What I need to know before I switch to DS4.14 and have a play with Filament is will my ability to use Reality be compromised.

AFAIK the Reality plugin still works fine in 4.14.

But if you're worrried you could install the 4.14 beta to try Filament and keep your current version of the General Relase for Reality (or keep your current beta and install 4.14 general release if what you use now is the beta).

buongiorno, dopo il regalino fatto dalla daz agli utenti mac sono arrivato al punto di prendere una decisione, ma vorrei un consiglio ....secondo voi per ripristinare Daz sarebbe piu opportuno passare a windows e quindi proprio ad un altro pc, o forse è piu conveniente per ora fare un semplice rollback del sistema operativo precedente. ma se facessi un rollback come faccio a salvare tutta la mia libreris di Daz?

Penso che i problemi di compatibilità siano dovuti al fatto che Daz 4.14 adesso supporta un nuovo motore di rendering, chiamato Filament!

Non ne capisco nulla di Mac, ma se vuoi farti un Windows sono felice di aiutare.

In quel caso gli basta cancella il DLL del nuovo viewport... Può provare, magari gli riesce di farlo partire... Ah, no... Dimenticavo che sul mec non puoi cancellare un singolo file di un programma perchè stanno tutti impacchettati un uno solo, enorme e inacessible. Se si corrompe un bit saluti tutta la suit.

Comunque, se vuoi un PC Windows, sono qui per consigliarti. Se hai dimestichezza con i componenti, ordinali da Amazon e assembla tu la macchina, altrimenti puoi optare per un preassemblato. HP offre degli ottimi PC pronti, se poi scegli un modello OMEN... beh, sei a posto!

Origin offre un "assemblatore" online dove puoi scegliere i componenti e loro ti inviano tutto montato e pronto all'uso, hanno una vasta gamma di scelte.

buongiorno, dopo il regalino fatto dalla daz agli utenti mac sono arrivato al punto di prendere una decisione, ma vorrei un consiglio ....secondo voi per ripristinare Daz sarebbe piu opportuno passare a windows e quindi proprio ad un altro pc, o forse è piu conveniente per ora fare un semplice rollback del sistema operativo precedente. ma se facessi un rollback come faccio a salvare tutta la mia libreris di Daz?

Penso che i problemi di compatibilità siano dovuti al fatto che Daz 4.14 adesso supporta un nuovo motore di rendering, chiamato Filament!

Non ne capisco nulla di Mac, ma se vuoi farti un Windows sono felice di aiutare.

I am a simple soul and have no intention of messing around with animation, the ability to create still images is more than satisfying for me. I am ambitious to achieve as close to photo realism as I am able within the limitations imposed upon me by my ability and my limited budget. I have used Reality via Lux render since it was first released and am so used to it in its many iterations that I rarely if ever attempt to use anything else, indeed I have to spend time re-learning other ways such as 3Delight.

Then one day I notice this thing called Filament being released and do some reading and wonder if in time it may advance the quest for fast photo real renders over and above those that I can achieve with Reality4. I doubt if there will be any further upgrades to Reality, it being almost as old as I am, so unless I find another another means for rendering I am going to be stuck in the past.

What I need to know before I switch to DS4.14 and have a play with Filament is will my ability to use Reality be compromised. I mean I would like to give Filament a try, but not if by doing so I would then lose the use of Reality. 

Even as I type this I realise the question betrays my lack of smarts but please appreciate that there are some of us who while we like to play at this 3D, have no desire to spend our entire time learning the more complex things, we just want to dip our toes in the water...

So the question is if I switch to DS4.14 wll I stil be able to render with Reality...

Thanks for any advice

 Those Now Crowd billboards work really well in your scene (which looks lively and very slice-of-life-like!). They really seem to fit tonally very well with the Filament render-engine's aesthetic, whereas some of those billboards don't always work as well visually, imho, in iray renders. Seeing how well they blend tonally might really open up wider demand for those products among Filament users.    PS: about your earlier posts of the UrbanFutur and the missing images/bits.... I wonder if those missing elements were decals or LIEs...maybe that's why they went AWOL?
   ~Gen

Now Crowd billboards work well in Filament as long as they don't overlap. Overlapping caused some visual problems for some reason.

 

 

I didn't look for Iray decals and I didn't think about the possibility of LIE either. Thanks for the suggestions.That is something to check if I try that again. I don't think I've ever noticed a Stonemason product use LIE or Iray decals. He uses things he calls "decals" in the prop name, but they are just planes with cutout opacity as far as I can see. 

