Now if this Filament is only being used for preview mode then why are they selling materials and converters for it?

 Because it's there as an OPTION IF someone would want to use it for rendering (such as animators). 

von Hobo said:

Wow! Really loving this Filament PBR Viewport preview. It's lighting fast!

Nice job DAZ!

          It'd be useful if it actually matched the Iray lighting. 

---------------------------------

Try this Render Throttle product for a faster Iray Viewport preview. I rely on it heavily. But I will be using the Filament view for all my work leading up to the final Iray preview and render.

https://www.daz3d.com/render-throttle-for-iray

Now if this Filament is only being used for preview mode then why are they selling materials and converters for it? And if it's meant for final renders then why isn't there a Filament option in the list of render engines?

I don't see many PAs spending time on Filament, unless they're making dedicated shaders.  For one thing, Filament is still a work in progress and trying to make hair is still a waste of time, and for another, there more people still using 3DL than will get serious about Filament in the state it's in.

Other than that, I think it looks fine.  It doesn't have to be photorealistic; it just has to look right.  You could easily illustrate a comic or visual novel with Filament, even in its current state, as long as you figure out how to handle hair.

So, dunno about the other 3DL users? But I'd like to be able to use iRay mats without having to fiddle around with conversion. Filament at least looks like it'll be more compatible with iRay's PBR mats than 3DL is. That, and there's also issues with how few artists are bundling 3DL mats anymore. Most of the shaders I'm using are many years old.

And I like how Filament is an open source project? So it can actively work to improve the code. iRay is what the FOSS community calls a "binary blob," and it also suffers from vendor lock- in problems that Filament can help solve.

My first try with Filament.

Ok, Hairs are a little tricky but so far nice fast rendering

That looks pretty good! I would probably increase the bump and/or decrease the gloss, but dang that's not bad at all. And definitely not bad for pretty much instant rendering. lol While Filament isn't meant to compete with Iray I do think as a draw style it's pretty good and can handle MASSIVE scenes WAY better than most other draw styles I've experimented with. And for animations, I definitely think Filament can be a great help to people who want to do animations but don't want to wait countless hours or even days for the animation to render.

It would be best to use the existing thread https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/442982/new-ds-filament-render-engine#latest , or the threads on the new DS versions in the Daz Studio Discussion forum, rather than have mutliple threads covering ther topic.

Is there a way to get strand based hair to render in Filament? I did a quick test and it works in preview but it disappears when rendered

line tessalation and make it really thick

makes for a damned heavy scene though

I tried that and it shows up um the Filament preview but still doesn't show up when the render.  Does it work for you?

 

it did on the beta not installed the latest yet, about to

Very cool results, thanks for sharing the info.  I just tried another test with my custom hamster SBH and it worked no problem. I just can't seem to get it to work with the dForce strand based hair. Maybe I just need to play with the setting 

It might be the hair shader that's being used, some shaders or surface settings don't seem to be "readable" by Filament. I haven't narrowed it down to what the issue is.

Is it possible to have "ambient surfaces" to fake emissive ?

I have been trying to give my flames glow,

not as much as I would like

I am guessing Kindred Arts fire product has the elusive settings but cannot buy anymore stuff this year

As @khorneV2 pointed out, a point light works. I used that method for the magic that she's holding in the render I did above. Though in hindsight I probably should have increased the Lumen of the point light.

yes I use a point light but that hot glow I see in KindredArt's promo eludes me

Is there a way to get strand based hair to render in Filament? I did a quick test and it works in preview but it disappears when rendered

line tessalation and make it really thick

makes for a damned heavy scene though

I tried that and it shows up um the Filament preview but still doesn't show up when the render.  Does it work for you?

 

it did on the beta not installed the latest yet, about to

Very cool results, thanks for sharing the info.  I just tried another test with my custom hamster SBH and it worked no problem. I just can't seem to get it to work with the dForce strand based hair. Maybe I just need to play with the setting 

It might be the hair shader that's being used, some shaders or surface settings don't seem to be "readable" by Filament. I haven't narrowed it down to what the issue is.

