The 3dl support by DAZ
LordGeneral
Posts: 106
All the changelogs I have seen for newest Daz versions seem to just mention Iray. Is 3delight still getting updates or not? If not is there some special reason or just a lack of interest.
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One issue is that more recent versions of 3delight, as far as I ama ware, no lonmger use RSL for their shaders so an update would presumably break most existing 3delight shaders, requiring a full rewrite to allow existing materials to work.
Yikes...that's a big change.
Oh that would upset people!
I see I wasn't aware of that. Couldn't a sort of compatibility mode be used for the older shaders though? Assuming that DAZ think it's worth their time.
Also further limiting DAZ 's rendering options doesn't seem like a very business savvy decision.
Also thanks Richard much obliged.
My understanding is the shaders are completely revamped in the newer 3Delight. Not much Daz can do. 3DL is much different now. Thankfully it's still in there. wowie and others have had this discussion in the 3DL thread. wowie's AweSurface shader is the best alternate for it now. Daz is working on adding filament and they added all the bridges to Maya, Unreal, Blender, etc. so they aren't limiting.
Yeah I believe the current DS version (3DL 12) is from 2017 and many of the shaders are really ancient. 3DL has completely ditched RSL shaders in the newest (3DL 13) build. Can't see though why it would be impossible to port the existing shaders over to OSL, or create some sort of conversion script? I've discussed this with wowie and he stated he would simply port over aweSurface in the event of a 3DL update. Won't probably happen though...kind of makes me sad, would be so nice to be able to play with modern physically plausible shaders, not to mention the 3DL cloud rendering
.
Thankfully even RSL shaders are capable of so much more than the DS standard 3DL shaders, you just need to tap into the built in pathtracer using scripted rendering. Without wowie's excellent work I probably would have seriously considered emigrating to Maya or one of the other softwares that utilize OSL, USD, cloud rendering etc.
Usually I see no big support at all for 3DL, Sven, so I don't hold out much hope. But it would be nice. I think most users don't know and don't care. I end up blaming users for most things these days.
Haha yeah I know! But I'm definitely blaming DAZ for not making the pathtracer available to users YEARS ago, I mean...it's been there all the time god damn it:) But I'm having fun with aweSurface and it's FREE, so now atleast anybody can do 3DL pathtracing if they are interested, so it's all good I guess;)
I am not sure what you mean by filament but as far as bridges are concerned fair point. It's just that I would think they would want their own application (DAZ Studio) to be the primary tool in artists/creators workflow not just another step on the road.
Also if the version of 3dl being used is 3 years old can it be inferred that they will be dropping it entirely down the road.
Who knows? But I doubt it, unless they are willing to pull all their pre-Iray products from the store. That said, I've made sure I have backups of DS 4.7, 4.9 and 4.10
, and the 3DL standalone:))
Their main business is selling content. So things are what they are. Filament is a new render engine I don't know much about but it has been mentioned in their changelog for Daz Studio. I doubt they will drop the 3DL they are licensed to include in Studio. As Sven said, they'd have to do something about all their old products. I would think it's a huge task to update things and many of the artists are gone or dead. Daz has been around a long time.
Sure their main business is selling content on their market place but that ignores the fact that all engines /3d applications have very sizable marketplaces of their own. They aren't the only ones doing it. If I was looking to work in blender/unity/unreal the very first thing I'd be doing is looking into their marketplaces if i needed an asset/model/etcetc. It ignores the hassle of porting and fine tuning the materials.
Now that you menioned Filament I had a closer look into it. It seems there is talk in the changelogs for automatically converting iray materials to work in it. If DAZ is capable of porting materials between different renderers I think they could port over the older 3dl materials if they wanted to.
If it were easy to do, it probably would have been done already. I don't know much about rsl vs osl, but it's possible that rsl shaders don't contain all the maps needed to make a proper material conversion. Adding in filament, a PBR like iray, will likely have all the maps needed. I am just making assumptions though, and could be totally offbase. I am basing it off the infuriating experience of trying to port genesis 1 2 and 3 to other packages, and finding out that they didn't have all the maps needed.
I don't think a renderer being PBR has any bearing on the discussion. Only it's shading language should. I mean converting MDL shaders(iray) into a completely different script(i don't know what filament uses) seems pretty complex sure . But Daz seems to be willing to put in the effort there.(is this the reason that filament isn't out yet? working out the kinks in the script?)
To go back further didn't DAZ do that already with RSL shaders being converted to MDL automatically. Granted the conversion isn't always perfect but still acceptable in most cases.
