Daz Studio 5 development update

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  • efron_24 said:

    Almost november, but no Daz 5 yet

    Do you also bring us Genesis 9 when Daz 5 arrives

    We hope so..

    Daz Studio 5 was to be released, as a pre-beta, in order to addess Mac Big Sur compatibility. Since they managed to address that in DS 4.15.0.30 Daz Studio 5 will presumably not appear, I guess as a straight beta, until it is more complete.

  • Richard Haseltine said:

    efron_24 said:

    Almost november, but no Daz 5 yet

    Do you also bring us Genesis 9 when Daz 5 arrives

    We hope so..

    Daz Studio 5 was to be released, as a pre-beta, in order to addess Mac Big Sur compatibility. Since they managed to address that in DS 4.15.0.30 Daz Studio 5 will presumably not appear, I guess as a straight beta, until it is more complete.

    More complete mean 5.1 .

  • charlescharles Posts: 845
    edited October 2021

    kyoto kid said:

    ...that would increase render times as well as put a heavier demand on system memory, and VRAM.  

    It would be just the opposite. Standard occlusion is the process used in game engines to not send information that is not visible to the camera to the GPU. There would need to be settings to allow certain objects or groups to bypass occlussion, so say if you want something offscreen to cast a shadow into the camera view.

    So occlussion would help automaticaly optimize scenes for rendering. Also if  you have a wall and some objects in the scene behind the wall, they can be ignored when computing the information going to the GPU. Right now EVERYTHING in the scene goes to the render process.

    A 3d game has to do this every frame and is the core mechanism to achiving high FPS. Daz just has to do it once for stills, and once every time it starts a new frame for animation. The time it takes for games is typically milliseconds, so it would not be noticable at all in Daz.

     

     

    Post edited by charles on
  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    The RED Crown said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    efron_24 said:

    Almost november, but no Daz 5 yet

    Do you also bring us Genesis 9 when Daz 5 arrives

    We hope so..

    Daz Studio 5 was to be released, as a pre-beta, in order to addess Mac Big Sur compatibility. Since they managed to address that in DS 4.15.0.30 Daz Studio 5 will presumably not appear, I guess as a straight beta, until it is more complete.

    More complete mean 5.1 .

    No, more like the beta's that have been available for DS.

    They were thinking of releasing a pre-beta, which would have essentially been an alpha-version...
    If you have never been a part of software development process, you would be surpriced of the amount of problems usually present at that stage

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,036

    charles said:

    kyoto kid said:

    ...that would increase render times as well as put a heavier demand on system memory, and VRAM.  

    It would be just the opposite. Standard occlusion is the process used in game engines to not send information that is not visible to the camera to the GPU. There would need to be settings to allow certain objects or groups to bypass occlussion, so say if you want something offscreen to cast a shadow into the camera view.

    So occlussion would help automaticaly optimize scenes for rendering. Also if  you have a wall and some objects in the scene behind the wall, they can be ignored when computing the information going to the GPU. Right now EVERYTHING in the scene goes to the render process.

    A 3d game has to do this every frame and is the core mechanism to achiving high FPS. Daz just has to do it once for stills, and once every time it starts a new frame for animation. The time it takes for games is typically milliseconds, so it would not be noticable at all in Daz.

     

     

     ...apologies but when I see the term, ambient occlusion is what comes to mind which does require more system resources. Not into animation, game design, gaming at all so not aware of other uses for the term.

  • ImagoImago Posts: 5,152

    But Occlusion is already present in 4.12 and 4.15, why he's asking for it? surprise I used it a lot in the past.

    Way better ask for a better implementation of Filament and fix to its few (for now) bugs, it will be great see it in the list along with 3Delight and IRay.

  • charles said:

    kyoto kid said:

    ...that would increase render times as well as put a heavier demand on system memory, and VRAM.  

    It would be just the opposite. Standard occlusion is the process used in game engines to not send information that is not visible to the camera to the GPU. There would need to be settings to allow certain objects or groups to bypass occlussion, so say if you want something offscreen to cast a shadow into the camera view.

    So occlussion would help automaticaly optimize scenes for rendering. Also if  you have a wall and some objects in the scene behind the wall, they can be ignored when computing the information going to the GPU. Right now EVERYTHING in the scene goes to the render process.

    A 3d game has to do this every frame and is the core mechanism to achiving high FPS. Daz just has to do it once for stills, and once every time it starts a new frame for animation. The time it takes for games is typically milliseconds, so it would not be noticable at all in Daz.

    I assumed he was talking about Ambient Occlusion.

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    What a mysterious discussion! You guys all render in iray that does full-blown path tracing with all the indirect diff/spec bounces one could wish for... which is a super computationally expensive thing to do... ergo, no need for something as "oldschool" as AO, to put it mildly.

