Iray in DAZ or migrating to Blender?

j cade

marble said:

nicstt said:

marble said:

nicstt said:

karmaspice2000_2c77e33c86 said:

DAZ Bridges is a Plan B in case Nvidia is abondoning Iray (which is quite possible) The Blender GUI has improved greatly in the past couple of releases. However it's still a proverbial pain in the a55. I keep trying to migrate to Blender but keep leaving out of frustration.

It's a matter of perspective; I've like Blender's UI since 2.50; I don't like Studio's. I can work with it, but I don't like it.

 

 

marble said:

Yes, I have asked before but I have not been able to grasp the idea of .blend files with respect to a content library. I'm still finding it difficult to understand the logic of doing it the Blender way but, having watched a few more videos I can see how it is done. As I said, if that new Asset Management system is adopted in the standard release, I will be much more comfortable if it works they way it is shown in that video. 

There's still one thing that is unclear to me. If you first need to put your assets into a .blend file (or multiple .blend files) does that mean that you can't have a library of installed assets (as we have with DAZ Studio) without first having loaded each and every one into a .blend file and stored it somewhere? So I could not, for instance, purchase an asset from somewhere or grab one from my DAZ Studio Content Library and have it available to Blender without having first loaded it into a .blend file in order to be able to append it into any other .blend file? Then the further question arises - how do I get it into the first .blend file if it already needs to be in a .blend file in order to append it? I have to admit that the only way I have imported objects into Blender so far is from DAZ Studio, either by .OBJ import or by Diffeomorphic.

Of course not.

Just like Studio assets need creating - which PAs do for most people, Blender files also need creating. However, we can also create our own Studio assets. They can be morph assets, pose assets and others. Now, there are Blend files available from Daz, but last time I checked they were broken - wrong scale and wrong position; materials also weren't the best. Diffeo does a brilliant job.

Blender works differently, I usually suggest folks stop thinking about how it's done in Studio, and learn how it is done in Blender; then they can look at corrolations to help them better transfer and manage assets.

If you want to create a blender asset; load up something - pick something relatively simple as a learning process.

Load it Studio; export using Diffeo plugin (remembering to run the script).

Import into Blender using the Diffeo plugin.

Optionally make any adjustments you feel would be useful including making sure all items are in a Collection and that the Collection has a name.

... Then save as a Blend file. You can then append the collection as I describe.

EDIT:

My advice is don't save local textures or pack them into the blend file; use the original location.

If you create any custom textures, have those in a custom folder, which I also have accessible by Studio.

Well, it does seem to me that, despite staring with "Of course not ..." you go on to confirm what I suggested - that assets need to be loaded into Blender and saved as .blend files. I understand that Blender works differently to DAZ Studio, I just wanted confirmation that the way I described it was they way to do it. I'm like all the others who find Blender somewhat confusing - I'm just trying to learn its idiosyncrasies. 

By the way, someone else mentioned "save and pack" in another post and I spent a good while trying to figure out what "pack" meant. I eventually found it and what it does:

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/files/blend/packed_data.html

I put in bold the part my post mainly related to. That was saying that blend files don't magically appear just like studio files don't magically appear. They both have to be created. I'll be more clear and add an addendum: Daz does provide Blend files, although I've not had any work that I've tried.

Yes. Honestly, I do get what you are saying - I can see that .blend files do need to be created. I was just trying to explain my confusion over the way Blender uses .blend files for a scene and also as containers or even as an asset library. I'm still not sure I have my head around that that - especially when it comes to things like poses and materials.

 

Think of the blend file like a scene file in DS, but searchable. Imagine if in addition to clicking and loading a scene you could right click it, or whatever, and select any element from that scene (if someone wants to add this feature to ds I'd be all for it)

or for a stonemason environment you could load it all in, or load in a single building right out of the same file

algovincian

For me, this discussion is shining a light on just how useful DS/DAZ's content management actually is - I think it's easy to take for granted. Have you considered exactly what "installing" new content that one has purchased looks like? How much work (time) does it actually entail?

I have a ton of content purchased at DAZ, and 2 of the main reasons I do so is convenience and time savings. Don't get me wrong, I use Blender and like it quite a bit. But as a replacement for DS . . . I'm not really close to being there. To me, any money spent on a beefy GPU to render in Iray will quickly be made up in time saved *not* having to try to manually replicate the content management system somehow, tweak mats, etc.

- Greg

algovincian

j cade said:

Think of the blend file like a scene file in DS, but searchable. Imagine if in addition to clicking and loading a scene you could right click it, or whatever, and select any element from that scene (if someone wants to add this feature to ds I'd be all for it)

or for a stonemason environment you could load it all in, or load in a single building right out of the same file

I agree and have often thought that such utility would be great in DS. Not sure that functionality would or could replace a "library", though.

- Greg

marble

algovincian said:

For me, this discussion is shining a light on just how useful DS/DAZ's content management actually is - I think it's easy to take for granted. Have you considered exactly what "installing" new content that one has purchased looks like? How much work (time) does it actually entail?

