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Thank you for the fast reply.
In progessive group the max sample setting means the iteration count.
Max Time = 0 means no time settings.
It seams that Min. Samples or Max Times is used (the smaller one).
Shader builder is a GUI interface for creating RSL shaders. (It hasn't changed and works the same as it has for some time.) Because it is for RSL shaders, it will not create MDL shaders.
Shader mixer is still being refined to handle both RSL and MDL shaders.
...would be nice if there could be a Shader Builder for MDL shaders as well.
The Tags property, on all surfaces (DzMaterial), provides a generic means of attaching user-defined word(s)/phrase(s) to a surface; comma delimited. The Surface Selection Tool context menu has been extended to support object-constrained or scene-wide surface selection based on assigned tags; i.e. "Select Surfaces with the Tag(s)...". If it helps, you can think of them as a free-form version of Surface Selection Sets.
And if there is a plan to support light categories fully, will shaders like UberVolume also get working “tag” fields?
Not specifically, no. Individual DAZ owned RSL surface|volume|displacement|etc shaders have not been modified for deeper light category support; non-DAZ owned shaders are the responsibility of their respective owner(s).
That said, a Categories property has recently been added to all light types (DzLight), and is intended to be used for defining which category(-ies) a light belongs to in 3Delight. This doesn't exactly translate to Iray, and so currently serves more of a Tags role, but at the node level, with that engine; though we are looking at potentially using the Categories property with Iray canvases.
-Rob
If you use the Cancel on the progress bar, not the render window, then you should not lose the render so far. According to the Changelog we will in future be able to stop and resume renders, at least within a session.
Yes, the options to set the Stop conditions are all in the Progressive group in Render Settings. I think in the case of time and perhaps iterations you can set the value to -1 to stop that condition being used.
I tested this. When I set Max Samples to -1, I got a completely black image and rendering stopped immediately. The black screen may be scene dependent as I tried it once before and got a completely transparent "image" and rendering stopped.
However, when I set Max Time to -1, I was able to render. As it was a test, I stopped it after a few iterations, but I suspect this will work for allowing the render to go for as long as it takes to reach either the Max Sample or Rendering Converged Ratio values.
To set Max Time to -1, it is necessary to go into the Parameter Settings and change the minimum value to -1. Or just uncheck "Use Limits". I always click on the value and type in the number I want to use anyway.
I should mention, I do not have an Nvidia, CUDA core video card. I am assuming this works the same whether or not you have such a card in your system.
Work is being done to facilitate concurrent RSL/MDL networks; i.e. you can already have a [RSL] Surface Root brick and a MDL Surface Root brick in the same network. And all bricks now indicate the language(s) they operate on. Some of the bricks that are not in the Functions > MDL category (which are obviously MDL specific) have been updated/added to support concurrent RSL and MDL networks; not all of them have, not all of them can be. See User Parameters, Texture Instance, Texture Tiler, Texture Instance Displacement, DS Calc Displacement and Mathematical > Operators, for a glimpse of what I'm referring to. Something that has not [yet] been made clear, in the Brickyard - prior to adding a brick to the Shader Workspace, is which bricks support which language(s). There is [obviously] still a bit of work to be done here.
That's good. Looks like something to look forward to.
Yes, there is... via Shader Mixer. But be warned, MDL support in Shader Mixer is the most BETA portion of the build; it is very likely to change.
In Shader Mixer:
1.) File > New Shader...
- Type: Material
- Name: < Whatever name accurately reflects the purpose of the shader >
2.) Select and delete the default bricks; for this simplified purpose - I'm not covering concurrent MDL/RSL networks here
3.) Add a Bricks > Roots > MDL Surface brick
4.) Add a Bricks > Functions > MDL > Custom MDL brick
5.) In the Settings > MDL Callable property of the Custom MDL brick, specify the path of the MDL/material/function, using double colon (::) as a path separator
- The path is expected to be relative to the ./shaders/iray directory
- i.e. nvidia::aluminium_anodized::aluminium_anodized
- Custom MDL brick parameters automatically change to reflect the MDL/material/function specified
6.) Connect the Result output parameter of the Custom MDL brick to the Material input parameter of the MDL Surface brick
7.) Apply to surface(s)
-Rob
Awesome thanks, I have some work to do..
edit** I'll be damned that was easy
and a few more
Just basically followed Rob's directions, the materials are "as is" with no way to adjust properties,
Now I need to overhaul the Shader Mixer and map out what bricks work with MDL language and start attempting to make some basic shaders. (checker, blended etc). the import from scene doesn't appear to work with Iray materials so I can't get a jumpstart there.
That's somewhat disappointing, but at least now I know not to get overexcited =) Thanks!
This is one of the reasons I was asking about surfaces =) Would be awesome, of course, to see the whole DAZ-owned shader system be updated. But if it's not a priority, I understand.
I still hope the Shader Builder issue gets fixed =)
Here I cobbled together a bunch of them in the Material Ball scene.
Anyone know if you can easily get dirt shaders to work this way?
Here I cobbled together a bunch of them in the Material Ball scene.It was a quick way to get MDL shaders into DS and that was all that method was meant to do.
For those wanting to expose Custom MDL parameters to the Surfaces pane, you'll need to add a User Parameters brick to the Custom MDL network. The top output parameter of the User Parameters brick, Auto Add (V), is a new type of parameter that will automatically generate a property of the appropriate type and establish the connection between it and the Custom MDL brick parameter you dragged to connect*.
In the event you decide you don't want a property that has been created on the User Parameters brick, or you want to change the order they appear in, right click on the parameter header (the row with the arrow and the connector) for options.
