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Neither will give the user instant gratification. You won't suddenly turn into Mec4D overnight. I've been at this since 2007 and I'm still learning to get even close to what some may consider to be lesser work. It's only threads like this that give me the impetus to keep moving forwards.
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32 bit is a challenge. I'm not that rich either (I am Russian, and in Russia people in my line of work, particularly those who are employed by state-funded institutions, do not get much money at all, unlike elsewhere in the civilised world...), but I made sure to get a 64bit system, if only not to worry about hitting the 32bit memory limit (which was insta-crash, in my case; Genesis clothing with smoothing modifiers was a huge offender).
My freebie lights that are now on ShareCG were all made on a 32bit machine, though (a 2007 laptop). They work in both DS3 and DS4, and they were designed with performance in mind. So you may find them useful, particularly with DS4 that can use the raytracer via the "progressive" switch. It will seriously speed up raytraced everything (AO, soft shadows, etc).
I all but burned out the last single core laptop I had. I made sure the next one had everything I needed, and it did, to an extent, but, I got fed up with how hot it ran and built a PC instead. Mind you, in its first incarnation, even this wasn't cool enough so I gutted it and put it in a case with 7 fans in it. It's all good now.
32bit means you can't even use HD, that must hurt!
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I may have misinterpreted your meaning, but to me it sounds as if you were trying to say there is some "innate magic" to Iray's final output, while there is none. It's just a yet another archviz tool. And as many of the unfortunate newcomers have shown, it still takes time and effort to master, just like any other visualiser/renderer. Or, y'know, photography.
Iray comes with a lot of very useful material models being predefined and hardcoded into the renderer core. This is a huge advantage. But, say, with 3Delight it's possible to write all the not-yet-hardcoded models manually and even output your new shadeop to a DLL, so as to ensure speed. Granted, I mean 3Delight Studio/Maya/whatever, not the DS built-in one because I don't know if you can use DLL extras with it.
Bottom line: Iray integration into DS, since it's not being treated as "advanced rocket science" but rather geared towards a new user, may be a quicker path to "photorealism" than polishing the "arcane" 3Delight DS integration with scripts, new shaders and so on. But even then, DS+Iray won't give a random new user "photorealism" automagically.
Nah I'm talking about what you can currently get out of DS. Your shaders included. Out of the box, Iray comes with the advantage of plausible or physically measured shaders, photometric lights, a tonemapper and is an unbiased path tracer. The difference in feature is huge and to get the equivalent for Delight, I'd count month at least of dev when it's feasble (I 'm not sure there is a way to do dispersive shaders for ex).
I didn't say that in the right hands you couldn't make realistic things out of 3delight but it will take more than a simple render
In fact, what I really have in mind is that 3delight shouldn't be compared to Iray in term of what you can achieve in realism. It has other features and strength that unbiased renderers don't have
I'm pretty sure it is possible to...because some of the stuff that it does, in DS, is hard-coded, somewhere...it's not all script files that are findable and able to be looked at (even if they can't be read..encrypted/compiled scripts). Now whether or not **WE** can do it, is another question...
I'm not entirely sure, that under a strict definition, that Iray really is 'unbiased'...but that isn't my point...
With the most recent builds of 3DL, the emphasis seems to be shifting towards the raytracer (with all that entails), plausible shaders and what not. With it, it should be possible to do dispersion...and photometric lighting. There seems to be a push for it...and there is a way of doing it in Maya.
And that's the rub, because 3DL has had some of the Iray features, for at least most of the version 11 cycle....it's just that DS hasn't included an easy way (or any, really) to get access to those features. The 'big guns' have had them and are pushing for all of the bells and whistles of something like Iray, so they are being included. It's just that the feature set in Studio seems stuck to several versions of 3DL ago...
If I was still using my former PC which was mono CPU I don't know if I would be using DS4. I don't remember if I switched to DS4 before or after I got my quadcore desktop
Are you using DS3 or DS4 or both?
I'm using DS4, latest public beta. AFAIK, it works fine except for the newer things that require 64-bit.
I'm not entirely sure, that under a strict definition, that Iray really is 'unbiased'...but that isn't my point...
With the most recent builds of 3DL, the emphasis seems to be shifting towards the raytracer (with all that entails), plausible shaders and what not. With it, it should be possible to do dispersion...and photometric lighting. There seems to be a push for it...and there is a way of doing it in Maya.
And that's the rub, because 3DL has had some of the Iray features, for at least most of the version 11 cycle....it's just that DS hasn't included an easy way (or any, really) to get access to those features. The 'big guns' have had them and are pushing for all of the bells and whistles of something like Iray, so they are being included. It's just that the feature set in Studio seems stuck to several versions of 3DL ago...
