Daz Studio Pro BETA - version 4.22.0.15! (*UPDATED*)

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Comments

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240

    hamadahmad said:

    Is it just me that the timeline keys are missing from 4.22.0.7? I mean, I don't see it anywhere.

    It is explained in the Highlights thread. It is always a good idea to read about the changes in a new release. There is a menu item  to show the Key Graph now.

     

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  • The only thing people want with the daz update is an iray 2023 update. If they have priority with Face transfer 2 and the inclusion of some unnecessary icons in the layout, that's fine, but what does it cost to launch iray 2023.0.6? , if the DS4 iray is already breaking several things inside the DS4?

    We all know they won't release DS5 because Releasing FT2 now kills any hope that DS5 is anywhere near. DS5 will have a new SDK and so will break existing plug-ins, so it wouldn't be released as a DS4 plugin if DS5 was near completion.

    So again I ask the question why hold back the launch of the new iray if a large part of Daz is already It's all buggy with the old iray, if iray 2023.0.6 is going to break again, so be it, but at least we'll have a faster iray with more features for newer Nvidia cards.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240

    douglasmartinsxd said:

    The only thing people want with the daz update is an iray 2023 update.

    Huh? Maybe that is the only thng you want, but other people have been clamoring for other things, like animation bug fixes and improvements and better G9 bending.

  • barbult said:

    douglasmartinsxd said:

    The only thing people want with the daz update is an iray 2023 update.

    Huh? Maybe that is the only thng you want, but other people have been clamoring for other things, like animation bug fixes and improvements and better G9 bending.

    I'm a simple man.  All I want in DS is sculpting: 2.5D & 3D, optimized usage of at least 24 CPU threads, CAD NURBS & Mesh modeling, a node system, and 3D texture painting.  In short all I want is for DAZ to eliminate Zbrush, Substance Painter and everything else... for free.  I am so easy to please wink

    I wish I could remember the name of the product I purchased that really helped with "better G9 bending."  It's great.  I installed it and instantly G9 was usable without having to do anything.

  • hamadahmadhamadahmad Posts: 12
    edited December 2023

    barbult said:

    hamadahmad said:

    Is it just me that the timeline keys are missing from 4.22.0.7? I mean, I don't see it anywhere.

    It is explained in the Highlights thread. It is always a good idea to read about the changes in a new release. There is a menu item  to show the Key Graph now.

    Thanks man.

    Post edited by hamadahmad on
  • hamadahmadhamadahmad Posts: 12
    edited December 2023

    douglasmartinsxd said:

    The only thing people want with the daz update is an iray 2023 update. If they have priority with Face transfer 2 and the inclusion of some unnecessary icons in the layout, that's fine, but what does it cost to launch iray 2023.0.6? , if the DS4 iray is already breaking several things inside the DS4?

    We all know they won't release DS5 because Releasing FT2 now kills any hope that DS5 is anywhere near. DS5 will have a new SDK and so will break existing plug-ins, so it wouldn't be released as a DS4 plugin if DS5 was near completion.

    So again I ask the question why hold back the launch of the new iray if a large part of Daz is already It's all buggy with the old iray, if iray 2023.0.6 is going to break again, so be it, but at least we'll have a faster iray with more features for newer Nvidia cards.

    I agree with you; I also want the DAZ to finally update with Iray. Due to not doing so, the rendering speed of Daz is lacking in comparison to other 3D software programs.

    Post edited by hamadahmad on
  • outrider42 said:

    frank0314 said:

    Daz refuses to let us even BETA test it in their BETA

    Where in the world was that ever said besides now? If you are using the Beta you have to report those issues the proper way by submitting a ticket and not here in the forums, to be fixed. They are released as Beta's for people to find those issues because it's physically impossible to test every single function and system configuration for the Alpha team. If people don't want to participate in testing it then you just don't download it. If you do want to test the new features and see if it will hold up to how you use it then install it and do as with any Beta version anywhere and report the issues so they can be looked at.

    I am talking about the Iray plugin. Your response explains the logical way a beta works, which yes, I agree with completely...that is why I am so frustrated.

    But you see, the DS beta is not being used to test Iray. The Iray plugin inside Daz Studio has not changed in a very, very, long time. The Iray plugin in Daz Studio is Iray 2022.1.7, which Daz released on April 24.

    This beta is testing updates to 4.22.0.1. There is a 4.22.1.x branch in the private beta, which on the last few versions may well be 4.23.0.x on general reelase, and that presumably wil have an Iray update. Face Transfer 2 is low risk, Iray update is not. You may not agree with the team's approach to risk management, but their actions are considered and taken in the light of past experience and (general) user reactions

    When did the Iray 2022.1.7 SDK release? It released on April 21. So Daz released the plugin to the public beta just 3 days after the Iray dev team released it. It would appear that with 3 days, they skipped the private build completely. Hmm.

    Then...silence. The Iray dev team continued to release nearly monthly updates all year long, including Iray 2023, which contains many improvements and bug fixes. Iray 2023.0.0 released in JUNE. We heard nothing from Daz. Hmm.

    Iray 2023 has received monthly updates ever since, jumping to 2023.0.6.

    It goes deeper. The problems that people have been having with Iray predate this version of Iray. Just as one example, Ghost Lights were already dead, and had been dead since the first DS 4.20 released with a much earlier build of Iray. So Daz just suddenly stopped putting new Iray updates into DS...for some reason. Hmm.

    or for one or more resons, such as breaking other things?

