More Iray questions from a latent N00B

StratDragon

After a long hiatus from 3D I've gone ahead and installed DS4.10 and decided to try Iray out. I don't have a Nvidia card, and I'm not installing one any time soon, but I don't mind CPU rendering and my computer has plenty CPU and RAM. So here are some questions:

Can I stop a render and continue it some other time, like after I've quit DS, restarted and opened it a week later?

Can I save a project and render it externally?

Can I adjust the lighting in a scene while the render is taking place?

Is there documentation on what the settings in Iray do in DS, but in layman terms?

Is there any information about DS becoming exceedingly unresponsive after some time that has nothing to do with interface settings or complexity of a scene? Meaning I work on a scene, the system becomes slower, I save the scene, I quit DS, open it back up, reload the same scene and it's humming right along.

also, is the bug reporting system still a thing? 

[edit] more questions @ about 2:30 PM EST

whats the difference between dome and sun? In lux you create a light, name it sun and position it where you want the light to come from. How is this done in Iray?

what is the difference between metallic and glossy. It appears that any time I convert my shaders with the Iray uber they convert to metallic. Do I want this or do I need to change things like skin and hair to "glossy"?

Paradigm

• Can I stop a render and continue it some other time, like after I've quit DS, restarted and opened it a week later?
  • Not if you close DS. You can, however, do selected renders and render chunks at a time and then composite them later. More clunky than ideal, but it works in a pinch.
• Can I save a project and render it externally?
  • If the external target has an identical content library and paths, yes. I use Microsoft's SyncToy to sync my library to an external HDD so I can take my library on the road with me and render on my laptop or load a scene to render on my laptop while I do other things on my PC (or visa versa)
• Can I adjust the lighting in a scene while the render is taking place?
  • I've never tried. I don't think so. IIRC this is something people compare IRay unfavorably to vs Octane. I could be wrong though.
• Is there documentation on what the settings in Iray do in DS, but in layman terms?
  • Not officially but SickleYield has several tutorials(https://www.google.com/search?q=sickleyield+iray+settings&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS777US777&oq=sickleyield+iray+settings&aqs=chrome..69i57.4665j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8). I generally just google settings I'm curious about. Again, less than ideal.
• Is there any information about DS becoming exceedingly unresponsive after some time that has nothing to do with interface settings or complexity of a scene? Meaning I work on a scene, the system becomes slower, I save the scene, I quit DS, open it back up, reload the same scene and it's humming right along.
  • Not that I'm aware of but that sounds like your standard memory leak and I'm pretty sure DS does leak a little. You can try turning on viewport acceleration (https://www.versluis.com/2015/06/how-to-enable-hardware-acceleration-in-daz-studio/)
• also, is the bug reporting system still a thing? 
  • I've never successfully gotten help from support, so who knows.

Hope this helped!

StratDragon

Thanks Paradigm! I'm rushing ahead when I need to take this slowly. This is great info!

namffuak

Can I adjust the lighting in a scene while the render is taking place?

Yes - and no. Render to new window; to adjust the amount of light, cancel the render but do NOT close the window. There is a small tab on the left side; if you click on it you get a fly-out tab that lets you change to f-stop, the film iso, and the shutter speed. AFAIK, there is no way to change the direction or location of the light. Once you've changed the exposure settings you can click on the 'Resume' button on the render window.

StratDragon

namffuak said:

Can I adjust the lighting in a scene while the render is taking place?

Yes - and no. Render to new window; to adjust the amount of light, cancel the render but do NOT close the window. There is a small tab on the left side; if you click on it you get a fly-out tab that lets you change to f-stop, the film iso, and the shutter speed. AFAIK, there is no way to change the direction or location of the light. Once you've changed the exposure settings you can click on the 'Resume' button on the render window.

I have found that, but thank you none-the-less. I didn't know if there was another way. The ability to move lights as you render was not something Lux could do either, although I've read Iray can ghost a light so it doesn't appear in the scene. I have no tried that yet because I have no idea how to do that.

 

You know you stop using software for a few years and everything up and changes on you!

