Daz Studio Pro BETA - version 4.20.0.17! (*UPDATED*)

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  • no__nameno__name Posts: 88
    edited December 2021

    IceCrMn said:

    ok, never mind I got it working

    This time I made a primitive for a floor.

    Don't know why that made a difference, but here it is.

    On= show the ghost light geometry.

    Off= Don't show the ghost light geometry.

    Thanks, interesting.

    Had to toggle visibility on/off before "Iray Visible to Primary Rays" dare to do something.

    Tried to combine everything:

    Plane->Advanced Iray node

    Enable Matte

    Refraction index/weight = 1

    Iray Visible to Primary Rays = Hide geometry

    So far, the only scenario I got problem, it's my "ghost light" plane still casting a small shadow from the Hdri/Sun-Sky into a mirror (glasses, or everything else are fine so far).

    That said I don't use much "ghost lights", maybe there is scenario I don't think about :o

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    Post edited by no__name on
  • VEGAVEGA Posts: 86
    edited December 2021

    no__name said:

    IceCrMn said:

    ok, never mind I got it working

    This time I made a primitive for a floor.

    Don't know why that made a difference, but here it is.

    On= show the ghost light geometry.

    Off= Don't show the ghost light geometry.

    Thanks, interesting.

    Had to toggle visibility on/off before "Iray Visible to Primary Rays" dare to do something.

    Tried to combine everything:

    Plane->Advanced Iray node

    Enable Matte

    Refraction index/weight = 1

    Iray Visible to Primary Rays = Hide geometry

    So far, the only scenario I got problem, it's my "ghost light" plane still casting a small shadow from the Hdri/Sun-Sky into a mirror (glasses, or everything else are fine so far).

    That said I don't use much "ghost lights", maybe there is scenario I don't think about :o

    Iray Matte needs to be off, otherwise it catches shadows and at the same time you cannot see shadows through the plane. With refraction weight, index = 1 it's almost a GL. But you can see light reflection, which is big issue. It would need to be like it's now, almost a ghost light, plus not visible in reflections like with Iray Matte. It's good attempt, but not enough.

    Post edited by VEGA on
  • no__nameno__name Posts: 88
    edited December 2021

    VEGA said:

    Iray Matte needs to be off, otherwise it catches shadows and at the same time you cannot see shadows through the plane. With refraction weight, index = 1 it's almost a GL. But you can see light reflection, which is big issue. It would need to be like it's now, almost a ghost light, plus not visible in reflections like with Iray Matte. It's good attempt, but not enough.

    Hmm I see.

    I mostly ever use "ghost Iights" as small/discret fillers (or when a spotlight can't fit for x reasons), don't think I ever used them as a primary source.

    So not good enough huh ^^.

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    Post edited by no__name on
  • Dolce SaitoDolce Saito Posts: 192
    edited December 2021

    Aala said:

    Dolce Saito said:

    For me the latest beta:

    - On low-light situations, the denoiser is definitely produces ugglier outputs at lower iterations than before. I generally limit renders at 192 to 512 iterations with denoiser turned on. Starting from 192, especially low-light situations were acceptable for draft. Now, especially body parts becomes "marbled" more than before. I even noticed only lights on surfaces getting more cleaner with 256 to 512 iteration change, however, limb details are still worse.

    - I ran into the problems that people have already mentioned here, however apart from those, I really want to thank for the one particular feature, spectral rendering color space. On my work, this enabled me to be able to take the tone mapper out of the equation by completely shutting it off. Now I can set the scene lights with realistic wattage values (only exception is environment intensity) and then render with specific color space to clip excessive lightning automatically. Renders look more hdr-like without canvases and I really liked it. I would also like to see more color spaces being added.

    - Hair colors are still broken, I know a near-workaround is already in works.

    EDIT: Funny to add, but on 3090 rtx, low-light scenes render *way* faster with tone mapping turned off, spectral and caustics turned on (yes, both). I've been checking this by manually rendering frames with different settings, but convergence reaching around ~70% is way quicker and requires less iteratİons than default render settings, not to mention defaults for low light scene generates noise, even with %95 convergence while there are literally very little to no noise at all on dark places with the new *interesting* combination I use. How the earth this happened?

     

    I just tried, and disabling the tone-mapper gives me an overblown white image eveb with few, low wattage surfaces. Is there a way to adjust the exposure without the tone mapper?