    Yet the reason given, now on at least two separate occassions by Richard is that the Daz team wants to make sure the new Iray doesn't break anything. "based on their comments for this round, appear when Daz is confident that it will not cause new issues" This statement says a couple things, including the fact that Daz is indeed holding Iray 2023 back. But that really doesn't make sense. After all, just use some logic. The things Iray broke all happened long before Iray 2022.1.7 released. The problems all began way back in Feb 2022. Yet Daz continued releasing updates to Iray for more than an ENTIRE YEAR before suddenly deciding to stop? So why the sudden change in release schedule?

    Moreover, Iray 2023 never appeared anywhere in the beta builds, not even private builds. It wasn't until very recently that Iray 2023 showed up in a beta, a private one. Funny enough, Iray 2023.0.6 popped up in the private beta channel at nearly the same time Face Transfer 2 did. Isn't that interesting.

    Yet...only Face Transfer 2 has released to the public. And boy, did it sure come out fast. I don't think we need to ask why. But you know, I will anyway. Why was Face Transfer 2 pushed to the public build so fast? I mean, come on, they even put it on pre order, and the first place to actually use it is in the beta of all things. A preorder for a beta??? And yes, I have to ask, because that is extremely strange. If Face Transfer 2 is fine, why isn't it in the full build? What is going on?

    So this all brings up some questions. If Daz is waiting to make sure the new Iray doesn't break anything...why hasn't it showed up in the beta before now? When was Daz supposedly testing this? Was it in a secret lab somewhere? How are we the customers supposed to interpret this? Going back to your own description of how a beta works, how are customers supposed to file reports when they don't even have the plugin to test? Thus my frustrated plea to put the plugin in the beta.

    Why, if Daz wanted to avoid Iray breaking things, why did they wait an entire year AFTER THOSE THINGS WERE ALREADY BROKEN before deciding to stop updating Iray? How does that make sense? Why didn't they stop at Iray 2022.0.0? Or hell...why didn't they just revert back to Iray 2021??? Oh wait...VDBs were in the store, huh.

    And...again, if Daz is playing it safe, how can they claim that when they keep breaking their own stuff with DS itself?

    There seem to be a lot of "funnily enough" and "intersting" bits dotted in there - what exactly are you imaging daz is conspiring to do, and what possible beenfit could they derive from it?

  • As a reminder, the purpose of this thead is to get discussion or and reports of isues with the actual 4.22.0.x beta so that it can be completed, turned into a general relase, and allow daz to go on to the next version of DS (4.22.1.x or whatever). Getting sidetracked by other wishes is not going to expedite that, if it ends up delaying the required feedback on the version that has actually been released it may actually hinder it.

  • douglasmartinsxd said:

    The only thing people want with the daz update is an iray 2023 update. If they have priority with Face transfer 2 and the inclusion of some unnecessary icons in the layout, that's fine, but what does it cost to launch iray 2023.0.6? , if the DS4 iray is already breaking several things inside the DS4?

    We all know they won't release DS5 because Releasing FT2 now kills any hope that DS5 is anywhere near. DS5 will have a new SDK and so will break existing plug-ins, so it wouldn't be released as a DS4 plugin if DS5 was near completion.

    Daz recompiles the in-house plug-ins for every release, and surely knows how to adjust the code - I don't see any reason to think this would block, or indicate a a lack of progress towards, DS5.

    So again I ask the question why hold back the launch of the new iray if a large part of Daz is already It's all buggy with the old iray, if iray 2023.0.6 is going to break again, so be it, but at least we'll have a faster iray with more features for newer Nvidia cards.

  • barbult said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    On the missing files, did you get the updated content from https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/662091/face-transfer-2#latest ; ?

    People aren't reading that thread and keep complaining about this same thing ("missing" files). If the Beta needs a different version of Genesis 9 Starter Essentials files, why isn't there a Beta version of Genesis 9 Starter Essentials in DIM? We are frequently reminded that most customers don't use the forums, so how does Daz expect "most customers" to get the needed files?

    It isn't a different version, it is additional files on top of the existing version.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240

    Richard Haseltine said:

    barbult said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    On the missing files, did you get the updated content from https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/662091/face-transfer-2#latest ; ?

    People aren't reading that thread and keep complaining about this same thing ("missing" files). If the Beta needs a different version of Genesis 9 Starter Essentials files, why isn't there a Beta version of Genesis 9 Starter Essentials in DIM? We are frequently reminded that most customers don't use the forums, so how does Daz expect "most customers" to get the needed files?

    It isn't a different version, it is additional files on top of the existing version.

    That's even more puzzling to me. If the new files are additional files, wouldn't they be ignored by the General Release code and cause no harm to those users? Why not just update the normal Genesis 9 Starter Essentials then, so everyone can get the files they need by updating Genesis 9 Starter Essentials with DIM?

  • barbult said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    barbult said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    On the missing files, did you get the updated content from https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/662091/face-transfer-2#latest ; ?

    People aren't reading that thread and keep complaining about this same thing ("missing" files). If the Beta needs a different version of Genesis 9 Starter Essentials files, why isn't there a Beta version of Genesis 9 Starter Essentials in DIM? We are frequently reminded that most customers don't use the forums, so how does Daz expect "most customers" to get the needed files?

    It isn't a different version, it is additional files on top of the existing version.

    That's even more puzzling to me. If the new files are additional files, wouldn't they be ignored by the General Release code and cause no harm to those users? Why not just update the normal Genesis 9 Starter Essentials then, so everyone can get the files they need by updating Genesis 9 Starter Essentials with DIM?

    If they became official parts of the main package they could not then be removed safely, if necesary (or if they proved unnecesary by being replaced). That is what happened, by accident, with the Genesis 9 Starter Essentials and broke some content until it was fixed. Keeping them separate theya re not tied in the same way, and the end user is likely to have the zip if needed anyway (it will take up less space than multiple copies of the Genesis 9 Starter Essentials).

