SnowSultan said:

I'm sure some would disagree with me, but I think Studio has excellent animation tools. The combination of AniMate's layer-like blocks, speed adjustment, and copy/pasting of keyframes, the graph editor, and Powerpose seem like they should be enough for many users. I still think Powerpose is the most revolutionary posing tool in this business and have yet to see anything as intuitive in any other software, Blender and Maya included (and please inform me if they do). No matter how much better Blender's animation features are, I'll take Powerpose over trying to figure out which of the thousand posing rig primitives I'm supposed to grab in order to rotate a body part over there.

Like you said, the problem may have to do more with these tools not being explained terribly well. My biggest problem is that while the features are nice, they can be very finicky. Animating in Studio is like walking a tightrope; one mistake can quickly either crash your scene or result in an undoable checkpoint that can cause the loss of your animation. Filament is also...well, lousy to be honest, so we don't really have the real-time animation potential that Unreal and Blender have.

A webinar on this topic might be a good idea.

 

Wouldn't it be great if DAZ actually released some great, easy to understand and current documentation?  Of course, it'll be hard to read when that happens due to all the shadows from the pigs flying overhead  Because, let's face it:  If DAZ Studio was a child, DAZ's aversion to updating documentation would qualify as criminal neglect and I've always felt that that's one of the major reasons DS continues not to be taken seriously as a program in professional circles.  I mean, I've tried turning a number of people on to DS over the years, but given that, even today, we're still looking at a users manual that is barely unchanged since the version for Studio 3.0, and the last time either it or the Quick start guide was touched at all was eight years ago during the days of 4.6, I can't blame them for dropping it and moving on to other programs.  As a relative reference as to how out of date everything is, if you go by the manual then the primary figure is still Genesis 2 and Iray doesn't even exist, let alone Dforce or the integration of the current animation tools, and even things that did exist back then, like geoshells, aren't mentioned at all.  To find out half the things DS can do, you have to play Sherlock Holmes with the forums and random tutorials... and, unfortunately, a lot of the information that was once stored in the forums was wiped out during the various store rebuilds.  

I'm sure some would disagree with me, but I think Studio has excellent animation tools. The combination of AniMate's layer-like blocks, speed adjustment, and copy/pasting of keyframes, the graph editor, and Powerpose seem like they should be enough for many users. I still think Powerpose is the most revolutionary posing tool in this business and have yet to see anything as intuitive in any other software, Blender and Maya included (and please inform me if they do). No matter how much better Blender's animation features are, I'll take Powerpose over trying to figure out which of the thousand posing rig primitives I'm supposed to grab in order to rotate a body part over there.

Like you said, the problem may have to do more with these tools not being explained terribly well. My biggest problem is that while the features are nice, they can be very finicky. Animating in Studio is like walking a tightrope; one mistake can quickly either crash your scene or result in an undoable checkpoint that can cause the loss of your animation. Filament is also...well, lousy to be honest, so we don't really have the real-time animation potential that Unreal and Blender have.

A webinar on this topic might be a good idea.

 

margrave said:

You don't mention which rendering engine you're using.

Daz already does global illumination, with the OpenGL 3D Viewport (and the Preview Lights option turned off).

For Iray, it's not going to happen. Iray is a physically-based renderer, which aims for photorealism. There's no way to cheat it.

Filament is ostensibly a PBR renderer too, but since it can't even do shadows it's not very good at it. Plus it's a mobile game engine, so Google may have put in a workaround that violates physically-based principles to create global illumination.

I use IRay in rendering , the problem is have very nice maps and when I put likes its start to make big shadows and destroy my rendering until i find some good angle : /
I really try my best to make some nice lights and sometimes its very nice but sometimes its just destroy my pictures. and I just rendering again.

You don't mention which rendering engine you're using.

Daz already does global illumination, with the OpenGL 3D Viewport (and the Preview Lights option turned off).

For Iray, it's not going to happen. Iray is a physically-based renderer, which aims for photorealism. There's no way to cheat it.

Filament is ostensibly a PBR renderer too, but since it can't even do shadows it's not very good at it. Plus it's a mobile game engine, so Google may have put in a workaround that violates physically-based principles to create global illumination.

I have been looking at the weird world of Vtubers.

Most use Anime type programs like Vroid, MikuMikuDance and Live 2D Cubism

some make their own mesh from scratch like the one mentioned here in this video below

(which also briefly shows Shudu hence my post)

 

I am wondering if DAZ characters are going to take off as VTubers since they too can be live linked with Unreal Engine and Apple ARkit

and if DAZ wants to maybe wants some of that sweet Vlogging pie by incorporating it into DAZ studio itself maybe using Filament for realtime rendering overlayable on a video stream

since Mimic Live is gone maybe realtime facial capture is the future?

