Iray in general
grafkdesigner
Posts: 60
Maybe I got too used to Reality 4. Maybe I spent too much time trying to work out the mini-problems I was having, which for the most part I did, and getting used to going through every single material so it would appear the way I wanted it to look. And, of course, getting used to the fact that while the render was progressing I could alter the lighting, the color.
Then along came Iray. It's brand-new, and I find it's to a degree temperamental. I don't have to fiddle with making sure the textures appear the way they should. I don't have a need for mesh lights, which can pixelate an image badly. And if I decide to use a dozen spotlights they're not grouped into one unit.
Don't get me wrong - I like Reality very much, and the more I play with Iray the more I'm learning (and the more I'm disappointed). After five attempts I finally got a render in Iray (it took SIX HOURS) I felt comfortable with posting in the gallery.
But Iray needs a manual that covers every single aspect of its operation. As a former professional photog who used manual SLRs I am familiar with the relationship between shutter speed, aperture settings and film speed in relationship to lighting, and use that knowledge in my renders with Iray. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. But there's other settings which affect the render as well, and a lot of them are over my head. I'm sure others out there are in the same predicament.
Iray has excellent potential, and I wouldn't want to see it go away.
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Comments
I doubt that will ever happen. I'm pretty sure that the programs that have been using it for a while don't have that sort of book out yet at the very least. On the other hand I am sure there will be a good deal more documentation by the time it is out of beta. I also expect there to be tweaks to the way things work before it is out of beta so documenting some of it now just means redoing it sooner than later. At least they do have the surface concepts docs up and the tone mapping information.
I doubt that will ever happen. I'm pretty sure that the programs that have been using it for a while don't have that sort of book out yet at the very least. On the other hand I am sure there will be a good deal more documentation by the time it is out of beta. I also expect there to be tweaks to the way things work before it is out of beta so documenting some of it now just means redoing it sooner than later. At least they do have the surface concepts docs up and the tone mapping information.
Max probably has the most 'complete' documentation on Iray...and if you look at the various forums, there are many a complaint about how scant that is. So, basically, ANY documentation is a very good thing.
I made the same experience with Iray (compared to Luxrender). Both render engines are unbiased, both are physically based. But they seem to work in a completely different way, especially with values. Tonemapping values that work in Luxrender are completely useless in Iray.
if mesh-lights are pixelating your image it does not sound like you are using them correctly. Many 3D modeling packages use mesh based lighting and in LuxRender you can adjust those lights while in a live render so even if a scene is acceptably lit you can still adjust individual lights in mesh groups.
I've used Iray for a while and I like it, but it's defiantly not going to be my go-to engine unless I plan a serious GPU upgrade in the near future. My GTS250 1GB Nvidia card is a black screen when I try to use it and its slower and more RAM restrictive than Lux on my i7 (especially in higher resolution output) in my early stages of testing.
Hopefully Daz will continue to integrate additional functionality for Iray for Studio and there was mention of a new 3Delight somewhere on these forums which possibly they will open up some of the more advanced 3Delight features that Studio historically does not permit.
You may not be able to make those adjustments during the render but you can have a similar out come by changing the aux window to show the Iray draw style. Using it to view your final light tweaking is pretty effective. It also is a good way to play around with those tone mapping settings your not comfortable with and see pretty rapidly what they will alter in the scene.
You may not be able to make those adjustments during the render but you can have a similar out come by changing the aux window to show the Iray draw style. Using it to view your final light tweaking is pretty effective. It also is a good way to play around with those tone mapping settings your not comfortable with and see pretty rapidly what they will alter in the scene.If you have a serious video card you can change your main viewport to Iray drawstyle instead.
Well good as it is to know. When I'm in a place where funds for 700 - 900 series Nvidia card with 4GB - 6GB of RAM finally get a green light they will probably be outdated by the next generation of cards and come down but prices are hovering for GPU's (falling for SSD's if anyones watching) so right now I personally am getting far more efficient results out of Lux than I am able to with Iray on Mac and PC.
All that aside I like Iray and I have all intentions to use it. It's a huge benefit to many Studio users and the team at Daz3D seems to have gotten it to work well with it's first public integration of the 4.8 beta. Congratulations are in order on a job well done!
As he said that would be for turning the main viewport over to iray drawstyle. I have to run cpu and my computer was never state of the art, not even when I bought it 7 years ago. I have no trouble using the iray drawstyle in the auxilory window.
I doubt that will ever happen. I'm pretty sure that the programs that have been using it for a while don't have that sort of book out yet at the very least. On the other hand I am sure there will be a good deal more documentation by the time it is out of beta. I also expect there to be tweaks to the way things work before it is out of beta so documenting some of it now just means redoing it sooner than later. At least they do have the surface concepts docs up and the tone mapping information.
I'd just be happy with a very basic list of what each option does without all the photography and video lingo.