Is it possible to have "ambient surfaces" to fake emissive ?

I have been trying to give my flames glow,

not as much as I would like

I am guessing Kindred Arts fire product has the elusive settings but cannot buy anymore stuff this year

As @khorneV2 pointed out, a point light works. I used that method for the magic that she's holding in the render I did above. Though in hindsight I probably should have increased the Lumen of the point light.

Yes, they are made for Filament - which can be sued for rendering, by setting the render engine to Viewport, if desired.

Please see the threads on the new versions of DS at the top of this forum, and for more in-depth coverage of Filament see https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/442982/new-ds-filament-render-engine#latest

I love to see Vulkan support myself, although if they implement the full Filament spec, that's not bad either. The only thing is that Filament is made by Google, and they have a tendency to drop support for their products unexpectedly and when not performing.

Shaders or presets for standard shaders? DS will try to convert the latter, but the former in general will be more of a challenge.

There is a long thread on Filament (covering several versions in the betas) here https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/442982/new-ds-filament-render-engine#latest , and of course there are th threads on the new DS releases at the top of this forum.

Ok - so it seems to be consistent now. The reboot happens whenever I go into IRay preview mode - usually within seconds if not immediately. That suggests hardware to me - faults that harden usually point to hardware. I'll have to try to get away with withe Filament ot IRay spot render because it is not yet crashing while using IRay in render mode. 

[EDIT] I seem to be able to get away with using the IRay Spot Render tool so there's a workaround so long at the fault doesn't migrate away from the IRay preview mode. I've set the Max Samples low (200) so that I don't have to wait too long.

I'm not seeing anywhere where it's clearly stated - Does Filament not work on Macs? I just downloaded the update and watched the tutorial, but I don't see an option to switch to PBR mode in the viewport dropdown? 

I was just about to buy the Filament-specific products... so i'm trying to get up to speed on if there are requirements here. 

Yeah exactly 3DL + extra  I used PBR maps on my 3DL clothing characters before iray in DS but it never looking as good as in Filament , baked AO make it just looking better like in an old game 

 

thanks for the tip of AO baked for skin, Filament is more like a "3Delight reinforced" in some way

In order to try to keep things together I have locked this thread, there is much discussion of Filament heer https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/442982/new-ds-filament-render-engine#latest and there are threads on the new DS version in Daz Studio Discussion.

meh when you put someone on ignore you cannot look at the pictures they embed, they are whited

videogames bake in shadows etc anyway

BTW you don't have to like something

you also don't have to deny others something

but

when you start telling other's their renders look like crap you better start sharing some of your superior renders as examples not video game images

My intention isn't to make it personal, Wendy. They don't look like crap because of anything you've done wrong. Filament is what I have issue with, not your effort. 

Again: The problem, as I see it, is Daz apparently spent time / energy on a new feature that is just, well, bad. They don't have unlimited resources so that undoubtedly denied us advancements in other areas. Like, for instance, hair, which is what is really holding us back from producing photoreal renders. 

Can someone give an example of how to set up emmisive shaders in filament ? The Iray setting for emmisives  don't seem to be working.

..OK so O gather that FIlament is primarly best for animations.  As I don't bother with animating are there any other advantages to updating? 

The filament preview is pretty much as fast as texture preview but a lot closer to the Iray render.  Lighting seems to mismatch still; there are mismatches I haven't worked out what they are yet, but overall appearance particularly with expressions is a lot better.

That's cool!  I mostly use the preview to confirm positioning of my lights so that would help a lot.

@Zilvergrafix very nice , as I said before  it looks great on all PBR materials but skin for now , and if you want to make skin looking better in Filament (without SS), you need to made it proper from the beginning and paint the nostrils dark , you need skin maps with Ambient Occlusion baked in , as it was early for games or use bent normals 

thanks for the tip of AO baked for skin, Filament is more like a "3Delight reinforced" in some way

My first try with Filament.

Ok, Hairs are a little tricky but so far nice fast rendering