I never noticed much difference with the number of threads

not that my computers are anything to boast about

but when I upgraded my Win7 intel5 to i7 years ago and ended up with 8 tiles instead of 4, it rendered exactly the same speed

my Win10 which is supposedly vastly inferior renders much the same speed too with its 4 tiles  (AMD Ryzen3)

I don't doubt a Threadripper would be a vast improvement though but I think from my experience the clock speed is more likely the reason why rather than number of cores

unless you are doing multiple tasks on it

many Carrara render options like NPR only use one core anyway which is why many of our forumites have been digging out their old laptops 

what I do use is Octane render, that definitely is still an option if you have a nice otherwise unused in Carrara Nvidia card, but sadly now subscription 

my OR4 was a once off payment while big no more than another mediocre PC would cost and considerably less than a Threadripper!

With the high end Threadrippers being so powerful but expensive, other CPUs have generally improved, and older powerful machines of the day have dropped in price.  I would appreciate if users could give their own thoughts.  Are the number of cores more important than the CPU base frequency speeds ?  What sort of rendering times are users experiencing for animations ?  I am thinking of getting a used HP Z640 workstation with 2 x Xeon E5-2699 V4, which is 44 cores/88 threads, but am not totally sure how wise is the choice..

Dartanbeck said:

richardandtracy said:

This is going to sound really convoluted (because it is!), but it's possible to do an autofit of ShadowDancer for Hiro3 (or A3) on V3 if you turn V3 into a TriAx character and load the Hiro3 (or A3) default figure obj file as an autofit clone in the way described in the tutorial in this thread. The tutorial goes beyond what you'd need to load ShadowDancer on V3, but you could extract only what you need.

Like I said, it's convoluted & would depend on how much you need a Shadow Dancer on V3.

Regards,

Richard

Makes me wonder if something like this would work using Genesis, if we have the Generation 3 shapes for Genesis. We could use the V3 clone of Genesis to shape the costume, then do some Wendy workaround magic to turn it into a V3 item?

Just thinking aloud.

Having GenX2 along with all of the clones, I prefer using Genesis 1, 2 or 3 when I want to use V3 or any of those figures from Generation 3. But that's just me and my workflow.

the advantage is one can batch convert legacy stuff without using DAZ studio or Poser

it creates new cr2 files

I use it to make a lot of stuff fit V4 and M4 to then use Autofit on in D|S and Carrara with Genesis 1 

Creature with animation, made with Carrara very quickly!

Generation3dx said:
My first stop was Octane Render, but after 2 hours of frustration have given up as it doesn't seem to install easily/properly and the textures look a mess. A look at their message boards seem to indicate that the plugin for Daz isn't getting much love either.

I don't use Octane Render much anymore (I've gotten lazy because Iray in DS is just too simple). However before DAZ3d implemented Iray in DS, and DAZ3d quit developing Carrara, I used Octane Render a lot. I can understand your frustration, as Octane isn't  even close to as easy to use as Iray is in DS. Shaders and materials don't translate as well as you would hope. This means that the user will need to do a lot of their own work to fix them. The user interface is complicated and somewhat confusing for a new user.  The original developer of the plugin wanted to implement everything available in Octane to ensure it was all available in the plugin. The unfortunate downside to this is that it is not as easy to use as Iray, the upside is that you can have very fine control over almost all of Octanes functions and capabilities (you can really go crazy making complicated node structures for your shaders).

Unfortunately, unless you have used similar professional level render engines like Octane, two hours simply isn't even close to enough time to come to grips with Octane Render (IIRC it took me about two weeks). DAZ has made using Iray very simple and straight forward. I get the general feeling that most users never even modify and materials or shader settings because they look good enough straight out of the box. This is great for ease of use, but it also creates an expectation that everything should be just as simple it other applications. In my experience, getting the same quality images from another render engine will always need a fair amount of additional work, and a lot of learning along the way.

I'm not trying to convince you to use Octane, in fact, unless Octane Render provides specific features the you really need that aren't available in DS, I would recommend against it. One of the big reasons to use it would be because you don't have enough GPU memory to do what you want with Iray, and you don't want to buy another graphics card. Clearly Octane is ideal for this with it's out of core memory capabilities (you can use system RAM in addition to your GPU memory). It's a great choice for other things as well, like a faster render view port, faster rendering, advanced lighting, etc.

If your still somewhat interested in Octane Render, in addition to the outstanding work done by Sorel, I think most of the work done by Valzheimer (https://www.artstation.com/valzheimer/albums/82201) was done with Octane Render.