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240

    Richard Haseltine said:

    barbult said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    barbult said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    On the missing files, did you get the updated content from https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/662091/face-transfer-2#latest ; ?

    People aren't reading that thread and keep complaining about this same thing ("missing" files). If the Beta needs a different version of Genesis 9 Starter Essentials files, why isn't there a Beta version of Genesis 9 Starter Essentials in DIM? We are frequently reminded that most customers don't use the forums, so how does Daz expect "most customers" to get the needed files?

    It isn't a different version, it is additional files on top of the existing version.

    That's even more puzzling to me. If the new files are additional files, wouldn't they be ignored by the General Release code and cause no harm to those users? Why not just update the normal Genesis 9 Starter Essentials then, so everyone can get the files they need by updating Genesis 9 Starter Essentials with DIM?

    If they became official parts of the main package they could not then be removed safely, if necesary (or if they proved unnecesary by being replaced). That is what happened, by accident, with the Genesis 9 Starter Essentials and broke some content until it was fixed. Keeping them separate theya re not tied in the same way, and the end user is likely to have the zip if needed anyway (it will take up less space than multiple copies of the Genesis 9 Starter Essentials).

    Thanks for the continued explanations. I guess you will just have to keep answering questions about missing files for a longer time. It's too bad that purchasers of the Face Transfer 2 start off with a bad impression, because of that issue. At least Rob provided the files for people who read his thread.

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,915
    edited December 2023

    I just created a strand-based hair and saw the icon of SBH item in Scene pane changed...in 4.22.0.7, is it a new icon or something ? I don't remember I've seen such an icon before...vaguely

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    Post edited by crosswind on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240
    edited December 2023

    crosswind said:

    I just created a strand-based hair and saw the icon of SBH item in Scene pane changed...in 4.22.0.7, is it a new icon or something ? I don't remember I've seen such an icon before...vaguely

    Confirmed. I can reproduce this icon problem as reported.

    Also, strand based hairs previously created and saved load now with the same incorrect icon.

    Post edited by barbult on
  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,915
    edited December 2023

    barbult said:

    crosswind said:

    I just created a strand-based hair and saw the icon of SBH item in Scene pane changed...in 4.22.0.7, is it a new icon or something ? I don't remember I've seen such an icon before...vaguely

    Confirmed. I can reproduce this icon problem as reported.

    Also, strand based hairs previously created and saved load now with the same incorrect icon.

    Okeydokey, I saw the "new icon" when I loaded the old scene file with tailor-made SBH. Thanks barbult!

    I'll submit a ticket ~~

    Post edited by crosswind on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240
    edited December 2023

    Oh, dear. The SBH problem in 4.22.0.7 is even worse. The styling tools' behavior doesn't match the associated icon. It is like the icons are offset by one, perhaps. This same kind of problem happened with SBH editing in a release long ago. I guess the developers don't regression test when they change/add icons to Daz Studio.

    I'll submit a ticket on this part of the problem, although all my technical support tickets get no response these days. CS is either months behind or have chosen to ignore me.crying Either way, it is useless, but I keep trying. I only get the automated responses and then ... nothing.

    Incorrect SBH editing icons in 4.22.0.7 (note the "create new Strand-Based-Hair" icon has been pushed into the first editing icon spot.)

    Correct SBH editing icons in 4.21.0.5 General Release (the last General Release I have installed.)

    Edit: Request #448487 submitted.

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    Post edited by barbult on
  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,915
    edited December 2023

    barbult said:

    Oh, dear. The SBH problem in 4.22.0.7 is even worse. The styling tools' behavior doesn't match the associated icon. It is like the icons are offset by one, perhaps. This same kind of problem happened with SBH editing in a release long ago. I guess the developers don't regression test when they change/add icons to Daz Studio.

    I'll submit a ticket on this part of the problem, although all my technical support tickets get no response these days. CS is either months behind or have chosen to ignore me.crying Either way, it is useless, but I keep trying. I only get the automated responses and then ... nothing.

    Incorrect SBH editing icons in 4.22.0.7 (note the "create new Strand-Based-Hair" icon has been pushed into the first editing icon spot.)

    Correct SBH editing icons in 4.21.0.5 General Release (the last General Release I have installed.)

     

    I had the very same issue as you had... the functions of these tools are totally messed up, Comb turns into Cut... etc. etc, hoho ~~ maybe just because of that "hair icon" which appears at the wrong place... Thanks for sending the ticket.yes

    No worry... I think they will see the tickets and follow them up. Mine has been done ~~

    Post edited by crosswind on
  • jbowlerjbowler Posts: 794

    Richard Haseltine said:

    I would suggest putting it in a separate content directory, then you can unhook that once the main product is updated.

    Yes, that's a good suggestion and it is the conclusion I came to as well.  With the new (temporary) CMS directory and the .duf files the problems DS reports go away.

    In general FT2 seems a little better than FT1.  It manages to remove Sammy Hagar's face fuzz just fine.  It does a good nose job; I don't think it's quite right (I think he has a more "Roman" nose) but I couldn't find a profile picture of him that I actually believe; publicity photos are frequently fixed up to suit the vanity of the subject and/or the expectations of their admirers.  I tried patti smith instead (the cover of Horses) and her famous nose does not come through the process unstraightened (see the cover of the following album, "Radio Ethiopia", for the real thing.)

