yeah, them opacity things, they keep cropping up.  one thing I have yet to make any notes on other than 'it took forever that way', and another that is a WIP project, lol.  AoA is further hindered by it being a Scripted thing, thus the CPU needs to compile at runtime each instruction, and I'm sure it's via a few levels of abstraction code levels.  AoA can do cool things, it's just slow. lol. Mix in a few dozen layers of almost not their opacity stuff, and ugh.

As for that ^ project, I'm not sold on the wings. There was a nice set of dragon-like wings, however, it was Iray only, and I've had my share of Iray only stuff that just flunked hard at usability at this point.

P.S. did some digging yesterday night as I was sifting through looking at what elves were in my collection, I have confirmed that FW Neiva does include the DS file for the UVing thing (in her install zip, it's all there.). I had just been ignorant and skimmed past after seeing the lack of maps without knowing the UVing existed to use the other maps at the time. I guess 'SB8' stands for "Skin Builder 8", kind of cool. It's an interesting tool for mixing up custom maps from the included source maps (pros and cons with that, as I found out fussing in gimp a page or so back). If that is true where the alt UVing came from, then it would be super useful.

For my only other concern of not knowing and not having much interest other than knowing that it at least existed at one time, that's going to take a cup of coffee to write up. In daz, with the Daz equipment, FW Neiva is mostly all there and works as advertised. I just don't know about 3rd party stuff I haven't seen mentioned since about generation 5 I think, and I'm sure at the time it was limited to V4 stuff, I think, lol. It's not something I dabble in, so I don't know if gen8 3rd party 'equipment' exists and what map UVings it uses if it exists. If it uses the torso maps, your all set, if the default 'equipment' UV maps are needed, then you're going to have difficulties (or extra work making the maps).

(edit) one site appears to only list "the script" for applying mats, and nothing is mentioned as to what maps are used at all, only "use 'The Script' to apply the materials". almost reminds me of that toy story 3-eyed alien 'the claw' scene, just saying 'the script' instead, lol.   Ohhhh, Aaaaah, The Script, use The Script. The script will make it all work. lol.

I was playing with Victoria 6 HD in 3delight. I use IRay with Genesis 3 and Genesis 8, but I like the look of 3Delight for some of the older generation characters.

Yes, Iray suit more for Ultra realistic render, in the other hand, 3delight is better for close 2D effect.

What am I missing?  It says Extra 45% Off Legacy Items.   I don't see where that is on the sale page, and I do not see a link once you click this box.

"67% OFF* These featured Genesis, Michael 4 and Victoria 4 Items from Featured Artist Catalogs above"

That's the default 40% off, plus the additional 45% off.

Okay, thanks.....thought I'd gone blind or something, lol

What am I missing?  It says Extra 45% Off Legacy Items.   I don't see where that is on the sale page, and I do not see a link once you click this box.

 

"67% OFF* These featured Genesis, Michael 4 and Victoria 4 Items from Featured Artist Catalogs above"

That's the default 40% off, plus the additional 45% off.

https://www.daz3d.com/kiriko-hair-for-genesis-2-female-s-and-victoria-4

https://www.daz3d.com/tsukiakari-hair

https://www.daz3d.com/georgina-hair-for-genesis (barrette can be seen in colors promos: https://www.daz3d.com/colors-for-georgina-hair )

I was playing with Victoria 6 HD in 3delight. I use IRay with Genesis 3 and Genesis 8, but I like the look of 3Delight for some of the older generation characters.

I see the words "Improved Iray Uber Shader" on the product page for "older" Generation 8 models, like Victoria 8 and Olympia 8, too. What specificaly do you see different in the Daz Studio shader surface channels for Diego and Babina that aren't in Victoria or Olympia? 

Don't see anything different, was just asking when it was introduced. I see it as far back as Darius 8. If you see it further back that's great.

Is there anything newer about Babina 8 that makes her look so much more lifelike from the product images than the older gens, or is it just a trick of lighting etc.?

That's what I was trying to figure out.

Thank you L'Adair, but I'm a beginner, so this sounds like Greek to me. Sorry about that. Are you saying the new and improved Iray Uber Shader for Genesis 8 can be applied to my Victoria 7 HD model?

The Victoria 7 HD model loads the Victoria 7 Iray materials for me.

The HD is an addon morph for the base figure, and requires V7 for both the shape and the materials. If it's loading without, check to see if you have the base. If not, you can apply any Genesis 3 female materials to the figure, but the shape isn't going to look much like Victoria 7.

