Scavenger said:

Totte said:

Scavenger said:

So, does Apple Silicon use the CPU cores for the rendering ? Like, obviously it doesn't have Nvidia CUDA/GPU...but does iRay or other renderers stick to the CPU cores or the GPU ones?

Iray will be CPU only, Filament on the other hand will be GPU as Filament is built on top of Vulcan which sits on top of Metal. 

so, that'll be a whole need shader system to learn?

Indeed - but filatoon is based on it, and I guess it will expand over time, not good for animations, not eally for images, yet. 

Totte said:

Scavenger said:

So, does Apple Silicon use the CPU cores for the rendering ? Like, obviously it doesn't have Nvidia CUDA/GPU...but does iRay or other renderers stick to the CPU cores or the GPU ones?

Iray will be CPU only, Filament on the other hand will be GPU as Filament is built on top of Vulcan which sits on top of Metal. 

so, that'll be a whole need shader system to learn?

Scavenger said:

So, does Apple Silicon use the CPU cores for the rendering ? Like, obviously it doesn't have Nvidia CUDA/GPU...but does iRay or other renderers stick to the CPU cores or the GPU ones?

Iray will be CPU only, Filament on the other hand will be GPU as Filament is built on top of Vulcan which sits on top of Metal. 

Scavenger said:

Does the viewport mode...that's what it called? the kind of pseudo render while you're working?  work? (That should date about where I fell out of being active)..or does that require NVIDA? Is Iray still needing everything loading in ram before it renders? (yeah, I know iray/cuda/no mac because they hate each other etc). Can you define "larger scenes"?

MacOS is only missing support for Filament (and therefore, Filatoon too, because it is using Filament) among the various render engines Daz Studio can use.

You'll get access to Iray, either for a render or the Iray preview mode for the viewport. I think some features of Iray do require a Nvidia GPU so some won't work on MacOS, but at the end of the day, the biggest difference between doing an Iray render on Mac OS with the CPU and doing the same render on a computer with a Nvidia GPU is the rendering speed.

As for memory, I wouldn't worry too much about it: MacOS is able to use SSD storage to get way over the real amount of Ram installed in your computer (my record was Affinity Publisher using something close to 300 GB of virtual memory, on top of using every bit of real RAM I had in my computer, while failing to open a very heavy PDF file). It'll be slower of course because even very fast SSD as the ones used by Apple are many time slower than modern day memory (especially at the beginning of the render, when Daz Studio is preparing everything it needs to render a scene, loading textures, geometry and so on in your computer RAM), but you won't get an out of memory error.

cain-x said:

Yes, Filament will work on integrated graphics if you do not have a discrete card. It runs surprisingly well.

How do I know? My 780ti fried and had to run on integrated graphics for almost a year due to the crypto craze. I'm glad that phase is over. I just hope my current card does not die while the AI craze is ongoing.

Good to know as my laptop's discrete gpu is only 6gb vram.

I'm getting some interesting shadows while doing some experimenting. Shadow Type PCSS coupled with a NEGATIVE "Shadow Polygon Offset Slope" value gives almost like a hatching-like effect. You have to render out pretty large and rescale it down though, otherwise it's a bit too messy. This was rendered at 2000x2600 and then scaled down to 800x1040. Thankfully Filament rendering takes like 2 seconds. lol

I could see this look in like a dark comic or a mystery comic, I think.

SapphireBlue said:

I was trying my hand at some custom face textures for G9 toon and messing around with the Draw Settings some more. Love the possibilities! 

 

Dreaming (Straight Filament/FilaToon render)

Wow! I can't get over how versatile Filatoon is.

Scavenger said:

Hey.

OK, now that the M4's are out, I'm looking into upgrading my very old imac (12 years).  For DAZ, as it's going.. is it hitting the GPU or CPU more? Is DS, rendering, even viewpoint working these days on Mac? (I've been out of it for a few years, so starting back up)...

Really appreciate any buying advice people with some knoweldge can give me (other places I've asked just have PC users speculating on things they know nothing about). (I'm probably looking at a Mini Pro)

(and hi to folks I used to chat with!)..

 

Edit: Wow, lots of clean up on the signature is needed.

First off, no nVidia GPU rendering on macOS (a too long story to write again, but that's just it). CPU rendering works well, but not as fast as GPU, specially for large scenes it suffers from the unified memory architecture where you RAM is used by DS to hold the scene data, by graphics card to display the scene in viewport, and Iray for rendering the scene so a scene uses 2-3 times the memory which stacks up fast. My 32GB RAM on my M1Max macStudio is way to small for larger scenes, even when rendering on external servers (like BoostForDaz), the way Iray works is it still setup the scene in Iray memory beside studio memory.
That said, Studio works ok now on macOS 11+, still some quirks here and there, specially with UI rendering (due to Qt 4.8 not being compatible at all with macOS never graphics models but DAZ team has at least got it to work. 
What can we expect in the future? DS 5.0 will be based on Qt 6+ and support macOS much better, so better GUI handling and filament drawing mode will come. 
Do I still recommend a mac? Everyday of the week! If you are used to it, Windows will get in your way and eating your productivity. I use both macOS and Windows daily (but not for DS), but my productivity is like 3 times higher on macOS no matter what I'm doing.