IMHO you will have a similar experience with any other possible options. Exporting to Blender might be your best option, though it will have it's own learning curve. Blender also opens up the possibility of using a long list of external render engines (Pixar Renderman can be used for free and it's not just for cartoons, here are movies it has been used on https://renderman.pixar.com/movies). If all you want to do is produce single image renders (not animations), as others have already mentioned, probably your best option is Iray.

tldr;
As far as I know right know, unfortunately your experience with Octane Render will be somewhat similar with any other available options. It's typically a lot of additional work to use any render engine that isn't heavily supported by content creators at DAZ3D.

As for creating a model of different hair-styles in Carrara maybe Stezza might add some knowledge.

Hello Khoe, I added a texture to the hair in the Carrara shader for the obj after I had imported the obj, and got a result.

Hair texture is from Curl Up N' Dye Hair Resource - by ForbiddenWhispers - available at Renderosity

If you played around with a black and white conversion of the hair texture and added it to the Alpha channel in the shader you might get better results.

I bought some hair shapes from Art Station, but unfortunately they don't have any textures.
I tried to do some crafting in Carrara but the results aren't good.
I read everywhere that most people work with hair carts. I have to admit I have absolutely no idea. What I found as a tutorial is completely incomprehensible to me (not just because of the language, unfortunately I don't speak English that well)
Is there maybe something you can work with in Carrara or whatever.
at mall an object that I have loaded. How would you do that.
Thanks :)

CMS and the Post grey squirrel are dead as a doornail on my Win10 since I had my C drive replaced

... and I was so happy smart content actually worked on it in Carrara too before that happened

now I don't even have smart content in DAZ studio

I can cope, just use VoidTools Everything to search instead

starting CMS in DIM or D|S does zilch

and yes my antivirus did the damage, it had the cheek to tell me, but after trying every suggestion in the firewall and permissions I never managed to fix it

windli3356 said:

Fixmypcmike said:

1. It really can't

3. It doesn't run unless DS, DIM, DazCentral or Carrara are running.

1. it really can, thro multply ways...say when DAZ postgreSQL gets shutdowned or restarted, for example, when you have to shutdown your computer, there's a higher chance all your data will be corrupted

3. Do yourself a favor and see how many "why daz doesn't close" threads you can find in tech issue section, or simply open up windows task mannger to see if postgreSQL isn't running in the background, and no, feel free to close all DS related apps, daz postgreSQL will always running in the background 

1. That has nothing to do with going online and/or updating metadata.

3. I always check Task Manager if I intend to back up the database or I need to make sure DS has completely closed.  I have never found PostgreSQL running in the background when DIM and DS have closed.

Fixmypcmike said:

1. It really can't

3. It doesn't run unless DS, DIM, DazCentral or Carrara are running.

1. it really can, thro multply ways...say when DAZ postgreSQL gets shutdowned or restarted, for example, when you have to shutdown your computer, there's a higher chance all your data will be corrupted

3. Do yourself a favor and see how many "why daz doesn't close" threads you can find in tech issue section, or simply open up windows task mannger to see if postgreSQL isn't running in the background, and no, feel free to close all DS related apps, daz postgreSQL will always running in the background 

1. It really can't

3. It doesn't run unless DS, DIM, DazCentral or Carrara are running.

Diomede said:

Fun with an old Howie Farkes set.  For the Legacy event.

Very good.  Long live Howie.  Carrara can do great landscapes.  

therixx said:

Fettbemme said:

therixx said:

These German guys make quite good renders! :-)
My rusty German allowed me to more or less understand what you two said.
And thank you for the time travel device @fettbemme, I see you attached the Carrara scene. Is it for study or may we use the model as well?

Please do. I'm curious what you guys do with it. But make a reset button. You know, when get lost in time and all that (I forgotten all about it, Sorry.)

Of course! That's always the first thing to do in these cases! :-) 

yeah, I... well, it's way too difficult for me, so I let others do that pushbutton :)

Here is another quickie using the ancient Poser 4 figures (P4 Dork and P4 Boy) in the ancient Carrara program, combining with primitives and ancient low res objects, and generating a depth pass.  

I used Carrara's native 'toon' filter to make it easier for the 'Canny' processor in AI to find the edges.  And I used Carrara's native depth pass (inverted) without using the AI processor.

NOTE - I did not use image2image.  The original image is only used for Controlnet to find edges in Canny and for the depth map.

Original image.

Processed with Stable Diffusion text2image with the renders in Controlnet Depth (weight middle) and Canny (weight very low)

Poser 4 Dork and his son Poser 4 Boy.

P4 Casual man, P4 Child, a low res house from the Carrara native content browser, a plane, and a Carrara terrain.

The key experiment here is inverting the Carrara depth pass in an image editor then using the result as is in the Controlnet Depth option.  Set preprocessing model to none.  I also used Controlnet Canny but set to a very low weight (0.2 or so).  I rendered the base scene with the Carrara native Toon filter to make it easier for the Canny processor to find the edges.  I used inpainting to age the face of the man and add a beard and glasses.