Greetings folks... please be gentle as I am struggling to get my brain wrapped around all this...

So I've been dabbling around with Daz for maybe 18 months now.  I have a pretty decent set of assets, plugins etc etc, and just enough skill to make me dangerous to myself.…
But it seem like, whether it is the new Filament render thing, Spring Dynamics, or folks just looking to get a new non-Nvidia GPU, somebody always chimes in with some sort of, “I do all my rendering in Blender”, “That feature has been around for like, 8 years in Blender”, or “Blender is just so much more versatile than Daz”.
Ok…
I’ve bitten on the hype, and downloaded Blender and have gotten maybe halfway through making that freakin’ donut 4 or 5 times…
But I am not getting it.  Hear me out, and correct me (gently) if I am wrong but here is how I see it.
DAZ is like a big toy store.
I get the GI Joe with the Kung-Fu Grip (G8M) just for walking in the store.  Then I skip over to the stuff/Theme Aisle and pick up “Mission to Spy Island Bundle” which has a cool inflatable boat, black spy outfit, Silenced P-38 etc.  Then I stroll over to the Scene area and pick up the Cave Island.  I hit the register, run home and dump it all out on my floor.  I assemble the pieces I want where I want them and take a picture (Render).
BLENDER
When I open up blender…
It seems like, “Here is a lump of sculpty clay, a pair of scissors, and a handful of pipe cleaners… you can make some really cool stuff with this that is even better than what you can find at Toy Store, but you gotta make a donut first to be worthy."
Yes, I’d love to make a medieval inspired backpack that is friendly to being opened and closed, and I would love to have animations with smoky fires etc etc… but how the heck is that happening?  Do I have to spend thousands more in another store?  Just poking around, I see I can get a Horse Pro Model for only $249.  And, at least the toilet seats are cheaper than government ones… they're are only about $30 just for a toilet (not an entire bathroom scene, just the toilet).
Now I see there is a DAZ to Blender Bridge… but what does that even mean?  Does it just import Characters like G8Fs or can I import any of my $1000s of Props/Scenes/Materials too?
Do I set up my scene as my GI Joe Example above in Daz and then hit a button and it magically goes into Blender were I hit another button to Render it or ???? 
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 Those Now Crowd billboards work really well in your scene (which looks lively and very slice-of-life-like!). They really seem to fit tonally very well with the Filament render-engine's aesthetic, whereas some of those billboards don't always work as well visually, imho, in iray renders. Seeing how well they blend tonally might really open up wider demand for those products among Filament users.    PS: about your earlier posts of the UrbanFutur and the missing images/bits.... I wonder if those missing elements were decals or LIEs...maybe that's why they went AWOL?
   ~Gen

Now Crowd billboards work well in Filament as long as they don't overlap. Overlapping caused some visual problems for some reason.

One last image and then I am going to move on to something else. I'm kind of tired of Grovebrook House now! I rotated the HDRI. I decided it was washing out the shadows from the distant light quite a bit. I also lowered the AO bias some more and lowered the power because I had pushed it all the way to the limit before. I discovered I had made mistake on the leaves albedo. Some of them had a value that was below your recommendation, so I fixed that. There are an infinite number of combinations to try!

Edit to add: Hmm. Now that I have rotated that HDRI, the filament render looks nothing like the Iray render. I think the HDRI light is probably shining through the back of the building in Filament, which doesn't happen in Iray, of course. 

It always helps others , it was not so much of a tutorial but preview  , and many others at last can see what it is all about and find their ways by trial and errors 

I was hoping you found solution for the broken shadow in my case , got me excited for a moment 

it is ok to share stuff , it may not helps one but can helps another 

I go through all Filament stuff and documantions weeks ago so I know what is missing in DS Filament and what is possible and what not , just hopping for DAZ team to improve it with the time and add more functions , as with iray, the best stuff comes always at the end .

 

You may be right. But the video was still more then i knew before :)  I'm still in the learning stage with Daz  until I can get my hands on a Nvidia 3080. Hard to get a decent render time on a 980 Ti. Thought it might help others.

