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Node based editing is the new standard for shaders in most render engines now from what I've seen. While nodes can be a learning curve and have some unintuitive naming conventions, DS seems to be more so compared to other programs. Filter Forge 4.0's main new feature is the ability to group a set of nodes and the collapse them so blocks of nodes, like formulas can be reused and the resulting view can be simplified.
With shader builder you can make all more compact. Connet several macros and functions, save your shader, open *.sl file generated and all the formulas are there in an unique piece of codes.
Ephere ships Lab for 3ds Max
Node based editing is the new standard for shaders in most render engines now from what I've seen.
Yeah that's ok if you can do what you want with existing node but sometimes you lack control or the function doesn't exist at all (my case). It's good for non programmers. Shader Mixer gives already a lot of possibilities for most shading needs. The drawback is that it's often not very optimized and you can lose a lot of rendertime
My impression of DS' implementation is that it got developed early on, but didn't evolve as many of the other node based setups have. It could use a serious revamp, including optimizing, expanding, making more intuitive (such as naming conventions...) With people getting split among different render engines now however, I'm not sure that will happen.
With shader builder you can make all more compact. Connet several macros and functions, save your shader, open *.sl file generated and all the formulas are there in an unique piece of codes.
Ah... I'd not seen this shader builder thing before. That looks promising. The thing that gives me a headache at the moment is that DS doesn't seem to offer any automatic previewing options. You need to continually verify changes. In either Bryce or Octane you get previews which respond to changes as you make the changes. This is very handy to getting a feel for what impact changing certain parameters has on the results.
Thank you also for the other feedback folks.
In DS_render10-3 I've just applied the default glass. I am unconvinced by this preset. Also there are a couple of Octane renders - the same model, I was waiting for DS to finish rendering. Glass 3D delight does not seem to like. And a Bryce render, which was the fastest of the lot at 26 minutes. DS took 29. Octane being GPU based can cook away in the background of either DS or Bryce without making any impact on render times.
I looked into using Octane and well the main thing that turned me off was the cost.. 329 Euro's for the Poser version plugin, 279 Euro's for the DS version plugin or 199 Euro's for the Standalone version is a might expensive even if it is fast at what it does due to it using the computers video card..
Even though it is much better than Lux since it seems to not suffer the compatibility problems Lux has with some video cards since it uses open CL.. But still it is expensive and what is strange is that the company is based in New Zealand but uses the Euro when it comes to sales and that's what is putting me off getting it since the Australian dollar is worth not much against the Euro..
And looking at the Poser and Daz versions you require a Standalone Version for the plugin version to work which is steep as since you start out with 199 Euro's Standalone Ed then either 329 Euro's Poser plugin or 279 euros Daz Studio plugin.. All I can say is OUCH!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, this is one of the ways it is out of date. Take a look at shaders built in something like Blender's Cycles Shader nodes and you can see the preview at any stage along the tree, moving it around the tree when tuning things.
You are getting some very nice results btw :)
Ghosty12, yes I would be curious to know what the plug-in did. One of the biggest issues with the DS bridge between Bryce and DS, is that it cannot correctly translate materials from one to the other. So I wonder if this is also the case with Octane and DS? Since aside from basic UV mapping, the materials in the applications work differently.
Gedd, thank you, getting feedback is the key to good results. Speed of preview and a lean workflow friendly interface is an advantage both Octane and Bryce have over DS at the moment it seems. Or I've just not figured out how to use DS properly in this regard.
I think is pretty much would do what Luxus for Daz Studio and Reality for Poser and Daz Studio do in translating the information from Poser or Daz Studio into a form that in this case LuxRender can understand..
When I had a go at the octane demo for Poser it just added in a Octane Render option in the render menu and once you set up it did a pretty good job of translating the information to Octane but in some areas was not perfect..
But considering the price that Reality and Luxus are going for the cost of the Poser / DS plugins for Octane are way too expensive and really are only aimed at the professional and not the hobbyist..
I think is pretty much would do what Luxus for Daz Studio and Reality for Poser and Daz Studio do in translating the information from Poser or Daz Studio into a form that in this case LuxRender can understand..
When I had a go at the octane demo for Poser it just added in a Octane Render option in the render menu and once you set up it did a pretty good job of translating the information to Octane but in some areas was not perfect..
But considering the price that Reality and Luxus are going for the cost of the Poser / DS plugins for Octane are way too expensive and really are only aimed at the professional and not the hobbyist..
Yeah that's what I figured and I why I didn't bother with the plugins. The stand alone version, which isn't as expensive, it not that difficult to use, particularly when you are already used to shifting stuff between applications anyway. I did consider other renderers, maybe Luxus, or Reality would have been easier to begin with, but I decided to bite the bullet and just dive straight in with Octane. The fact that it is so stripped back and focused I like, it makes it feel manageable in a way that you don't get with applications that try to be all things to all tasks.
I plan on going to Octane at some point also. Until the costs come down on video cards etc.. I'll play with various render engines, but as of the moment, Octane is where I'd be playing if I could. Cycles, for the rest of us (it's free) ;)
Well, I have to add my first ever DS render. It is rendered with natural light. There is no other light than the environment in the HDRI.
That is not that easy to translate between render engiine when you don't use basic texturing functions to achieve a shading. In the cas of Bryce I'm pretty sure there are a lot of special functions used. To get them in another render engine you may have to program the function or if you can't,you take the closest one and adapt parameters to it but there is a great chance that the result will greatly differ.