     As I tried to mention, in order it to make magic work, you need to enable spectral rendering when you use this setup. Set it to natural, with rec2020 color space for example, then check what happens to those overblown lights :)

    Post edited by Dolce Saito on
  • The Weight Paint still glitches !!   Please guys can you try to fix it.    once you click out and hide a character and go back to the clothing item the tool vanishes.  this has been going on for some time now and really needs to be addressed.

  • Anyone have a suggestion to avoid the second monitor Pane to collapse. Since it was removed some update back the Dock/undock pane, the option to use group of pane on another monitor on different resolution is impossible for me.

    Thanks 

  • johndoe_36eb90b0johndoe_36eb90b0 Posts: 235
    edited December 2021

    I have a question about lights and spectral rendering both in this latest beta and in general:

    1. Load a G8 figure to a blank scene
    2. Set scene only light
    3. Set environment backdrop to black
    4. Turn off tonemapping
    5. Add a spotlight with Zt=100 and Yt=165

    Notice how anything above ~1.5 lumen will burn highlights on the face and not be enough to light the torso while the default 1,500 lumen will result in white head and torso.

    Now turn on spectral rendering (rec2020, faithful, cie1931).

    Notice how even default 1,500 lumen is now not enough to light up the face -- you need around 100,000 lumen which results in similar level of light on the face, but unlike before now also fully lights the torso.

    Let's extend the experiment further:

    6. Turn off spectral rendering
    7. Add a distant light with Zt=100 and Yt=165
    8. Set spotlight to invisible

    Notice how figure is white with default 1,500 lumen, change to, say, 10 lumen.

    Now turn spectral rendering back on, and be surprised how it doesn't affect luminance of Distant Light.

    Let's test further:

    9. Set distant light to invisible
    10. Turn off spectral rendering

    Now let's try to create a physically accurate LED light, say this one:
    https://www.osram.com/ecat/DECOSTAR 51S Standard-DECOSTAR-Halogen lamps-Lamps-Digital Systems/com/en/GPS01_1027742/ZMP_57789/

    IES Profile can be downloaded here:
    https://ieslibrary.com/en/browse/download/ies/378f2c034715f07160da5580b1202e6e

    11. Create new primitive (cylinder, length 0.01 cm, diameter 5.1 cm, segments 100, sides 100, Z negative axis, Zt=100, Yt=165)
    12. Switch to Surfaces, set emissive color to white, 2800 K, turn off Two Sided Light
    13. Set the emission profile to the IES file you downloaded

    Now let's try to set the light to 480 cd/m2... hmm... too dark. How about switching dropdown to lm and set 210 lumen? Way too bright.

    What about enabling spectral rendering? Great, now we need 1,500,000 cd/m2 to see anything!

    Wait, what if we now enable tonemapping?

    We don't see a damn thing even with 1,500,000 cd/m2 light source only 1m from the character's face!

    Ok, let's simulate Sun, put 16,000,000,000 cd/m2. Now we can see the character again but it looks like it is lit by sunlight, not a LED light.

    So, thanks for bearing with my lack of experience on the subject up to this point.

    My question is: How are we supposed to accurately model any light in DAZ Studio (and Iray by extension) when all the light sources behave so unpredictably?

    My conclusion is that with or without tonemapping, with or without spectral rendering, light intensity in DAZ Studio has nothing to do with physical world and to me it seems terribly broken -- I'd be glad if someone more knowledgeable on how those lights work in DAZ Studio proved me wrong but I won't be holding my breath.

    Post edited by johndoe_36eb90b0 on
  • areg5areg5 Posts: 617

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Illidanstorm said:

    The update causes issues for me with a 3090, latest game driver.

    Hair caps are rendering as black on their foreheads and everything seems darker than usual. Going back to the beta before.

    Are you using ghost lights, emissive surfaces with low opacity? They seem not to work in this version of Iray.

     

    Just updated to the current Beta as well as the current full release.  I am using the 462.59 driver.  No, the ghost lights do not work in the beta.  They work just fine in the full release. When will that be fixed?  I do use both products cuncurrently many times.  If I am saving a scene in the Beta and render in the full release, the lights work fine.  The biggest issue for me is that I do like to use the nvidia preview in the Beta, and not having working lights is a pain in the ass.

  • Has anyone else encountered the new beta seems to use 100% of the GPU all the time when rendering and while idle?