    In principle FaceGen pro, which allows mutliple input photos and includes left and right profiles (in the version I have) should be better but it's a lot more work and it can't handle hair.  This is all off topic but I thought I'd provide a brief summary so that people who try the "trial" version when it is available have an idea of things to test.

    I did notice that FT2 can't handle a 3/4 profile, at least in the example I tried the head came out somewhat more like Quasimodo than the original subject.  z-axis rotations seem ok but x or y axis don't work.  This is presumably a limitation of the 3rd party software which is apparently designed for producing "avatars" for vidoe conferencing, or something like that (I didn't get a clear picture of their business model).

  • crosswind said:

    barbult said:

    Oh, dear. The SBH problem in 4.22.0.7 is even worse. The styling tools' behavior doesn't match the associated icon. It is like the icons are offset by one, perhaps. This same kind of problem happened with SBH editing in a release long ago. I guess the developers don't regression test when they change/add icons to Daz Studio.

    I'll submit a ticket on this part of the problem, although all my technical support tickets get no response these days. CS is either months behind or have chosen to ignore me.crying Either way, it is useless, but I keep trying. I only get the automated responses and then ... nothing.

    Incorrect SBH editing icons in 4.22.0.7 (note the "create new Strand-Based-Hair" icon has been pushed into the first editing icon spot.)

    Correct SBH editing icons in 4.21.0.5 General Release (the last General Release I have installed.)

     

    I had the very same issue as you had... the functions of these tools are totally messed up, Comb turns into Cut... etc. etc, hoho ~~ maybe just because of that "hair icon" which appears at the wrong place... Thanks for sending the ticket.yes

    No worry... I think they will see the tickets and follow them up. Mine has been done ~~

    See the latst change log entry:

    • Fixed a regression with style pixmaps being shifted by 1

      • Affected images displayed for Shader Builder, Strand Based Hair, IK, and Timeline/Animation

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,915
    ....

    See the latst change log entry:

    • Fixed a regression with style pixmaps being shifted by 1

      • Affected images displayed for Shader Builder, Strand Based Hair, IK, and Timeline/Animation

    I saw this in Private Build Channel. Thanks!  BTW, how's one able to get the Private Build ?

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240

    Richard Haseltine said:

    See the latst change log entry:

    • Fixed a regression with style pixmaps being shifted by 1

      • Affected images displayed for Shader Builder, Strand Based Hair, IK, and Timeline/Animation

    yes Good!

  • SkyWaySkyWay Posts: 7
    edited December 2023

    i encounter a bug with genesis 8 since i made the pro update when posing the big toes moves 10 and -10 to the side and the big toe 2 is bending 7% and -7% even with the t pose its annoying to change that all the time i hope you guys will fix it

    Post edited by SkyWay on
  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 14,047

    SkyWay said:

    i encounter a bug with genesis 8 since i made the pro update when posing the big toes moves 10 and -10 to the side and the big toe 2 is bending 7% and -7% even with the t pose its annoying to change that all the time i hope you guys will fix it

    You need to put in a ticket so it can be looked at.

  • SkyWaySkyWay Posts: 7
    edited December 2023

    frank0314 said:

    SkyWay said:

    i encounter a bug with genesis 8 since i made the pro update when posing the big toes moves 10 and -10 to the side and the big toe 2 is bending 7% and -7% even with the t pose its annoying to change that all the time i hope you guys will fix it

    You need to put in a ticket so it can be looked at.

    i tested a bit again looks like it was idk a one time thing but if that happends again i will write a ticket thx for the information

    Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
  • outrider42outrider42 Posts: 3,679
    edited December 2023

    Richard Haseltine said:

    outrider42 said:

    frank0314 said:

    Daz refuses to let us even BETA test it in their BETA

    Where in the world was that ever said besides now? If you are using the Beta you have to report those issues the proper way by submitting a ticket and not here in the forums, to be fixed. They are released as Beta's for people to find those issues because it's physically impossible to test every single function and system configuration for the Alpha team. If people don't want to participate in testing it then you just don't download it. If you do want to test the new features and see if it will hold up to how you use it then install it and do as with any Beta version anywhere and report the issues so they can be looked at.

    I am talking about the Iray plugin. Your response explains the logical way a beta works, which yes, I agree with completely...that is why I am so frustrated.

    But you see, the DS beta is not being used to test Iray. The Iray plugin inside Daz Studio has not changed in a very, very, long time. The Iray plugin in Daz Studio is Iray 2022.1.7, which Daz released on April 24.

    This beta is testing updates to 4.22.0.1. There is a 4.22.1.x branch in the private beta, which on the last few versions may well be 4.23.0.x on general reelase, and that presumably wil have an Iray update. Face Transfer 2 is low risk, Iray update is not. You may not agree with the team's approach to risk management, but their actions are considered and taken in the light of past experience and (general) user reactions

    When did the Iray 2022.1.7 SDK release? It released on April 21. So Daz released the plugin to the public beta just 3 days after the Iray dev team released it. It would appear that with 3 days, they skipped the private build completely. Hmm.

    Then...silence. The Iray dev team continued to release nearly monthly updates all year long, including Iray 2023, which contains many improvements and bug fixes. Iray 2023.0.0 released in JUNE. We heard nothing from Daz. Hmm.

    Iray 2023 has received monthly updates ever since, jumping to 2023.0.6.

    It goes deeper. The problems that people have been having with Iray predate this version of Iray. Just as one example, Ghost Lights were already dead, and had been dead since the first DS 4.20 released with a much earlier build of Iray. So Daz just suddenly stopped putting new Iray updates into DS...for some reason. Hmm.

    or for one or more resons, such as breaking other things?

