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DAZ|Studio F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Dec 19 7:58 pm)
I guess that you get what you pay for. Reality had, since day one, a full manual that, in the last version, is at around 120 pages, complete of linked video tutorials and with a hyperlinked Table Of Content and index.
Apologies for the intrusion. All the best.
Paolo
https://www.preta3d.com
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Tw: @preta3d
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The
Reality Gallery: https://reality-plug-in.deviantart.com
It is their forum, so they can do what they want however you may think it's bad idea. I can't really comment on the issue itself since I don't use iRay or Reality plug-ins (I do have reality, but it's too slow for my purposes) As to documentation, Daz has been slow to post documentation/info, but as stated above it is FREE software, so I'm sure it's forth-coming at some point.
-AniMajik
FatCatAlley.net | Now Playing "SpaceCat 5" Parts 1 and 2
No apologies needed Paolo.
Daz never had decent documentation but users could stumble through and figure it out, however, I feel that the software's sophistication has grown to the point where this has become too burdensome. Developers can't expect folks to just pound buttons and eventually learn it, even if it is free.
I bought Reality4 but it's not been the most stable for me in either Poser or Daz. I eagerly dived into IRay with all four paws but smacked headlong into the bottom of the pool. Most of the settings/dials/buttons/gauges/switches/levers and other controls are arcane and seriously unintuitive. Many didn't do anything that I could tell and others where wildly responsive. I chucked it after a week of wasting time and went back to Reality. Even if it crashes/locks-up/goes away every three renders, I'm still much further ahead than staring at IRay and asking my cat for suggestions.
Put 100 cats in room each with 100 computers and setting up an iRay render and you're bound to get something useful out of it in 100 years :)
-AniMajik
FatCatAlley.net | Now Playing "SpaceCat 5" Parts 1 and 2
Daz software is supported by active forums, in program tutorials and video tuturials. Bible style guides went out with dvd copies of software. The pace that daz studio moves makes it prohibitive to put resourxes into developing this type of guide. And really i would prefer to see the DS development team spending time innovatimg the software not writing voluminous manuals that would be obselete faster than they are ever completed.
Modern software users tend to prefer intelligent UI design with tool tips and online support. Really what makes a bible style manual better then any of these other methods? Other than personal preference for a small minority of users.
Kljpmsd, please contact me using our support menu from http://preta3d.com and describing your issues. I'm working on Reality 4.1 now, which is up to 10 times faster in rendering than 4.0, and this is the perfect time to solve other issues. I have solved most of the crashes but it's always worth looking at other possible scenarios.
Thank you.
Paolo
https://www.preta3d.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/RealityPlugIn
Tw: @preta3d
G+:
https://plus.google.com/106625816153304163119
The
Reality Gallery: https://reality-plug-in.deviantart.com
Hi Paolo and thanks for the offer but it's no longer needed. I just re-installed Reality/Luxrender this morning at the insistence of someone in another forum (where all us pervs hang out). It's now going well thanks. I'm guessing that all the Daz 4.8 beta versions I had installed along with 4.7 and two versions of Poser got things somewhat messed up.
I do have one question, the mesh lights open with rotation. I have to straighten (zero) them first then move them to where I want. I'd like you to fix this and have them open up at 0,0,0 with no rotation......unless I'm the only one mentioning this, then you're welcome to tell me to suck it up and live with it. :-)
Glad to hear that it was just an installation glitch.
About the mesh light, suck it up and live with it... just kidding :)
You are the only one to mention it but there is no issue in adding a third version that is set as you want and include it. It's actually a good idea, I will add it to Reality 4.1.
Thank you.
Paolo
https://www.preta3d.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/RealityPlugIn
Tw: @preta3d
G+:
https://plus.google.com/106625816153304163119
The
Reality Gallery: https://reality-plug-in.deviantart.com
Documentation?
Start here:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/new_features/start
Need more?
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/new_features/start
Direct link to new shaders:
Direct Link to Render settings for Iray:
What do you feel is missing?
Documentation?
Start here:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/new_features/start
Need more?
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/new_features/start
Direct link to new shaders:
Direct Link to Render settings for Iray:
What do you feel is missing?
To begin with - I've just followed your link to Render settings it gave me no information at all on the settings available in Iray - I would like to know what all the individual settings do, what they are for etc.
What difference does increasing the Rendering Quality make and in what sort of increments should it be increased.
That's just an example.
Ah, it isn't fully populated yet for the public. My mistake. (Going through technical review at this time.)
Exactly.
Do you know the answer to my question? I've seen it asked a couple of times in the forums but never seen it answered.