    I always  have both CPU and GPU activated to render and the previous beta  hardly touched my GPU and mainly rendered on CPU with occasional GPU usage as could not seem to get the GPU to render I now have gone full 180 to the GPU going overboard whenever I open daz

    So seems strange that as soon as I open Daz my GPU sounds like a train and uses all my GPU memory

    Has anyone else experienced this

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,833
    edited December 2021

    areg5 said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Illidanstorm said:

    The update causes issues for me with a 3090, latest game driver.

    Hair caps are rendering as black on their foreheads and everything seems darker than usual. Going back to the beta before.

    Are you using ghost lights, emissive surfaces with low opacity? They seem not to work in this version of Iray.

     

    Just updated to the current Beta as well as the current full release.  I am using the 462.59 driver.  No, the ghost lights do not work in the beta.  They work just fine in the full release. When will that be fixed?  I do use both products cuncurrently many times.  If I am saving a scene in the Beta and render in the full release, the lights work fine.  The biggest issue for me is that I do like to use the nvidia preview in the Beta, and not having working lights is a pain in the ass.

    Unfortunately nVidia has changed the behaviour of non-opaque light sources to be more in accord with physics - Daz has impleemnted a semi workaround, using a new property to make emissive surfaces invisible to direct view (see the highlights thread and change log for the Public Build) but it can't change the behaviour in reflections or when viewed through another surface.

    Also, sorry, I missed that your driver version is too old -  471.41 is needed for GPU rendering, 465.89 for CPU

    Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
  • RayDAntRayDAnt Posts: 1,135

    ragamuffin57 said:

    Has anyone else encountered the new beta seems to use 100% of the GPU all the time when rendering and while idle?

    I always  have both CPU and GPU activated to render and the previous beta  hardly touched my GPU and mainly rendered on CPU with occasional GPU usage as could not seem to get the GPU to render I now have gone full 180 to the GPU going overboard whenever I open daz

    So seems strange that as soon as I open Daz my GPU sounds like a train and uses all my GPU memory

    Has anyone else experienced this

    Iray always uses 100% of a GPU's computational resources (vram usage will vary scene-to-scene) whenever a GPU is successfully being used to contribute to a render. Asuming you are an Iray liveview user, this sounds like totally normal behavior. Your computer's behavior prior to updating is what definitely sounds like it was borked.

  • areg5areg5 Posts: 617

    Richard Haseltine said:

    areg5 said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Illidanstorm said:

    The update causes issues for me with a 3090, latest game driver.

    Hair caps are rendering as black on their foreheads and everything seems darker than usual. Going back to the beta before.

    Are you using ghost lights, emissive surfaces with low opacity? They seem not to work in this version of Iray.

     

    Just updated to the current Beta as well as the current full release.  I am using the 462.59 driver.  No, the ghost lights do not work in the beta.  They work just fine in the full release. When will that be fixed?  I do use both products cuncurrently many times.  If I am saving a scene in the Beta and render in the full release, the lights work fine.  The biggest issue for me is that I do like to use the nvidia preview in the Beta, and not having working lights is a pain in the ass.

    Unfortunately nVidia has changed the behaviour of non-opaque light sources to be more in accord with physics - Daz has impleemnted a semi workaround, using a new property to make emissive surfaces invisible to direct view (see the highlights thread and change log for the Public Build) but it can't change the behaviour in reflections or when viewed through another surface.

    So updating the driver won't help?  Where exactly is this workaround?

  • areg5 said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    areg5 said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Illidanstorm said:

    The update causes issues for me with a 3090, latest game driver.

    Hair caps are rendering as black on their foreheads and everything seems darker than usual. Going back to the beta before.

    Are you using ghost lights, emissive surfaces with low opacity? They seem not to work in this version of Iray.

     

    Just updated to the current Beta as well as the current full release.  I am using the 462.59 driver.  No, the ghost lights do not work in the beta.  They work just fine in the full release. When will that be fixed?  I do use both products cuncurrently many times.  If I am saving a scene in the Beta and render in the full release, the lights work fine.  The biggest issue for me is that I do like to use the nvidia preview in the Beta, and not having working lights is a pain in the ass.

    Unfortunately nVidia has changed the behaviour of non-opaque light sources to be more in accord with physics - Daz has impleemnted a semi workaround, using a new property to make emissive surfaces invisible to direct view (see the highlights thread and change log for the Public Build) but it can't change the behaviour in reflections or when viewed through another surface.

    So updating the driver won't help?  Where exactly is this workaround?

    Penultimate bullet point https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/7175561/#Comment_7175561 and the linked change log entry

  • areg5areg5 Posts: 617

    Richard Haseltine said:

    areg5 said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    areg5 said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Illidanstorm said:

    The update causes issues for me with a 3090, latest game driver.

