jmucchiello said:

 

Asha seems to be the last DO character that had any filament support. That was August. And she hasn't been part of the Premiere character bundle offer for a while now.

Over the years, I've noticed that DAZ has a habit of tossing out new product technology and then relying mainly on the PAs to adopt it and make it work or not, and there has only been a small handful of artists supporting Filatoon at all, a pool that got even smaller with Oso's recent departure.  Not supporting Filatoon with DO characters is sadly, therefore, really not unexpected.  On the other hand, at least there are some Filatoon products being made and sold on other sites, including Renderosity and Renderotica.   

jmucchiello said:

ANGELREAPER1972 said:

jmucchiello said:

What is with the bug-eyed Shooting Stars?

they be toon characters

If only there was a rendering engine specifcally for toon renders that could be used with these monstrosities. 

I know they're toon characters. I have no use for them. And they've been the only thing available for days now. I don't expect everything to be to my taste. But I find it disappointing that they think to put a toon for sale but don't support filament when they do it.

Um... given that all of these MM $2.99 characters don't really have skins of their own, as they're essentially morph only characters that come with presets to reuse the generic G9 base skins, I'd be surprised if DAZ went to the trouble and effort of creating Filatoon specific skins for them when they didn't do new skins for any of the others.  That said, there's no reason that you can't you can't use an existing filatoon ready skin or use the base Filatoon shaders, which is really what anyone buying any of the MM special characters will end up doing eventually anyway..     

Either you have your viewport set to Solid Bounding Box (where you select Iray, Texture Shaded, Filament, etc.), or the data files cannot be found.

ANGELREAPER1972 said:

jmucchiello said:

What is with the bug-eyed Shooting Stars?

they be toon characters

If only there was a rendering engine specifcally for toon renders that could be used with these monstrosities. 

I know they're toon characters. I have no use for them. And they've been the only thing available for days now. I don't expect everything to be to my taste. But I find it disappointing that they think to put a toon for sale but don't support filament when they do it.

Asha seems to be the last DO character that had any filament support. That was August. And she hasn't been part of the Premiere character bundle offer for a while now.

For your reference:

https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-sy-rigged-shadows-filament

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/724651/soft-shadows-on-filament

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/719171/filatoon-shadow-casting-render

https://www.dartanbeck.com/daz-zone/daz-studio/filament-pbr-engine

It was already explained in the forum thread about Filament usage.

Try to search for it.

I'm trying to render some spritesheets with Filatoon, but the lack of shadow is not ideal for integrating the sprites afterward. Is there a way to achieve that in-engine, or would I need to render the shadow in Iray or 3Delight?

TimberWolf said:

Just be prepared to start learning again because you'll want more from your OS than just running Daz Studio!

TimberWolf,

That's the morning-after hangover, right? Getting the Daz3D-Wine-Linux stack up and running is only the first steps. Learning about the Linux operating system is the next leg of the journey.

I've been asked what Linux skills and know-how a beginner should aim for. At the least: grasping the concepts of the UNIX shell (pretty much Bash these days) and its rudimentary commands; user accounts and file system organization and permissions (SUDO do's and do nots); and networks and firewalls.

It can be argued that Wine hides much of the underlying Linux complexity, but Daz relies on system components -- network and GPU -- that call for an understanding of Linux runtime libraries and device drivers. These modular pieces coordinate by means of configuration files that set requisite file paths and shell environment variables. Knowledge is a useful tool, especially when things don't play nice with one another.

Here are a couple of examples to highlight what I mean:

• File system. Moving files and taking backups are obvious use cases. When Wine -- which layers a pseudo Windows file system over the underlying Linux one -- is offline, the user has to work with Linux. How do Wine files corresponds to their Linux counterparts? At the least the user should operate with this mental map. Same with bringing a new disk drive online and grafting the Linux drive mount to Wine/Windows.
• GPU. So I ditched my NVidia card for a AMD one. Why? Because I render with Blender Eevee. Making that change didn't just involved physically swapping out GPU cards; it also meant cleaning out Linux NVidia libraries and drivers and deploying AMD's ROCm, it's Radeon Open Compute software stack. Somehow Wine+Daz3D discovered ROCm upon boot up, allowing me to render with Filament. But it failed on recompiling dForce kernels. This is an ongoing problem, and still I'm working my way through the OpenCL plumbing connecting ROCm, Wine and Daz3D. 

I remember the day, eons ago. when a visiting professor showed up with several boxes of 3.5 inch disk. It was Slackware Linux, pre-1.0, and  when he laid out the installation disks the stack was as long as his forearm. He came prepared to spend the night at the computing lab to deploy Linux on a disused 386 PC. Whew! Since then, Linux has come a *very* long way.

Invariably, the more casual users adopt Linux, the more they're exposed to the tech and the homebrew-hacker culture around which Linux grew up. Not everyone needs to be a comp sci grad or know POSIX and such, but some basic level of know how and caveats are needed. Armed with that, folks moving from Windows would have a more pleasant experience working with Daz3D in Linux.

