render. So, when I choose FILAMENT (PBR) it renders something closer to what I want (though it is very pale), but as soon as I hit NVIDIA (LRAY) -- the render preview turns black !?!?! WHY? I have included both the Distant Lights and the Spotlight in front ... and yet ... pitch black :-((((

What is going on ? My settings are normal, as you can see on the left of the screenshot...

Ey gang!

So, my birthday is coming up and it's a moment where I like to reflect a bit on some things that matter to me. At the time of writing I've been using Daz Studio for a very long time now; when I check my order overview I see that it's almost 10 full years of 3D awesomeness. So I felt like venting a bit, but I don't think that really fits the forum; IMO it's better to try and make such a vent useful for others as well.

As such I'd like to share my take on things within the spirit of the threads intention...

Features that I discovered in Daz Studio & Genesis which I deem invaluable to use

(and which can hopefully help some of you out as well!)

#1 Customization features, why ignore 'm?

As far as I can tell many people start by selecting a workspace layout (where 'City Limits' seems to be quite popular), they select a style (where 'Darkside' seems to be ditto popular) and then that's it. Or so it seems to me because when I look at some YouTube videos which feature Daz Studio I often see the exact same workspace layout. I'm referring to videos from both Daz 3D but also some seemingly popular other Tubers.

Now, there's nothing wrong with this, really, but just for some context: when you see videos that feature ZBrush you're bound to see a completely different interface layout each and every time because within 3D efficiency is key because that can help you get things done a lot quicker.

And I think some people overlook the insane amount of customization options we have!

Toolbars

Some examples...  for my workspace / viewport I heavily rely on both the texture & Filament render options, sporadically I also use Iray. By default you can select individual draw styles by using the 'ctrl + number' keycombo: ctrl + 9 is the texture render for example whereas ctrl + 3 gives you a wireframe. Unfortunatley you can't directly switch to Filament, but Iray works like a charm. You don't think I'm going to try and remember all that, do you? Instead I put some commonly used drawstyles on my toolbar.

And speaking of Filament: if you're going to use this then you have to add a "Filament draw options node" to your scene because otherwise your viewport is going to be oversaturated. I'm not going to open the 'Create' menu and try to find the option in there.. heck no: I've addded that to my toolbar as well. Just like the options to add cameras, lights, Iray environment & tonemapper nodes, groups, primitives, shells, dformer nodes.. you get the idea.

Menus

When you enable a so called 'Bridge' then this option gets added to the File menu... at the bottom. No thank you, the bottom option of 'File' should be Exit in my opinion. So...  I made sure that it is.

Viewport(s)

So I often like to use 2 viewports: the main screen and a smaller Aux viewport. For obvious reasons I want my controls to be as-easy as possible in my main viewport, but as condensed as possible within the aux window. Couldn't be easier: just check the viewports options menu which you can find in the upper right corner. Or in the middle if you're using the docked view controls vs. the cube view controls.

How to customize Daz Studio?

Easy: either press F3 or check the 'Window' menu: Window => Workspace => Customize.

In the Customize dialog you'll find all available options on the left side of your screen ("Actions") and the current setup on the right ('Activities', 'Menus' and 'Toolbars') and you can simply drag & drop from the left to the right. Try for starters to expand the current activity and then check the enabled toolbars. If you hop over to the toolbars tab you can expand all those individual toolbars and add or remove any item you want (right click on an item to remove it, or to add other entries like a divider). You can also rename items to make it easy to understand what they are meant to be used for.

Be careful though: this section can glitch at times and options get sometimes moved around without warning. If that happens make sure no options are highlighted and then just try again.

Make sure to save any customizations you made!

Saving your work is easy and can be done in multiple ways... You can save your full layout by pressing F4: this will include any custom actions, menus and toolbars. But! => don't forget about any possible changes you made to the style of the program. You can save that by using the Windows menu: Windows => Styles => Save style as...  The style basically consists of color schemes like your viewport color, accent colors, etc, etc.

And there's more: you can also save your layout, actions, menus and toolbar settings individually. For this you merely need to click "Export" within the customization dialog (see its bottom options). 

#2 Making your own custom categories

If you're using the smart contents pane then you're using categories. But these aren't hard coded into Daz Studio! For example: I often make my own poses and for this I prefer to work with a Genesis base model. I can't be bothered to dig around Figures => Male => Fantasy SciFi. ... wait, it's not in there? ah, of course I meant Real World! err... nope! Genesis is actually in the main 'Male' or 'Female' category. SO much fun having to dig through ALL my male or female models just to find Genesis. Fun fact: Genesis 9 does this "better" because that is placed inside the main "People" category. Now I'd have to dig through my WHOLE figures category to find it.

Needless to say: I use Figures => Genesis instead.

Or what about Wardrobes?  There's a default Wardrobe => Outfits category so obviously I expanded on that by adding my own outfits or collections thereof.

How to do this yourself?

It's easier than you may think!  Right click on an item within your smart contents pane and then simply use "Categorize". Here you can add an item to as many other categories as you'd like by enabling the checkbox in front of them. Want to create a category of your own? Just right click on an existing category and use the "Create" option to create a sub-category. Couldn't be easier I think.

#3 Only keeping panes around you actually use?

Adding or removing a pane ("tab") is quite easy: just right click on a so called "Pane group bar" (in other words: right click on an empty space next to a pane tab) and then use the "Add Pane" option. Removing a pane is easy as well: right click on a pane tab and then use "Clone pane". If you're not sure what pane(s) you're looking for you can easily add a floating pane using the Windows => Panes menu option. Keep in mind that you can easily assign keyboard shortcuts to this as well, so you don't really need to have all panes present. For example... I only use the timeline and aniMate2 panes very sporadically so I keep these hidden and rely on a keyboard shortcut to open 'm (after which I usually move them to my 2nd monitor).