    Hair caps are rendering as black on their foreheads and everything seems darker than usual. Going back to the beta before.

    Are you using ghost lights, emissive surfaces with low opacity? They seem not to work in this version of Iray.

     

    Just updated to the current Beta as well as the current full release.  I am using the 462.59 driver.  No, the ghost lights do not work in the beta.  They work just fine in the full release. When will that be fixed?  I do use both products cuncurrently many times.  If I am saving a scene in the Beta and render in the full release, the lights work fine.  The biggest issue for me is that I do like to use the nvidia preview in the Beta, and not having working lights is a pain in the ass.

    Unfortunately nVidia has changed the behaviour of non-opaque light sources to be more in accord with physics - Daz has impleemnted a semi workaround, using a new property to make emissive surfaces invisible to direct view (see the highlights thread and change log for the Public Build) but it can't change the behaviour in reflections or when viewed through another surface.

    So updating the driver won't help?  Where exactly is this workaround?

    Penultimate bullet point https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/7175561/#Comment_7175561 and the linked change log entry

    Um... after I looked up what penultimate means, I was directed to this?

     

    • Added support for enabling/controlling “Iray Visible to Primary Rays” when NVIDIA Iray is the active renderer

      • If a DzBoolProperty (user) property, named “Iray Visible to Primary Rays”, with the property group path of “Display/Rendering/Iray”, and a default value of true, is added to a node, the value of this property is used to specify whether or not an object is visible to primary rays (i.e., directly from the camera)

        • Does not control visibility to reflection/refraction/etc

        • Does not affect decal nodes

    Ok.  I admit in some of these things I'm a total moron.  I have no idea what this means or how to address it.

  • johndoe_36eb90b0johndoe_36eb90b0 Posts: 235
    edited December 2021

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Unfortunately nVidia has changed the behaviour of non-opaque light sources to be more in accord with physics...

    What you say is an indisputable fact and unfortunate truth, but I still find it kind of ironic considering the behavior of different types of lights in the latest beta which I just described few posts before yours.

    Maybe they did change non-opaque lights to match some physics, but to me it seems that no light source in Iray matches physics, at least not of this Universe.

    I have no idea how (if at all?) DAZ Studio code contributes to that, but the end result is a total mess.

    Post edited by johndoe_36eb90b0 on
  • P302P302 Posts: 37

    @areg5:

    Release Notes for 4.16.1.6 (December 1, 2021state minium drivers: 

    • NVIDIA Driver 465.89 (or newer) on Windows for CPU-only rendering
    • NVIDIA Driver 471.41 (or newer) on Windows for GPU rendering

    I got my ghostlights working using the method described by IceCrMn a couple posts above.

    1. Select the GhostLighte Node 
    2. Go to My Daz 3D library\Scripts\Utilities and execute the script: "Create Advanced Iray Properties"
    3. In Parameters Tab: enter edit mode
    4. In Parameters Tab: create new property
    5. Fill out the dialog
      Type: bool
      Name: Iray Visible to Primary Rays
      Label: Iray Visible to Primary Rays
      Path: Display\Rendering\Iray

    -> Now you have an new property (Button) which toggles the visibility of the light emitting mesh to the camera, but does not affect the light of that emitter reflected by other objects in the scene.
    If you set up the emission parameters you do not have to do the opacity trick any more. The new property gets stored if you save the ghostlight as a set.

     

  • johndoe_36eb90b0johndoe_36eb90b0 Posts: 235
    edited December 2021

    areg5 said:

     

    Um... after I looked up what penultimate means, I was directed to this?

     

    • Added support for enabling/controlling “Iray Visible to Primary Rays” when NVIDIA Iray is the active renderer

      • If a DzBoolProperty (user) property, named “Iray Visible to Primary Rays”, with the property group path of “Display/Rendering/Iray”, and a default value of true, is added to a node, the value of this property is used to specify whether or not an object is visible to primary rays (i.e., directly from the camera)

        • Does not control visibility to reflection/refraction/etc

        • Does not affect decal nodes

    Ok.  I admit in some of these things I'm a total moron.  I have no idea what this means or how to address it.

    Don't waste time and effort trying to understand because there isn't a full proper workaround -- just roll back to the previous DAZ Studio version with older Iray version. Hopefully you made a backup.

    Or read the post before mine on how to approximate ghost lights, but if I understood correctly they will be visible in reflections and may even cast a shadow now. Be warned however that ghost lights aren't the end of it -- any materials using thin film may render differently as well courtesy of said Iray update.