Effectively more refinement per iteration, with an increase in render time. And this is not the first time I have answered that. :) And I have never seen a need to go with more than 2, unless it is a very, very rare case.
Ah, it isn't fully populated yet for the public. My mistake. (Going through technical review at this time.)
Exactly.
Do you know the answer to my question? I've seen it asked a couple of times in the forums but never seen it answered.
Effectively more refinement per iteration, with an increase in render time. And this is not the first time I have answered that. :) And I have never seen a need to go with more than 2, unless it is a very, very rare case.
Thank you.
The fact that I had seen the questions but not the answers highlights the problem with the info being buried deep within page long threads.
There is an interesting PDF of the IRAY by NVDIA here: http://www.nvidia-arc.com/fileadmin/user_upload/iray_2013/documents/iray_whitepaper.121206.pdf
It will not help with specific rendering questions, but it is nice background information on the process. What's also interesting is it allows for the actual rendering to be done on another machine while you continue working, including sending it to cloud based servers.
Just FYI - The documentation is being diligently worked on. Several things have been added and more are coming. :)
Kat
Huh?... Is there a secret documentation page that only select people get to access? I just checked the Wiki ( http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/render_settings/engine/nvidia_iray/start ) and there's been NO change to it in the months since IRay and Daz 4.8 came out.
Just FYI - The documentation is being diligently worked on. Several things have been added and more are coming. :)
Kat
Huh?... Is there a secret documentation page that only select people get to access? I just checked the Wiki ( http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/render_settings/engine/nvidia_iray/start ) and there's been NO change to it in the months since IRay and Daz 4.8 came out.
It's being diligently worked on soon.
All software should have a good manual. Most programmers make terrible manual writers.
You've Nailed that !!!
There's a very old saying among very old computer programmers: The purpose of writing a computer program is to write a good user's manual. Programmers baffled by that zen koan make terrible computer programmers.
Daz software is supported by active forums, in program tutorials and video tuturials. Bible style guides went out with dvd copies of software. The pace that daz studio moves makes it prohibitive to put resourxes into developing this type of guide. And really i would prefer to see the DS development team spending time innovatimg the software not writing voluminous manuals that would be obselete faster than they are ever completed.
Modern software users tend to prefer intelligent UI design with tool tips and online support. Really what makes a bible style manual better then any of these other methods? Other than personal preference for a small minority of users.
We are not the borg, we do not all assimilate in exactly the same way. A user manual is useful for those of us who want to read stuff. Poking about on a dying forum with a rubbish search isn't my idea of learning. In addition not everyone has the time or inclination or bandwidth to spend time online searching for stuff or viewing videos. I suspect there are quite a few people who pick up daz studio discover the lack of documentation and then drop it again. The learning curve is getting steeper and steeper. I never understand why some daz fanboi's seem to think that everyone should be happy to hunt and peck for information.
Poking about on a dying forum with a rubbish search isn't my idea of learning. In addition not everyone has the time or inclination or bandwidth to spend time online searching for stuff or viewing videos. I suspect there are quite a few people who pick up daz studio discover the lack of documentation and then drop it again. The learning curve is getting steeper and steeper.
I'd love to know how many Daz users are old hands vice new users. If I came into it cold I wouldn't stay long. I'm of the opinion that it's a marketing ploy to get folks to hang around the forums as much as possible where they can be coerced into buying more stuff. The point that makes me want to punch Daz's forum mod's teeth down their throats is when they blatantly lie by telling me that the wiki is being 'diligently worked on' in the face of the indisputable fact that it hasn't really been touched in years. The only 'updates' are half hearted and leave out vital information. Of course, they're doing it on purpose. If they had proper documentation they'd rule the world.
I guess that you get what you pay for. Reality had, since day one, a full manual that, in the last version, is at around 120 pages, complete of linked video tutorials and with a hyperlinked Table Of Content and index.
Apologies for the intrusion. All the best.
...so what does this say about Luxrender being free? That's a really low blow considering you've been profiting off the hard work of others who are giving away said work for free.
I started using DS about 4 years ago, I own Poser 2014 Pro and Reality 4.0. I have been playing around with Iray since it became available and for my money, the product is every bit as stable as Reality, in fact I find DS with IRay easier to use and not very difficult to navigate. Granted, I purchased some of the commercial shaders at the start, simply to learn from, now I am quite comfortable adding the IRay nodes and setting up existing textures to work in IRay, it is really quite simple and no where near as time consuming as setting up textures in Reality. I am looking forward to seeing Paolo's version 4.5 with the 10 times render speeds and that may sway me back to using Reality, but for my time and money, Iray is a great middle ground. I agree that more specific technical documentation is required in order for everyone to fully understand all of the features of Iray and I look forward to seeing what is made available by DS.
