What is causing this?
music2u4u
Posts: 2,822
Hi folks. I recently downloaded the new version of Daz that comes with Daz Central. 4.15 I think. I have been using Daz on this computer since I bought it years ago. I have uped the RAM to 8 gigs so it works great. I now have a problem which I cant solve. Maybe one of you can help me. I have done a few renders of scenes, some I created, and some "right out of the box" with their settings. They all have the same problem. Lots of snow! Hundreds of tiny specks all over the render. Some I have let sit for hours and they still have the snow. I have set my render times for long periods so the render is still going after hours. No improvements. I am going to attatch a few of them so you can see the snow. Always look the same. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? I have never had this problem before with versions of Daz. I used 4.12 for a long time with no problem with snow. However, I did get a lot of " Daz has encountered a fatal error and must close" message, then it shits down. So, I doubled my RAM and with the new Daz 4.15, I do not get that message anymore, only LOTS OF SNOW! Please tell me why it is happening. Thanks.
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Comments
What GPU are you using?
How do I find out?
...wow that's really bad. Reminds me of when I was still working with Reality/Lux. Even a day or so later that is about the same quality I would see.
Yeah I stayed with 4.12 (one of the betas) and it's been doing fine for me. Has the convergence reached 100%?
The best I can suggest is check your render settings to see if they haven't gone back to default. I usually set limits for iterations rather high and my convergence percentage to 99% (default is 95%) Also check your render quality. 2 should be the norm.
I will admit 8 GB is pretty low I had trouble with 12 (keep in mind Windows and system processes will always take up a portion of RAM as well as having any other processes open at the time [like a Net browser]). I since upgraded that to 24.(which is actually just under 23 GB after the "basics")
I take it you are rendering on the CPU, correct?
I don't know what you mean!
I'm back home and now using W7, but these should be sowhat the same in W10 also;
If you right-click on your desktop, do you get "Nvidia Control Panel" on the menu?
In Nvidia Control Panel, go to lower left corner and select "System Information", what does it say under "Graphics Card Information" / "Items" (the box on the left)?
If not, how about "Screen Resolution" -> "Advanced Settings" ?
In Screen Resolution -> Advanced Settings, what does it say under "Adapter Type"?
Looks like you have no supported GPU (Graphics Adapters) in your computer and DS is using CPU for rendering, which takes about ten times (or way more) longer that rendering with a supported GPU.
The white artifacts are caused by rendering being far from "finished"
AMD cards are not supported for Iray rendering.
Without a compatible nvidia card, results will be bad and take too much time. You can get better than that by incresing the time limit, but it will still be too slow.
You may need to limit to 3dlight or maybe try filament until you can get 10xx 20xx 30xx nvidia. With RAM being the priority, then RTX and performance. Lower models will work too, i started with a 940mx, better than CPU but only worked on small scenes and still painfully slow.
Aside from the GPU/CPU issue, that "snow" is typically caused by lights being too bright and/or surfaces being too shiny. As I understand it, Daz has a very limited dynamic range by default, which results in light rays very easily clipping to pure white. Try turning "Spectral Rendering" on and set it to "Natural". I believe that expands the dynamic range to cut down on fireflies. Due to the expanded dynamic range, it'll probably make your renders very, very dark; if so, add a point light with its geometry set to "Sphere" and its radius like 100cm or something, then turn it up until you can see the room.
GET OUT! Does this mean I have to go buy a Nvida graphics card? My main pooter, a two year old Dell, has Windows 10 (this one has 7) and a Nvida card in it. It did fine until I installed the new Daz 4.15 and now it is stuck in a startup loop and just keeps trying to open windows, shuts down, tries to open windows, shuts down, over and over. I have watched five videos on how to get it to startup but none of them work. I was forced to drag out this old windows 7 pooter and up the RAM to use. All my good stuff and 3d files are on the Dell. Any advice on getting it to start up? Please help if you can. I would be ohhh so grateful!