So Im using these Hairs: https://www.daz3d.com/mrl-dforce-long-morphing-hair-for-genesis-8-females but somehow when I go in Iray preview or filament the hairs arent visible anymore. In texture shaded view they also dont look a bit weird but they are visible (Images attached). Cutout Opacity is set to 1, and the "visible in Render" option is also enabled. Can someone help :( 

 

I looked at it, but actually I don't know anything about MaterialX at all. And look at what happened to Open GL and Open CL, which, I believe, Apple developed, and was supposed to be an open all-OS program thing. Hopefully, you've got something here, but too many of these open source things just crash and burn. One company in particular (I dare not write who, for fear of starting a war) seems to delight in pretending to pick up the open source standard and then changes or alters it so that other companies cannot benefit from those changes. So, open source, OK. Who's using it? How difficult would it be to incorporate into DAZ Studio? How difficult to have it run in the various OSes with DAZ Studio? What would it do to all the shaders and materials such as those for 3Delight, iRay, Firefly, Superfly, etc.? It's hard to believe that it would just pick them up and render, and everyone would be happy.  EDIT 9/26/2021:  Take Filament for example. It's supposedly open standard, but it doesn't yet work on the Mac OS, at least not in DAZ Studio. Apparently, it works on Windows, in DAZ Studio. But, it doesn't have all of the lighting features that one can find in iRay. So, should everybody switch to Filament? I've read complaints about it. I'm not in the least against Filament. I've seen some marvalous renders done by one or two people on DeviantArt, using Filament, and withing DAZStudio. So, maybe there's real promise for Filament. But don't be too quick to switch. All that glitters, as they say, is not gold.

WendyLuvsCatz said:

I discovered that the last update in DIM did indeed download and install both even though I didn't enable it in preferences, fortunately I realised at the download stage and unchecked installation, browsed to and renamed my folder with 4.11 in my case, then let it carry on so have both and the beta.

and I hate it except for using Filament  DAZ to Unreal Bridge is refusing to work with it too.

AsI said, that doesn't happen because of the wayu it is coded. The beta was swirftly promoted to a general release, so it may be that you had both available for download and accidentally selected both.

I discovered that the last update in DIM did indeed download and install both even though I didn't enable it in preferences, fortunately I realised at the download stage and unchecked installation, browsed to and renamed my folder with 4.11 in my case, then let it carry on so have both and the beta.

and I hate it except for using Filament  DAZ to Unreal Bridge is refusing to work with it too.

@Anfy

iRender

è un servizio che ti fa affittare un PC simulato (in realtà è fisicamente un server perennemente collegato alla rete con 20-30 CPU e altrettante GPU di cui tu però ne prendi possesso solo di una parte)

Il servizio ti crea un PC con le specifiche da te scelte che puoi controllare da casa tua attraverso la rete. Una volta che lo attivi ci installi i programmi 3D e i file di cui hai bisogno tu (DAZ e le librerie) e ci fai quello che vuoi. Il render lo lanci aprendo DAZ sulla macchina che hai affittato e da lì poi lo risalvi sul tuo PC. Il costo è a tempo, per cui se non ti sbrighi sono cavoli tuoi che spendi ad ora. Loro ti danno comunque una soluzione per precaricare molta roba (in modo da velocizzare la cosa).

Per cui non sub appalti nulla, semplicemente è come se affittassi a tempo un altro pc (che però controlli da casa) e il nodo è il numero di macchine virtuali che usi, ad esempio se fai dei video non ti basta magari una sola macchina con 4 RTX 3090, allora magari affitti 2 pc ognuno con 4 RTX 3090 (cioè 2 nodi) e li fai lavorare in parallelo

Con iRender ci fai quello che ti pare e usi il software che vuoi sulla macchina virtuale (Octane, Vray, Maya, Blender, ecc..). Puoi usare la macchina anche per editare al momento la scena o correggere qualcosa.

 

IrayServer

Anche loro ti danno un PC da controllare in remoto ma non ci installi nulla. Quando apri DAZ metti le credenziali e ti colleghi al loro server.
Il render lo lanci dal tuo PC, a questo punto i modelli con le texture vengono inviati dal tuo PC al server che poi inizia a fare il render. Terminato il render, esso ritorna sul tuo PC e lo vedi come se lo avessi lanciato da casa tua.
Purtroppo questo sistema funziona solo con i programmi che hanno Iray (DAZ, Character Creator, ecc..)... dunque se usi Filament o Octane è inutile. Inoltre ogni volta che lanci il render modelli e texture devono arrivare al server (per cui devi attendere che il tuo PC finisca di spedire il materiale, se hai una connessione di merda in upload potrebbe essere una rottura).