This is neither condemnation nor defence of either side in this dispute! The people bashing programmers for being terrible document writers may have a point, in that, explaining the technical intricacies of how a piece of software works in terms that a user can understand is very difficult for most programmers to do. They do not think in user terms, they cannot dumb down their understanding or even verbalize things that they take for granted are already understood.
A truly brilliantly designed piece of software would require no documentation at all. The U.I. would guide the user to one and only correct method of accomplishing the software's intended function. Be careful what you wish for, in this utopian environment, there would be no room for innovation, creative thinking or experimentation.
IMHO
The problem is that this is the general attitude of DAZ; for instance we are now at version 4.8 and they have not corrected the bug in the installation of the bridge with Photoshop; IT still cant locate the plugin directory in Adobe although the plugin directory in Photoshop has been at the same place for years! I had the nerve to criticize this two days ago and my post was erased with the comment " unreasonable criticism"!!! this is democracy in the DAZ world!
That isn't a bug - you need to tell the Install Manager (not DAZ Studio) where Photoshop is, and which version you have. Click the gear icon to open preferences, click the Application tab, click the + button to add a new application and then set the details - application, version, 32/64 bit - and use the ... button to set the path.
Rhaseline I disagree when you use an installer with a product the same company has developed one should see the installer fully knowing where to install the different elements. DAZ has had to have contacts with Adobe to do their plugin which if not properly developed could cause problems in Photoshop, so they know where Photoshop plugins are located and this should be totally transparent for the user.
Not everyone installs to the same place, I for instance prefer not to install to the Program Files folder if I don't have to. For DIM to find Photoshop in a non traditional install location it would have to waste time searching the hard drive. Having to tell DIM where it is more efficient and more reliable. You should never let a machine try to think if you can avoid it.
OK if this is so instead of leaving the installation crashing it would have been wise if not intelligent to have automatically a question asked to the user when he had not given the correct path before, to set it up then. That's what a responsible developer should do instead of letting the installation crash when the program tries to install bridge. But of course this requires to think a little and it's a bit exhausting!
Yes there is a message and when you click ok the program stops. Don't you instead of the blunt message redirecting the user to a question to reset the correct path would be more efficient? I don't know I have developed rather complex programs for financial analysis and such situation was always tested in my programs. And mind you I'm not a software developer by profession. I was primarily a financial analyst but in 1972 I realized all the possibilities programming could bring to my job. I first used Fortran IV an then APL+ a fantastic language based on the principals of modern algebra and Matrix operations. It was invented by Kenneth Iverson a professor at Harvard. If you're interested read this page by Eric Lescasse. Eric made me discover the language and taught it to me. A fantastic guy. he told me he used the language to make a simulation of the traffic of LAX airport for his thesis at the end of his college years. http://www.lescasse.com/lc/APLHistory.asp .He owns his company . So you see I do not talk in theory.
Daz software is supported by active forums, in program tutorials and video tuturials. Bible style guides went out with dvd copies of software.
We are not the borg, we do not all assimilate in exactly the same way.
I find it slightly ironic that you chose to use a reference to Star Trek to describe your issue. "To explore strange new worlds
To seek out new life and new civilizations
To boldly go where no man has gone before"
But not without a fully documented point by point guide and detailed map....
I completely agree with Ointment about the lack of written documentation.Today screen resolutions makes it more and more difficult to read text because obviously developers tend to add more and more menus and options in the UI while maintaining sufficient room for the main window, the size of characters diminish. Not everyone can afford to have multiple screens as to put on one the documentation and tutorials and on the main screen the software. It is also very cumbersome to have to switch from one page to the other on a screen when trying to use a program's help. If I can I always print file on my shelf for each of the program I use regularly, After Effects, Premiere etc.