The topiary trees looks very nice , the other little fuzzy,  but that is what you get when the objects are far from camera , when I try my grass with zoom out it was all fuzzy as a cotton and so much lighter

I noticed the one tree out of place 

I think it looks OK for what Filament offer at this moment , always better than OpenGL 

I can see the saturations difference in your previews , the plants not much since iray process it a little different , actual HDRI shadows and AO, different reflections , GI , Filament only use reflections from HDRI not from other surfaces , and the light passing through the object,  as the building behind the plants don't stop the light from behind 

you can try to adjust the AO a little bit in Filament , higher resolution  and power , lower bias to get the AO fake shadows tight between the leaves to reduce the glow.

and the Burn Highlights C...works only in Iray

You can try turning subdivision on the trees , it may help with the better shading , also it is important for tree to have proper normals directions , play with the Smooth Angle under leaves surface to increase it or lower it and see if the effect is better . That what helped me to get the low poly grass looking better

 

I think Burn Highlights Per Component only affects Iray - right?

I tried an Iray render with Burn Highlights Per Component turned OFF, but it didn't look much different. The reds in the pots looked a little more saturated, but I didn't see a change in the plants. I haven't tried a different RGB value yet. 

 

 

I applied subD to the trees, but didn't see a difference. I played with the smooth angle in surfaces for the leaves, but didn't see anything change with that either. The AO did have a positive affect on the leaves. It affects everything in the scene, of course, not just the leaves. I noticed that one of my topiary trees was floating in the air, so I moved it into position on the porch.

 

@raven449 this guru did not even activated the shadows on the spot and distance light .. did not helped me with this problem as that may be a bug to fix for DAZ .. but the rest of the video is good for people to learn about the quick light adjustments in Filament 

I find it weird that a light intensity change when you zoom in and out the camera , how you suppose to do animations with that kind of light , totally useless

I was never big fan of DS distant light and spot lights , it creates an effect on the surface like a dust in both Iray and Filament but it was fine in 3DL, I am missing my iray emitters in Filament

when I was beta testing Filament before you guys got it , there was no issues with shadows and distant light so I wonder what is going on 

You may be right. But the video was still more then i knew before :)  I'm still in the learning stage with Daz  until I can get my hands on a Nvidia 3080. Hard to get a decent render time on a 980 Ti. Thought it might help others.

I can see the saturations difference in your previews , the plants not much since iray process it a little different , actual HDRI shadows and AO, different reflections , GI , Filament only use reflections from HDRI not from other surfaces , and the light passing through the object,  as the building behind the plants don't stop the light from behind 

you can try to adjust the AO a little bit in Filament , higher resolution  and power , lower bias to get the AO fake shadows tight between the leaves to reduce the glow.

and the Burn Highlights C...works only in Iray

You can try turning subdivision on the trees , it may help with the better shading , also it is important for tree to have proper normals directions , play with the Smooth Angle under leaves surface to increase it or lower it and see if the effect is better . That what helped me to get the low poly grass looking better

 

I think Burn Highlights Per Component only affects Iray - right?

I tried an Iray render with Burn Highlights Per Component turned OFF, but it didn't look much different. The reds in the pots looked a little more saturated, but I didn't see a change in the plants. I haven't tried a different RGB value yet. 

 

 

I applied subD to the trees, but didn't see a difference. I played with the smooth angle in surfaces for the leaves, but didn't see anything change with that either. The AO did have a positive affect on the leaves. It affects everything in the scene, of course, not just the leaves. I noticed that one of my topiary trees was floating in the air, so I moved it into position on the porch.

@barbulb that is as closer as I can get , adjusting the AO in Filament helps a little bit but the quality can't be compared to iray, too many factors is missing even with the same lighting and materials there are limitations and I am not surprised at all. But I am hopping for the future improvements . That's a good start already

Spring Dynamics is fantastic! I think this is a game-changer for people who like to do animations! I've been wanting a product like this in Daz Studio for a long time! This is great! Thank you, 3D Universe, for the amazing product! 

Here's a quick animation test with Spring Dynamics (I added it to the hair fringe and the left and right pectoral). Rendered at lighting fast speed with Filament.

I love topic like this, always bring out useful tools we often won't notice in the store that can actually massively increase your productive.  If I just causually browsering thro this produt, I wouldn't even know what it is    

And probably no one will search for it either if wasn't for this thread.  

I can see the saturations difference in your previews , the plants not much since iray process it a little different , actual HDRI shadows and AO, different reflections , GI , Filament only use reflections from HDRI not from other surfaces , and the light passing through the object,  as the building behind the plants don't stop the light from behind 

you can try to adjust the AO a little bit in Filament , higher resolution  and power , lower bias to get the AO fake shadows tight between the leaves to reduce the glow.

and the Burn Highlights C...works only in Iray

You can try turning subdivision on the trees , it may help with the better shading , also it is important for tree to have proper normals directions , play with the Smooth Angle under leaves surface to increase it or lower it and see if the effect is better . That what helped me to get the low poly grass looking better

 

I think Burn Highlights Per Component only affects Iray - right?

