Any good third party renderer?

Makumba666

Hello All,

I want to create some small movie using daz models. I can export them and bring them into application with good rendering features, but it will require extensive work: some models use damned iray materials and daz is unable to export them correctly. So if I use this pipeline, I will require correct corrupted materials manually, create emissive materials, create and add normals (daz is not exporting even normal maps!) and so on.

Of course It would be easier to do everything inside daz with some animation export\reimport pipeline, but again it is impossible - this time, because daz does not have good renderer (yes, I mean it!). 3d delight and opengl renderers are of terrible quality and are unable correctly render even lights. As for iray - it is pain in the a**. It can ony render either ideal quality image (after spending tens of minutes) or some sh** with grains - there simply does not exist the way to create good quality image without spending eternity. If I was going to render single image, I could wait, but to spend about 10 mins on single frame is no-no if you are going to make movie (I am aware some big studios render some frames for hours - I do not care, I want medium quality image). So my question is simple - is there some alternative third party renderer for daz studio? I mean INSIDE renderer, without exporting assets to other program.

nonesuch00

You can use diffieomorphic which will do an OK just of setting up a DAZ Scene as a Blender Cycles ready scene but if you are really interested in doing animation and animation being made easier for you in the future then you should consider Unity Free  & the included free Octane Renderer. It is a PBR renderer And they are increasing the capabilities of Unity much faster than other solutions with the exception of UE4, UE4 is keeping pace with Unity pretty well.

However, any solution you choose outside of DAZ Studio will require editing the shader settings and lighting in the 3rd party solution to match what you want, if what you want is an iRay PBR rendered look but since PBR is portable you can do such a thing. Diffeomorphic for example will leave you with a dim diffuse PBR scene and not enough iterations in the cycles renderer setup to render noise out of areas like the eyes.

magaremoto

well, 3delight is not that bad for animations unless you're looking for ultra realism, carrara is a very good alternative jointly (or not) with octane but I would definitely wait for a luxcore plugin with its promising denoiser inside; I guess paolo cicconi is gonna work hard on it

wolf359

 I do not care, I want medium quality image). So my question is simple - is there some alternative third party renderer for daz studio? I mean INSIDE renderer, without exporting assets to other program."

NO... there is not..Daz studio only supports 3Delight and IRay

Richard Haseltine

wolf359 said:

 I do not care, I want medium quality image). So my question is simple - is there some alternative third party renderer for daz studio? I mean INSIDE renderer, without exporting assets to other program."

NO... there is not..Daz studio only supports 3Delight and IRay

As far as I am aware the Octane plug-in is used within DS, and Luxus is a within-DS approach for Lux Render.

Leana

Richard Haseltine said:

wolf359 said:

 I do not care, I want medium quality image). So my question is simple - is there some alternative third party renderer for daz studio? I mean INSIDE renderer, without exporting assets to other program."

NO... there is not..Daz studio only supports 3Delight and IRay

As far as I am aware the Octane plug-in is used within DS, and Luxus is a within-DS approach for Lux Render.

Both will require adjusting materials though, don't they?

nonesuch00

There is an material interchange format being used by AMD for exchange of PBR materials between different rendering engines but that wouldn't include DAZ Studio.

WendyLuvsCatz

and everyone forgets openGL which I actually use a lot.

no shadows cast but you can even fudge that with some postwork using layers of alpha rendered images and Hitfilm express

Leana

th3Digit said:

and everyone forgets openGL which I actually use a lot.

no shadows cast but you can even fudge that with some postwork using layers of alpha rendered images and Hitfilm express

Not forgotten, the OP mentioned it but considers it as "terrible quality".

WendyLuvsCatz

Leana said:

th3Digit said:

and everyone forgets openGL which I actually use a lot.

no shadows cast but you can even fudge that with some postwork using layers of alpha rendered images and Hitfilm express

Not forgotten, the OP mentioned it but considers it as "terrible quality".

ah missed that 

I use Octane myself but its not cheap to say the very least, iray is free

marble

nonesuch00 said:

You can use diffieomorphic which will do an OK just of setting up a DAZ Scene as a Blender Cycles ready scene but if you are really interested in doing animation and animation being made easier for you in the future then you should consider Unity Free  & the included free Octane Renderer. It is a PBR renderer And they are increasing the capabilities of Unity much faster than other solutions with the exception of UE4, UE4 is keeping pace with Unity pretty well.

However, any solution you choose outside of DAZ Studio will require editing the shader settings and lighting in the 3rd party solution to match what you want, if what you want is an iRay PBR rendered look but since PBR is portable you can do such a thing. Diffeomorphic for example will leave you with a dim diffuse PBR scene and not enough iterations in the cycles renderer setup to render noise out of areas like the eyes.

I know that Diffeomorphic is used for exporting DAZ Studio scenes to Blender but is there something equivalent for Unity? If not, how is it done?