I usually stay away from adding lights and just use the lights provided by the scene. I have tried to add lights in Iray before and it is a disaster with being too dark or too light. The default lights are usuall perfect and have shadows.
All the settings KK mentioned should be in the render settings tab. They are easy to overlook. Many users have said DS 4.15 does use more RAM but that probably isn't causing the snowiness. I know it doesn't help now, but if you can eventually switch to an Nvidia graphics card some day, you will get much faster renders when using Iray.
I think that your previous renders were 3delight, which runs perfectly fine on CPU, but your new install set iray as default again, which isn't really great for CPU rendering. So, I'd suggest trying to render in 3delight again.
OK...I tried the spectral rendering with the natural setting and it looks even worse! I have a Nvida graphics card I bought years ago in an old pooter in my closet with Windows Vista on it. Could that card work in this pooter. Both HP pooters just different Windows versions. It was an expensive card of the times. Also, if not, would the Nvida card in the Dell work in this HP pooter with Windows 7 on it?
I'd recommend learning to get better at lights. Because those fireflies are the result of a room being either too dark or too light. Might as well rip that band-aid off now and improve your skills.
Not to mention, without adding your own spotlights, any characters you render will look like garbage.
I do not use 3delight. I only use the open GL for fast and Iray for finals. I quit using it back with Daz 3.0.
I used to use a lot of lights with the Uber environment renders. I have tons of HDRI rendering lights for potrait use but none for overall scenes. I can load a scene, turn off the headlights and add ones that you can raise or lower, expand or reduce width and heighths etc., but they never seem to work for me very well. Here is an example of a render I did using the Deco club stage with Miley Cyrus performing. This was after a huge amount of time moving them around, trying different ones, to get this render. I just don't like having to spend so much time with lights on a single render.
Here is the render done with 3Delight. It has a "sunlight" on the scene list but as you can see, no light coming in the window. It is pure dark. No shadows on anything. The pictures on the wall are gone to black. But...NO SNOW...lol. This sux!
Without knowing your settings, I can only speculate on the lighting. But if I were doing this scene, it'd take me two minutes tops to create a prelimary setup.
Put a point light in the center of the room. Change the geometry to Sphere and make it big, like 250cm or so. Give it a blue tint to fill the room with dark, smoky ambiance. Crank the lumens up to 250,000 and go from there.
Add a spotlight and aim it at her. Change the geometry to disk and make the size 10 to 100cm. Give it a narrow angle, like 15, and a high beam exponent to create a very tight shadow. And--assuming this is Spectral rendering--take the lumens up to 100,000,000. Give it a hot orange tint to simulate stage lighting.
Those settings would definitely need tweaking, but that's what I'd start with.
The best render I have gotten yet is with the "viewport" selected (open GL I assume), and the headlight turned on. This is the best I can get with this pooter.
OK FOLKS!.....Now this is really weird. Last night I decided, for some unknown reason, to uninstall the DAZ CENTRAL that you have to get to get this Daz 4.15 version. I noticed that it is a seperate files location than the actual Daz program, so it uninstalled without taking the Daz 4.15 with it. After I got rid of it (because I would never use it to surf this site) I tried again to do some Iray renders. Low and behold, NOW they are rendering fine without snow (fireflies). Almost completely gone! Now why is that? There must be a connection. I do have a AMD card, not a Nvida. Someone said in here that the Iray renders do not support AMD cards. Well, look at these renders I did right after I uninstalled DAZ CENTRAL. Even my nighttime twister came out with no snow. Not even a speck and it is a dark render! WHY? Anyone?
You sure that is iray?
And btw, daz central is an alternative to dim. Daz may try to make you install central instead of dim (and give you the impression that you need it), but you can get up to date daz studio with dim just fine.
Iray is NVIDIA's renderer, so the only options are; a supported (not too old) NVIDIA GPU or rendering with CPU.
..I've seen many Iray renders postworked to the point where they are no longer "phtotoreal".
You can say the same thing about photographs.
i wish this person would stop saying pooter.
...yep.
Maybe they just need a tutorial?