You know, something like "Increasing this value brightens the overall image" or "lowering this value makes the image more grainy" etc. (I don't know, I'm just making stuff up here)
So often I got lost on 3delight tutorials because I didn't understand the jargon. :(
As he said that would be for turning the main viewport over to iray drawstyle. I have to run cpu and my computer was never state of the art, not even when I bought it 7 years ago. I have no trouble using the iray drawstyle in the auxilory window.
thats fine, I still render faster, larger size, and more complex images so far in LuxRender as of right now.
That is great. Sadly I have always been CPU only so LUX was 2 to 3 times slower on my computer. So instead of 3 hours for a promo sized render it was running me 6 to 12 hours.
Yes, it would be nice to have documentation that discusses artistic goals instead of technical specifications. I'm really really hoping that when they do the official release they at least have lighting profiles (e.g. streetlight, fireplace, candle, halogen lamp, etc)
I did post this in the 'official' thread - its technical but at least has example renders of all the different settings. Made for 3DS Max but after the first 5 pages, the rest applies to DAZ. Sorry for the cross-post for those who missed it.
http://1drv.ms/1C9YDVf
I really hope that people are not going to wait around for that sort of information considering how easy it is to find on the internet. From my notes a streetlight is between 4k and 1 mill lumen. A candle is about 3 lumen. I've not seen numbers for a fire place because it would be variable based on the size of the fire. Halogen lamp can be anywhere from 2400 lumen to 11k lumen depending on it's strength. My point is there is no reason to wait on someone to find time to compile all these real world facts when they are ready available with a short search. Nor should you consider any of those or the tone mapping something that needs to be set in stone. Minor adjustments to lower or increase lumen is a viable option (pretend you have a dimmer attached).
Point taken Khory - I agree that stuff is all on the internet and I'm compiling my list too. iRay is a truly powerful and amazing addition to DAZ . I guess when I wrote that, I had on my 'marketer's' cap - in their introduction to the 4.7 beta release they tout iRay as "a massive simplification of lighting" and I'm hoping for the more casual user it will feel like that.
I really hope that people are not going to wait around for that sort of information considering how easy it is to find on the internet. From my notes a streetlight is between 4k and 1 mill lumen. A candle is about 3 lumen. I've not seen numbers for a fire place because it would be variable based on the size of the fire. Halogen lamp can be anywhere from 2400 lumen to 11k lumen depending on it's strength. My point is there is no reason to wait on someone to find time to compile all these real world facts when they are ready available with a short search. Nor should you consider any of those or the tone mapping something that needs to be set in stone. Minor adjustments to lower or increase lumen is a viable option (pretend you have a dimmer attached).
Heck, for that matter go to your local home improvement store, with a notebook and pen...and spend a few minutes just writing down the info from all the available bulbs in the aisle...
Plus you can use IES profiles...which are industry standard light definitions. So, that will expand your options a lot...just visit any major lighting manufacturer's site.
I think it will be. Especially for new users. Yes, we do need to learn some things differently. How many lumen in a 100 watt bulb or what sort if ISO is good for interior images for example. But you only have to deal with one type of added light and it is wildly flexible. Nor will people have to agonize over UE2 settings or how to use the uber area lights and get a decent image. Most of the hard part for us is the mind set change not learning the new skills because they are pretty basic.
Curious to know if additional lighting is needed. Lighting a scene for an individual is not the same as lighting for a camera. In Mesh-lit interiors I tend to use a combination of light bulb or lamp props and supplement mesh lights to balance the shadows.
Is this a procedure I would need to do in iRay or does it know to light the scene with just the bulbs and lamp settings?
What I'm seeing is - yes to both. :-) If you light the scene with just a few candles it will render; the problem is that you are not in that room, with your eyes adjusted to that dim light. So you won't see much of the detail. So you either crank the candles up to unrealistic levels or add additional lighting. Just like taking a picture of a candle-lit scene in the real world - a fast enough film, a large aperture, and a long exposure will give a good image - or you can fake it with a bounce flash. :-)
The main feature of Iray is that you don't have to play all the games to get true ambient light; it's just there.
What I'm seeing is - yes to both. :-) If you light the scene with just a few candles it will render; the problem is that you are not in that room, with your eyes adjusted to that dim light. So you won't see much of the detail. So you either crank the candles up to unrealistic levels or add additional lighting. Just like taking a picture of a candle-lit scene in the real world - a fast enough film, a large aperture, and a long exposure will give a good image - or you can fake it with a bounce flash. :-)
The main feature of Iray is that you don't have to play all the games to get true ambient light; it's just there.
thanks for the clarification!
If the question is does it do emitting surfaces on things like light bulbs and can you use mesh lights then the answer is yes. It will do user created mesh lights but it is far simpler to use the photometric spot which is really not so much a spot as a point light with options to turn it into a variety of mesh shapes that are sizable via the light. Being able to light with just the emitting sources really depends on the settings you use as far as film IOS and so forth.
I've got a couple of journal entries that cover what I've been able to figure out about the lighting, setup and shaders (and a link to DAZ's documentation on the latter):
http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/journal/Tutorial-Getting-Started-With-Iray-519725115
http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/journal/Iray-Surfaces-And-What-They-Mean-519346747
So far the response from newbies seems pretty positive.