    Post edited by johndoe_36eb90b0 on
  • namffuaknamffuak Posts: 4,146
    edited December 2021

    /7175561/#Comment_7175561 and the linked change log entry

    Um... after I looked up what penultimate means, I was directed to this?

     

    • Added support for enabling/controlling “Iray Visible to Primary Rays” when NVIDIA Iray is the active renderer

      • If a DzBoolProperty (user) property, named “Iray Visible to Primary Rays”, with the property group path of “Display/Rendering/Iray”, and a default value of true, is added to a node, the value of this property is used to specify whether or not an object is visible to primary rays (i.e., directly from the camera)

        • Does not control visibility to reflection/refraction/etc

        • Does not affect decal nodes

    Ok.  I admit in some of these things I'm a total moron.  I have no idea what this means or how to address it.

    Check this post and a couple of followups.

    Post edited by namffuak on
  • P302P302 Posts: 37
    edited December 2021

    ragamuffin57 said:

    Has anyone else encountered the new beta seems to use 100% of the GPU all the time when rendering and while idle?

    I always  have both CPU and GPU activated to render and the previous beta  hardly touched my GPU and mainly rendered on CPU with occasional GPU usage as could not seem to get the GPU to render I now have gone full 180 to the GPU going overboard whenever I open daz

    So seems strange that as soon as I open Daz my GPU sounds like a train and uses all my GPU memory

    Has anyone else experienced this

    Yes. I have. I think this is a bug.

    As soon as i fire up DAZ Studio the monitoring of my GPU shows activity of something in between idle and what i get when rendering. So not quite 100% but enough to spin up the fans.

    Once i hit Iray Preview even on a blank scene and go back to one of the other viewport render modes the GPU is idling again.

    Switching to Iray Preview for a moment has become my start-up ritual of DAZ Studio :-/

    Post edited by P302 on
  • f7eerf7eer Posts: 123

    johndoe_36eb90b0 said:

    areg5 said:

     

    Um... after I looked up what penultimate means, I was directed to this?

     

    • Added support for enabling/controlling “Iray Visible to Primary Rays” when NVIDIA Iray is the active renderer

      • If a DzBoolProperty (user) property, named “Iray Visible to Primary Rays”, with the property group path of “Display/Rendering/Iray”, and a default value of true, is added to a node, the value of this property is used to specify whether or not an object is visible to primary rays (i.e., directly from the camera)

        • Does not control visibility to reflection/refraction/etc

        • Does not affect decal nodes

    Ok.  I admit in some of these things I'm a total moron.  I have no idea what this means or how to address it.

    Don't waste time and effort trying to understand because there isn't a full proper workaround -- just roll back to the previous DAZ Studio version with older Iray version. Hopefully you made a backup.

    Or read the post before mine on how to approximate ghost lights, but if I understood correctly they will be visible in reflections and may even cast a shadow now. Be warned however that ghost lights aren't the end of it -- any materials using thin film may render differently as well courtesy of said Iray update.

    Also, any emitter on a surface which is not completely opaque is affected adversely. It will be dimmed in proportion to the transparency of the cut out. Ghost lights are the extreme case of this, but there are plenty of other less extreme examples, like fire, candles and magic effects, if they use non-opaque emitting surfaces.

  • P302P302 Posts: 37

    johndoe_36eb90b0 said:

    areg5 said:

     

    Um... after I looked up what penultimate means, I was directed to this?

     

    • Added support for enabling/controlling “Iray Visible to Primary Rays” when NVIDIA Iray is the active renderer

      • If a DzBoolProperty (user) property, named “Iray Visible to Primary Rays”, with the property group path of “Display/Rendering/Iray”, and a default value of true, is added to a node, the value of this property is used to specify whether or not an object is visible to primary rays (i.e., directly from the camera)

        • Does not control visibility to reflection/refraction/etc

        • Does not affect decal nodes

    Ok.  I admit in some of these things I'm a total moron.  I have no idea what this means or how to address it.

    Don't waste time and effort trying to understand because there isn't a full proper workaround -- just roll back to the previous DAZ Studio version with older Iray version. Hopefully you made a backup.

    Or read the post before mine on how to approximate ghost lights, but if I understood correctly they will be visible in reflections and may even cast a shadow now. Be warned however that ghost lights aren't the end of it -- any materials using thin film may render differently as well courtesy of said Iray update.