    And geometry culling, I thought each and every renderer, including that scary OpenGL viewport in DS, does it (with varying efficiency, but still)... 

  • Mustakettu85 said:

    What a mysterious discussion! You guys all render in iray that does full-blown path tracing with all the indirect diff/spec bounces one could wish for... which is a super computationally expensive thing to do... ergo, no need for something as "oldschool" as AO, to put it mildly.

    And geometry culling, I thought each and every renderer, including that scary OpenGL viewport in DS, does it (with varying efficiency, but still)... 

    I meant AO for blending textures, e.g. grunge around where the floor geometry meets the wall geometry, not the effect one gets from global illumination.

  • charlescharles Posts: 845
    edited October 2021

    Sorry for the confusion I should have probably called it Occlusion Culling.

    As far it already being in there? I can't tell my reports are showing everything going, even stuff not visible to camera.

     

    Post edited by charles on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,036

    ...thank you, To tell the truth never heard that particular term before, then again not into game development.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,036

    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

    Mustakettu85 said:

    What a mysterious discussion! You guys all render in iray that does full-blown path tracing with all the indirect diff/spec bounces one could wish for... which is a super computationally expensive thing to do... ergo, no need for something as "oldschool" as AO, to put it mildly.

    And geometry culling, I thought each and every renderer, including that scary OpenGL viewport in DS, does it (with varying efficiency, but still)... 

    I meant AO for blending textures, e.g. grunge around where the floor geometry meets the wall geometry, not the effect one gets from global illumination.

    ...same here. 

    I tried using Reflective Radiance in 3DL and it put rendering into "molasses mode".

  • RuthvenRuthven Posts: 653

    On Mac OS, I hope Daz 5 will allow using content from local network-shared volumes

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    I meant AO for blending textures, e.g. grunge around where the floor geometry meets the wall geometry, not the effect one gets from global illumination.

    Isn't this best done when texturing? Substance Painter and probably other tools can generate these masks on the fly.

    If you want tiling textures for floor & walls, you could then just paint only your dirt layer with an alpha map, and then apply it onto geometry shells.

    Of course, I'm thinking like someone who's used to CPU rendering hence no RAM concerns. Trying to get a material to do this all procedurally inside iray... I'm not sure, is it in the MDL spec at all?

  • Mark_e593e0a5Mark_e593e0a5 Posts: 1,594
    edited October 2021

    Ruthven said:

    On Mac OS, I hope Daz 5 will allow using content from local network-shared volumes

    It already works, kind of. You have to connect your network shares using smb protocol, not afp.

    Another solution is:

    1. mount the drives 
    2. create a symbolic link using the terminal (i.e. replace your current Daz directories by the symlink. To DS it will look like the original path)

    You can re-mount the drives at login by dragging the drives to the startup objects in the Users & Groups system settings.

    Post edited by Mark_e593e0a5 on
  • RuthvenRuthven Posts: 653

    Mark_e593e0a5 said:

    Ruthven said:

    On Mac OS, I hope Daz 5 will allow using content from local network-shared volumes

    It already works, kind of. You have to connect your network shares using smb protocol, not afp.

    Another solution is:

    1. mount the drives 
    2. create a symbolic link using the terminal (i.e. replace your current Daz directories by the symlink. To DS it will look like the original path)

    You can re-mount the drives at login by dragging the drives to the startup objects in the Users & Groups system settings

    Explicetely giving the Finder a "Go to server..." command and entering the smb address of the other mac, than selecting the drives mounted them directly as volumes (and not "other pc/shared drive") ones; this made the directories actually available under the Daz content libraries. On the sharing pc I already had activated both the afp and smb sharing protocols. So...

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

  • margravemargrave Posts: 1,822

    Mustakettu85 said:

    Isn't this best done when texturing? Substance Painter and probably other tools can generate these masks on the fly.

    If you want tiling textures for floor & walls, you could then just paint only your dirt layer with an alpha map, and then apply it onto geometry shells.

    Of course, I'm thinking like someone who's used to CPU rendering hence no RAM concerns. Trying to get a material to do this all procedurally inside iray... I'm not sure, is it in the MDL spec at all?

    Daz Studio has plenty of Shader Mixer nodes for blending layers.

    There's just no documentation on how they work.

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    margrave said:

    Mustakettu85 said:

    Isn't this best done when texturing? Substance Painter and probably other tools can generate these masks on the fly.

    If you want tiling textures for floor & walls, you could then just paint only your dirt layer with an alpha map, and then apply it onto geometry shells.

    Of course, I'm thinking like someone who's used to CPU rendering hence no RAM concerns. Trying to get a material to do this all procedurally inside iray... I'm not sure, is it in the MDL spec at all?

