Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
You and me both. I would be lost without the Iray preview option
You have to turn groups off to do an Iray preview. Try turning off everything but ground, water, and trees for lighting setup. You can turn seperate groups on and off as needed. And only build in camera view as well, that helps.
Same issue for me, they look amazing but I find it almost impossible to use without preview. I have to ask, for those who do so, how can you set up your scene without it? In my last attempt I wasted 30 minutes trying to place a character in a way that it doesn't mix with plants and is still placed sort of where I wanted it. Most of that was spent wainting for preview.
Just to make sure I'm not missing anything here or doing something wrong, the instances are not visible in texture shaded and most of them can't be selected, right? Is there any way to change this?
Use masks ioomrxoon, you can add greyscale maps for each layer where you want nothing or a little bit
Yep, that just about describes my process.... To be honest I am comfortable with spending that time as the results are so impressive. I'd prefer it to be quicker, but I can live with it. Thinking back to the days of 2007 when I was using V4 & ray tracing in 3DL on my PC of the time, and it took 26 hours 43 mins to render a not very spectacular 1280 x 1267 image (https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/gallery/in-the-garden/1400714/ ). Compared to that, I can live with 30 mins to position the figure.
Regards,
Richard
The problem with building in camera view is that you're locked in at that point with the camera...better hope whatever US decides to build works with where you positioned your figure relative to the camera! I think the issue with US for me is that it's not really meant to do what I need it do for my workflow...it's more meant to make the landscape the focus of the scene and not a figure with the landscape specifically tailored to fit that figure and camera.
I avoid Iray preview like the plague in US. Both of my render computers will pitch a fit, and the 64gb, 1080ti will crash if it gets stressed. So I have taken to doing little 300 x 300 test renders to get an idea of what I am looking at, and to position or get lighting right. But it is hard to see small details. I also find it necessary to save frequently and often close and reboot, the reopen DS and the scene to continue work or do a final render.
But I can't recommend the Commercial thread enough. So many people have experimented with ways to overcome some of the issues folks have written about here. Some way above my paygrade but many of you would understand. Besides it is just simply lovely for renders.
What I do to make the Iray preview usable is to hide almost all of the small plants/pebbles before I switch the preview on. I leave the trees and large bushes visible, and with them alone showing I find Iray preview works quite well. I can easily move the camera, and adjust settings like the position of the HDR or sun, adjust Tone Mapping etc.
Since there are just 10s of trees, compared to 10s of thousands of smaller plants, then the preview will not get swamped, and so is still usable. Since the trees and/or large bushes tend to be the things that either block the camera and/or cast shadows where I do not want them, then they are the most important things you want visible. You also need to ensure that your added characters/animals/props etc do not have a tree growing through them, and so having them visible allows you to fine tune your prop positions, or even move the trees around if needed. The fact that the characters are stood in grass you can not see is usually less important.
Once I have everything set up as desired, I will then unhide all the small plants, then hit render.