Makumba666

Thanks everybody for answers. I was thinking about bringing assets to a game engine (since above movie should be kinda trailer of upcoming game), but it is pain in the a** too - this time due to overlapping uvs. Most models you can find in daz library or in web have overlapped uvs, which ends with terrible graphical artefacts as soon as you try to build lighting in Unreal 4. In other words - still can not find any acceptable solution not requiring damn hard work. 

nonesuch00

marble said:

nonesuch00 said:

You can use diffieomorphic which will do an OK just of setting up a DAZ Scene as a Blender Cycles ready scene but if you are really interested in doing animation and animation being made easier for you in the future then you should consider Unity Free  & the included free Octane Renderer. It is a PBR renderer And they are increasing the capabilities of Unity much faster than other solutions with the exception of UE4, UE4 is keeping pace with Unity pretty well.

However, any solution you choose outside of DAZ Studio will require editing the shader settings and lighting in the 3rd party solution to match what you want, if what you want is an iRay PBR rendered look but since PBR is portable you can do such a thing. Diffeomorphic for example will leave you with a dim diffuse PBR scene and not enough iterations in the cycles renderer setup to render noise out of areas like the eyes.

I know that Diffeomorphic is used for exporting DAZ Studio scenes to Blender but is there something equivalent for Unity? If not, how is it done?

Diffeomorphic actually is pretty good in the use cases I've tried it with but the material export by Diffeomorphic were unusable by the AMD ProRenderer for Blender without lots of adjustments as in assigning everything material related. 

For Unity you should go to the DAZ site Morph 3D and use their export & utilities really and then file ticket for bugs & feature requests. 

https://www.morph3d.com/morph-artist-tools

&

https://www.morph3d.com/morph-studio

The rest of the MCS you can ignore unless you are programming a multiplayer online games that requires avatars that have an 'online' presense and be available via download.

+++++

and then the PBR platform independent exchange format (not created by AMD but the creators of Pantone)

The platform independent 'Appearence Format' has a writeup here:

https://www.xrite.com/about-us/news-events/press-releases/amd-radeon-prorender-supports-axf

 

wolf359

If I was going to render single image, I could wait, but to spend about 10 mins on single frame is no-no if you are going to make movie.

Actually 10 minutes per frame is on the upper end of what I would consider acceptable for my animated movies.

My Standard frame budget for shots like the one linked below is 7-10 minutes per frame .
However I Render in Maxon C4D., not daz studio. due to my final quality requirements.

wolf359

For Unity you should go to the DAZ site Morph 3D and use their export & utilities really and then file ticket for bugs & feature requests. 

 

Have you actually renderd any Daz figurs animation in unity??

what is the workflow??

Silver Dolphin

Leana said:

th3Digit said:

and everyone forgets openGL which I actually use a lot.

no shadows cast but you can even fudge that with some postwork using layers of alpha rendered images and Hitfilm express

Not forgotten, the OP mentioned it but considers it as "terrible quality".

Render complex backgrounds in OpenGL and do main characters in Iray or 3delight. Use GIMP or Photoshop to composit the blurred backgound and add effects way faster than doing everyting in just Iray. I like OpenGL I would like to see this render engine updated in both Daz studio, Carrara and Bryce.

Zilvergrafix

Makumba666 said:

Thanks everybody for answers. I was thinking about bringing assets to a game engine (since above movie should be kinda trailer of upcoming game), but it is pain in the a** too - this time due to overlapping uvs. Most models you can find in daz library or in web have overlapped uvs, which ends with terrible graphical artefacts as soon as you try to build lighting in Unreal 4. In other words - still can not find any acceptable solution not requiring damn hard work. 

Animation?, Maya.

Long times?, polygon reduce, change to triangles, don't use ambient occlusion, use sunlights, minimal ray bouncing, reduce textures to 1024 or 512, delete bump maps and displacement maps, don't do animation inside a box, change propietary rigging instead FBX crap, you can set this once, when finished, render all to 320p, when all is satisfied change size to 480 or 720p, frame rendering, collect all in Virtual Dub and fps to 24frames, good luck.

hard work?, no, your PC is lazy. 

PPehrson

WendyLuvsCatz said:

and everyone forgets openGL which I actually use a lot.

no shadows cast but you can even fudge that with some postwork using layers of alpha rendered images and Hitfilm express

Not forgotten, the OP mentioned it but considers it as "terrible quality".

ah missed that 

I use Octane myself but its not cheap to say the very least, iray is free

Wrong, there is a free version of Octane available for Daz. It works inside the render area.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Zilvergrafix said:

Animation?, Maya.

Or, if you are not an Autodesk fan, Blender + Auto Rig Pro + Animation Layers Addon

WendyLuvsCatz

PPehrson said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

and everyone forgets openGL which I actually use a lot.

no shadows cast but you can even fudge that with some postwork using layers of alpha rendered images and Hitfilm express

Not forgotten, the OP mentioned it but considers it as "terrible quality".

ah missed that 

I use Octane myself but its not cheap to say the very least, iray is free

Wrong, there is a free version of Octane available for Daz. It works inside the render area.

 not in June 2018 when I made that post