Fettbemme said:

therixx said:

These German guys make quite good renders! :-)
My rusty German allowed me to more or less understand what you two said.
And thank you for the time travel device @fettbemme, I see you attached the Carrara scene. Is it for study or may we use the model as well?

Please do. I'm curious what you guys do with it. But make a reset button. You know, when get lost in time and all that (I forgotten all about it, Sorry.)

Of course! That's always the first thing to do in these cases! :-) 

Valiska said:
If we can't have Hexagon or Carrara ... what does fill that niche?

Nothing that I've seen (while clinging to Carrara on a strong machine I hope will last some years).  

Diomede said:

Computer compatibility is so frustrating.  Sorry to hear about the troubles.  Argh.  

I always dread the thought of a new computer.  My philosophy has been to buy a powerful machine for Carrara animations (most recently 12 core CPU/24 threads, good graphics card), get all the software installed (a major task, the main source of new computer dread), and drive it til the wheels fall off.  It's not cheap, especially custom built locally, no bloatware, but in the long run (many years, hopefully) I think less expensive and frustrating.   

Dartanbeck said:

Ivy said:

crosswind said:

Ivy said:

It appears if I use any newer version than daz studio 4.12 the limbstick script fails to load even for genesis3 and gensis8,

Log report from daz studio 4.16

 

...

Hmmm ?!

Pls check the change log in here - http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/83712/start

From your log, I can see that you still have the old version as the latest script name is "3DU LimbStick G3+8.dse". Pls update it via DIM

I never install content with dimm. I have to many animations tools that work with 8 different versions of daz studio, that  I can run all at the same time along with poser 11 & 12 so I install everything manully via zip files . I know my content folders very very well and how to trouble shoot issues when animating on the fly this way. Though it takes a little knowledge of how to install SDK files to make the daz studio versions work . But this work flow, works for my needs  so every now and then if something may get corrupted it may just need to be reinstalled to resolve the problem

Wow!

I started into all of this with Poser (from 3ds Max when I was only really doing UV Mapping via a plugin) and so... yeah... I got really good at 'knowing my content folders' - and I still work that way - but WITH DIM! 

Working with that many versions of Studio? Ummm... not for me, thanks! But still, I'd love to see the benefits of it. Ivy, it's time to do another Digital Art Live course! Teach us how this all works!!! 

 

Your animations have been inspiring me since I saw my first taste many, many years ago. Karate Girl really stole my heart! Whoa... I mean... wasn't that Fluidos when you ran the sea plane on the water? I freaking flipped a lid! Remember? Back then I was All About Carrara! Look at me now. Nay-sayer eating his own words - and then preaching about it!

I must say... Thanks to you I Love aniMating in Daz Studio!!! Thanks, my Friend! Love Love LOVE your stuff!!!

Thank you Dartanbeck ,  you made my day :)

 Lets see if I can make some sense into why i have so many daz studio versions, I run a old windows 7 server  its a beast but has limits when it comes to what version of daz studio i can use.

My work horse version of daz studio is 4.12.  I use 4.16 to edit and render volumetric's only . so that is the newest daz version I am using is currently 4.16.

I think to make another tutorial i would need to be at least using daz 4.22 and those newer daz versions would make me have to update to a newer GPU driver which I am not willing to do.

Then i would loose the ability to control Optix prime acceleration in my gpu server & without the Optix prime acceleration it breaks some of my animation & rendering tools , Which brings to why i have so many version of daz studio running on my system..  Over the many years of animating with daz studio I have gathered a lot of some rather unique & very useful animation tools for daz studio that can not even be found anymore. I acquired  a NVIDIA perpetual Tomcat GPU server license with software , which requires I have GPU drivers that have control over Optix prime acceleration, which does not run on the new NVIDA drivers because NVIDIA newer drivers set Optix prime be on at all times with no why it shut it off.  So I am not willing to give up $1000's of dollars of animations tools , plugins , modeling tools and render software & server apps yet . unforeunetly it break all that old animation content i have for my daz studio if I were to updated my gpu drivers to run a newer version of daz studio above 4.16.

I keep a copy of daz studio3 for my partical animation tool, and I keep a copy of 4.5  SDK daz versions so I have access to the Script develpament and the bare roots of daz to keeps things running

for my needs 4.12 renders under 10 seconds a keyframe  and 4.16 get around 34seconds a rendered keyframe .for the same scene on my system set up. any newer GPU drivers makes my old system a brick. ha Ha ha.

Btw I do have a new karate Girl animation coming,  Ive been rather slow getting done, because flying high end drones has been so much fun that it takes up most of my time :D cheers