    Daz Studio has plenty of Shader Mixer nodes for blending layers.

    There's just no documentation on how they work.

    So the "here are the tools but please don't ask for docs" thing is still relevant in the Iray world, too? Shame. 

    You have checked the most recent MDL spec, right? I only went through it once or twice way back when iray became a thing in DS. Things might've changed...

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,036

    ...I understand strand based hair because I already had and used Garibaldi Express.

  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,169

    Mustakettu85 said:

    margrave said:

    Mustakettu85 said:

    Isn't this best done when texturing? Substance Painter and probably other tools can generate these masks on the fly.

    If you want tiling textures for floor & walls, you could then just paint only your dirt layer with an alpha map, and then apply it onto geometry shells.

    Of course, I'm thinking like someone who's used to CPU rendering hence no RAM concerns. Trying to get a material to do this all procedurally inside iray... I'm not sure, is it in the MDL spec at all?

    Daz Studio has plenty of Shader Mixer nodes for blending layers.

    There's just no documentation on how they work.

    So the "here are the tools but please don't ask for docs" thing is still relevant in the Iray world, too? Shame. 

    You have checked the most recent MDL spec, right? I only went through it once or twice way back when iray became a thing in DS. Things might've changed...

    Oh, there is definitely documentation on the MDL spec in Iray. It's Daz Studio that has none ;). Shader Mixer is a complete mystery to me, and I'm sure to most. 

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    AllenArt said:

    Shader Mixer is a complete mystery to me, and I'm sure to most. 

     

    Your words have given me a severe attack of déjà vu =D

    I just hope that the Iray section of it is not as full of game-breaking bugs as the RSL original was!

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,036

    AllenArt said:

    Mustakettu85 said:

    margrave said:

    Mustakettu85 said:

    Isn't this best done when texturing? Substance Painter and probably other tools can generate these masks on the fly.

    If you want tiling textures for floor & walls, you could then just paint only your dirt layer with an alpha map, and then apply it onto geometry shells.

    Of course, I'm thinking like someone who's used to CPU rendering hence no RAM concerns. Trying to get a material to do this all procedurally inside iray... I'm not sure, is it in the MDL spec at all?

    Daz Studio has plenty of Shader Mixer nodes for blending layers.

    There's just no documentation on how they work.

    So the "here are the tools but please don't ask for docs" thing is still relevant in the Iray world, too? Shame. 

    You have checked the most recent MDL spec, right? I only went through it once or twice way back when iray became a thing in DS. Things might've changed...

    Oh, there is definitely documentation on the MDL spec in Iray. It's Daz Studio that has none ;). Shader Mixer is a complete mystery to me, and I'm sure to most. 

    ...it's like trying to navigate the Underground for the first time  without a map. 

  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,169

    kyoto kid said:

    AllenArt said:

    Mustakettu85 said:

    margrave said:

    Mustakettu85 said:

    Isn't this best done when texturing? Substance Painter and probably other tools can generate these masks on the fly.

    If you want tiling textures for floor & walls, you could then just paint only your dirt layer with an alpha map, and then apply it onto geometry shells.

    Of course, I'm thinking like someone who's used to CPU rendering hence no RAM concerns. Trying to get a material to do this all procedurally inside iray... I'm not sure, is it in the MDL spec at all?

    Daz Studio has plenty of Shader Mixer nodes for blending layers.

    There's just no documentation on how they work.

    So the "here are the tools but please don't ask for docs" thing is still relevant in the Iray world, too? Shame. 

    You have checked the most recent MDL spec, right? I only went through it once or twice way back when iray became a thing in DS. Things might've changed...

    Oh, there is definitely documentation on the MDL spec in Iray. It's Daz Studio that has none ;). Shader Mixer is a complete mystery to me, and I'm sure to most. 

    ...it's like trying to navigate the Underground for the first time  without a map. 

    I would LOVE to be able use the Shader Mixer like I used to use Poser's material room nodes. But Shader Mixer is even more confusing than Poser's nodes o.O I don't have the first clue how to use them. If I did, I'd be mixing up shaders all day long. LOL 

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    AllenArt said:

    I would LOVE to be able use the Shader Mixer like I used to use Poser's material room nodes. But Shader Mixer is even more confusing than Poser's nodes o.O I don't have the first clue how to use them. If I did, I'd be mixing up shaders all day long. LOL 

    Maybe you need to team up with margrave? https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/505581/the-shader-mixer-deciphered-blender-to-daz-conversion/p1
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,036

    ...I actually like Carrara's shader building system, find it much more intuitive, and you can pretty much instantly see the results.. I was surprised that Daz didn't go with that system as they own Carrara.