I am sure they could do the same with RSL to OSL if they wanted to.
https://google.github.io/filament/
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Filament-1.5-Real-Time-PBR:
24 April 2019 at 02:35 AM EDT - Filament is Google's real-time physically based rendering engine that supports Android along with Linux and all other major platforms, including a target for WebAssembly+WebGL. Filament 1.2.0 was released on Tuesday as the latest step forward for this PBR rendering engine.
I don't know if I should find this good?!
Google sometimes has quite good ideas.
But ... these also tend to disappear suddenly when google thinks that this is no longer a hot [thing]?
Hm! Do I understand this correctly?
Since April 2019 not much has changed?
Maybe this is an attempt by DAZ to find a solution so that Daz Studio can be used on all platforms?
And to not be so dependent on Iray/NVIDIA anymore?
Following the links on the Github page it is open source https://github.com/google/filament/blob/main/LICENSE , and the latest chnage was at the end of August.
Apparently I can't read, or was looking at the wrong thing as far as updates go - the last release was three days ago.
DS still uses the ancient 3DL v12.0.27 from end of 2015. Last 3DL that supports RSL is v12.5.8 from November 2017...
Tks for clarifying! Well honestly I can't see DAZ updating to version 13 with OSL shaders/USD support etc. Thankfully 3DL v12 and RSL shaders are very capable also:) Especially when used with the pathtracer.
Stay safe everybody!
In case someone missed out on the newest awe shading kit build, here's the direct DL link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i3P5yVxiS4wZzhdZu6FeLNuiNuIPOAVe/view?usp=sharing
It should work with DIM, tested on PC;)
Thanks for the updated link Sven,
It's worth noting that the filename of the mentioned zip installer has NOT changed, but some of the internal files *have* been updated (thanks @wowie). Best I can tell from the forum thread and zipfile dates of some of the files, the zipfile that this link references now contains the (now free, full version) AWEShader 1.3 package that is described in detail in the first post of:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/277581/awe-surface-shader-a-new-physically-plausible-shader-for-daz-studio-and-3delight/p1
which is discussed (all versions) and detailed in these great threads:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/280441/awe-shading-kit-for-daz-studio-and-3delight/p1
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/284366/the-official-awesurface-test-track/p1
Question: Is there a 'best' 3DL standalone version that matches (or improves upon) the current/recent (unchanged since DS 4.10-ish?) DAZ Studio internal version while still being compatible? From the last mentioned 3DL version update in the DS release notes, I found some nearby 3DL standalone versions on the wayback machine (archive.org), but would ask any 3DL experts who actually run standalone 3DL versions in real-world workflows. Any favorites/comments?
tia,
--ms
https://web.archive.org/web/20160907110936/http://www.3delight.com/en/index.php?page=3DSP_download
This should be version 12.0.68, so slightly newer than the DS version;)
Thanks for that link @Sven Dullah. I didn't realize I hadn't thanked you for posting it way back when. I was able to get that version and continue my explorations. (I just re-found this thread in a search for some related info I was looking for.)
Per many discussion points in this and other 3DL threads, does anyone know if the last of the 12.x series (12.5.9) works as expected with the RIB files generated by the 12.0.27 3DL-based DS?
It seems clear that the 3DL versions beyond 12.x changed their internals such that DS RIB outputs are no longer useable (RSL stuff?), but perhaps the last of the 12.x standalone series can be used with DAZ RIB outputs to take advantage of the many development bug-fixes and performance gains noted in the 3Delight 12.x release notes, etc.
Thanks again Sven,
--ms
(edit: fix 3DL version #)
Hm, I don't have the 12.5.9 build so I've no idea. On the other hand, I'm guessing it works just fine, why wouldn't it? On the third hand, I don't think you will see a very noticeable performance gain, if any? But I could be so wrong:)) If you go for it, let me know if it was worth it
The final release of the "old" 3Delight 12.x was 12.5.8, there was no official release of a 12.5.9 and also the 3Delight changelog doesn't mention it.
And yes, 12.5.8 works flawless with RIB files generated by Daz Studio.
let's try this again.
Thanks for that info about 12.5.8 compatibility with the current DS 12.0.27 version generated RIB-files. (Per the recent NVIDIA updates, it seems that ongoing compatibilty is not something that can be counted on.)
I concur that the last official release that I can find/verify (e.g. via the periodic 'new release' notifications in my 3delight.com email subscription, and in the official 12.x standalone 12.x docs) is 12.5.8.
and apparently that's that.
best,
--ms
(edit: fix version)