I have a ton of content purchased at DAZ, and 2 of the main reasons I do so is convenience and time savings. Don't get me wrong, I use Blender and like it quite a bit. But as a replacement for DS . . . I'm not really close to being there. To me, any money spent on a beefy GPU to render in Iray will quickly be made up in time saved *not* having to try to manually replicate the content management system somehow, tweak mats, etc.

- Greg

I'm inclined to agree although I do think it will be to my eventual benefit to learn how to transfer content to Blender and render in a different engine. I would also like to take advantage of the animation workflow that I'm told is far better in Blender. But yes, the potential time gained from faster renders does seem more than offset by the complexity of Blender for tweaking materials and the manner by which content is loaded and saved. 

So far my efforts at rendering in both Cycles and Eevee have fallen short of expectations - especially when we are assured that the diffeo bridge does such a good job of translating materials. I'm sure it does and I truly appreciate the work that has gone into the add-on but I have not yet found my experimental renders to match the quality of IRay. If I were to render everything in Cycles, I doubt that I would complain but I certainly can't yet mix renders from both engines if I am producing a story consisting of successive images. That said, I'm the first to admit that my Blender skills are sub-novice level and I doubt that my first IRay renders were anything to be proud of either.

Zilvergrafix

nicstt said:

If money was no object, and I liked being restricted to what I can do, and what render engine I could use, I would agree. But this is why we have options, we can all do what suits us best. We can even change our minds about what suits us as time passes for no other reason than we fancy changing something.

We certainly shouldn't do what other's think we should do.

I prefer iRay in DS, that porting to Blender, sorry to dissapoint to all the community 

Paintbox

marble said:

algovincian said:

For me, this discussion is shining a light on just how useful DS/DAZ's content management actually is - I think it's easy to take for granted. Have you considered exactly what "installing" new content that one has purchased looks like? How much work (time) does it actually entail?

I have a ton of content purchased at DAZ, and 2 of the main reasons I do so is convenience and time savings. Don't get me wrong, I use Blender and like it quite a bit. But as a replacement for DS . . . I'm not really close to being there. To me, any money spent on a beefy GPU to render in Iray will quickly be made up in time saved *not* having to try to manually replicate the content management system somehow, tweak mats, etc.

- Greg

I'm inclined to agree although I do think it will be to my eventual benefit to learn how to transfer content to Blender and render in a different engine. I would also like to take advantage of the animation workflow that I'm told is far better in Blender. But yes, the potential time gained from faster renders does seem more than offset by the complexity of Blender for tweaking materials and the manner by which content is loaded and saved. 

So far my efforts at rendering in both Cycles and Eevee have fallen short of expectations - especially when we are assured that the diffeo bridge does such a good job of translating materials. I'm sure it does and I truly appreciate the work that has gone into the add-on but I have not yet found my experimental renders to match the quality of IRay. If I were to render everything in Cycles, I doubt that I would complain but I certainly can't yet mix renders from both engines if I am producing a story consisting of successive images. That said, I'm the first to admit that my Blender skills are sub-novice level and I doubt that my first IRay renders were anything to be proud of either.

We are calling it a .blend "file" , but a more descriptive term would be "container" , as it holds objects or references to objects (materials, meshes, etc.)

takezo_3001

Zilvergrafix said:

nicstt said:

If money was no object, and I liked being restricted to what I can do, and what render engine I could use, I would agree. But this is why we have options, we can all do what suits us best. We can even change our minds about what suits us as time passes for no other reason than we fancy changing something.

We certainly shouldn't do what other's think we should do.

I prefer iRay in DS, that porting to Blender, sorry to dissapoint to all the community 

This is the major reason why I'm dead set towards getting a 3090, as the bulk of my artwork rests upon DAZ Studio's shoulders, the program itself is perfect for posing, compositing and rendering scenes with the most versatile, inexpensive and complex character models around! (Turbosquid take note)

Now only if they can improve their IK/animation...

 

nicstt

marble said:

nicstt said:

marble said:

nicstt said:

karmaspice2000_2c77e33c86 said:

DAZ Bridges is a Plan B in case Nvidia is abondoning Iray (which is quite possible) The Blender GUI has improved greatly in the past couple of releases. However it's still a proverbial pain in the a55. I keep trying to migrate to Blender but keep leaving out of frustration.

It's a matter of perspective; I've like Blender's UI since 2.50; I don't like Studio's. I can work with it, but I don't like it.

 

 

marble said:

Yes, I have asked before but I have not been able to grasp the idea of .blend files with respect to a content library. I'm still finding it difficult to understand the logic of doing it the Blender way but, having watched a few more videos I can see how it is done. As I said, if that new Asset Management system is adopted in the standard release, I will be much more comfortable if it works they way it is shown in that video. 