    Yet the reason given, now on at least two separate occassions by Richard is that the Daz team wants to make sure the new Iray doesn't break anything. "based on their comments for this round, appear when Daz is confident that it will not cause new issues" This statement says a couple things, including the fact that Daz is indeed holding Iray 2023 back. But that really doesn't make sense. After all, just use some logic. The things Iray broke all happened long before Iray 2022.1.7 released. The problems all began way back in Feb 2022. Yet Daz continued releasing updates to Iray for more than an ENTIRE YEAR before suddenly deciding to stop? So why the sudden change in release schedule?

    Moreover, Iray 2023 never appeared anywhere in the beta builds, not even private builds. It wasn't until very recently that Iray 2023 showed up in a beta, a private one. Funny enough, Iray 2023.0.6 popped up in the private beta channel at nearly the same time Face Transfer 2 did. Isn't that interesting.

    Yet...only Face Transfer 2 has released to the public. And boy, did it sure come out fast. I don't think we need to ask why. But you know, I will anyway. Why was Face Transfer 2 pushed to the public build so fast? I mean, come on, they even put it on pre order, and the first place to actually use it is in the beta of all things. A preorder for a beta??? And yes, I have to ask, because that is extremely strange. If Face Transfer 2 is fine, why isn't it in the full build? What is going on?

    So this all brings up some questions. If Daz is waiting to make sure the new Iray doesn't break anything...why hasn't it showed up in the beta before now? When was Daz supposedly testing this? Was it in a secret lab somewhere? How are we the customers supposed to interpret this? Going back to your own description of how a beta works, how are customers supposed to file reports when they don't even have the plugin to test? Thus my frustrated plea to put the plugin in the beta.

    Why, if Daz wanted to avoid Iray breaking things, why did they wait an entire year AFTER THOSE THINGS WERE ALREADY BROKEN before deciding to stop updating Iray? How does that make sense? Why didn't they stop at Iray 2022.0.0? Or hell...why didn't they just revert back to Iray 2021??? Oh wait...VDBs were in the store, huh.

    And...again, if Daz is playing it safe, how can they claim that when they keep breaking their own stuff with DS itself?

    There seem to be a lot of "funnily enough" and "intersting" bits dotted in there - what exactly are you imaging daz is conspiring to do, and what possible beenfit could they derive from it?

    None of this answers my question. Now keep in mind you actually just asked me to explain what I am imagining Daz is conspiring to do. So please remember you literally asked for this. <.<

    You continue to suggest that Daz is holding back Iray 2023 because it might break something. But there is no proof this is actually why, because there is no indication anyone has been testing Iray. Iray 2023 only showed up very recently in the private beta channel, we are talking NOVEMBER. Iray 2023 released in June. The beta for it was available before that.

    ---SO HOW DOES DAZ TEST IRAY 2023 IF THEY DON'T EVEN PUT IT IN THEIR PRIVATE BUILD FOR MONTHS?

    At the very least, please answer this one question. I would really like to know.

    Who is testing Iray around here? And what if, just what if Iray 2023 actually fixes some of the things that Iray 2022 broke? (Spoiler, it does fix at least one, keep reading.)

    But there is more. What if Iray 2023 indeed breaks more things? What, is Daz going to cut ties with Nvidia over that? Oh please.

    There is no conspiracy. It is about money, Richard. It is always about money. Face Transfer 2 is a paid product, so rushing it out the door first is going to generate some money. It has nothing to do with risk, stop pretending it does. If risk was a factor, history would be different. When Iray ships a new feature that Daz can monetize, they jump on that, too, whether or not Iray breaks something in the process.

    Remember when VDB released? Daz celebrated VDB and made huge deal out of it, selling numerous products for Iray. That just so happened to require an update to Iray. Oh, and wasn't this when the problems began?

    Or how about dforce strand based hair? That was also a celebrated release. That required an update to Iray. 

    These updates also broke things in the process. Did that stop Daz from pushing the updates out? Of course not. They went full steam ahead.

    There is no product you can tie to Iray 2023. So there is no rush to get Iray 2023 into Daz like other times. Playing it safe is just an excuse. Again, if you were playing safe, Iray 2023 would have shown up somewhere in a build for people to actually test. The excuse of playing it safe just doesn't fly if you have nobody testing it.

    You have users wanting an Iray update. Begging for an update. The beta exists for a reason. Maybe let users test it. You guys have said it yourself, customers don't have to download the beta. It is entirely optional. Like a beta should be.

    And versions are just a number. There is no meaning behind 4.22 and however many digits you want to put after it. You can call it anything, just like Genesis skipped from 3 to 8. The names have no meaning. You can give them names like Google used to do. Like Daz Studio Donut. Daz Studio Eclair. It doesn't matter. Any release can be considered major or minor, it is symantics. Frankly there is no point to whether Iray gets updated in a major or minor version of DS. That is purely a management decision, and if Iray breaks stuff, it only delays what would happen anyway.

    And hey, who knows, maybe Iray 2023 actually fixes some issues, like the OOT texture bug. But how would they know? Have they even tried it? Has anybody using the private beta for a few days tried to render OOT hair without an update to the hair product? Maybe Iray 2023 fixes the purple render issue seen a few posts back? Maybe Iray 2023 makes it easier to add ghost lights back? Wait...actually I can answer that one, because this is in the doc now.

    This comes from Iray's documentation:

    4.5Ghost lights

    Area light sources in Iray Photoreal are created via regular scene geometry. As such, these are typically always visible, both directly (from the camera) and indirectly, meaning in reflection or refraction, and do cast shadows. This may in some situations be undesirable, in particular if light sources are placed by artists to create a certain look or lighting mood: the intention may then be that lights should illuminate the scene (to a large extent), but also should otherwise not show up directly in the rendering. This creates a new type of problem for physically based rendering though: When is the contribution of a light source considered to be wanted, and when should it be omitted, without jeopardizing the rest of the light transport simulation?