I didn't use Bryce ac lot but there is one thing I know. DS->Bryce is easier than the other way. regarding shaders
I think is pretty much would do what Luxus for Daz Studio and Reality for Poser and Daz Studio do in translating the information from Poser or Daz Studio into a form that in this case LuxRender can understand..
When I had a go at the octane demo for Poser it just added in a Octane Render option in the render menu and once you set up it did a pretty good job of translating the information to Octane but in some areas was not perfect..
But considering the price that Reality and Luxus are going for the cost of the Poser / DS plugins for Octane are way too expensive and really are only aimed at the professional and not the hobbyist..
That's why I didn't go Octane path yet. Too expensive for a hobbyist but I must say I'm pretty much tempted. And there is not just the licence cost. I'd add 300€ for a Nvidia Gtx 760 with 4Go Vram and may be a second video card used just for display. So you end up with at least 700€. (OK if I was a gamer I may already have the hardware but still)
This looks promising. I'm still faffing around with shader blocks. Your HDRI converted to SM in Bryce is used here as an environmental colour map grafted into the chrome shader.
DS, Octane x 2 and Bryce.
Takeo.Kensei, yes I guess it depends on what you've built for PC for. Mine is used mostly for rendering, image processing and also a bit of game playing. So it's sort of a middleweight machine already. £200 for a GPU doesn't seem too bad when that's what my CPU cost me anyway. CPU being 4 cores at 2.6 ghz, compared with the GPU 940 cores at 1 ghz seems like good value.
@David - thank you. I used that HDRI which I made 3 weeks ago to test UE2 and I could finally coerce it to work, though not as elegantly as I wished.
Very nice examples from your side.
OK got this working, thanks for the tips. Here's my first example with Horo's IBL lighting for DS. Followed by a couple of Octanes and finally a Bryce - because DS and Bryce are CPU I can get two Octanes done while they each in turn render. The Bryce render, for those who are curious, employed Horos 300 degree wide angle lens. Which appears here, http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-7-1-pro-lenses-and-filters
OK this took a bit of figuring out, but here we are with Horo's background and lighitng with a little Wings3D model apparently casting shadows into that same environment.
Back to figuring out materials...
Work has eased up so it is back to this challenge. I've tried to calibrate Lora here ( http://www.daz3d.com/lora-for-v5-and-young-teens ) to match the scale of the HDRI backgound and also for the lighting supplied by the environment to provide appropriate shadows. The only thing that took any time to render was her hair.
Just discovered your experimental thread here.
On the missing surface.... what you might want to do in DAZ Studio is in the Tools tab there is a drop down. Select "Polygon Group Editor" and if you see THREE Face groups then click on each one and find out which one needs to have a surface added. If that's the issue with the model all you have to do is click the + symbol next to the Group. It will "light up" a bit more. Now right click on the Surface header and choose "Create Surface from Selected", name it and there you go. Go to your Surfaces tab and you will now have a model with 3 surfaces you can dress with various shaders and textures.
Welcome to DAZ Studio!
Just discovered your experimental thread here.
On the missing surface.... what you might want to do in DAZ Studio is in the Tools tab there is a drop down. Select "Polygon Group Editor" and if you see THREE Face groups then click on each one and find out which one needs to have a surface added. If that's the issue with the model all you have to do is click the + symbol next to the Group. It will "light up" a bit more. Now right click on the Surface header and choose "Create Surface from Selected", name it and there you go. Go to your Surfaces tab and you will now have a model with 3 surfaces you can dress with various shaders and textures.
Welcome to DAZ Studio!
Thank you for the tip. I will go and have a look at this "Polygon Group Editor" if I can find it. Still only stumbling around in DS. Occasionally DS and Bryce will play nice. Here Lora has been bridged over for rendering in a canyon.
This is how the canyon was made and lit, if anyone is curious.
Bryce Landscaping - geocrafting a canyon - by David Brinnen
Bryce Landscaping - lighting a canyon - by David Brinnen
Bryce Landscaping - lighting a canyon advanced - by David Brinnen
Fiddled with the shadow sampling rate after a hint from ForbiddenWhispers.
Edit. And one with the same figure straight into Octane.
Today's render, more painstaking tinkering with the lighting environment.
Wow. Didnt see this before now. Getting you David to try tackling the Shader Mixer gives me hope of beeing able to use it for more than adding ambient occlusion.
Aye well, at the moment, progress is slow and mostly focused on settling some funny issues with DS IBL. Will move onto looking at materials after the lighting has been sorted out to our satisfaction.
Glad to hear that the shader mixer is on your to do list, I've seen some tutorials on Youtube but they looked like an older version of DS and differ from 4.6. I would love to see an updated shader mixer tutorial.
Nice renders, I've been messing with HDRI/IBL and Luxrender, athough Luxrender does not support shadow catching at present so I've had to layer two images if I want the shadow in the IBL/Luxrender pic.
Still noodling.(the non fishy version).
Back to this lighting thing... Test number five hundred billion.
A little Wings 3D tutorial.
Wings 3D project - simple armoured ball - by David Brinnen
Now with re-calibrated reflection.
Been trying to replicate a Bryce special effect in DS. First render is the effect in Bryce the second is my attempt to achieve this in DS.