There's still one thing that is unclear to me. If you first need to put your assets into a .blend file (or multiple .blend files) does that mean that you can't have a library of installed assets (as we have with DAZ Studio) without first having loaded each and every one into a .blend file and stored it somewhere? So I could not, for instance, purchase an asset from somewhere or grab one from my DAZ Studio Content Library and have it available to Blender without having first loaded it into a .blend file in order to be able to append it into any other .blend file? Then the further question arises - how do I get it into the first .blend file if it already needs to be in a .blend file in order to append it? I have to admit that the only way I have imported objects into Blender so far is from DAZ Studio, either by .OBJ import or by Diffeomorphic.

Of course not.

Just like Studio assets need creating - which PAs do for most people, Blender files also need creating. However, we can also create our own Studio assets. They can be morph assets, pose assets and others. Now, there are Blend files available from Daz, but last time I checked they were broken - wrong scale and wrong position; materials also weren't the best. Diffeo does a brilliant job.

Blender works differently, I usually suggest folks stop thinking about how it's done in Studio, and learn how it is done in Blender; then they can look at corrolations to help them better transfer and manage assets.

If you want to create a blender asset; load up something - pick something relatively simple as a learning process.

Load it Studio; export using Diffeo plugin (remembering to run the script).

Import into Blender using the Diffeo plugin.

Optionally make any adjustments you feel would be useful including making sure all items are in a Collection and that the Collection has a name.

... Then save as a Blend file. You can then append the collection as I describe.

EDIT:

My advice is don't save local textures or pack them into the blend file; use the original location.

If you create any custom textures, have those in a custom folder, which I also have accessible by Studio.

Well, it does seem to me that, despite staring with "Of course not ..." you go on to confirm what I suggested - that assets need to be loaded into Blender and saved as .blend files. I understand that Blender works differently to DAZ Studio, I just wanted confirmation that the way I described it was they way to do it. I'm like all the others who find Blender somewhat confusing - I'm just trying to learn its idiosyncrasies. 

By the way, someone else mentioned "save and pack" in another post and I spent a good while trying to figure out what "pack" meant. I eventually found it and what it does:

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/files/blend/packed_data.html

I put in bold the part my post mainly related to. That was saying that blend files don't magically appear just like studio files don't magically appear. They both have to be created. I'll be more clear and add an addendum: Daz does provide Blend files, although I've not had any work that I've tried.

Yes. Honestly, I do get what you are saying - I can see that .blend files do need to be created. I was just trying to explain my confusion over the way Blender uses .blend files for a scene and also as containers or even as an asset library. I'm still not sure I have my head around that that - especially when it comes to things like poses and materials.

 

The same is true in Studio. The real difference that Studio has is that it has a robust asset management system. Blender doesn't yet. It is very good at appending - and as far as I'm aware - everything is a data block, which in theory means you can append anything. Basically, if it is in a folder you can append it - sometimes figuring out how to use it once append can be fun. But for the more normal (from a Studio perspective) items are simple to Append.

A subset can be saved by the user (as can a normal save), and both can be merged; many things can be saved by the user - or purchased by them - poses, shaders to name two popular ones as well as props and characters. All can be merged into Studio, although Shaders and poses depend on what is already present.

In Blender you can Append (merge) a material even if there is nothing loaded that can use it; it will lurk until required, but can disappear when closed.

Edit:

There are a couple of extra steps with poses, but once created and saved in the Blend file, appending is just the same.

Click on Append > navigate to the file, open it > Action folder (if there is no action folder then there are no stored poses).

Object Data Properties (image of a dude running) > Pose Library Section > in there you can create, select existing and switch between current ones.

As you can see from the images, there is no pose library currently selected, which is why the image shows new; clicking on the down arrow opens the window to select a library, but as there isn't one present, we can't.

After appending one from the Action folder you can see there is now a library present (i include Rigify in the name so I know it was created when the character had rigify); you will notice the 0 (zero) before the A-Pose - Rigify; this means that it has no fake user and could be deleted when the file is saved. If you have more than one pose library, click on the shield (visible in the fourth image) this will protect the data block, which in this case is a library. An F appears in place of the 0 - not shown. The fourth image shows some of the poses in the library. They can be full or partial poses and named as you see fit.

NOTE: There are no individual poses, only pose libraries; you can chose how many poses to group in the libraries.

Leonides02

takezo_3001 said:

If money was no object, and I liked being restricted to what I can do, and what render engine I could use, I would agree. But this is why we have options, we can all do what suits us best. We can even change our minds about what suits us as time passes for no other reason than we fancy changing something.

We certainly shouldn't do what other's think we should do.

I prefer iRay in DS, that porting to Blender, sorry to dissapoint to all the community 

This is the major reason why I'm dead set towards getting a 3090, as the bulk of my artwork rests upon DAZ Studio's shoulders, the program itself is perfect for posing, compositing and rendering scenes with the most versatile, inexpensive and complex character models around! (Turbosquid take note)

Now only if they can improve their IK/animation...

Agreed. I produced a comic using DAZ and as much as I'd like to learn Blender, trying to port everything over takes so much damn time. And, sure, I could port the scene once and then try to manipulate everything within Blender, but it's way more time-consuming. As much as many of us like to harp on DAZ, it really is an amazing product if you're producing a series of still CG images.