    To get started, the basic building blocks that control the visibility of lights are:

    • For camera rays the visible attribute may be used to exclude directly visible geometry.
    • A transparent MDL material (thin-walled, with only a specular transmission BSDF) can be used to make the non-emissive part of the light geometry disappear, including shadows.
    • Light path expressions can be used to classify and (exclude) certain light contribution paths from the rendering.

    Iray Photoreal further adds the concept of ghost lights to complement these basic concepts. Ghost lights allow for more fine-grained control on how light sources are visible in glossy interactions. Such lights feature an additional factor to enable a smooth blend between full and no contribution in glossy reflection and transmission. The factor can be set as an attribute on the IAttribute_set class and may affect both objects emitting and objects receiving light:

    mi::Float32 ghostlight_factor = 1.0

    Values greater than one turn an area source of light into a ghost light. This will immediatelly remove contributions of that light source from paths reaching the light via pure specular reflection and transmission. The larger the value, the more of the emission from that source will be removed from glossy interactions, i.e. glossy highlights and reflections from that source will smoothly be faded out. Increasing the factor by one will halve the peak brightness of glossy highlights. Thereby, surfaces with higher roughness are influenced less. In any case, diffuse materials are excluded from the factor and will always be lit from the light source the same way. Note that this factor can also be set on the receiving object side, where it acts as a multiplier to the light source factor (but only if there are ghost lights in the scene to begin with). This allows to fine-tune the behavior on a per object basis to achieve both a stronger removal of highlights or their recovery by using factors less than one.

    In other words, instead of the new contrived method of creating a ghost light in Daz Studio 4.22 which requires the user to visit the forum to discover, you just use a simple slider. That's it. You type in a number in the "ghost light factor" box. Numbers above 1 make the source less visible, and the reflection power of the light cast. But it gets better, because this new feature allows you to add a ghost light property to other objects in the scene that are not lights! You can create sort of a "ghost light relay" with this new feature. Just think of the cool stuff that might be possible with this! This opens the door to some really wild and surreal imagery that was never possible in Iray before. This is huge.

    Doesn't that sound easy? Doesn't it sound awesome? Am I missing something? Because it sure sounds easy to me. It sounds like an actual genuine improvement to the ghost lights we have right now. It sounds like an actual fix to the problem that Iray 2022 created. It not only fixes ghost lights, but adds an entirely new feature to ghost lights that most Daz users probably never thought of. They managed to improve ghost lights. I never expected this, but this concept blows me away. I am truly excited about the new possibilities, and I hope anybody reading this far (honestly, probably very few people) are as excited about this new ghost light feature as I am.

    See...I can say positive things sometimes.

    So I would kind of like to have this feature, and it is very annoying that Daz decided to hold Iray 2023 back from its user base.

    This is just one of the many fixes that Iray 2023 promises to deliver, along with real performance improvements to make rendering faster. This isn't just about speed. These are good things, Richard, not bad things. And think of it this way, Daz can sell a product of new ghost light presets that take advantage of this new feature. So Daz can make some money off this. Maybe that is how I should approach this.

    Give us Iray 2023 so you sell new ghost light products.

    Post edited by outrider42 on
  • outrider42 said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    outrider42 said:

    frank0314 said:

    Daz refuses to let us even BETA test it in their BETA

    Where in the world was that ever said besides now? If you are using the Beta you have to report those issues the proper way by submitting a ticket and not here in the forums, to be fixed. They are released as Beta's for people to find those issues because it's physically impossible to test every single function and system configuration for the Alpha team. If people don't want to participate in testing it then you just don't download it. If you do want to test the new features and see if it will hold up to how you use it then install it and do as with any Beta version anywhere and report the issues so they can be looked at.

    I am talking about the Iray plugin. Your response explains the logical way a beta works, which yes, I agree with completely...that is why I am so frustrated.

    But you see, the DS beta is not being used to test Iray. The Iray plugin inside Daz Studio has not changed in a very, very, long time. The Iray plugin in Daz Studio is Iray 2022.1.7, which Daz released on April 24.

    This beta is testing updates to 4.22.0.1. There is a 4.22.1.x branch in the private beta, which on the last few versions may well be 4.23.0.x on general reelase, and that presumably wil have an Iray update. Face Transfer 2 is low risk, Iray update is not. You may not agree with the team's approach to risk management, but their actions are considered and taken in the light of past experience and (general) user reactions

    When did the Iray 2022.1.7 SDK release? It released on April 21. So Daz released the plugin to the public beta just 3 days after the Iray dev team released it. It would appear that with 3 days, they skipped the private build completely. Hmm.

    Then...silence. The Iray dev team continued to release nearly monthly updates all year long, including Iray 2023, which contains many improvements and bug fixes. Iray 2023.0.0 released in JUNE. We heard nothing from Daz. Hmm.

    Iray 2023 has received monthly updates ever since, jumping to 2023.0.6.

    It goes deeper. The problems that people have been having with Iray predate this version of Iray. Just as one example, Ghost Lights were already dead, and had been dead since the first DS 4.20 released with a much earlier build of Iray. So Daz just suddenly stopped putting new Iray updates into DS...for some reason. Hmm.

    or for one or more resons, such as breaking other things?

