The 3Delight Stand Alone Render Engine Thread (BATCH RENDERING DISCOVERED!)
wancow
Posts: 2,708
WHY? Why would you want to render using the 3Delight Stand Alone?
BECAUSE, you can render while working on your next scene. On my i5, 3Delight takes up a little less than 50% of the CPU resources, which allows me to do stuff like play with Naked Genesis babes, model clothing for my naked Genesis babes, or generally goof off.
You can also BATCH RENDER!
You may download the 3Delight Stand Alone render engine free here:
http://www.3delight.com/en/index.php?page=3DSP_download
How to render in 3Delight.
Set up your scene in DAZ Studio. Place your camera and look through your camera in the Render Tab. Good to have your aspect ratio on, and don't forget to set the dimensions of your final render.
In the Render Tab, go to your advanced settings and scroll down to the bottom
Check Render to Rib
Select a file path (the next line down) and create a file name. You should put all your ribs in that path, so you should probably create a special folder for them.
Make sure Collect and Localize is selected, this will create a sub folder that collects all the necessary shaders for the rib file you have created. Keep Shadows is optional.
Hit the RENDER Button.
Call up your COMMAND PROMPT in Windows (Mac Users, you'll have to figure this out, or someone should post with how to do this...
The Command prompt can usually be found in Windows Accessories.
The command to change folders is "cd"
"cd.." will go up one folder, cd (foldername) will select a sub folder. You can go down multiple folders. "cd c:\foldername1\foldername2\foldername3" for instance, folder names MUST be separated by a BACK slash.
Use the command prompt to get you to the folder where your RIB file is located.
Type: "renderdl filename.rib"
The file will render, and create a TIF image file in the same folder as your RIB file with the same name over the TIF extension.
If you type: "renderdl -id filename.rib" i-display will show the render in progress as 3Delight is rendering.
if you want to BATCH RENDER, you will need to use i-display, which installs with 3Delight
type "renderdl -id filename1.rib filename2.rib filename3.rib"
Save the individual images from i-display
All the rib files must be in the same folder for batch rendering to work.
I intend to play a lot with this and will add to this thread as I come across more stuff. As soon as I have examples of the difference between a 3Delight Render and a DS3Delight Render, I will post those.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
There won't be one...unless you get a shader that won't recompile.
BTW, what is the version number of the standalone?
Because that's the other way to find a difference...if the standalone is of a lower version number than the one in DS...then any bugs fixed will still be there.
I've done quite a bit of rendering with the standalone and haven't found any differences, yet, other than what I said above...Kendall has done much more...and so have some others.
Just looked...the SA is still at 10.0.50...so it's still got the raytracing and arealight bugs...
There was just another update, today, for the paid version...it's at 10.0.99...so hopefully there will be an update to the free version, when they bump up to 10.1.0...
version is 10.0.50
There is no difference save one. 3DL stand alone will not recognize that I have a black background, so the alpha channel is white in the TIF it creates. Other than that, no difference, and it is a tad faster.
Top is 3DL Stand Alone, bottom is 3DL in Daz Studio.
This would be very useful.
Sequential Batch Rendering.
I have a problem. I created two rib files with just a cube to test batch rendering.
The command, as it says in the manual was: "renderdl cubetest.rib cubetest2.rib"
Unfortunately, the first tif was called render.tif and the second tif was called render.tif, so the first was overwritten.
I'm trying to flip through the manual to figure out how to avoid this, but if anyone has a notion...
This would be very useful.
Interesting... I was able to call up Genesis into an empty scene wile I was rendering the above image!
This would be very useful.
Not an issue with the stand alone...as it is core locked to 2 cores (real or 'logical') you'll still have 'six' cores available...
Interesting... so basically the core lock becomes a feature if you need the other two to do other stuff... :)
Sweet!
Won't that make the renders take much longer?
I clocked the renders as slightly faster. The two above were rendered without lights. The DS render took about 90 seconds, the other just over 80.
So far as I'm concerned, the only thing left to figure out is the whole batch rendering filename problem...
The scenes where I might want to use batch render take any where from 30 min to 6 hours to render on my current machine. They have complicated lighting and multiple characters. Render time mostly depends on how much high polygon count hair is in the image. The V5 elite ponytail can really slow down a render. It would seem to me that restricting a big render to only two cores on an 8 core processor is going to make the render take 4 times longer.
You might try a test before anything...
But I figured out a way to get things batch rendered.
You use i-display, which will have all the renders in memory.
the syntax is: renderdl -id file1.rib file2.rib file3.rib (etc)
I just tried it, it works :)
Then you save the images from i-display
I do have one question: what is the purpose of Point Cloud Viewer? It won't open a rib file, so what does it do?
It allows you to view a ptc file (point cloud file).
In DS, there's a Point based Occlusion script under the Scritped Render setting...it generates a pointcloud. Well the ptcview will display that file.
There won't be one...unless you get a shader that won't recompile.
Fresnel doesn't seem to work the same. I've reported that to DAZ but not sure if it has been fixed.
Well...sort of...
The DS Fresnel doesn't seem to be the same as the 'official' one...but, if you import a regular 3Delight Fresnel shader into DS, then it works the same. At least that's what I found with the glass shader I've been toying with....haven't checked the last couple of updates, though.