Cheers!

Hey all, my DAZ3D client started acting real wonky a couple of days ago, right around when the newest Nvidia driver shipped. Viewport slowed to a crawl, even when in texture shaded mode, and displayed weirdly wrong lighting in Filament mode. Rendering would cause consistent crashes to desktop. I switched to the Studio version of the Nvidia drivers and that seemed to fix the crashes, but not the performance, and renders were still taking way longer to process than it seemed like they should. I rolled back to the previous (591.74) version of the Studio drivers, still wonky. I even tried a full clean install of Windows and that didn't help. Downloaded and fired up GPU-Z to take a look under the hood and, lo and behold, it seems DAZ isn't even using my GPU for some reason. Attached is a screenshot of my render hardware settings, and one of GPU-Z showing when I initiated the render: a momentary spike in the GPU load then it falls off to idle in the 1-3% range. I did a quick stress test using the Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark on Raytracing Ultra just to make sure it wasn't my video card dying and, well, see the results below in the other two screenshots. So my GPU is working fine, and near as I can tell nothing in DAZ changed that should be causing the problems I'm experiencing. I'm basically using default settings and near as I can DAZ should be using my GPU in rendering, but just isn't. I'm at a complete loss for how to fix this problem, and I'm getting no work done. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

It is not a new shader - was introduced in 2024.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/703161/omni-surface-shader-test/p1

More explanation from AI.

## What Omni Skin Is

**Omni Skin** is a **material system** that uses **NVIDIA Omniverse MDL
(Material Definition Language)** shaders inside **DAZ Studio Iray**,
 specifically the **OmniSurfaceBase** shader.
It replaces (or offers an alternative to) the traditional DAZ Iray skin shaders
that rely heavily on Subsurface Scattering (SSS) stacks.

In the Holden product, this is explicitly described as:

> *“Next generation skin shader: powered by NVIDIA's OmniSurfaceBase Iray shader…”* 
(https://www.daz3d.com/ocn-holden-hd-for-genesis-9)

## What Omni Skin Is Used For

### 1. **More Stable Skin Rendering**

Omni Skin is designed to be **lighting‑agnostic** and behave consistently
across different HDRIs and light rigs.
Traditional DAZ skins can look great but are often very sensitive to lighting changes.

OmniSkin improves:

*   Predictability in renders
*   Fewer “blown out” highlights
*   Less fiddling per scene

### 2. **Reduced Dependence on SSS Maps**

Classic DAZ skin shaders depend heavily on:

*   Multiple SSS layers
*   Color and translucency maps
*   Specular lobes and top coats

Omni Skin **removes the need for SSS maps entirely**, instead using:

*   Transmission
*   Translucency
*   Physically‑based roughness and specular response

This simplification is one of its biggest advantages.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/703161/omni-surface-shader-test

### 3. **Better Match to External Render Pipelines**

OmniSurfaceBase is the same shader family used across:

*   NVIDIA Omniverse
*   USD pipelines
*   Real‑time and path‑traced workflows

That makes Omni Skin particularly useful if you:

*   Render in DAZ now but export later (Unity, Unreal, Omniverse)
*   Want a shader that behaves more like Unreal’s Digital Human skin
*   Prefer physically‑based workflows over DAZ‑specific presets
***

### 4. **High‑Detail Close‑Up Rendering**

In Holden’s case, Omni Skin is paired with:

*   **HD micro‑detail morphs (Subdivision level 4)**
*   Fine wrinkle and pore sculpting
*   Separate surface zones tuned for OmniSurface behavior

This allows convincing skin detail **without needing ultra‑complex shader stacks**.

***

## Omni Skin vs PBRSkin (Included Comparison)

The Holden product includes **both**:

*   **OCN OmniSkin Skin MAT**
*   **OCN PBRSkin Skin MAT**

This lets you choose between:

| Omni Skin              | PBR Skin                 |
| ---------------------- | ------------------------ |
| NVIDIA OmniSurfaceBase | Traditional DAZ Iray PBR |
| No SSS maps            | Uses SSS                 |
| Lighting‑stable        | Lighting sensitive       |
| Better for pipelines   | Familiar DAZ workflow    |
| Simpler tuning         | More artist controls     |

***

## What Omni Skin Is *Not*

*  Not a different texture resolution
*  Not automatic realism
*  Not exclusive to Holden
*  Not a real‑time (Filament) shader

It’s a **modern shader foundation**, comparable to upgrading from an older DAZ skin system
to a more industry‑standard PBR/MDL setup.

## Why DAZ Is Moving This Direction

DAZ added the full family of **Omni shaders** (skin, hair, surfaces)
when integrating NVIDIA MDL support into DAZ Studio 4.22+.