    Yet the reason given, now on at least two separate occassions by Richard is that the Daz team wants to make sure the new Iray doesn't break anything. "based on their comments for this round, appear when Daz is confident that it will not cause new issues" This statement says a couple things, including the fact that Daz is indeed holding Iray 2023 back. But that really doesn't make sense. After all, just use some logic. The things Iray broke all happened long before Iray 2022.1.7 released. The problems all began way back in Feb 2022. Yet Daz continued releasing updates to Iray for more than an ENTIRE YEAR before suddenly deciding to stop? So why the sudden change in release schedule?

    Moreover, Iray 2023 never appeared anywhere in the beta builds, not even private builds. It wasn't until very recently that Iray 2023 showed up in a beta, a private one. Funny enough, Iray 2023.0.6 popped up in the private beta channel at nearly the same time Face Transfer 2 did. Isn't that interesting.

    Yet...only Face Transfer 2 has released to the public. And boy, did it sure come out fast. I don't think we need to ask why. But you know, I will anyway. Why was Face Transfer 2 pushed to the public build so fast? I mean, come on, they even put it on pre order, and the first place to actually use it is in the beta of all things. A preorder for a beta??? And yes, I have to ask, because that is extremely strange. If Face Transfer 2 is fine, why isn't it in the full build? What is going on?

    So this all brings up some questions. If Daz is waiting to make sure the new Iray doesn't break anything...why hasn't it showed up in the beta before now? When was Daz supposedly testing this? Was it in a secret lab somewhere? How are we the customers supposed to interpret this? Going back to your own description of how a beta works, how are customers supposed to file reports when they don't even have the plugin to test? Thus my frustrated plea to put the plugin in the beta.

    Why, if Daz wanted to avoid Iray breaking things, why did they wait an entire year AFTER THOSE THINGS WERE ALREADY BROKEN before deciding to stop updating Iray? How does that make sense? Why didn't they stop at Iray 2022.0.0? Or hell...why didn't they just revert back to Iray 2021??? Oh wait...VDBs were in the store, huh.

    And...again, if Daz is playing it safe, how can they claim that when they keep breaking their own stuff with DS itself?

    There seem to be a lot of "funnily enough" and "intersting" bits dotted in there - what exactly are you imaging daz is conspiring to do, and what possible beenfit could they derive from it?

    None of this answers my question. Now keep in mind you actually just asked me to explain what I am imagining Daz is conspiring to do. So please remember you literally asked for this. <.<

    You continue to suggest that Daz is holding back Iray 2023 because it might break something. But there is no proof this is actually why, because there is no indication anyone has been testing Iray. Iray 2023 only showed up very recently in the private beta channel, we are talking NOVEMBER. Iray 2023 released in June. The beta for it was available before that.

    ---SO HOW DOES DAZ TEST IRAY 2023 IF THEY DON'T EVEN PUT IT IN THEIR PRIVATE BUILD FOR MONTHS?

    At the very least, please answer this one question. I would really like to know.

    Who is testing Iray around here? And what if, just what if Iray 2023 actually fixes some of the things that Iray 2022 broke? (Spoiler, it does fix at least one, keep reading.)

    But there is more. What if Iray 2023 indeed breaks more things? What, is Daz going to cut ties with Nvidia over that? Oh please.

    I said that daz was not updating iray mid-version because of the assessed risk, not because of actual issues. Though they may well have internal development versions on which they test things without those chnages making into the publicly known, if not publicly avaialble, beta channels (after all, they are descibed as betas not alphas)

    There is no conspiracy. It is about money, Richard. It is always about money. Face Transfer 2 is a paid product, so rushing it out the door first is going to generate some money. It has nothing to do with risk, stop pretending it does. If risk was a factor, history would be different. When Iray ships a new feature that Daz can monetize, they jump on that, too, whether or not Iray breaks something in the process.

    Remember when VDB released? Daz celebrated VDB and made huge deal out of it, selling numerous products for Iray. That just so happened to require an update to Iray. Oh, and wasn't this when the problems began?

    and the VDB versions were tested, judging by the logs - and erhaps the consequencs are what sparked the caution now.

    Or how about dforce strand based hair? That was also a celebrated release. That required an update to Iray. 

    and, like VDBs, this was not a within-version update. Although I think a lot of the change logs on that, as on the original integration of Iray, were not made publicly available (as may well be the case for whatever new features are being worked on for DS 5).

    These updates also broke things in the process. Did that stop Daz from pushing the updates out? Of course not. They went full steam ahead.

    There is no product you can tie to Iray 2023. So there is no rush to get Iray 2023 into Daz like other times. Playing it safe is just an excuse. Again, if you were playing safe, Iray 2023 would have shown up somewhere in a build for people to actually test. The excuse of playing it safe just doesn't fly if you have nobody testing it.

    You have users wanting an Iray update. Begging for an update. The beta exists for a reason. Maybe let users test it. You guys have said it yourself, customers don't have to download the beta. It is entirely optional. Like a beta should be.

    But the curent beta cycle has fixes that need testing, Daz wants them tested so it isn't going to risk cinfouding the issue with what theya ssess to be a potentially risky Iray update.

    And versions are just a number. There is no meaning behind 4.22 and however many digits you want to put after it. You can call it anything, just like Genesis skipped from 3 to 8. The names have no meaning. You can give them names like Google used to do. Like Daz Studio Donut. Daz Studio Eclair. It doesn't matter. Any release can be considered major or minor, it is symantics. Frankly there is no point to whether Iray gets updated in a major or minor version of DS. That is purely a management decision, and if Iray breaks stuff, it only delays what would happen anyway.

    Version numbers are intended to reflect a hierarchy of degrees of change - the further to the left the number changes, the bigger the change.