    Yes they cast a shadow, but you can minimize the effect by reducing the Cutout Opacity to a sufficiently low level (e.g. 0.05) and cranking up the Luminance to compensate for the loss in emission. In the attached pic you see a slightly transparent flame. The most light however is coming from a copy of the flame set up as ghost light as described above. The downside is that in a mirror the ghostlight is visible with the full intensity, so the reflection is brighter than the original. But I think that was also the case with ghostlights before. If we expect a ghostlight to brigthen up an object we should not be surprised if there are reflections :-) You have to trick anyways.

    Well that's part of the art: making the things look good, despite the physics. And to be honest, compared to a real world film set DAZ Studio helps already a lot - even with the many flaws it has. 

    Rolling back is an option for sure. Especially if you have a lot of scenes using ghostlights you still want to edit. But is this the final solution: never update? Over the time there will come a fix for some other bug or a really cool feature you do not want to miss.

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  • johndoe_36eb90b0johndoe_36eb90b0 Posts: 235
    edited December 2021

    P302 said:

    Yes they cast a shadow, but you can minimize the effect by reducing the Cutout Opacity to a sufficiently low level (e.g. 0.05) and cranking up the Luminance to compensate for the loss in emission. In the attached pic you see a slightly transparent flame. The most light however is coming from a copy of the flame set up as ghost light as described above. The downside is that in a mirror the ghostlight is visible with the full intensity, so the reflection is brighter than the original. But I think that was also the case with ghostlights before. If we expect a ghostlight to brigthen up an object we should not be surprised if there are reflections :-) You have to trick anyways.

    Well that's part of the art: making the things look good, despite the physics. And to be honest, compared to a real world film set DAZ Studio helps already a lot - even with the many flaws it has. 

    Rolling back is an option for sure. Especially if you have a lot of scenes using ghostlights you still want to edit. But is this the final solution: never update? Over the time there will come a fix for some other bug or a really cool feature you do not want to miss.

    If you do that (make it transparent and boost intensity), then you will also boost all reflections to be much brighter than they were originally.

    Also, you cannot put ghost light say 0.01 cm from the floor (or the ceiling, or the window) anymore and use it to brighten up shadows or bring up the overall light level in the scene without messing with tonemapping and without your renders being slower and full of noise.

    As for whether we should be surprised by reflections or shadows? That's beside the point.

    Ghost lights did have a unique purpose in DAZ Studio -- providing easy diffuse lighting indoors without light source being visible or casting unwanted shadows.

    Gaffers on a movie set go to great lengths to accomplish artistic lighting without unwanted light source reflections and shadows -- we were able to do that easily, and now we don't have that tool in our toolbox anymore.

    Never update is of course not the final solution.

    The solution is not to update until there is a workaround that does not involve us manually redoing lighting of hundreds of our scenes (and editing thousands of materials because of thin film changes), thus sending a message to DAZ and NVIDIA through telemetry that such tone-deaf changes will not be tolerated. Not updating is literally the only power we have over them, so why not use it to send a message?

    The message should be clear by now -- those two changes were poorly thought out by NVIDIA without any consideration to the breakage they will cause.

    If they first implemented new type of light source (let's call it Invisible Mesh Light) in Iray and in DAZ Studio, and then went on to change the way luminance is calculated with regards to opacity, then the author of Ghost Light Kit wouldn't be happy, but the rest of us would probably just sigh, replace Ghost Light meshes with those new Invisible Mesh Lights in our scenes (because they would give the same results) and move on.

    What they did instead is put their hand in our toolbox, took out our precision screwdriver and replaced it with a hammer. Yes, you can drive a screw in with a hammer given enough patience, but neither the result nor the amount of effort involved are the same.

     

    Post edited by johndoe_36eb90b0 on
  • johndoe_36eb90b0johndoe_36eb90b0 Posts: 235
    edited December 2021

    P302 said:

    @areg5:

    Release Notes for 4.16.1.6 (December 1, 2021state minium drivers: 

    • NVIDIA Driver 465.89 (or newer) on Windows for CPU-only rendering
    • NVIDIA Driver 471.41 (or newer) on Windows for GPU rendering

    I got my ghostlights working using the method described by IceCrMn a couple posts above.