Select your G3 female figure, (V7 or any other,) Open Surfaces. There are tabs across the top of the pane. Make sure the one labeled Presets is selected. In the right column, drill-down to Default > Materials > Iray > Feminine. With Feminine open, you will see a list of all the characters you own for Genesis 3 that include Iray materials. Select one and open to locate the presets to apply the various materials and options.

I hope this helps.

Thank you L'Adair, but I'm a beginner, so this sounds like Greek to me. Sorry about that. Are you saying the new and improved Iray Uber Shader for Genesis 8 can be applied to my Victoria 7 HD model?

I see the words "Improved Iray Uber Shader" on the product page for "older" Generation 8 models, like Victoria 8 and Olympia 8, too. What specificaly do you see different in the Daz Studio shader surface channels for Diego and Babina that aren't in Victoria or Olympia? 

have you looked in the log file?

clear the log file to start fresh.

start a new scene and load Victoria 7.  log file should give a clue

guessing is an erc that froze the morph in it.

Hello. Just a quick question. Is the new Iray Uber Shader something that comes with the named models only, or is it available for every DAZ user?

Also, is it limited to only Genesis 8 models, or can it be applied to older ones as well, such as VIctoria 7? If so, then how do we apply it?

Hi. Just a quick question. I'm a DAZ newbie. Is the new Iray Uber Shader compatible with Genesis 3 models, more specifically Victoria 7? Is it something you can apply to any model, or is it only possible with Genesis 8?

Everytime I load Genesis 3 Female and Victoria 7 or character related products I receive the following error:

Missing Files

The following files could not be found:

scenes/vivienne morphs.duf

I already have a character installed with the name of "Vivienne" by Cheribut so I'm assuming it must be some other character by the same name that's causing the problem?????

Please can someone help me to resolve this issue as it's fast becoming a reet pain in the bum 

Thank you all in anticipation!

Karen

[ EDIT: I have corrected some of my misunderstandings of Slosh's shader work below. ]

Based off a discussion in the Iray Shaders for Strand Based Hair from MMX thread, I started doing some testing with MMX Blended Dual Lobe Hair Shader Toolkit for Iray by @Mattymanx and ColorWerks Extreme: Hair Texture Blending for Iray and dForce Hair by @Slosh. I thought it was only fair to both vendors that I post this as a separate thread so they both get "credit" in the thread title. :) You can see the original thread for some other tests that L'Adair did as well.

Test Setup

For my testing, I chose PhilW's Femme Fatale Hair for G8F. I wanted to use a hair that had some curl and shape to it to better show how the highlights play within the hair. I'm not going to post all of the various options I tried, just 3 that kind of provide some side-by-side views. I put the hair on Victoria 8, but I removed a lot of detail from her skin shader because I didn't need a realistic figure, I just needed the hair to render well when placed on a human. I lit the scene with one of Colm Jackson's PRO-Studio HDR Lighting System HDRIs. I use these a lot for "character setup" scenes because they provide very nice even light with just enough contrast to be interesting.

Three Big Caveats

First, let's realize that "under the hood" the MMX shader uses the Dual Lobe Shader that comes with the latest versions of Daz Studio. For that reason, just like with a shader that is based off the Iray Uber Shader, the shader can't really do anything that the base shader isn't designed to do.

Second, Slosh did write a custom shader that allows the hair blending to be used for both transmapped and strand based hair products. So, in a full "apples to apples" comparison, the two products aren't really exactly the same which plays into some of my reviews of them below.

Third, as I stated in the original thread that motivated these tests, I have some experience in trying to make shader code designed for strand based hair work for transmapped hair. Even with the custom RSL code I was writing, trying to get the shader to treat a ribbon of geometry as if it were actually a cluster of hair strands was extremely difficult. So, while the MMX shader might work for transmapped hair and may even provide some good results, judging them based on their usefulness for that would be like using a wrench to drive nails. It might work, but the tools were made for different problems.

Too Long, Didn't Read Summary

I'm breaking the "rules" by giving my summary first. :) Both products bring something different to the table and will prove useful depending on exactly what you're trying to accomplish.

ColorWerks Extreme (CWX) is probably the easier package to use overall. Slosh has done a nice job providing a straightforward interface and a custom shader which makes blending hair colors easier. You select a base color, an optional color to blend with it, and a mask to use between them. There is some flexibilty as well because you can play with the blending modes, etc. Because this isn't based on the Dual Lobe shader, CWX is also going to work better for transmapped hair. When used on SBH, the implementation adds the shader code without destroying any settings for SBH/dForce hair which is why it focuses on color and less on the other aspects of those hair types. The tradeoff, of course, is that when you make something simple to use, you will often lose some of the flexibilty.