I tried an Iray render with Burn Highlights Per Component turned OFF, but it didn't look much different. The reds in the pots looked a little more saturated, but I didn't see a change in the plants. I haven't tried a different RGB value yet. 

 

I added a dForce dress to the animation. Everything went pretty smoothly (other than the dress taking 50 minutes to simulate! lol oy! It rendered really fast with Filament once the simulation was done though.). I haven't tried combining both dForce AND Spring Dynamics on the same object. I'm not sure if it would work or not, one might override the other). I'll have to experiment with it later. :)

(Make sure your audio is low - Youtube added the soundtrack at a pretty loud volume. Next time I think I'll just add audio before uploading.)

 

I shudda read the bit about turning the audio down before I clicked. I think my upstairs neighbour just tipped his hot coffee into his lap as my speakers momentarilly blasted the apartment block.

I don't quite understand what you are saying here. It looks to me like your animation has both dForce and the Spring thing happening??

Spring Dynamics are added to the Hair Fringe bones, and the Pectoral bones of the girl, dForce is added to the Dress. So there's no single object in the scene that is using both dForce and Spring Dyanamics at the same time. I've not tested to see if it's possible or not for a single object to have both dForce simulation on the timeline as well as Spring Dynamics effects on the timeline at the same time. I suspect it probably isn't, but I'll have to check it out. :) 

I ran the Spring Dynamics script on the hair fringe bones and the pectoral bones and then saved the scene. I then loaded up a dForce dress onto the girl and ran the dForce simulation - then once the simulation was done I saved it again. Then I rendered the animation.

Ah yes, that makes sense. Thanks.

If you set the ISO too high you will never match anything with iray especially if the base lighting is HDRI map , a little confusing I guess but I suspect he got little lost and tried to get out of the trouble 

I will suggest to setup all lights in iray first and then adjust the ISO and Lighting Scales in Filament and done , why? because the spot and distant light in iray need higher values than in Filament , that's the easy way, also Tone mapping in iray will affect Filament IBL intensity, so iray first.. 

and if you doing scene only for Filament then you do whatever you please, starting adjusting Environment intensity and then the rest

I found a video explaining how to fix the lighting problem with Filament

I think Mec4D has a much better recommendation: Set the Filament Draw Options ISO Scale to 0.56 as your starting point. I think WP Guru made things much harder by not doing that as a first step and then just leaving ISO Scale alone. He set it to something like 1.5 and then he had to compensate over and over for that value being way too high.

@raven449 this guru did not even activated the shadows on the spot and distance light .. did not helped me with this problem as that may be a bug to fix for DAZ .. but the rest of the video is good for people to learn about the quick light adjustments in Filament 

I find it weird that a light intensity change when you zoom in and out the camera , how you suppose to do animations with that kind of light , totally useless

I was never big fan of DS distant light and spot lights , it creates an effect on the surface like a dust in both Iray and Filament but it was fine in 3DL, I am missing my iray emitters in Filament

when I was beta testing Filament before you guys got it , there was no issues with shadows and distant light so I wonder what is going on 

I added a dForce dress to the animation. Everything went pretty smoothly (other than the dress taking 50 minutes to simulate! lol oy! It rendered really fast with Filament once the simulation was done though.). I haven't tried combining both dForce AND Spring Dynamics on the same object. I'm not sure if it would work or not, one might override the other). I'll have to experiment with it later. :)

(Make sure your audio is low - Youtube added the soundtrack at a pretty loud volume. Next time I think I'll just add audio before uploading.)

 

I shudda read the bit about turning the audio down before I clicked. I think my upstairs neighbour just tipped his hot coffee into his lap as my speakers momentarilly blasted the apartment block.

I don't quite understand what you are saying here. It looks to me like your animation has both dForce and the Spring thing happening??

Spring Dynamics are added to the Hair Fringe bones, and the Pectoral bones of the girl, dForce is added to the Dress. So there's no single object in the scene that is using both dForce and Spring Dyanamics at the same time. I've not tested to see if it's possible or not for a single object to have both dForce simulation on the timeline as well as Spring Dynamics effects on the timeline at the same time. I suspect it probably isn't, but I'll have to check it out. :) 

I ran the Spring Dynamics script on the hair fringe bones and the pectoral bones and then saved the scene. I then loaded up a dForce dress onto the girl and ran the dForce simulation - then once the simulation was done I saved it again. Then I rendered the animation.