    1. Select the GhostLighte Node 
    2. Go to My Daz 3D library\Scripts\Utilities and execute the script: "Create Advanced Iray Properties"
    3. In Parameters Tab: enter edit mode
    4. In Parameters Tab: create new property
    5. Fill out the dialog
      Type: bool
      Name: Iray Visible to Primary Rays
      Label: Iray Visible to Primary Rays
      Path: Display\Rendering\Iray

    -> Now you have an new property (Button) which toggles the visibility of the light emitting mesh to the camera, but does not affect the light of that emitter reflected by other objects in the scene.
    If you set up the emission parameters you do not have to do the opacity trick any more. The new property gets stored if you save the ghostlight as a set.

    Just tested this in the latest beta with NVIDIA Studio Driver 472.47, and I couldn't get it to work for me.

    I get the property on the ghost light and I can change it, but if the ghost light opacity is set to 1 it is always visible -- it either renders black when the property is off, or white when the property is on.

    Can you explain what you mean by "If you set up the emission parameters you do not have to do the opacity trick any more" in more detail? How did you set up yours?

    I have tried different opacity and luminance values with the property set to off and I couldn't get what I wanted.

    Post edited by johndoe_36eb90b0 on
  • johndoe_36eb90b0 said:

    P302 said:

    @areg5:

    Release Notes for 4.16.1.6 (December 1, 2021state minium drivers: 

    • NVIDIA Driver 465.89 (or newer) on Windows for CPU-only rendering
    • NVIDIA Driver 471.41 (or newer) on Windows for GPU rendering

    I got my ghostlights working using the method described by IceCrMn a couple posts above.

    1. Select the GhostLighte Node 
    2. Go to My Daz 3D library\Scripts\Utilities and execute the script: "Create Advanced Iray Properties"
    3. In Parameters Tab: enter edit mode
    4. In Parameters Tab: create new property
    5. Fill out the dialog
      Type: bool
      Name: Iray Visible to Primary Rays
      Label: Iray Visible to Primary Rays
      Path: Display\Rendering\Iray

    -> Now you have an new property (Button) which toggles the visibility of the light emitting mesh to the camera, but does not affect the light of that emitter reflected by other objects in the scene.
    If you set up the emission parameters you do not have to do the opacity trick any more. The new property gets stored if you save the ghostlight as a set.

    Just tested this in the latest beta with NVIDIA Studio Driver 472.47, and I couldn't get it to work for me.

    I get the property on the ghost light and I can change it, but if the ghost light opacity is set to 1 it is always visible -- it either renders black when the property is off, or white when the property is on.

    Can you explain what you mean by "If you set up the emission parameters you do not have to do the opacity trick any more" in more detail? How did you set up yours?

    I have tried different opacity and luminance values with the property set to off and I couldn't get what I wanted.

    Please post a screen shot showing the Parameter Settings (gear icon) for the new Boolean property, and verify that you have the Iray Matte option in the Display group.

  • johndoe_36eb90b0johndoe_36eb90b0 Posts: 235
    edited December 2021

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Please post a screen shot showing the Parameter Settings (gear icon) for the new Boolean property, and verify that you have the Iray Matte option in the Display group.

    Here you go.

    The Ghost Light is at +0.42 Y from the floor, it renders as black plane when opacity is 1 and as you can see the Iray node is added properly because the mesh contributes reflected light to the scene (as confirmed by second image where Ghost Light is invisible). For the reference on how it renders in old Iray version see the third image (also note that with new node property in the latest Iray there's glow on the shower glass which isn't there in old Iray version).

    Ghost light in this scene I made is just one example of breakage. This environment product (https://www.daz3d.com/european-style-apartment) is affected even without using Ghost Light Kit -- for example the lights in this bathroom have LampBall and LampEmissive surfaces. Because LampBall (which is also emissive) uses black texture for cutout opacity, no light is rendered in latest Iray until you remove the opacity maps from those lights, and that's just the bathroom, mind you. Other rooms have emissive surfaces on windows, and all lights in all rooms are done in a similar fashion.

    Simply put, there's no working around this. There are too much scenes and details in them affected to just roll up your sleeves and fix (even if you noticed them all and knew how to fix them, which I doubt many people would).

    In my opinion, the only acceptable solution to this mess is for the NVIDIA Iray team to add a dedicated invisible emissive mesh light type to Iray, and for DAZ 3D to expose it in DAZ Studio as a new button. And even then, that would solve only a part of the problem -- all the candle flame, fire, effects, lightbulbs, windows and other light or even clothing or weapon props using emissive surfaces and opacity will still be broken and there's far to many to fix manually.

    iray_ghost_light_beta.png
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    Post edited by johndoe_36eb90b0 on
  • I thought a bit more about this, and I think there is a solution:

    1. NVIDIA should add a boolean property called "Cutout opacity affects luminance", and default it to Off if not present. Also, DAZ Studio would not add the property on saving if it is not already present. That way, all the existing stuff without this property would continue to work as it did before while all newly created primitives would have this property and it would default to On, thus resulting in more physically correct light calculations for new products.