3Diva said:

SapphireBlue said:

I was trying my hand at some custom face textures for G9 toon and messing around with the Draw Settings some more. Love the possibilities! 

 

Dreaming (Straight Filament/FilaToon render)

That's gorgeous! I love the monochromatic look you're able to get too. Your scenes are set up with lovely composition, contrast, and clarity (the three Cs we're taught in art class). Nicely done!

I agree, looks amazing and gorgeous, and good to know about three Cs.

SapphireBlue said:

I was trying my hand at some custom face textures for G9 toon and messing around with the Draw Settings some more. Love the possibilities! 

 

Dreaming (Straight Filament/FilaToon render)

That's gorgeous! I love the monochromatic look you're able to get too. Your scenes are set up with lovely composition, contrast, and clarity (the three Cs we're taught in art class). Nicely done!

OK, so I spent some time in Blender and I have to admit, that I'm increasingly getting into it.
I got caught off guard today when I switched from cycles to EEVE, and that G8 sitting on the floor looked like an Iray
render at first glance. The animation played back almost in realtime, but not in DS openGL or filament, but almost in Iray
quality.

Now that - is very nice!
Might really be worth it making that switch.

I was trying my hand at some custom face textures for G9 toon and messing around with the Draw Settings some more. Love the possibilities! 

Dreaming (Straight Filament/FilaToon render)

The Dreamer

Original Filament/FilaToon render without postwork

I usually find the freebie challenges a little tough, but the theme won me over.  It was still tough, since I started with an idea in my head and tried to fit the 5 freebies and 5 purchased items to work with that. I may have got 30% of my original idea, maybe... It was still a lot of fun to do. Thanks very much for the challenge! 

Note 1: I'm guessing the DAZ G9 Toon base characters, their essential morphs and FilaToon shaders are also allowed, as part of rule number 3?
Note 2: I postworked the image for some color grading and vignette etc. Original render is also attached. I also changed some of the textures and/or colors of the free items too suit the scene, including working on a custom texture for the G9 toon face.

Freebies

1) Flower - https://www.sharecg.com/v/47950/
2) Fantasy Flower - https://www.sharecg.com/v/92326/
3) Pendant Lamp - https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/90313/pendant-lamp-01 (only used the lamp shade)
4) Florida Hair (biweekly freebies from Oct 18) - https://www.daz3d.com/florida-hair-for-genesis-2-female-s
5) Greek Chic outfit G2F (biweekly freebies from Nov 1) - https://www.daz3d.com/greek-chic-outfit-for-genesis-2-female-s
6) Overlay pattern - https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/7892501-pattern-vintage-seamless-vector-floral-wallpaper-background-illustration

Purchased Items

1) Jepe's PlateZ II - https://www.daz3d.com/jepes-platez-ii
2) SY Confetti and Nature Effects Iray - https://www.daz3d.com/sy-confetti-and-nature-effects-iray
3) UltraScatterPro - https://www.daz3d.com/ultrascatterpro
4) A pose from a set as a starting point - but I forgot which one now...

The Dreamer

This image has been resized to fit in the page. Click to enlarge.

Original Filament/FilaToon render without postwork

This image has been resized to fit in the page. Click to enlarge.

I usually find the freebie challenges a little tough, but the theme won me over.  It was still tough, since I started with an idea in my head and tried to fit the 5 freebies and 5 purchased items to work with that. I may have got 30% of my original idea, maybe... It was still a lot of fun to do. Thanks very much for the challenge! 

Note 1: I'm guessing the DAZ G9 Toon base characters, their essential morphs and FilaToon shaders are also allowed, as part of rule number 3?
Note 2: I postworked the image for some color grading and vignette etc. Original render is also attached. I also changed some of the textures and/or colors of the free items too suit the scene, including working on a custom texture for the G9 toon face.

Freebies

1) Flower - https://www.sharecg.com/v/47950/
2) Fantasy Flower - https://www.sharecg.com/v/92326/
3) Pendant Lamp - https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/90313/pendant-lamp-01 (only used the lamp shade)
4) Florida Hair (biweekly freebies from Oct 18) - https://www.daz3d.com/florida-hair-for-genesis-2-female-s
5) Greek Chic outfit G2F (biweekly freebies from Nov 1) - https://www.daz3d.com/greek-chic-outfit-for-genesis-2-female-s
6) Overlay pattern - https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/7892501-pattern-vintage-seamless-vector-floral-wallpaper-background-illustration

Purchased Items

1) Jepe's PlateZ II - https://www.daz3d.com/jepes-platez-ii
2) SY Confetti and Nature Effects Iray - https://www.daz3d.com/sy-confetti-and-nature-effects-iray
3) UltraScatterPro - https://www.daz3d.com/ultrascatterpro
4) A pose from a set as a starting point - but I forgot which one now...

replies to notes: 1) I think genesis 9 toon base and Filatoon shaders are base assets and therefore allowed based on rule number 3.
2)Postwork with original render attached is allowed based on rule number 4.