You know you're making my point right? That is what I'm saying. Out of the box in term of features the 3DL implementation inside DS is not able to compete with Iray for realism. Forget what you could potentially get that is inside other apps. They are not here in DS. That is why I said you won't beat it easily
For photometric lights, there was a post in the 3DL forum from users wishing to get that. I think the response was negative. And the only dispersive shader you can make atm is only a fake one. There is no dispersive calculation implemented in the caustics
It seems that 3DL for Max has access, probably through some form of translation, to photometric lights...and if it's doable for one, it should be doable for all...except in some cases, the interface scripting will be more difficult. Ogre posted this link to some Arnold code for using photometric lights...
https://bitbucket.org/anderslanglands/alshaders/src/6092e8db93abb1f0a64b2390f8273dd5a9aa81cc/alPhotometric/alPhotometric.cpp?at=master (just need to find an Arnold to 3DL translator)
And my point is, that progress with 3DL seems to have stagnated...and it's pretty much up to us crazy experimenters to drag, kicking and screaming, it seems, into DS whatever features we can.
Caustics/dispersion shouldn't be too hard to implement, in the pure raytracer...but 3DL relies a lot on the users coming up with those kind of things. It would probably have to implement some selfmade shade-ops.
This also.
I think that is what Takeo saying. Iray came out of the box generally ready for use. It is the underlying assumption with DAZ Studio - place a figure, pose it, build a scene around it and render.
You can do that with 3delight too, but the results will be very different. We've been through these kind of discussion before - people in general does not want to learn the ins and outs of proper lighting and mterials setup, using materials that are physically plausible or correct, changing sample values and so forth.
Look back when people started using Luxrender with DS. Although the render times were atrocius, they look good in terms of photorealism. It is the same with iray. Can you match 3delight's output to iray? I believe so, but that won't happen with just a few weeks and not just using your shaders and lights. 3delight in DAZ Studio is sandbagged by a lot of things..
Iray came out of the box with pretty much a physical camera, correct gamma and tonemapping. In comparison, we still get a gamma of 1.0, no tonemapping and of course, no physical camera settings (ISO, exposure, shutter speed and white point settings) with 3delight for DAZ Studio. You need to do those things manually with 3delight and not a lot of people know how, or even know they need to do that.
To requote Takeo, it takes more to really makes best use of 3delight and match quality with iray. Users don't necessarily know what the settings are for glass, plastic metal, or skin. That's why TDs, look devs and artists sit down and discuss things.
Okay, now I see what you mean and I agree. With DS, the DAZ developers are not focusing on extending the "artist-oriented" section.
...but I was looking at the page of new Iray-specific releases, and it didn't look that much different from any other store page. I'd say it just reinforced my point: in the hands of a more experienced artist as well, all renderers will look the same. The style is the same. The artist defines the style, not the software.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Caustics, even with photon mapping, take what trace() gives them. If you use a 3-tuple eta, it should be a step towards dispersion. I just haven't tried it yet, but the thing with 3Delight is, if we don't know it's there, it does not mean it is not there.
And then, there are pathtraced caustics which are also a thing, if slow right now.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Caustics, even with photon mapping, take what trace() gives them. If you use a 3-tuple eta, it should be a step towards dispersion. I just haven't tried it yet, but the thing with 3Delight is, if we don't know it's there, it does not mean it is not there.
And then, there are pathtraced caustics which are also a thing, if slow right now.
I wouldn't put it past pberto to have an in-house caustics/dispersive shader...that isn't a 'fake'.
I wouldn't put it past pberto to have an in-house caustics/dispersive shader...that isn't a 'fake'.
I don't know what they really have with the 3DSMAX as feature but it seems there is no dispersion
http://www.3delight.com/en/modules/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4246
But they seem to have the photometric lights somehow http://www.3delight.com/en/modules/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4238&p=21704&hilit=photometric#p21704. But I didn't find any reference to photometric lights for maya or softimage
And they also have integrated OpenVDB which is more than interresting if you're not using DS
4.8 is now up for download. It still shows as 4.7 in the Product Library at the moment and the content files aren't up yet. I won't install it till I have everything. When I have, I will endeavour to test RT Kit in it and we'll see what's what.
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I want a particle solver for DS real, real bad.
Is OpenVDB in Blender yet?
Oh, absolutely.
Have you noticed if the 4.8 final has a newer 3DL build?
Oh, absolutely.
Have you noticed if the 4.8 final has a newer 3DL build?
