Is Studio 4.15 worth upgrading to from 4.12??
hacsart
Posts: 2,029
in The Commons
I'm currently running 4.12, and for me it works. What does 4.15 briong to the table, and is it a worthwhile upgrade? Any issues/problems/content that stops working? Is performance the same or better? Any and all comments welcome.
Thanks!
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4.15 has a few bugs (I think there may be an issue with some transmapped hair and maybe some other issues?), but it lets you use G8.1 with G8 morphs and the new PBR shader. It also has an environment haze feature in the render settings (which Skies of Economy uses). Colm Jackson's Render Studio 3 will only work in 4.15. The other thing to know about is that 4.15 takes more memory and may fall back to CPU when rendering more often. (With 4 paired down figures in my scene, it took 2 extra GBs, but that was not a scientific study). So my solution is to keep both on my pc, with one being installed on my C drive, and one to my D drive. I use 4.12 unless I want to use the new features, or items like render studio 3.
I do like the new face rig thing and the environment haze option and some of the newer items, so it's nice to have the option to use them. But so far, I haven't been digging the PBR skins, with a few notable exceptions (Torment and Jada).
Well, since I know you like to render in 3DL I would atleast think twice before overwriting your current version. Seen reports of slower loading times, same 3DLversion that you have now, so can't see the benefit, unless you need G8.1 and the PBR shader...
Yeah, none of the 8.1 features are enough for me to deal with the increased resources used issue, at least not yet. DS is already too resource hogging and 4.12 is working fine, so I will probably stick with it till they give DS more performance headroom or I get a new PC. I have been doing this awhile and I am to a point where I just want to create, not spend all my time optimizing in hopes my PC won't melt down.
Thanks Sven!
The only things I currently render in iray is anything in Ultrascenery. IBL master and AWE work for me.
If you rarely use Iray, I don't see any reason to upgrade, since basically every new feature is tied to Iray in some way.
There may be some small improvements to dforce simulation, making it less explosive, and some other minor things. I don't know if it truly uses that much more data than the previous, but it does use a little more. If you do render some Iray, normal maps have been tweaked. Things that use normal maps will render significantly faster in 4.14+ than in 4.12. The difference is like upgrading your GPU to a higher class tier. The downside to this is that in exchange normal maps apparently use a little more data. So how much you use normal maps in a given scene will impact how much faster 4.14+ is, and how much memory it may use compared to 4.12. If you don't use any normal maps, you will not see much difference in either. This is specific to Iray.
I have noticed that Daz is less stable than it used to be, and I am not sure why. I think it might also be related to the normal map handling, but that is a pure guess. The crashes always happen when I start a new render.
But don't forget you always try the beta out instead of upgrading. The beta is completely separate, and so will not overwrite your existing Daz install. Both versions can access the same saves and content library, with the only exception being an item that specifically uses a new feature. Obviously if you save a character with PBR Skin in the beta it will not load properly in the older Daz.
So you really have nothing to fear in trying the beta. You can even run them side by side.
...I've continued with the 4.12.0.47 Beta as it has been one of the most stable versions I've ever used in al lthe years I've beenat this (4.6 was another veyr stable one). As I have invested little in G8, have no interest in 8.1, have a three generation old GPU, and don't like dealing with bugs that interfere with my workflow or the programme's stability, I have no need to update from what I am using.
You can run the 4.15 Beta along with the 4.12 full program, that's what I have. I dodge between the two as the mood takes me to see if there is any difference between the two on some renders.
I didn't compare them too heavily, other than make sure some of my scenes and characters load properly. Nothing seemed to blow up.
I didn't notice 4.15 using additional resources, other than it appears Daz Studio doesn't let go of all of the memory closing scenes. I had some scenes right at the edge of my 11 & 12 GB cards, but if opened other scenes (and closed of course) then go to the larger scene they wouldn't fit. I had to close out of DS & reopen. I am not positive but I think that happened to me with DS 4.12 as well.
...one of the issues with that however is if you make changes to and save a scene in a newer version (like 4.15)and decide to back to and stay with an older version the scene cannot be opened. This has been the norm ever since I started with Daz.
I haven't noticed that with any scenes I have made.
That was true of .daz files. It isn't true of .duf files, though of course there may be differences if the scene uses a feature not in the older version or bugged in the older version.
...the latter is what I usually run into.
This is not correct. I literally do this on a daily basis hopping between a beta and full release. The only time you may have any issue is if you save something in the scene that is specifically a new feature that is not yet part of the other version. For example, you cannot save a dforce strand hair in a current Daz and open it in 4.10 because 4.10 did not have the strand hair. The scene will actually load, however, it will pop up a bunch of errors and the strand hair will not load. The rest of the scene will in fact load.
BTW, @Fishtales, if you are rendering to compare speeds, look at how many normal maps you have in use at the time.
I did a series of tests between 4.12 and 4.14 trying to see what was different. Also, if you look at the update log for 4.14, there is a mention of (to paraphrase) 'changing how Iray handles normal maps to be more efficient'. I found that using a normal map on a character in 4.12 really impacted render times vs using HD subdivision. It was actually faster to render a Daz Original with their HD than it was to render the same character and scene with a normal map applied. At least until you got to subD 4 and 5, and subD 4 was pretty close. In 4.14 and above, the same scene with normal maps now renders more on par with the HD subD. I can't recall if it jumped back ahead or not, but the difference was striking, in some cases nearly twice as fast over 4.12. I did observe a small bump in VRAM in this scene when rendering, but it was quite small, like 50MB if I remember right, BUT only when using normals. I tested out displacement maps and bump maps, and I was not able to find any difference in performance between them.
Genesis 8.1 will load in older versons of Daz, even versions that predate Iray. However it will not load your collection of 8.0 morphs.
...already addressed that in response to Richard's comment who also confirmed the same. I've often received the message that a scene had to be opened in the newer version after the .duf format was adopted.(like say between 4.10 and 4.11 or 4.11 and 4.12).
One of the bottom lines is 4.12.0.,47 has been extremely stable. 4.15 has bugs in it. I opt for stability particularly as I have older hardware.
outrider42.. appreciate the comments on performance, but its a non-issue - Iray is not my render engine of choice..
I use Daz 4.12 and found that if I copy the Morph folder from /data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 8/Male and paste it into /data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 8/Male8_1, the morphs work. Expressions are another story. I only gave it a try because Storybook Mouse was said to only work with 4.15.
...I've seen some of the work Sven and others have done in 3DL with the Awe Shader and IBL Master and it is getting extremely close.
That scene I did of the girls at the bus stop several years ago in which just used IBL Master and the AoA Advanced Distant Light rendered in about 14 min on a first generation 4 core/8 thread 2.8 GHz i7 with 12 GB of DDR3 1333 memory. The Iray version (exact same scene just everything optimised for Iray) took about 2 hours and something like 30 or 40 min to render in CPU mode (didn't have a render capable GPU back then).
Didn't have the Awe Shader at the time, but shortly after I purchased and installed it, and was about to rework the scene, I had a fatal drive crash.that took everything.
Edit: Apparently there's a workaround for it.
https://www.versluis.com/2021/02/hair-and-transparency-ds415/
Still would be nice to have it simply fixed if possible.
You can easily back up 4.12 and see for yourself, if you don't like it you can always revert back!
Agreed, I still have my old Studio 4.6 installed, and indeed, converted my old .Daz scenes to the .Duf format to work in both the general release and beta versions!