    2. NVIDIA should add a new type of light (let's call it Invisible Emissive Mesh Light) to Iray, and DAZ Studio should expose it in the interface as a new button or menu option. That way, we wouldn't need Ghost Light Kit at all.

  • VEGAVEGA Posts: 86

    Don't even bother updating, the new Iray is broken and bad. Even the gpu usage is worse than it was in ver 2020. I'm surprised none looked at the gpu-z during rendering, especialy at power draw and memory controller load. It's not a smooth curve by any means. Power draw is going up and down and mem controller load is going from 60 to 10% contantly, where in the old 2020 version it's fine. Also iray statistics disapeard from the rendering window. As I said don't even bother.

  • IceCrMnIceCrMn Posts: 2,129

    johndoe_36eb90b0 said:

    I thought a bit more about this, and I think there is a solution:

    1. NVIDIA should add a boolean property called "Cutout opacity affects luminance", and default it to Off if not present. Also, DAZ Studio would not add the property on saving if it is not already present. That way, all the existing stuff without this property would continue to work as it did before while all newly created primitives would have this property and it would default to On, thus resulting in more physically correct light calculations for new products.

    2. NVIDIA should add a new type of light (let's call it Invisible Emissive Mesh Light) to Iray, and DAZ Studio should expose it in the interface as a new button or menu option. That way, we wouldn't need Ghost Light Kit at all.

    What if I'm using my primitves to make walls, floors, sidewwalks, earrings, and other things like that.

    I use them lot's of things other than simple light planes.

    And I can just move the light planes out of view of the  camera.  

  • P302P302 Posts: 37

    johndoe_36eb90b0 said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Please post a screen shot showing the Parameter Settings (gear icon) for the new Boolean property, and verify that you have the Iray Matte option in the Display group.

    Here you go.

    The Ghost Light is at +0.42 Y from the floor, it renders as black plane when opacity is 1 and as you can see the Iray node is added properly because the mesh contributes reflected light to the scene (as confirmed by second image where Ghost Light is invisible). For the reference on how it renders in old Iray version see the third image (also note that with new node property in the latest Iray there's glow on the shower glass which isn't there in old Iray version).

    Ghost light in this scene I made is just one example of breakage. This environment product (https://www.daz3d.com/european-style-apartment) is affected even without using Ghost Light Kit -- for example the lights in this bathroom have LampBall and LampEmissive surfaces. Because LampBall (which is also emissive) uses black texture for cutout opacity, no light is rendered in latest Iray until you remove the opacity maps from those lights, and that's just the bathroom, mind you. Other rooms have emissive surfaces on windows, and all lights in all rooms are done in a similar fashion.

    Simply put, there's no working around this. There are too much scenes and details in them affected to just roll up your sleeves and fix (even if you noticed them all and knew how to fix them, which I doubt many people would).

    In my opinion, the only acceptable solution to this mess is for the NVIDIA Iray team to add a dedicated invisible emissive mesh light type to Iray, and for DAZ 3D to expose it in DAZ Studio as a new button. And even then, that would solve only a part of the problem -- all the candle flame, fire, effects, lightbulbs, windows and other light or even clothing or weapon props using emissive surfaces and opacity will still be broken and there's far to many to fix manually.

    This is because the ghostlight mesh casts a shadow if opacity is set to a high value because it's still there, only the direct rays to the camera are suppressed. I only did play with the - admittlingly - weak workaround and lowering the opacity while increasing the emission.

    For the type of renders I do much worse is that if you mix emissive lights with spot lights for instance, the renders now take forever to get a resonable quality. So yeah, better waiting for a proper fix.

    Your proposals (dedicated type of light) sound good, but does DAZ have enough weight to get a company like NVIDIA to fix this? Do they get custom features?

     

     

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  • IceCrMnIceCrMn Posts: 2,129

    adding emission to a primitive has always produced dirty noisy lighting that took ages to render out the fireflies.

    They where just fast, easy, and a bit of a novelty to work with.I think that's why everyone liked them so much, even if they weren't all that great in quality.

    I used them for preview rendering when I knew I wasn't going to save the render or even the scene and was basically just "playing with my toys"

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