Yes it has
I meant newer than the beta. But that's all good, I have a chance to see myself now...
Well, that depends on whether you use the DIM or not, if you don't you'll still have to wait for the Iray content to come out. If you have the Beta you can just install what you had there into the proper 4.8. I know I might not use Iray at all, but, just so everything runs smoothly, I'd still like to have everything in place before I install 4.8. The waiting is a bit tedious though as I'm dying to try RT Kit out and I've also just got Darius 6.
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EDIT:
If you click the Beta in the Product Library, there's now a manual download for the Public Beta Iray Support Content. If this is identical to the release content it could be all systems go!
But Iray content isn't required to export a RIB and verify the 3DL build, which I just did. It's still 3Delight 11.0.130, as it was in beta.
I won't try because I studied the question for few months in the last years and came to the conclusion that it would take me a lot of time and had no warranty to work.
I don't think what you're going to do with your tuple is physically correct but I'm sure some people will be happy with it
Is OpenVDB in Blender yet?
I don't think OpenVDB is in Blender yet but it has Particles since a long time.
Now the question is what do you want to do with a particle solver?
True, it isn't, I just wanted to make sure we had everything.
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There seems to be a problem with RT Kit in 4.8. Whenever I render with one of the scripts, the background won't render, even when it is turned on in the Environment tab. Any idea why that might be!?
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Don't worry about that last post. I stuck up the backdrop I used for the old US2 renders. This is nothing exciting, just a quick 'proof of life' render to show that RT Kit works in 4.8 without me needing to recompile anything. I used the HDRI light and Simple Phys Distant from Shader Builder, just to see what they were like.
Now I know it all works I'll have a bit more of a play...
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Toyed around with lights bit more, I can't believe the results I'm getting. I now have the proper Rocks N Drops backdrop that Daz use now.
It doesn't look like a DS render at all to me, and that is what is so brilliant about it
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I tried one of Darius,
Now, here's an interesting thing, I took Bjorn, dialled out M6 and put in Darius instead. Then I loaded his textures into the appropriate bits of the shader. I forgot to change the UV from Michael 6, but, the textures worked. When I tried to change the UV to Darius6 there was a big gap under his chin. Odd, so, it's possible that the 'custom UV' for Darius6 is really M6, but why would the texture be off if I try loading that UV!?
Oh well, it works, as you will now see...
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PS (The lights are the Delight GHDRI and some from the Fantasy Lights set.)
Pour liquids onto/into static meshes, spray vapours into the "air", simulate sand, flames etc. I think Blender can help me with liquids, if I export the result as OBJ, but I don't know about stuff like sand or vapours (they're not "OBJ-able", are they?).
In theory, I should even be able to write something like this myself (the physics of it all, which is continuum mechanics, is what I deal with daily), but as I am a "mad scientist" (TM) and not an IT specialist, I never had any training in optimising the code to make it fast, so whatever I write will most likely take forever to solve anything but the crudest resolutions.
The answer's in the docs actually, the part that is already up ;)
Because it's not supported - the API for that class changed for 4.7, and the scripting docs couldn´t keep up with the changes. I have yet to check if the changes are documented now...
Thank you for the dark-skinned render! It's not my forte as you can guess (not that many people like that in Russia). Glad to see it still looks good.
As for UVs, I'm sorry I have no idea =)
As I replied later it doesn't matter about the backdrop, I'll simply replace it with a scene item. Glad you like Darius, I loved that all I had to change was the textures. I think people are really going to like this shader as you can get great results without any fiddling. The shader settings are straight out of the box, no tweaks needed. All I did do was to change the pixel filter to Catmull Rom. I'll try a female figure next.
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It's an approximation, granted; but it's not breaking rules, just being kinda 7th grade physics when all the formulas are algebra, not college-level when you move on to more correct partial derivatives LOL
Look at the pic of the prism on the right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersion_(optics)
The real spectrum is continuous; using a 3-tuple for eta will mean I'm dividing it roughly into three parts. It's like with numerical modeling in continuum mechanics (deforming structures etc): you can have a mesh with a resolution of 5 cells per unit of length, or a mesh with 50 cell/unit, etc. The first will be crude, but it will give you a general idea of the process and it may even be enough (depending on scale, complexity of the process etc.).
It should be possible to write a dedicated procedure for finer division, but I don't really want to go that deep in foreseeable future (I'm hoping that we'll get native spectral colour support one day).
The frequencies typically used are the RGB red, green, blue...and I have one, but it's old and slow.
The easiest 'advance' is to use 6 frequencies. You know the typical 'rainbow'...