Il costo del servizio è però fisso all'anno (per cui non devi stare col cronometro a vedere quante ore usi la macchina)

 

Se ho tempo vorrei provare IrayServer visto che ci sono 30 giorni gratis. iRender invece non ha periodi di prova (mi sembra ma dovrei controllare prima)  

That looks really interesting vrba79. I'm running Daz Studio on a Mac and, from what I understand Filament isn't available for Mac users yet. Something to look into when it becomes available. Not that I create comics, I just like playing with the software 

Not sure a about Filament, but you have to actually render it in Iray to see it. It won't show up in Iray preview mode. As for hanging down, you need to run a simulation for it.

I bought LY Akari HD for G8F by Lyoness. https://www.daz3d.com/akari-hd-for-genesis-8-female I'd like to know how to get her to look like how she does in her main picture. Especially the hair. My best guess is dForce LongFlip Hair for G8F by PhilW. https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-longflip-hair-for-genesis-8-females So I bought that. But I can't seem to get it to work right. I loaded Akari and put on the hair, but all I get is the scalp. In either Filament or Iray mode, the hair does not hang down, it's invisible. Is there a fix for that? Is there a better hair?

Filament is great for quick and easy comic backgrounds.

Note: I added a Filament draw option to the scene with a iso scale of .15

Heres how you go from the before, to the after.

In Photoshop, FG color black, BG color white.

Load your render and apply the following:

 

 

 

Along with the shop's current drop-down menus (Artist, Genre, Figure, and Software), I'd like to see drop-downs for categories (and subcategories), and year of release (or SKU band if that's easier). When the day's featured artists' items run into the thousands I need a little help in focusing on the things that I'm most interested in.

It would also be nice if the Software drop-down included the intended render engines: 3Delight, Iray, Filament, or whatever may come down the road. 

Another shop drop-down idea would be to have a list of all of the current sales, from today's featured artists down to the FastGrab Sale and the Weekly Freebies. The header of each page could include that sale's rules, the same as there is now for FastGrab. While there are already ways to access this information, having multiple routes to information can be very helpful.

I would also like if each product's page included links to any sales in which the product might currently be involved. That would be nice.

First of all, I don't know how to achieve that look. So if you're looking for advice you can skip this entire comment :)

I'm just here to say... I love the hand-drawn cartoon & comic look. I'm a child of the 80's and 90's and that's what I grew up with.

I haven't seen many successfull attempts with DAZ and/or Photoshop. Most of the time CGI pretending to be hand drawn looks just like that... something pretending to be something it's not.

I personally don't love how Borderlands looks but I think Breath of the Wild and Bastion/Transistor/Hades got cel shading right. I would love an additional render engine to IRAY/Filament/3DL that can do that. Or an IRAY shader system of course, but I somehow doubt that's possible, given how all IRAY toon shaders I know of just don't look that great.

What render engine are you using? And is the hair compatible with that specific engine?

Although hair that was initially made for 3Delight usually renders fine in Iray (or Filament) this isn't always a guarantee. And of course the other way around also applies: hair which uses materials which were specifically designed for Iray usually don't provide great results with 3Delight. As such... context matters.

I can give part of an answer. If you are wanting to cast the usual 28-35mm high Warhammer type D&D figures, then

Lost PLA will not be suitable.

The filament printers do not give adequate resolution for that. The only type that do at a size that small are the DLP printers. 

If the figure is to be 150mm (6") or above, then lost PLA should work, but I have not tried it.

If the figure is around 100mm (4"), Lost PLA will probably do a job, but it may be a bit disappointing.

Regards,

Richard

oh are you on a Mac?

Filament doesn't work yet on Mac.

render to a new window and you can make it bigger

under environment you can choose backdrop

 

WendyLuvsCatz said:

you can also choose 3Delight if you prefer it and are used to it, it works the same as it did before iray was added, it even is a bit better.

you need lights for it if you don't have a headlamp.

Filament is in the drawstyles dropdown next to the camera selection in the viewport

 

I found Filiment (PRB),  but it's grayed out. I also foound I wasn't using viewport rendering like I thought  -0 -fixed that and it's a little better... not as good as Daz 4.0, though....  It looks like to avoid that png transparancy checkerboard, I'll have to put a backdrop prop into every scene...  unless there's a settign to change the background transparancy to white? The render also is no bigger or higher resolution than tha actual viewport, so not any better than PrtScrn and pasting in Paint... though maybe a little less hassle.