Don't get me wrong, I'm not going anywhere.
I love Daz Studio, and it's perfect for what I do: I don't want to rig and to model assets when that's not necessary, because I want to focus on my stories as much as I can.

Furthermore, Iray allows us to produce high-quality renders.
And, with the right hardware, it's not terrible in a matter of time.

Then, why am I worried?

• I feel like Nvidia has forgotten about Iray.

I know it's not Daz fault if Nvidia is not putting as much attention as it could on Iray.

For example, in the latest slides about the upcoming RTX 3000, Nvidia has talked about Cycles, Arnold and Vray...not a single world about their own creature.

Do you remember how long it took for Daz to implement Iray 2019, to finally use the RT and tensor cores?

• The competition is faster, requires less powerful hardware, and sometimes it looks even better.

I love technology, but I don't have the expertise to truly understand this rendering engines world. That's why I'm opening this thread: to ask for your opinion on the matter.

It looks to me like other rendering engines require less powerful hardware: ultimately, I think that Nvidia has started this Iray project to sell more GPUs, making it so that you can't render if you go over you VRAM. That trick has worked on me, at least.

Then, it feels like Iray is crazy slow, compared to other famous rendering engines. I have a RTX 2060, and it takes me around 40 minutes to get to 1500 iterations for an average scene. I can do that because of the external Intel denoiser, because Nvidia's one blurs things too much IMHO.
Take a look, for example, at the viewport. We live in a world with awesome real-time graphics, like that marble movie from yesterday's Nvidia conference. Yet, even with modern GPUs, the Iray viewport is unusable, compared to the Texture Shaded one.
Let's not talk about animations, that I don't consider very doable in Iray nowadays.

Sometimes, the competition looks even better. I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw the Unreal Engine 5 demo: in real-time, it looked much better than what we can do with Iray, in hours. Even for stuff like hair physics, a field that has received a lot of attention lately.
I can imagine how different those two engines are. But, ultimately, I honestly only care about the result, not about how I get to it: I just want the best possible renders to represent my stories.
And I know we have bridges now, but it doesn't feel very easy and immediate to me to continuously transfer assets from one software to the other, and to have to tweak all surfaces and lights.

I know it would be a complete mess to change render engine in Daz, because of the materials that all the products have.
Plus, they can't just abandon Iray, because a lot of people will continue to use it indefinitely. So, PA should create tons of different materials for each product, and that's not convenient.
On top of that, we shouldn't fix what's not broken, and Iray still works fairly well.

But aren't you worried about its future?
Do you think Daz is looking for alternatives (look at Filament, or at the new bridges)?

I'm curious to hear your opinion! :)

It depends on the content of the scene - mine, with a morph-heavy figure, generally take longer than that. DS has to free up the memory used, item-by-item I think, and clear the undo queue. Assuming you are usign human figures, one thing might be to try not to have more morphs and characters than you need installed.

Yes, I know, I'm a bit behind the times but has anyone had success getting a compelling looking Lara Croft using head/face morphs for Genesis 2 Female? Either one morph or a combination of morphs? Either 90s Lara Croft or contemporary Lara Croft?
I have a lot of assets for Genesis 2 Female and so that's why I would seek out adding some Genesis 2 morphs rather than use some of the guides I've seen that apply to Genesis 3 or 8.
I tried asking some of the people on deviantart who have made very good looking models but they never wrote me back. 

Just some hairs with hairband I have, maybe one of them might work:

Elena Hair and OOT Hairblending 2.0 for Genesis 3 Female(s)  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/034625
Chic Hair for Genesis 3 Female(s)  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/024034
Renesmel Hair  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/019067
Jewell Hair  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/017811
Scarf Braid Hair  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/017264
Lollipop Hair  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/009078
Sunny Delight Hairkit  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/005157
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/magenta-hair/78730/
 

Thanks for the prompt reply.  I do own several of your products here.  I think of these Lollipop Hair comes closest to what I am looking for, but it was for V4.  Hopefully, by replacing the shaders with Iray hair shaders and a quick morph or two I can get what I want.