Entry approved, please move to entries thread!

The Dreamer

Original Filament/FilaToon render without postwork

I usually find the freebie challenges a little tough, but the theme won me over.  It was still tough, since I started with an idea in my head and tried to fit the 5 freebies and 5 purchased items to work with that. I may have got 30% of my original idea, maybe... It was still a lot of fun to do. Thanks very much for the challenge! 

Note 1: I'm guessing the DAZ G9 Toon base characters, their essential morphs and FilaToon shaders are also allowed, as part of rule number 3?
Note 2: I postworked the image for some color grading and vignette etc. Original render is also attached. I also changed some of the textures and/or colors of the free items too suit the scene, including working on a custom texture for the G9 toon face.

Freebies

1) Flower - https://www.sharecg.com/v/47950/
2) Fantasy Flower - https://www.sharecg.com/v/92326/
3) Pendant Lamp - https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/90313/pendant-lamp-01 (only used the lamp shade)
4) Florida Hair (biweekly freebies from Oct 18) - https://www.daz3d.com/florida-hair-for-genesis-2-female-s
5) Greek Chic outfit G2F (biweekly freebies from Nov 1) - https://www.daz3d.com/greek-chic-outfit-for-genesis-2-female-s
6) Overlay pattern - https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/7892501-pattern-vintage-seamless-vector-floral-wallpaper-background-illustration

Purchased Items

1) Jepe's PlateZ II - https://www.daz3d.com/jepes-platez-ii
2) SY Confetti and Nature Effects Iray - https://www.daz3d.com/sy-confetti-and-nature-effects-iray
3) UltraScatterPro - https://www.daz3d.com/ultrascatterpro
4) A pose from a set as a starting point - but I forgot which one now...

Played around with the Color Grading in the Filament Options. What do you think?

More experiments with FilaToon, specifically trying to come up with some hair settings I like.

Also messed around with layering seethrough outfits. The main shirt uses the Masked Threshold to make the opaque parts look better and cast shadows properly. I then created a geometry shell that goes inwards with the Masked Threshold set to 1 (so it appears seethrough) and turned turned off cast shadows. Combined, you get a pretty decent effect that renders nicely.

Of course, it would be much better if Filament supported dithering for opacity, which is what most modern videogames do in order to avoid the numerous depth-rendering problems that come from using opacity maps on things like hair. If you use anti-aliasing and render out the image large enough, the dithering wouldn't be noticeable.

miladyderyni_173d399f47 said:

SilverGirl said:

Just a quick note to folks that although the Supersuit Troopers free this week is a texture add-on, there are some straight-up shaders included in there. So even if you have no interest in the product itself, you might want to pick it up for those.

Those shaders will be for 3DL, not Iray or Filament, since Supersuit is a G1 product. That said, I do have Supersuit and several add-ons (not Troopers) and they do have very nice shaders if you want to convert/tweak.

Thanks for the warning.

In short: I don't think it's worth the hassle.
I use DS exclusively to create scenes using existing assets and to then render stills and animations from them using nVidia cards.
While Blender has a lot more features than DS, it's also a lot less focused than DS, and to me at least has way more features than I need.
I use Motionbuilder instead of Maya for the same reason. When I do animation work, I simply don't need all that additional functionality that clutters the Maya interface.
* I don't think Cycles renders any faster than Iray.
* Positioning cameras and lights is way easier in DS than it is in Blender. I had to purchase an addon for Blender to easily lock the camera to the viewport for positioning without having to open extra panels. That is build into DS, and a default in most 3D applications as well.
* Getting DS assets to work as well or at all in Blender will require a lot of fiddling. Converting shaders, character rigging, mesh deformations, dForce simulations etc. I guess that some of that could be done in Blender as well, but that isn't time well spend as far as I'm concerned.
* EEVE renders much better than Filament, but that won't matter if you don't want to use openGL for renders.
In closing; while there are way too many issues with DS for my liking, I can appreciate its scene creation and render workflow compared to Blender.
I toyed with the idea of moving to Blender instead of DS, and ended up staying with DS for these reasons.
Just my 2 cents, since I didn't see a similar sentiment posted here. Your mileage may vary.

SilverGirl said:

Just a quick note to folks that although the Supersuit Troopers free this week is a texture add-on, there are some straight-up shaders included in there. So even if you have no interest in the product itself, you might want to pick it up for those.

Those shaders will be for 3DL, not Iray or Filament, since Supersuit is a G1 product. That said, I do have Supersuit and several add-ons (not Troopers) and they do have very nice shaders if you want to convert/tweak.