Ah, that explains it. I have always wondered why the DS Fresnel looked so different from POV-Ray's and which one was the correct implementation. Sigh -_-. Do you have a link to the 3Delight shader?
I'm just wondering, has anyone tried playing with Renderman shaders yet? And is it reasonably easy to do?
In DS?
Yes.
No...it's not easy. There's no simple import method, so it's time spent in ShaderBuilder plus you need to create the UI entries and test the heck out of it, because there are some things in straight Renderman shaders that 3DL will choke on. Also lots of the ones you can find for download contain Maya or Max specific code that just doesn't work in DS, it needs to be replaced or scripts need to be created with same functions ...and sometimes, even if everything is right, the shader still won't compile...most often complains about a missing include file, so you have to go back and hack the include file code into the main shader code, (takes less time to do that, then actually figure out exactly WHERE it is looking for the include file...).
MJC, you've obviously done this... any chance you could select a simple freeware shader, link to it and write a mini tutorial on how you import it?
Okay... continuing the discussion, a couple of people have posted that they like using the Scripted 3Delight with Point Based Occlusion.
The settings in the scripted version I noticed seem to override whatever is set in the advanced settings including exporting to RIB.
I'm going to be testing it out and hopefully use it to finish up my Belle WIP, maybe... we'll see... can anyone give me some advice as to what kind of settings to use to get crisp shadows without slowing the thing down too much... I'd like to complete a render in 3Delight Stand Alone within an 8 hour time frame. Can't have my machine pluggied in longer than that. I'll be rendering 2400x3000 pixels (8x10 @ 300dpi)...
Hi, Wancow, I just discovered your tutorial about this topic today. Thanks! Maybe you can help me with a couple questions.
I installed it and ran it. Two windows Firewall warnings popped up, when my first render started. It seemed to be rendering fine without allowing firewall exceptions, so I did not allow them. Do you know why the standalone renderer would want to be accessing the network? I'm wondering if down the road something may not work because I did not allow the firewall exceptions.
A second question. How do you cancel a render? Do you just kill the rendering process with Windows task manager, or is there a better way?
There are two ways to cancel a render and it depends on how you enter the command.
if you use the "renderdl file.rib" command you simply close the DOS window.
The second, if you use "renderdl -id file.rib" you can either close the dos window or close the i-display window.
I use Microsoft Security Essentials and have never had a problem with 3Delight and the firewall... so I have no clue what's going on there.
Thanks for the quick response. I also use Microsoft Security Essentials. Hmmm. I didn't allow an exception, so nothing should be happening that I don't want, and it seems to be working fine. Well, I guess I won't worry about it.
I can't remember if i excepted it or not... probably did... I have this fantastically perfect memory that is totally photographic with one problem: it's short...
Anyway, please add any of your discoveries to this thread. They're always valued.
The free version is limited to two cores and one seat, so I think it connects to the internet to check that you are respecting the rules.
It's still checking/running a license server...but it's now 'internal' and not something you need to set up separately. I believe the address, if you looked, it is looking for/connecting to is the loopback address.
Good day to all!
I'm a new to standalone 3delight and try to create RIBs in daz studio 4.5.1.56 32bit on Win7 x64 (i had to install 32bit cause 64bit lacks Lip sync). I face very strange behavior of "Render to RIB" option. I set Render To: Movie or Image series (not a big difference). Render engine to 3delight. "Render to RIB" on. Keep shadows on. Collect and localize on. Then Render button. Daz creates folder myfile_collected with sdl(s) & one rib in it. Also one rib is created outside of myfile_collected folder. So i got 1 rib only for entire movie (30+ frames).
This is how it (probably) works:
I press Render button. DAZ creates *.rib outside of myfile_collected folder and rewrites it for every frame it has to render. So if i render to Movie and have 4 frames it will rewrite rib 4 times (size of rib file goes to 0 and then back to 38Mb in my case).
Then daz creates avi file and asks me about compression to be applied.
Files in myfile_collected folder are not changed on every frame daz renders. It looks like daz creates myfile_collected folder for the first frame only.
As a result i get 1 avi and 1 rib. Or multiple tiffs and 1 rib if i render to Image series. Cant use 3delight standalone after that.
How can i generate multiple ribs to use batch rendering later? Is this possible from daz GUI or should i use scripts?
Many thanks!
Alex
make sure your dos prompt is in myfiles_collected
type: renderdl -id file1.rib file2.rib file3.rib
idisplay will open and show you the current render in progress
When rendering is done, go to iDisplay and goto File/Save All Images
All of your images will be present in idisplay so long as you used the -id command tag
there is a rib file in the files_collected folder as well. The one outside that folder only exists if you are keeping your file open in DAZ Studio. If you shut down DAZ Studio while that file is being read, 3Delight read it as an error and stop rendering.
The one it creates when you collect the files is the one you should use, and that is in the collected folder.
Thanks, wancow.
The problem is I have NO file2.rib, file3.rib ... fileN.rib after rendering.
I got only "file1.rib". But I rendered 30+ frames animation.
Alex
Alex,
I just tested it and it's more than that. What it did for me is this: it asked me for a place to save images and saved basically five blank images for the five frames I wanted to render plus the rib. The same thing when tried with make movie file. It still made the movie file, but it was blank, as well as both rib files.
This is a major bug. I had just assumed it worked and had not tested it... that's on me! Sorry about that.
I have bugged it here: https://bugs.daz3d.com/view.php?id=49692