Paradigm

namffuak said:

There is a small tab on the left side; if you click on it you get a fly-out tab that lets you change to f-stop, the film iso, and the shutter speed. AFAIK, there is no way to change the direction or location of the light. Once you've changed the exposure settings you can click on the 'Resume' button on the render window.

oof, that's news to me lol. I've wasted dozens of hours cancelling renders to adjust their lights and start again.

StratDragon

actually I didn't know about the tab, I was going back to the render panel

SpottedKitty

FWIW, you don't even need to cancel the render first — just open the fly-out panel, make the tonemapping changes, and the scene lighting will change at the next render view redraw; I've never had it take more than about 10-20 seconds, usually a lot less.

StratDragon

SpottedKitty said:

FWIW, you don't even need to cancel the render first — just open the fly-out panel, make the tonemapping changes, and the scene lighting will change at the next render view redraw; I've never had it take more than about 10-20 seconds, usually a lot less.

great!

 

Does anyone know where I can find the answer to these two questions though?

whats the difference between dome and sun? In lux you create a light, name it sun and position it where you want the light to come from. How is this done in Iray?

what is the difference between metallic and glossy. It appears that any time I convert my shaders with the Iray uber they convert to metallic. Do I want this or do I need to change things like skin and hair to "glossy"?

Richard Haseltine

Dome uses an HDRI image, if one issn't asigned it functions like Sun & Sky with the addition of the ability to use local lights. You can assign a Sun Node, which allows you to use a camera or light to show where the sun is shining from.

Metallic is for dielectric surfaces, glossy for others - I would think metallic was not right for hair, but whatever works for you is the one you should use (metallic lighting model was often used for 3Delight hair and fur).

StratDragon

Richard Haseltine said:

Dome uses an HDRI image, if one issn't asigned it functions like Sun & Sky with the addition of the ability to use local lights. You can assign a Sun Node, which allows you to use a camera or light to show where the sun is shining from.

Metallic is for dielectric surfaces, glossy for others - I would think metallic was not right for hair, but whatever works for you is the one you should use (metallic lighting model was often used for 3Delight hair and fur).

 

Thanks Richard.

1) If I create a sun node do I turn off dome off/on/other?

2) when the Iray ubershaders sets a human skin to "metallic" it's not a a given and tweeking is manditory?

 

evilded777

StratDragon said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Dome uses an HDRI image, if one issn't asigned it functions like Sun & Sky with the addition of the ability to use local lights. You can assign a Sun Node, which allows you to use a camera or light to show where the sun is shining from.

Metallic is for dielectric surfaces, glossy for others - I would think metallic was not right for hair, but whatever works for you is the one you should use (metallic lighting model was often used for 3Delight hair and fur).

 

Thanks Richard.

1) If I create a sun node do I turn off dome off/on/other?

2) when the Iray ubershaders sets a human skin to "metallic" it's not a a given and tweeking is manditory?

 

1. Dome on/off/other, entirely depends. On will show the dome which is sort of a generic sky with a sun. Off won't show it. There's an "other"?
2. Not at all sure what you mean by this. Metallic/Roughness is the easiest to work with for most people, though some prefer Specular/Glossiness, very few use Weighted for skin, though they may use it for certain elements like eye surfaces.

StratDragon

evilded777 said:

 

1. Not at all sure what you mean by this. Metallic/Roughness is the easiest to work with for most people, though some prefer Specular/Glossiness, very few use Weighted for skin, though they may use it for certain elements like eye surfaces.

 

Meaning if you were trying to replicate skin as close to "human" skin it doesn't matter if you use Metallic or Specular? Other than Metallic being easier for most people does it have any other advantage to "organic" materials? I don't even know what weighted is yet, I haven't gotten there.

evilded777

StratDragon said:

evilded777 said:

 

1. Not at all sure what you mean by this. Metallic/Roughness is the easiest to work with for most people, though some prefer Specular/Glossiness, very few use Weighted for skin, though they may use it for certain elements like eye surfaces.

 

Meaning if you were trying to replicate skin as close to "human" skin it doesn't matter if you use Metallic or Specular? Other than Metallic being easier for most people does it have any other advantage to "organic" materials? I don't even know what weighted is yet, I haven't gotten there.

It does not matter. Its to taste. For me, Metallic/Roughness is the better choice because I find the gloss settings easier to grok. I'm not sure I will ever get a good handle on Spec/Glossi.