Quote - Transmaps kill DS performance in my experience, and even though DS 4.6 is faster for me, a thick lush hair and 3Delight just grinds down to a snails pace.

I bame the render engine, no idea why 3Delight is so slow with transmaps.  Ugh.

It has to do with shadows, ambient occlusion and raytrace calulations.

Seems like all the render engines slow down on transmapped hair. But Omnifreaker figured out a way a while back to improve it with UberHair... http://www.omnifreaker.com/index.php?title=UberHair It has controls to disable some features to speed up renders yet still get good looking hair.

If it's not hair slowing your renders, check your settings. Perhaps something got bumped up or down. The new version of 3Delight in Studio is faster. But if you have the wrong settings, you will get slooooooow renders as before. Some of the higher quality settings are just not needed.

There are things that can really speed up renders in 3delight that aren't done because of maintaining some compatibility with the Poser Firefly engine and to keep things simpler for many users. There are things you can do with geometry which DAZ has done with Genesis that will speed things up, and you can use Texture Atlas or any photo editing software to reduce your texture sizes which will also speed things up. There are also lighting tricks like rendering a scene separately for each light used and compositing all the renders together blending your layers. Simple lighting renders much faster than complex as there are fewer calculations involved. You will get the same results by compositing each separately lit scene together as you got rendering with all the lights on but in much less time as shown in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F79cgGPEU_k

You can find various speed up tricks in the 3delight site in the manual and also there are some speed up tricks in the DAZ forums.

You don't have access to some of the settings in their manual since DAZ has the stripped down version, but many are there and at least you'll have a clearer explanation of why the settings work the way they do.

http://www.3delight.com/en/uploads/docs/3delight/3delight_52.html

And Adam's render tips at DAZ. I do believe his script works in 4.6 but he explains the settings so you can manually set them in Studio:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/16085/

Here's another way Noviski used. You'll have to experiment using 2 fire primitive objects. He gives the settings in the comments section below the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXmJQSc8LXM

Kevin

Looks good! Shows what good reference material can do to help along with your skill set.

Here is the first of a series of Tutorials that Timtam posted on YouTube for learning Octane. Some stuff may have changed since these were posted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXUE-39fwug&list=PL0DBA6671E0A1743B&feature=plcp

Kevin

Quote - wimvdbwrote: That must be the case.

If I use that link I get "unauthorized"

I can login into the customer account, and see that everything is all set.

It is just the forums which probably have not been authorized yet

 Edit: My post in the poser plugin has not been approved either (first time user)

 

They now have a waiting period - "After your order is successfully completed, you will receive your license information via the email address you used during the purchase process.
Due to previous instances of abuse we manually review and activate all new purchases, and due to timezone differences, it can take up to 24 hours to process your license purchase."

Quote - shedofjoy wrote: my thoughts exactly 99 euros now and who knows how much later? how can they expect a group of customers who are largly hobbiests to commit 99euros  when they dont know the final price,i like many poser users am of a limited budget and am very wary of spending money on the beta when the total cost could end up being anything out of reach of my kind. if they want us to go for their software tell us whilst the beta is out how much it will be on final release.or is that just too logical?

Hobbyists were not the initial target market and I don't think they are now. Architects/product designers wanting fast unbiased renders were/are the target market according to a few old posts from the developers. Hobbyists just are "really interested" so now DAZ and Poser plugins are being worked on by a couple of DAZ and Poser users (specifically Paul for Poser) - not the developers of Octane - though I believe they are helping when  needed. But if you spend time in their forum, you will find most renders (the really good ones) are architect or product related, many pros posting with a hobbyist here and there. The appeal for the hobbyist has been the low beta price and the use of more affordable Nvidia cards. It does read in the new FAQ like the purchase of Refractive Software by OTOY changed the original beta plan. I bet they forgot to update the original Beta info page as there is no mention of OTOY in the text on it like the FAQ has.

It's been in beta much, much longer than anyone thought it would be early on, so they probably don't know when all the v1.0 features will be working or even be willing to lock in a price as that could be a vastly different economic climate if and when they ever come out of beta.

The important thing, though, is that it does work and will get much of what you want to do in an unbiased render using full spectrum light without the cheats biased render engines use very quickly (relative to CPU unbiased render engines). But also remember, that it can't do everything a CPU biased or unbiased render engine can do (like regular LuxRender), including, I believe motion blur for imported animation. Internal camera motion blur or platter style animations computed completely in the card however can be done with motion blur. To get motion blur with rendered frames from imported animation using a plugin, you will have to post process them with  something like ReelSmart Motion Blur for After Effects.

Besides having to reduce your texture count and size, (if nobody already mentioned this) you have to remember that all the calculations including the final render are done in the graphics card video RAM. If you do a really large size render, you better have the memory to hold that image until it's ready to be saved. One of the good things about Octane, though, is the ability of its shader system to approximate photo real textures using colors, specular, IOR, etc. settings with maybe some smaller sized bump maps much more efficiently than with full resolution, full color image maps. (Use Float Texture for greyscale bump maps to save VRAM - use Float Image for larger resolution diffuse (color) or normal maps.)

Kevin

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Hi all, more Siggraph news!!!!!

Link To Info

All the best.

LROG

Booo, just another press release.  But says Miki 4 will not be available until September.  From what I read, Miki 4 is Miki 3 weight mapped, a new face morph and SSS capability.

Not much about Tyler either; including no release date.