Love your products, @Toaz.

 

Edit: But Lollipop hair band is wrong for this project.  The Elena scarf is closer.  Maybe the answer is morphing Elena hair for G3F.

In any case, thanks.  

You're welcome, though it's not some I have made, just some I own myself. 

Just some hairs with hairband I have, maybe one of them might work:

Elena Hair and OOT Hairblending 2.0 for Genesis 3 Female(s)  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/034625
Chic Hair for Genesis 3 Female(s)  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/024034
Renesmel Hair  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/019067
Jewell Hair  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/017811
Scarf Braid Hair  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/017264
Lollipop Hair  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/009078
Sunny Delight Hairkit  -  https://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/005157
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/magenta-hair/78730/
 

Thanks for the prompt reply.  I do own several of your products here.  I think of these Lollipop Hair comes closest to what I am looking for, but it was for V4.  Hopefully, by replacing the shaders with Iray hair shaders and a quick morph or two I can get what I want.

Love your products, @Toaz.

Edit: But Lollipop hair band is wrong for this project.  The Elena scarf is closer.  Maybe the answer is morphing Elena hair for G3F.

In any case, thanks.  

we do have the husky add on for wolf 2...

The paws look like they are coming along, on that render.

FWIW, I have looked from time to time at the other web page that begins with "T..." and some animals -- like flying foxes (aka megabats) OTTOMH -- look like there's been a big improvement, but dogs... not so much.

About figuring out LAMH... I have downloaded the instructions as a PDF file so that's new. I believe I could live with the Lo-Rez Dogs "chihuahua" morph if I could get LAMH to work on it reliably.

I use the Mil Horse once every ten years or so and it's a chore trying to remember what the deal is with the mane and tail. A recent render (eg. 5 days ago) is attached.

Uploading a new one at this very moment to my channel for importing custom full body morphs from Zbrush to D|S and morph setup  as requested by Unity users

I will post here once uploaded and decoded .

any chance for a few more Zb tutorials?

When I think I want to change the "shape" of the ears, I would first think of the "shaping" tab, but like you, I would have settled for just a bit of consistency, if nothing else. Come to think of it, that's where the Morph Importer puts things by default, isn't it? Maybe they just forgot to move it?

Daz Studio works.

Only 1) cannot Search items in Content Library.

        2) DIM does not show my content, and ask me to re-download all my items from Daz3D store.

Here I attached some photos of how I transfer all my Daz from my old laptop to my big hard drive.  I know I screwed up in setting up properly.  Appreciate it if you can help.

Now Nvidia could be pulling NVLink but that would be a pretty major screw job.

I could be misremembering, but didn't you say something to the effect that VRAM could be shared over PCIE 4.0?

It isn't fast enouigh. PCIE gen 5 is. But that is a couple of years off. The motherboards that had NVLink built in were custom ones for the DG computers that Nvidia sold.

A pair of 2080's or 2070 Super's, the slowest NVLink commonly available, can transfer 25Gb/s each way. A 16x PCIE gen 4 connection would max out at 31.5 Gb/2 one way. So it's over half the speed of the slowest connection.

And yes there is a slide that does say the 3080 and 3070 does not have NVLink.

OK, I've found the manufacturer's manual and specifications for the case I identified above.  https://www.fractal-design.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Meshify-C-MAN.pdf 

Maximum length of graphics card is 315mm with case fan installed at the end of the card, 335mm without a case fan at the end of the card.    The power supply area is enclosed but I couldn't find any internal dimension specifications so I have slight worry about whether my power supply will fit (650w Corsair).  Regardless, I'm going to go ahead and spend some future money on that case.  If it isn't suitable upon inspection I'll return it having learned yet another valuable life lesson.

At least the case I'm ordering doesn't have the window that shatters when you sneeze on it.  So now I can look forward to a few days of shipping anticipation, then a couple days of geekish fun as I transfer the guts of my spiffy new DAZzing machine currently occupying the HP case from "George", into my new mid-Tower ATX case.  Then transfer poor naked homeless George (now fit and healthy again), back into his old HP case.  In the end I will have provided room for my DAZzing machine to grow in the future, and George will be happy again.  Or alternatively I may have one or two dead machines and more geekish fun ahead of me.