  • wsterdanwsterdan Posts: 2,344

    kyoto kid said:

    ...I actually like Carrara's shader building system, find it much more intuitive, and you can pretty much instantly see the results.. I was surprised that Daz didn't go with that system as they own Carrara.

    It's unfortunate that DAZ never had enough resources to keep Carrara updated and on par with D|S, there's enough features in Carrara Pro to relieve the need for a lot of the other bridges to 3D software. It would be nice if Carrara had a bridge itself to use the latest characters, with enough of an upgrade to at least run fully on the latest operating systems.

    -- Walt Sterdan 

  • DAZ_Rawb said:

    Hi everyone. Drum roll please...

    As Director of Technology for Daz 3D, I wanted to give you some big news.  The Daz Studio team has been hard at work on a massive foundation change for Daz Studio that will be released as Daz Studio 5! Our project has been the #1 priority for the team for quite some time now, and it's almost done. Since we know how important getting a Mac version of Daz Studio is to all of you, we are switching up our release plans (from our normal releases) to get you a look at the upcoming Daz Studio 5 as soon as possible.

    Details of the upcoming Daz Studio 5 early-access Pre-Beta:
    - Release timing for this early-access preview is coming soon, at the very end of this month (July) or sometime next month (August).
    - This will be a pre-beta release. Normally we wait until the software is completely finished before releasing it.
    - Major Update will be Daz Studio release running for Macs, no other major features in the Pre-Beta.
    - All Plugins and some scripts will be broken. The SDK won't be available with this first release, but will be following it up at a later date. Some other less used features won't work at launch, but will be coming online throughout the year.
    - This release will work on at least x86 Macs (with both Filament and Iray). We are still investigating if this initial early-access release will run either natively or through emulation on M1 macs, but M1 support will come during the continued development of Daz Studio 5.
    - It will install into a new location, so you can run it along your current Daz Studio (release/beta) without problems.

    As for the final Daz Studio 5 release:
    - The timeline for this is to have it out near the very end of this year.
    - Features and enhancements will be rolling in through the rest of the year.
    - Anyone who has Daz Studio 4 in their account will be able to keep it. You'll be able to continue to download and use it for the foreseeable future.

    I hope everyone is just as excited about Daz Studio 5 as we are.

    I know there was a thread that beta will be delayed and all, but I was wondering if there is any updated roadmap to this (when pre-beta will be available to test with)? Also, what features in Daz Studio 5 that we could be seeing?

    Like Genesis 9 figures, any updates to iray renderer and all.. Thanks.

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    walkermuz_e2ba454edf said:

    DAZ_Rawb said:

    As for the final Daz Studio 5 release:
    - The timeline for this is to have it out near the very end of this year.
    - Features and enhancements will be rolling in through the rest of the year.
    - Anyone who has Daz Studio 4 in their account will be able to keep it. You'll be able to continue to download and use it for the foreseeable future.

    I hope everyone is just as excited about Daz Studio 5 as we are.

    I know there was a thread that beta will be delayed and all, but I was wondering if there is any updated roadmap to this (when pre-beta will be available to test with)? Also, what features in Daz Studio 5 that we could be seeing?

    Like Genesis 9 figures, any updates to iray renderer and all.. Thanks.

    There is no need to release the pre-beta anymore, as there is a BigSur compatible version out already, and in general you wouldn't want anything to do with a PRE-beta (been there, done that).

    Now that the biggest rush is over, I would imagine they will get the DS5 more mature and maybe even add some new features before releasing the beta version.

  • ImagoImago Posts: 5,152

    My biggest hope is to see all the bugs DAZ Studio is dragging on its back since version 4.10 finally solved and fixed. Along with all the new ones in 4.15 which is, IMHO, the most broken release until now.

    It's an incredible bummer that all the plugins will be broken, since many of them are made by people who left DAZ3D or are (sadly) deceased. There's no way to have a backward compatibility?

  • Imago said:

    My biggest hope is to see all the bugs DAZ Studio is dragging on its back since version 4.10 finally solved and fixed. Along with all the new ones in 4.15 which is, IMHO, the most broken release until now.

    It's an incredible bummer that all the plugins will be broken, since many of them are made by people who left DAZ3D or are (sadly) deceased. There's no way to have a backward compatibility?

    I suppose it is not in the hands of DAZ developers. They do use the 3rd party Qt toolkit and need to update that one, as the current release will soon be out of support. And moving to Qt5 will break a lot of things. I hope they do not upgrade to Qt 6 which is a total mess right now.

    But there is still the promise that - for existing DS 4.x users - the latest 4.x version will be available even after DS 5.x is release. So you can use those plugins in DS 4, save the scene and open it in DS 5 to complete it. 

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