 

Miki 4 and Tyler GND will be available in September 2012 at Content Paradise. Miki's body was also completely resculpted.  Kind of annoyed no images were included because you don't get a sense of the changes made. Also probably means I'm still not allowed to show pics yet.

Resculpted as a morph?  Or a new version?

 

Grouping is different so it's a new version in that sense but the geometry didn't change otherwise. I would LOVE to show you guys an image but I'm still under NDA until told otherwise.  I can say, I think, that this time around we referenced tons of photos as well as a pair of body scans to help get the details right. We also took in a lot of input from our beta testers for her look. Miki 3 is technically the head morph to be honest, since the body changes and the Miki 4 head were sculpted at the same time...but for reasons I can't get into, Miki 3's the head that is active on load.  So I think that's all I can say without getting into too much trouble.

That's good news! The biggest problem I have with many characters and the renders is that the creators and users don't take the time and effort to reference photos of real people and those people in a lighting environment like the one that will be rendered. With you guys referencing photos of real people for the character, we are off to a good start!

Kevin

From Cris' link, 2100 MST makes it 9pm MST.

Quote - Well, you're probably better off using each program to it's strengths as Robin suggested. Now that Daz has new management that seem to want to focus on content again, rather than software we may not see another version of DS for a LONG time. Carrara is up in the air if you've been reading anything Paolo (Preta3D - maker of Reality) has said. Hexagon is most likely dead in the water. It's hard to know at this time who is going to survive and who isn't. I put my wager on Poser. Their creators do tend to listen to their users. As for the 3DS Max thing? I don't really recall anyone screaming for 3DS Max compatibility (which Poser's had for awhile). I HAVE heard ppl asking for better rendering, better skin and better bending - which SM has really tried to address.

Laurie

Yup, use the program you need for whatever reason and if you need both to get a job done, composite the results from each.

Registered Carrara 8 users got a new beta added to our downloads on May 4th, so bug squashing continues for Carrara 8.5

Kevin

Quote - Okay...back from the bigger, better ultrasound.  Twins, yes, Boys and they are NOT sharing a sac, so no entanglement issues.  They can't tell how many placentas, (1 or 2) but they think it's 1 which means Identical twin boys.  They are both the right size and well formed for 20 weeks. 

Thanks for the well-wishing :)  We'll get by somehow, we always do

Good luck to your wife and you! Soon you'll have to leave Redford for more room! ;)

Quote - Their new CEO comes from and Art & Craft store background, not a software background (as far as his CV on LinkedIn would indicate) so I don't know what to make of the new moves. 

Jim Thornton said in post in their welcome thread that Dan Farr talked him into coming over from Provo Craft to work at DAZ. My guess is to handle all the business stuff as Dan Farr had said in a couple threads that the business side of things (dealing with investors, etc.) was eating up all his time. He said that him joining DAZ would free up Dan to focus on what's next for DAZ. Jim made a big point that his previous company, where he was Chairman and CEO, has a big hobbyist customer base and he considers them and DAZ to be content companies.

I buy content here and at DAZ for Poser and Studio. I can use both programs with no major issues. The latest version of Studio that is also the free version does have bug fixes. They also do have a full time employee working on the documentation being contributed to by other DAZ workers. I've already seen many pages of the old DAZ manual (still relevant) updated with the latest changes and more information than the old manual had, not that many ever read it, including those complaining about "lack of docs." I still prefer video tutes. That's how I learned Animation:Master years ago.

I still think the best is yet to come.... 4.1 has the big render speedup that was shown in December and many will find that a must have. Going from 55 minutes for a render to 26 minutes just based on a software update is quite good! I hope it doesn't get broken between now and the release.

I also wouldn't come down on stars (or used to be stars) wanting to charge for autographs. They see their autographs going for good money on ebay and other places. For the folks that come to comic conventions and the like to sign autographs, they are usually footing a good part if not all of the bill to be there... airfare, hotel, table space, photos, etc. The charge you pay to get in usually goes to the organizer and the convention center rental.

It's the same for musicians selling CDs and autographs after a performance. It's how they make money as usually they are barely getting by when you consider they have to pay for their crew and fellow bandmates. It's been said for years that most bands don't make their money from the concert performance, they make it from the merchandise sold.

Quote - I don't believe for one second that ANYONE ever paid $429 for DS 4 Pro. They would totally have not done their due diligence and be idiots.

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you really are not that naive are you? of course many did buy it at that price. we're talking about human being's here... you know, the ones that see .99 or .95 on the end of a price and think it's a bargain.. or buy something they don't need because it's on sale and think they got a bargain*..****

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Oh c'mon. Anbody going to the DAZ site and looking can see that they have big discounts and sales all the time. And if they did buy it at $429 they'd find out really quick by spending any time at DAZ that most everyone else there on the forums got it for much, much less. They would have to go to the DAZ store to get what they need or else it would be useless to them so they would see all the discounts and sales. Anybody getting Pro knows it's Pro because of the tools for folks making things. So then you would look and see Advanced and then see the free version which was there for months. If someone is totally new, they would've gotten the free version first or maybe Advanced. Why pay extra for what you won't need.

Quote - Good point, imax24. I guess I do feel for those who invested. Which, you do, when you buy software. You invest: time to learn it, whatever add-ons are required to give it the functionality you want... all beyond the original outlay. So, it does have that value.

With PP2012, I'm getting a return on my investment: involvement in some very exciting projects that directly involve technologies that came with this new version of the software. And to me, that's a sizeable return.

That's great, Robyn! People should focus on what works for themselves.