The real problem and I witnessed this when I was a salesman for financial products in a software company, the problem is that developers hate to write help files they find this boring and not adding value to their work. The same goes for the way they develop the program itself, they think and develop more from the point of view they have when working with a specific software and forget completely that there'll be in the end a user who probably will not have the same perspective for the same work, who may have eyesight problems which should be taken into account. They tend to add devices or options that most people will never use. I remember one of my programmers developing a treasury management software, it could do almost everything. It never had a single buyer because although developed with the counselling of a professional treasurer, most of the profession never worked like that or would ever.If you go on the After effects forum there's been for the last 2 or 3 years a constant discussion and demand by a majority of users for the color of the characters in the UI to return to yellow instead of the stupid blue used today which makes the titles and other written menus unreadable. The excuse of the team are either "it's not us who decided but the top executives", or "Yellow is not focused properly on the retina"! Both excuses are not acceptable. It's not to top management to decide for the ergonomic of a program, he has more important things to do which are to lead the way to the company from a global point of view and secondly it's a huge error to think that colors are dependent of the focal point where the text forms. There is a specific point on the retina I think called the yellow spot where all colors are converging and transformed into electrical signals sent to the brain which in return sends back information which is translated into colors we can see. The management and the staff refuse constantly to take into account the demands of the users; this is not tolerable. Whether we pay or not for a program our demands are priorities to the good will of the developers and their bosses. If we don't use the program and don't pay directly or indirectly like this is the case with DAZ Studio, at the end of the month the programmers will not get paid and they seem to forget that little detail!
Claude
Hmm,
Seems that if they change to yellow there will just as quickly be a group formed for bring "Bring back the blue" for X reason, it could even be as simple as "I(We) like it better".
Where do you draw a line?
Potentially there is a danger of say %5 of customers making lots of noise in forums and such, while 95% are actually quite happy, the 5% influences change to suit themselves, which adds price point cost to the whole who don't see it as a major issue at all.
There are always customer demands for many different things. Some realistic, some not so much.
The greatest danger is that after implementing the change the 5% wanted is that they will be well plussed with their success, but the 95% may pack up and leave saying we liked it better before and while you messed around on changing that, the competition has implemented a game changer. Effectively giving the customer what "they' wanted could potentially decimate the market. In DS's case, would customers be happy to wait an extra 6-12 months more for an upgraded just to get a forest devouring print me manual released along side of the upgrade? Scaling this out it's a major cost development wise (and to the world's forests ;)), DS could in 5 years be at the same Development level without manuals, as It would be in 10 years with a stack of redundant manuals chewing resources of the development team.
Again personally I would prefer to see Daz Studio developers invest time into developing the software rather than writing bible style guides that as quick as they're published tend to become redundant. But everyone has a preference.
Sorry Razor: for the color it could have been easy to include characters color choice in the preferences tab as it is already possible to change the color of the labels for bins which also affects the layers in the timeline.
As for the help Adobe has if I remember well (had to check for the actual CC2014 and CC2015) a page where you have the help files converted to pdf files printable and savable .
Moreover there are lots of very cheap software on the web enabling conversion of HTML files or similar to pdf or word ones.
The same goes with the size of characters unless I'm mistaken the option to change the size of characters to a certain limit of course exists in Blender why not in DAZ where they are so small you can't read them.Software are not conceived for people under 30 only or so I hope Where are we in the world of Soylent Green ???.
But of course if you forget to set up those options at the beginning of the development later it becomes more difficult because of the complexity of the software.
Horses are animals but all the animals are not horses! It's not because 95% of users are satisfied that the 5% remaining should be considered, well I wont use the word, read my lips! Moreover a company cant win on all levels, to get a 100% return on investment is impossible and the higher the return the higher the risk of seeing the company going bankrupt that's what the investors have still not understood ie all the recent failures and dramatic consequences on investments made by gullible people who believed like god's word their banker's. An industrial or service company should also keep that in mind.
The same goes when you release a software. The new CC2015 release by Adobe is bugged to the core. it has provoked great stress upon some of the users who thought perhaps without care to switch their cc2014 project to the new version cc2015 especially confident from Adobe declaration that you could keep the old version and switch back to it in case of a problem. Some guys on the forum had terrible consequences a few days before delivering their work to a client. Ok they should have been more careful. But no one will make me believe that the developers were not aware of the huge flaws of the new version. A friend of mine had huge memory leaks on his pc and it took nearly two weeks to find out from where the problem came! During that period his computer was unusable!
These situations are not acceptable especially at the price you pay per month for the CC suite. I'm not a professional and have no deadline to respect when I decide for a project but to think that because of a company's carelessness I could loose a project I've begun nearly 12 months ago would put me into rage. Thank god I'm cautious enough not to change my version before my project is completed which will take months as I'm not a confirmed user either of CC or DAZ studio.
For example I have a problem now with DAZ version 4.8 which I do not understand; when I'm in the animate2 panel it takes at least 20 to 50 seconds for a simple preview of an aniblock to show on the viewport? Why? I checked the use of memory and processors it's low. I have an Intel 4cores and 16GB ram plus a Asus HD7950 with 3GB memory with Windows 7 Ultimate. When I use CC I can have at the same time After Effects, Premiere and Photoshop opened as well as working in Element 3D where I transfer the 3D models from DAZ to create my scenes in Element 3D? It took me yesterday more than 3 hours to render the 77 frames in a sequence of OBJ files for Element 3D from DAZ! I'm not a hardware expert and have no idea what's going on here.... It drives me crazy. From what I read on other posts in the forum here it seems there are problems with this matter in the last version. How can I solve them.