  "Life is like a roller coaster ride, if once you're over the top and you're not screaming on the way down, you've wasted your ticket."  -- LG 

Making every item dforce rather than to provide fits, means clothing takes a lot of time to use.

In my experience, dForce has been catastrophic to animation in Daz Studio. (Someone inevitably chimes in with, "Well, DS isn't really made for animation," which I studiously ignore for too many reasons to list—including Daz's own promo videos for DS that showcase animation).

I think dForce is useful for static drapes but for animation it's just not viable at all.  It's way too slow for starters and the tendency to explode without much of a hint as to why it exploded means even the simplest thing can take hours.  For static shots it's often quicker and easier to make yourself a new morph to be honest, with something like MudBox or MD.

Is there a way to transfer Daz properties from a Gen8 figure into Maya? For instance let's say I have a property that moves both eyes at once. How can this property be transfered into Maya?

I'm doing my own attempt on a face I can work with, but I feel I'm not quite there yet. Any chance of going over morph settings?

Hi all,

How do you transfer a Generation 4/V4 clothing morph to a DAZ G3F clothing morph?

I'm trying to do a proof of concept, taking a V4 skirt, shaping it to fit a G3F figure but then taking the 'Expand all' and 'Skirt Length' morphs from the V4 skirt and transfer them to the G3F skirt. The assumption is that I don't change the amount of geometry in the G3F skirt so the morphs would still be valid. I looked for any OBJ files for the V4 skirt that are separate expand and lengthen morphs but didn't find any but the OBJ for the item itself.

Or would I have to dial in the morph on the V4 Skirt, fit it around a G3F and save it out as an OBJ to use on the G3F skirt? Autofit seems to do the job but what is happening in the background when autifut does its thing?

Thanks!

Since those are files with Victoria8 in the name in the Genesis 3 Female folder I would suspect theya re the result of some kind of morph conversion - have you used a tool to do something like that?

Hi,

I have this problems with a few of my products, so maybe there is a general fix for it... I dont even remember every of it.

I randomized everything and nothing moved.

---

At other clothes I have that problem most time with "FBM Expand all", which is a very useful slider to fix pokethroughs, maybe some files in the Data Folder are corrupt or... I don't know, I know morphs are also part of Weightmaps, so... maybe all the items have broken weightmaps?

The product above is this:

https://www.daz3d.com/vinnuth-kriegor-battle-mega-armor-for-genesis-8-male-s

(I never used it xD.... but it looks cool O_O I am like a woman who buys 100 shoes and just wear 5... :/ should give my money to kids in afrika, I am so bad...)

Any ideas?

Must have been 2 years ago that my Iray suddenly stopped working. when I go to "render" nothing happens. I started using 3DL and it renders much faster the finished product does lack a certain crispness that was in the Iray renders. Also the 3 DL does not render black skin.  If I load a Shania, she will not render. I have to use a Brittney or Hillary morph( she comes out looking very fair skinned black girl and not brown skinned)  or if I load a base Gen 8 and use the Shania morph I can get a black girl with brown skin. It's a pain and I've found a way to work around this when I produce black subjects. 

I have since learned to just accept this and its all good for now, however i live in constant fear that one day Daz will phase out 3DL and I will be screwed. 

yeah after some tests really seens which neither daz central or DIM are actually full download the pluging and only download a "little part of it and instal that part missing content, i will go back using the old version for now, it's really feel like the "pluging package is broken and only instaling "little pieces of it, not the full plugging, because it's only download 2mega in the DIM while the Daz central claims it have 5 mega but it is using the DIM to download and "not installing" it's only download and not install and only download 2mega making it's looks like the pluging is broken.

it's not "instaling neither in daz or unreal, the only 'transfer appearing in my daz is from my "old version" the new version is not appearing.