Double click the property label to access the Parameter Settings dialog.
Also notice that the User Parameters brick also contains a toggle-able horizontal divider, collapsed by default, on the right side of the brick. Expanding this reveals a Parameters pane type of interface for organizing the properties; drag-n-drop property items (on right) into property groups (on left).
*- The User Parameters brick is not limited to MDL networks; it operates on RSL networks, or hybrid/concurrent networks too. Note: If a User Parameters brick exists in the network, the automatic elevation of input parameters is disabled, and becomes controlled explicitly by the User Parameters brick.
Again, there is more work to be done here.
-Rob
Thx, Rob.
Is it posible to create a Shader Camera in Iray, I can't seem to find an MDL Imager equivalent.
Thanks in advance.
Thanks for these instructions. I need a little more direction, being new to this. I can't figure out how to add a "User Parameters brick". Where do I find that?
Adding a brick in Shader Mixer is accomplished by double-clicking the desired brick in the Brickyard, or by dragging and dropping a brick from the Brickyard to the Shader Workspace... quite like adding content to your scene. Alternatively, you can also add bricks from the Shader Workspace context menu.
The User Parameters brick is located in Bricks > Functions > Utility.
-Rob
Thank you, Rob, for pointing me to the User Parameters brick.
Does it mean we could write our own Photoshop-like filters, for example?
And is this correct to say the effect will only be visible when the saved image is opened, like, in an image viewer or the render library?
The script is only executed after the rendered image has been saved to a user specified file; not to be confused with after the render fills the image buffer (i.e. Render Window), or after a temporary image cache (i.e. r.png) is saved. Understand however, you can cause the processed image to be displayed via script, so it can still feel fairly seamless; keeping in mind, of course, that the script is post-processing the image - and so cannot show updates as the render resolves.
-Rob
Hello !
Does anyone know what 'Render Quality' Iray settings are for ?
From what I know, render quality settings are usually found in biased rendering engines (like DAZ Studio 3Delight, Poser FireFly etc) and allow the user to reduce the rendering times by making quality compromises and vice versa.
On the other hand, unbiased renders like Iray (and LuxRender, Octane etc) don't have render quality settings, usually. They render endlessly, striving for 100% degree of convergence, when the absolute maximum quality is reached (but that would happen after an infinite timeframe). In practice, the rendering process will be stopped manually by the user when the image is sufficiently smooth and clear, or by setting a stop parameter: a maximum S/p , a maximum rendering time or a maximum degree of convergence (< 100%).
So, when someone sets the Iray 'Render Quality' to 'enable', I presume a 'bias' is introduced then and the rendering engine becomes biased (to enable faster rendering, when the time factor is essential) ?!... Anyway, I've noticed that if 'Render Quality' is enabled, the default 'Quality' setting is '1'. But I've noticed also that the slider has not set a maximum value for this parameter. So how high can someone set this parameter and what impact does this have on the quality of the final image and the rendering times ?
Thank you in advance !
Adding a brick in Shader Mixer is accomplished by double-clicking the desired brick in the Brickyard, or by dragging and dropping a brick from the Brickyard to the Shader Workspace... quite like adding content to your scene. Alternatively, you can also add bricks from the Shader Workspace context menu.
The User Parameters brick is located in Bricks > Functions > Utility.
-Rob
Thanks again Rob, can't wait for the next release.
Where are add backdrop freature and just under what little button you have relocated change background color? In older versions both were easy to find, use and change. Now it looks neither excists anymore no matter where I look.
It's on the environment tab. Set Active type to "backdrop".
TD
Iray currently has three quality controls - maximum time, maximum iterations, and minimum convergence. Whichever of those is hit first halts the render. Different combinations of those will be a "quality" setting, though their exact meaning will depend on the scene. Note that, according to the change log, we will gain the ability to pause and resume renders so we will presumably be able to turn up the limits if we need to.
Testing out DAZ4.8 here with a GTX970 eGPU on my Macbook Pro and Iray runs quite well, by simply loading a basic Victoria 6 into an empty scene.
Then, I apply the 'Iray Optimized Genesis 2 shader' that came with the beta version. It renders OK, but then I go to the 'Surfaces' tab, pick the 'Skin' part for V6 and set 'Metallicity' to 0.5.
Now CPU rendering kicks in and GPU rendering stops working for the rest of the session, even if I revert the change or if I create or load a new scene. DAZ needs to be restarted for GPU rendering to work again.
In the log it says at the point of failure:
Another issue:
If I hold the mouse pointer over the rotate widget in a viewport with either a camera or perspective view and click and drag to rotate, the viewport rotates OK.
But if I, after releasing the mouse button, keep the mouse pointer over the rotate widget and then click to rotate again, the previous camera angle is re-used as starting point for rotation.
I don't think this is intentional?
Has ANYONE figured out what causes CUDA timeouts?
I keep hitting it in projects and flailing trying to get it to stop. :/
in lieu of making a thread just to ask this...
i accidentaly downloaded 4.8 again from the DIM, and now, everytime i search in the program, either nothing is found (on FILE) or i get a bunch of empty "file does not exist" archives (in database).
however, manually browsing the tree shows files are clearly there.
for example, im searching for cara (character) and in databese, i only get empty files, but the files are there in the tree, and can load everything from cara into a genesis 2 witthout problem. whats wrong? i tend to depend on searching to find files (specially for victoria 4.2).
yes, i scanned my entire hard drive for files, and i still get empty files in database
Go to Edit > Preferences > Content Library > Content Directory Manager and make sure your actual content locations are listed under both "DAZ Studio Formats" and "Poser Formats".