Community testing shows:

*   Easier setup
*   Cleaner results
*   Closer parity with non‑DAZ pipelines

## In Short

**Omni Skin** on *OCN Holden HD for Genesis 9* is:

>  A physically‑based **OmniSurfaceBase skin shader**  
>  Designed for **stable, realistic Iray rendering**  
>  Requires **less manual SSS tuning**  
>  Better aligned with **modern PBR and Omniverse workflows**

I have both type of systems, MacMini M4 and MacBook Pro M1 along with laptops Windows 11 RTX-4080, Windows 10 GTX-1080, desktop Windows 10 GTX-1080Ti. My Windows laptops are gaming rigs and the W10 was bought not for art but for editing and being able to be mobile. With DS6, my Apple computers are able to use Filament now. I have both DS4 and DS6 installed on the MacMiniM4.

Do you travel and need the laptop for when you travel?

Or is the computer going to be used primarily at home?

If you buy a laptop, are you prepared to replace it often as the Nvidia cards cannot be upgraded?

Can you afford a computer where the RAM is 3x larger than the Vram? (I think that is the recommended ratio.)

Can you afford to upgrade the laptop as needed as opposed to updating a desktop?

These are some of the basic questions I struggle with as I faced my old iMac and Win 10 computers aging out.

Is there any Filament support here?

lda255 said:

Hi! I just setup DAZ on a fresh install of Nobara, on a 4070 gamer laptop. I think it might help a few people out there. The troubleshooting steps above need some adaptation to get the Nvidia to be seen by DAZ. It´s surprisingly straightforward:

- Nobara must be fully set up with the Nvidia proprietary drivers. You´ll get Wine 11 by default. You can double check in the terminal with "wine --version"
- Download the DAZ install Manager like you would on Windows and just run the .exe to let Wine take over.
- After a successful install of DAZ and a few assets, running it just worked. I set the default scene to iRay to avoid the Filament issues.

>> Only the CPU appeared in the rendering options, which is expected. 
- Download the last nvidia-libs from GitHub: https://github.com/SveSop/nvidia-libs/releases
- Extract the nvidia-libs folder somewhere easy to find. Open the terminal and cd into it (for the beginners: just type "cd Desktop" then "cd cd nvidia-libs-v1.0.0/" if the folder is on the Desktop)
- Run the command ./setup_nvlibs.sh install - you should get the message "WINEPREFIX is not set! This may create a wineprefix in the default distro folder) Continue? (Y/N)" - reply "y"
- If everything works as expected, you will get the message:
"Symlinks created in . Do NOT remove this source folder!
OBS! NVML is NOT enabled by default. See Readme_nvml.txt for info or run nvml_setup.sh
You can also use: WINEDLLPATH='/home/name/Desktop/nvidia-libs-v1.0.0/x64/wine' env variable to use NVML
You need to REMOVE old overrides if older version of nvml have been used in"
That´s it! After this operation, my Nvidia 4070 was there, and activated in the render settings by default :)
If you try to install the nvidia-libs through the Nobara package manager, it won´t work, you will get the usual error message telling you that the installation is conflicting with X11 or something alike. You need to download the folder manually.
On this system, I didn´t expect it would be that simple.

Just Installed Nobara and did a 4K renders without problem with the GPU. Is 50% utilization normal on a 4090 ?
If you know a bit about Nobara and I do have some questions 

If you're interested in Filatoon, there are two big threads where you can find tips as well as examples of it used on various figures and sets:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/704951/anime-toons-and-filatoon-shader-q-a/p1 (first post has lots of info about the shader itself)

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/704931/filatoon-cell-shaded-rendering-with-filament/p1

Drogo Nazhur said:

vrba79 said:

Filatoon is almost as versatile as the old PwToon shader for 3DL was, but it inherits all of the limitations that are native to Filament itself. After using Filatoon for about a year and a half I ended up migrating back to using Sketchy Toon for Iray.

What is this "Sketchy Toon" of which you speak? 

vrba79 said:

Filatoon is almost as versatile as the old PwToon shader for 3DL was, but it inherits all of the limitations that are native to Filament itself. After using Filatoon for about a year and a half I ended up migrating back to using Sketchy Toon for Iray.

What is this "Sketchy Toon" of which you speak? 

In what? Iray does path tracing, it doesn't need enabling, but that is beyond the scope of the plain OpenGL drawstyles and dnot something Filament does (as far as I know).

For Filament, I like the Filatoon outline on top of the figure, except not black, with the Iray mats underneath. To me, the Filament renders really need the outline, so they wouldn't look as washed out. Then, I also throw in the Genesis 9 Tear, and dye that sort of dark pink to match the skin. Rotation of the dome also affects the lighting, so I play around with that. This example is of the anime/toon figure, except I dialed it out and replaced the shape with a realistic one, like Maya for Genesis 9. 

I don't like the Cartoon Shaded much. But if I do use it, I always make the scleras invisible so they won't have the "white eyes."