    And hey, who knows, maybe Iray 2023 actually fixes some issues, like the OOT texture bug. But how would they know? Have they even tried it? Has anybody using the private beta for a few days tried to render OOT hair without an update to the hair product? Maybe Iray 2023 fixes the purple render issue seen a few posts back? Maybe Iray 2023 makes it easier to add ghost lights back? Wait...actually I can answer that one, because this is in the doc now.

    It might make the handling more graceful, but as I understand it the sahder should not have been assigning a map to transmitted colour 9and was ignoring the map anyway) so I doubt any radical change would happen (but you can always check nVidia's change logs).

    This comes from Iray's documentation:

    4.5Ghost lights

    Area light sources in Iray Photoreal are created via regular scene geometry. As such, these are typically always visible, both directly (from the camera) and indirectly, meaning in reflection or refraction, and do cast shadows. This may in some situations be undesirable, in particular if light sources are placed by artists to create a certain look or lighting mood: the intention may then be that lights should illuminate the scene (to a large extent), but also should otherwise not show up directly in the rendering. This creates a new type of problem for physically based rendering though: When is the contribution of a light source considered to be wanted, and when should it be omitted, without jeopardizing the rest of the light transport simulation?

    To get started, the basic building blocks that control the visibility of lights are:

    • For camera rays the visible attribute may be used to exclude directly visible geometry.
    • A transparent MDL material (thin-walled, with only a specular transmission BSDF) can be used to make the non-emissive part of the light geometry disappear, including shadows.
    • Light path expressions can be used to classify and (exclude) certain light contribution paths from the rendering.

    Iray Photoreal further adds the concept of ghost lights to complement these basic concepts. Ghost lights allow for more fine-grained control on how light sources are visible in glossy interactions. Such lights feature an additional factor to enable a smooth blend between full and no contribution in glossy reflection and transmission. The factor can be set as an attribute on the IAttribute_set class and may affect both objects emitting and objects receiving light:

    mi::Float32 ghostlight_factor = 1.0

    Values greater than one turn an area source of light into a ghost light. This will immediatelly remove contributions of that light source from paths reaching the light via pure specular reflection and transmission. The larger the value, the more of the emission from that source will be removed from glossy interactions, i.e. glossy highlights and reflections from that source will smoothly be faded out. Increasing the factor by one will halve the peak brightness of glossy highlights. Thereby, surfaces with higher roughness are influenced less. In any case, diffuse materials are excluded from the factor and will always be lit from the light source the same way. Note that this factor can also be set on the receiving object side, where it acts as a multiplier to the light source factor (but only if there are ghost lights in the scene to begin with). This allows to fine-tune the behavior on a per object basis to achieve both a stronger removal of highlights or their recovery by using factors less than one.

    In other words, instead of the new contrived method of creating a ghost light in Daz Studio 4.22 which requires the user to visit the forum to discover, you just use a simple slider. That's it. You type in a number in the "ghost light factor" box. Numbers above 1 make the source less visible, and the reflection power of the light cast. But it gets better, because this new feature allows you to add a ghost light property to other objects in the scene that are not lights! You can create sort of a "ghost light relay" with this new feature. Just think of the cool stuff that might be possible with this! This opens the door to some really wild and surreal imagery that was never possible in Iray before. This is huge.

    Doesn't that sound easy? Doesn't it sound awesome? Am I missing something? Because it sure sounds easy to me. It sounds like an actual genuine improvement to the ghost lights we have right now. It sounds like an actual fix to the problem that Iray 2022 created. It not only fixes ghost lights, but adds an entirely new feature to ghost lights that most Daz users probably never thought of. They managed to improve ghost lights. I never expected this, but this concept blows me away. I am truly excited about the new possibilities, and I hope anybody reading this far (honestly, probably very few people) are as excited about this new ghost light feature as I am.

    Err - that is the fix implemented in DS 4.22.0.1 - the Create Advanced Iray Node Properties can add the slider for you. As far as I am aware this is something Daz lobbied for, not soemthing nVida chose to add on a whim and Daz adopted to fix the old products that were broken.

    See...I can say positive things sometimes.

    So I would kind of like to have this feature, and it is very annoying that Daz decided to hold Iray 2023 back from its user base.

    This is just one of the many fixes that Iray 2023 promises to deliver, along with real performance improvements to make rendering faster. This isn't just about speed. These are good things, Richard, not bad things. And think of it this way, Daz can sell a product of new ghost light presets that take advantage of this new feature. So Daz can make some money off this. Maybe that is how I should approach this.

    Give us Iray 2023 so you sell new ghost light products.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240

    I am pleased to confirm that the Strand-Based hair creation and editing icons look correct again in 4.22.0.9 Public Build.

  • barbult said:

    hamadahmad said:

    Is it just me that the timeline keys are missing from 4.22.0.7? I mean, I don't see it anywhere.

    It is explained in the Highlights thread. It is always a good idea to read about the changes in a new release. There is a menu item  to show the Key Graph now.

    or there is the button to the right of Keys: in the control bar at the bottom of the pane in your screenshot.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240

    Richard Haseltine said:

    barbult said:

    hamadahmad said:

    Is it just me that the timeline keys are missing from 4.22.0.7? I mean, I don't see it anywhere.

    It is explained in the Highlights thread. It is always a good idea to read about the changes in a new release. There is a menu item  to show the Key Graph now.

    or there is the button to the right of Keys: in the control bar at the bottom of the pane in your screenshot.

    Right you are. I saw the mention of a new button in the highlights thread, but I couldn't find it on the interface. Thanks for pointing out the location. I even see that the button is highlighted when the corresponding menu option is selected.

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