In contraxt the MMX BDLHS shader kit is VERY flexible. You're given a lot of control over all aspects of the hair shader including tools to modify things like the hair density and generation parameters. The use of maps is also unique and may take some getting used to in order to understand the power and usefulness of them. Unlike typical hair maps that look like photos of hair, what these maps basically tell the shader is "If a hair starts at this location on the surface, this is how you should modify the (root color, tip color, etc.)." This would make things like patterns on animal fur, etc. much easier to control. The tradeoff for the flexibility is that you may need to spend more time with it to get comfortable and be able to get the full benefits of the package.

ColorWerks Extreme: You'll like this if you mostly want realistic looking hair colors with maybe a few fantastic dyes, but you don't want to spend a lot of time "playing" with the hair color. Also of the two packages, this one is going to be more consistent in how it works for traditional transmapped hair products.

MMX BDLHS: You'll like this if you want more control over all the aspects of the hair color and maybe even want to tweak how the hair is being generated. You can still create wonderful realistic colors, but if you want to really get crazy (rainbow mohawk anyone?), this package will be more to your liking.

Test Renders

I actually did several test renders using various colors of hair, etc. But, to be honest, since I was trying to side by side comparison, what I found was that you couldn't really tell a huge difference from one to the other. I'll show the tests using a light brown / reddish tint to the hair to illustrate what I mean.

Important: Please note that I was only letting these run for about an hour. Because of the complexity of the Femme Fatale hair, they were achieving 35-50% convergence in that time. Look at the color more than the noise/detail levels. There is so much self-shadowing and light transmission with this complex hair product that it would have taken longer than I was willing to wait for my simple tests. I didn't do any postwork on any of the renders other than to add the label to them to show which shader was being used.

The time it was taking to render is due to the density of geometry in the Femme Fatale hair. With so many strands of polygons, casting shadows and transmitting light through them, Iray was working hard to converge the image. Even though the scene fit easily on my GPU. There didn't seem to be any appreciable difference in the time for rendering between the three options, again because the efficiency of the shader code was less significant than th density of the geometry.

I think you can see that they are all 3 producing roughly equivalent reddish brunette colors. The choices I made for CWX provided some more variation in the color, but I could have achieved the same effect with MMX BDLHS with a bit more manipulation.

Also, I don't know what happened with that errant strand of hair in the CWX render. I noticed it after the render was done and would have re-draped and simulated the hair to fix it, but I got sleepy and decided it still served the purpose.

Does anyone know what Black/ Flowery Dress is used in this promo for PC+ Bus Stop Poses for Genesis 8? (https://www.daz3d.com/bus-stop-poses-for-genesis-8)

As far I can tell it is not a part of any of the female outfits officially listed in the Additional Products used in Promo Images:

• • • Victoria 8
    • Genesis 8 Female MEGA Wardrobe
    • Vintage Summer Clothing Set for Genesis 8 Female(s)
    • Bronwyn Hair for Genesis 3 & 8 Female(s)
    • Zelara 8
    • Lee 8
    • Layered Fringe Hair for Genesis 3 and 8 Female(s)

Because i asked but the person wasnt wanting to give out the info how it was done

Well there are several ways they could have done it, but none would be one-click solutions. For example:

• using an image editor to modify the V3 textures and manually position and layer the tattoo over the G8 skin
• using texture conversion programs to convert the overlay texture to G8F or G3F UVs: I don't know of any direct conversion program for V3 to G3/G8, but for example you could use Texture Converter 2 to convert it from V3 to V4 UVs, then use Blacksmith3D's Texture Transformer and add-ons to go from V4 to G3F UVs
• using some other program to "project" the texture on G8F: I know there was a tutorial on how to do this to convert G2F textures to G3F with blender, for example, a similar method might work.

It would be simpler to use it on G3F as you could use this: https://www.daz3d.com/legacy-uvs-for-genesis-3-special-edition-victoria-3 (there's no G8F version though)

To use the overlay above a G3F texture you'd need to load 2 copies of G3F: one "regular" G3F with the G3F texture, and one using the legacy UVs product with the overlay applied and transparent elsewhere. Give both figures the same pose, and add a slight push modifier or scale up the "overlay G3F" a bit so that the tattoo is above the base skin.

Hi all,

Huge star trek fan here.

want to make a G8 model with a trill (tattoo) and found this here: https://poserdazfreebies.miraheze.org/wiki/Trill_Overlay_Texture_for_DAZ_Studio_V3

Even though this is for V3 the textures itself are transparent, so technicly shout fit on any character texture Right?

Not in gneral, no - how a texture wraps around the mdoel is determined by the UVs, maps made for two different UV mappings will not line up. Fortuantely in this case the Genesis 8 and Genesis 3 UVs are more or less the same so you should be able to use the overlay.