Maybe also good to know: these "pane options" can also be added to the toolbar which I mentioned before.

(edit) => Also useful to know: if you want to prevent any nasty accidents you can also lock your panes (and toolbars!) into place by using Ctrl + U, or use: "Window => Workspace => Lock docking/undocking". This will put a stop to accidentally dragging a pane outside its bar or at another location where you don't want it to be.

#4 Don't solely rely on the smart contents pane!

Now, I think the smart contents pane is awesome because it can give you very quick access to any asset you may need at that time. Need to change the hair color of my figure? I select the hair, click on the "Materials" category and from there on I merely have to double click on whatever preset I want to use.

But it's not perfect either. For example... assets for Genesis (the first generation?) can easily be used for later generations but once you select those you won't find those assets in your smart contents pane anymore. Or what if I have a figure like, say, Kanade 8 or Sukai 8 and then I only want to use assets that were actually meant for them.. digging through tons of different categories? I think not! => right click on the item, then use: "Show asset in => Content Library: Products" and wham: full overview of all your assets related to that specific figure. Eye materials, lip colors, morphs and in some cases also specific assets.

Keeping both the "smart content" and "library content" panes around side by side is really the best of ideas here.

#5: Surface settings can become gamechangers!

Figures in Daz Studio are made up from surfaces where each surface represents a part of that figure. Looking at Genesis for example we have surface entries like lips, fingernail, SkinTorso, Toenail, and so on. All those surfaces have properties. For example: any texture that gets applied to a figure is basically nothing more but a 2D image that gets applied to a surface. I'll do you one more: material presets? Those are essentially "surface presets", no more and no less.

So if you want parts of your figure to look "different" then I would start by checking out the 'Surfaces' pane to see what you may find. Giving a female figure colored nails for example honestly doesn't have to be all that difficult. Just change the base color for that specific surface...

I'm not claiming this is going to be easy, you may need to dig into some of the basic standards a bit, but it'll be rewarding for sure!

#6: Don't ignore your Parameters pane!

If you check some "getting started" guides out on the Internet you'll often see that they focus on "easy". So, say, applying a pose to a figure? Select the figure and go over your pose items. Or if you want to change the position of his hand.. use the universal tool and just drag it in place. Now, while this will work just fine you can also use some of the pre-installed and/or available parameters. Sometimes less can truly lead up to much more.

Don't ignore what subtleties can do for your figure, especially with the proper lighting for instance...

But also.. rotating a figure or parts thereof can sometimes be much easier to control using the parameters pane. And if you worry about not being able to find 'm quickly enough again then just "Favor" them by clicking on the heart icon. Easy!

And there you have it!

I don't want to risk turning this into a huge essay so I'll leave it here, and I hope some of you may find this useful. I've attached a screenshot of my Studio layout and as you can probably see.. it probably doesn't even look anything closely to what you may use ;)  THAT to me at least is the true "power" of Daz Studio: being able to truly set up your own workflow and environment. Oh, right, for obvious reasons I decided to focus on Genesis here, seems fitting with the OP and all :)

Thanks for reading, I hope you could put this to good use!

WendyLuvsCatz said:

all lovely AI and 3D

as for V4, you could have the best of both worlds and use Stable Diffusion Image to image on the render

I am digging out all my older figures and scenes doing mostly Filament renders and giving them an AI glowup

Thanks a lot, Wendy.

That is a good idea with using image to image on the renders from Daz Studio.

Will need to explore it more.

I am still overwhelmed of what kind of pictures AI could do - hard to not use it.

all lovely AI and 3D

as for V4, you could have the best of both worlds and use Stable Diffusion Image to image on the render

I am digging out all my older figures and scenes doing mostly Filament renders and giving them an AI glowup

william VV said:

as said earlier to Perttia,  a new graphicscard is within budgetrange :) ...  however, on the other hand, .. can items that require iray be rendered in 3delight as well ? (e.g. lights, shaders, character textures etc ... (same question for Dforce ... can anything that requires Dforce be posed without the Dforce animation as well ?  like a conforming clothing or hair ? (yes, poserhabit again :D )
thanks for the tip on online rendering, but not so keen on doing things online... i'm an oldskool,  ,  so I like to arrange things myself.. that's why i'm not very fond of smartcontent as well...  I have even never used things like onedrive etc .. :D ... yes call me prehistoric ..  approaching my midsixties .. (damn how did they get here suddenly so fast ??  

You can use 3DLight or Filament, but it's not just a matter of selecting an other renderer. DS can convert the textures on the fly and does a pretty decent job at it except for transparent and mirror surfaces, but for example the lights work differently and probably need to be changed.

At one year shy of sixty, I have considered myself a youngster here as there are people here that have been working with computers for a living in the 60's and 70's

Probably the only problems I have using Daz are due to VRAM and render speed of iray preview.  I have 2080TI with ~12GB and I always go over VRAM and then have to split up render into chunks, even without multiple characters in scene. Optimisation is an option, but that too takes time.  Im thinking of getting a 3090TI or 4090 for 24GB VRAM, but those are very expensive and not sure it's worth it for me.

I dont think I would have the patience to use Daz (or Blender etc) if I was stuck rendering on a CPU.  I was doing that when i started Daz in 2017 and it was too restrictive.  Having a card that can render Iray Preview and complete a render to decent iteration count within an hour or so made things so much more palatable.

Filament or porting to Blender and using Eevee may be options for people who cant use Iray.