Claude
The point with the manual, is that if you dedicate one staff member to writng the Comprehensive DS manual is that before everything could be covered in draft, things would already be beginning to need to be updated, so in effect it could never be completed. Say it has 20 Chapters by the time chapter 12 is reached it's likely that chapter 3 may need to be rewritten to adapt for some new changes being implemented. So hire more writers you say, how long before you have more manual writers eating into development budgets then you have software developers actually building the software. Sure you will eventually have an in depth manuals but also a frozen development schedule as well. The only way to write a manual in this fashion is to finish DS 5 stop all development, write a manual for DS 5. Then release DS 5 and sell for 2-3 years and eventually start planning DS 6. This isn't the development cycle of DS and in my opinion this would be a somewhat old fashioned development cycle in general. And I honestly hope they never move in this direction.
Also DS does in fact already have an online user guide "http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/start" though no prizes for guessing what the most common issue is with it, a lot of information is for previous versions and a little outdated.
•••
As modern software development is dynamic and often features live updates with ongoing patch cycles, bug finding and patching is an ongoing endeavor in the development of all live software. There is just no such thing as totally bug free or perfect software. Its also physically impossible to test software for every eventuality before it's rollout.
•••
So your issue with DS 4.8 is that you're having issues with a 3rd party plugin by (Gofigure)? So maybe Gofigure need to write a manual for Animate2? http://gofigure3d.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=86 ... Though it's probably unlikely to cover your particular issue as even manuals don't cover every aspect. The best place to get a potential solution is likely in a forum.
The point really wasn't blue or yellow, it was that developers need to prioritise where to spend their development resources. While a colour picker may be high on yours and some others list and perhaps developers have it on their radar as well, but have looked into the issue and decided their time is best spent elsewhere for the time being. Potentially a little like the PS bridge issue you have described. Maybe developers are already spending time developing new components that will make the marked issue irrelevant in the future. Why should they stop what they are doing just to spend time to create a quick immediate fix to a small issue. It's easy to end up playing whack a mole and lose focus for the future development of the software going down that path.
If you have found a bug or even have a suggestion, I would suggest reporting it through the correct channels, as that's the most likely action to result in seeing a fix/change implemented in the future.
But Razor the manual is already only. In adobe CC for instance there are entire pages of help files which are updated regularly and obviously the pdf file follows instantly. I don't know how they do it but that's a fact. In my case I could decide not to update my print and I don't in fact as the first print serves me as a base where I can find a first answer which I complete with videos tutorials. moreover I use my laptop as a second screen where I look at the help or videos tutorials while working, the other 2 screens of my pc being my workspaces, one with the program the other with the full screen of the timeline view port.
But that's a luxury which an amateur retired with a good plan could afford. This is not the case for everyone unless of course you belong to a company who can invest. I'd like to have Cinema4D or the Red Giant suite but can't afford to pays such prices and I'm not the kind of a user who hacks programs as even some of tutorial's makers on youtube had the nerve to suggest. I'm of a generation who still no what means the word Ethics!
Why should they stop what they are doing just to spend time to create a quick immediate fix to a small issue. It's easy to end up playing whack a mole and lose focus for the future development of the software going down that path.
Razor, the demand was done long before the new version CC2015 was released where they took into consideration other requests. There's a huge communication problem with Adobe staff and probably also in the company where at times you have the impression the right hand doesn't know what the left one does! When you consider the amount of posts included over the years in" the bugs and new features requests blog", it seems at times that they're never read by anyone and is more a garbage can than anything else....
Yes there is a message and when you click ok the program stops.
That is not what happens here - at least, I just uninstalled the Photoshop Bridge, deleted the Photoshop path from the Applications tab of preferences, and tried reinstalling the Photoshop Bridge - the error about the missing path popped up, I closed that and the Install Manager remained open so that I could reinstate the path and successfully reinstall the plug-in. Please check your log file after the crash - if you restart DIM there's a link in preferences - and post any messages relating to the crashed session.
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Use caution if commenting on Daz's complete lack of documentation for IRay in their forums. The are now deleting posts and (so far) two entire threads. I'm following several threads about the lack of manuals, two of which became heated and have been deleted. I'm now banned from posting after asking some pointed questions about the lack of even a quickee users guide. This has obviously hit a sore spot with both the Daz administration and us users.