It's for Victoria 3, not Genesis 3.

If the renders are faster in bootcamp the GPU is definitely being used. You shouldn't need to download the CUDA driver..

After a test render, I looked at the log file under Help > Troubleshooting > View Log File... and it turns out it used only the CPU after all. This is very strange, as it rendered much faster on CPU in Win10 than on CPU in macOS Mojave. Is DAZ Studio really THAT badly optimized for Mac?

Here is a small snipped of what the log file says. I have 4GB of VRAM, and I've read that if you just have one figure and a simple backdrop, 4GB should be sufficient.

2019-09-09 02:42:27.205 Iray INFO - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend info : CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): Scene processed in 0.148s
2019-09-09 02:42:27.213 Iray INFO - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.6   IRAY   rend info : CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): Allocated 37.2406 MiB for frame buffer
2019-09-09 02:42:27.293 Iray INFO - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend info : CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): Allocated 864 MiB of work space (1024k active samples in 0.079s)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.299 Iray INFO - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend info : CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): Used for display, optimizing for interactive usage (performance could be sacrificed)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.309 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.6   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while launching CUDA ior stack renderer)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.310 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): Failed to update ior stack
2019-09-09 02:42:27.315 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): Device failed while rendering
2019-09-09 02:42:27.315 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray WARNING - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend warn : All available GPUs failed.
2019-09-09 02:42:27.315 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray WARNING - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend warn : No devices activated. Enabling CPU fallback.
2019-09-09 02:42:27.320 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray WARNING - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend warn : Re-rendering iteration because of device failure
2019-09-09 02:42:27.320 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: All workers failed: aborting render
2019-09-09 02:42:27.321 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.325 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.326 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.331 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.332 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.337 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.337 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.343 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.343 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.2   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.348 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.0   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)
2019-09-09 02:42:27.348 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray ERROR - module:category(IRAY:RENDER):   1.0   IRAY   rend error: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): an illegal memory access was encountered (while de-allocating memory)

What does an "illegal memory access was encountered" mean?

Also I saw this in the log:

zneuraymgr.cpp(302): Iray WARNING - module:category(POST:RENDER):   1.0   POST   rend warn : renderer iray has no more devices available. Postprocessing falling back to CPU.

Does this mean IRAY really ran out of VRAM after all? One model (Victoria 7 HD) and the IRAY Hi-Key Plugin from the DAZ Store, with a couple of lights, that's it. I also have OptiX Prime enabled. It shouldn't take up over 4GB of VRAM, I'm certain. This is confusing. 

***

EDIT: This is weird. I tried a new render. Same scene, same model, same amount of lights, same everything, except a new pose and a diffrent camera angle. Just for fun, I tried a render with a much larger output of 5000 x 3750 pixels, and I even upped the SubDivison level from 1 to 2.

Now, for the first time ever, I see IRAY utilizing the GPU right off the bat in the Render History window. It seems to be very finnicky indeed. I'm gonna let it render for an hour or so, and go through the Log to see if it dropped to CPU rendering after a while.

Here's what it said in the Render status window under History, as it initialized the render. Usually I just see CPU right off the bat. Not this time, Here it's GPU straight off the bat:

Rendering in NVIDIA Iray

Compiling Shaders - 0/1

Rendering image

Rendering...

Iray VERBOSE - module:category(IRAY:RENDER): 1.9 IRAY rend progr: CUDA device 0 (GeForce GTX 780M): Processing scene...

Iray VERBOSE - module:category(IRAY:RENDER): 1.4 IRAY rend stat : Geometry memory consumption: 59.152 MiB (device 0), 0 B (host)

Iray VERBOSE - module:category(IRAY:RENDER): 1.4 IRAY rend stat : Texture memory consumption: 196.5 MiB for 24 bitmaps (device 0)

Iray VERBOSE - module:category(IRAY:RENDER): 1.4 IRAY rend stat : Lights memory consumption: 3.4027 MiB (device 0)

Iray VERBOSE - module:category(IRAY:RENDER): 1.4 IRAY rend stat : Material measurement memory consumption: 0 B (GPU)

Iray VERBOSE - module:category(IRAY:RENDER): 1.4 IRAY rend stat : Materials memory consumption: 84.3711 KiB (GPU)

For example, would the Genesis 8 Male Anatomical Elements that come with a Diego Pro Bundle be a different model than say in the Michael Pro Bundle?

Same question for the female elements. Are Victoria's Genesis 8 Female Anatomical Elements different than those in the Mei Lin Pro Bundle?