"Upgrade" Filament to full version in Daz

RevokedRevenant

Greetings All,

From what i know, Daz Studio 4.x implements a "lite" version of Filament, which shows noticeable limitations. Since we can't unfortunately be sure if Daz Studio 5.x will implement the full-featured version of Filament (i REALLY hope so), do someone know if there's a feasible way to install "Full Filament" in Daz?

Thank You in advance.

ShelLuser

Can you mention some of those limitations?  Considering that Filament is an open source project I fail to see why Daz would use a lite version.

See, the engine itself is already lacking a bit, especially when compared to Iray for example. It was never meant to be a full blown render engine, merely something usable for realtime rendering, which is useful with animations.

This may be a good read:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/479476/filament-may-not-be-a-good-choice-for-daz-studio

(edit)

Also interesting to know is that Filament is still being developed and gets constant updates. For example not too long ago Filament was unable to cast shadows, but that has eventually also made it into the engine.

Kitsumo

ShelLuser said:

Can you mention some of those limitations?  Considering that Filament is an open source project I fail to see why Daz would use a lite version.

See, the engine itself is already lacking a bit, especially when compared to Iray for example. It was never meant to be a full blown render engine, merely something usable for realtime rendering, which is useful with animations.

This may be a good read:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/479476/filament-may-not-be-a-good-choice-for-daz-studio

(edit)

Also interesting to know is that Filament is still being developed and gets constant updates. For example not too long ago Filament was unable to cast shadows, but that has eventually also made it into the engine.

Here's the full feature list. I'm guessing Daz chose to keep the feature set light since it's supposed to be a real time preview. It's a shame because it can produce halfway decent renders.

The interesting thing is that the materials guide provides examples of how to write filament material models (I think that might be what they're calling shaders), but I don't know if Daz's Shader Mixer will accept anything besides RSL/MDL. I'm going to have a look at the DS SDK and see if it has any examples.

RevokedRevenant

@ShelLuser Emissive Surfaces, for example. We can hope Daz will implement those features later. Didn't know about shadows!

WendyLuvsCatz

just an ambient shader or glow would help, it need not emit light just not recieve shadow, one can stick a pointlight in front

like 3Delight

Diaspora

I have yet to try Filament but I gotta ask, can it do spherical rendering at all? It would be nice to have another option for doing rendering for VR (though with a little tweaking I've discovered the interactive mode for iray works surprisingly well)

cain-x

An odd thing I still run into is that the Environment Map does not change from the default.

In Iray, it does change - just not in Filament. Is this still an issue?

Also with Shadows, it only works with SpotLights - does it work with all lights now (even from enviroment (dome only))?

WendyLuvsCatz

no, spherical lens doesn't work 

the environment map eventually changes hovering over the parameter thumbnail helps egg it along

cain-x

WendyLuvsCatz said:

no, spherical lens doesn't work 

the environment map eventually changes hovering over the parameter thumbnail helps egg it along

Interesting - thanks for the tidbit. Never tried that method before. However, I have a scripted method to get animated Environment Map but it does not work in Filament. It does work in Iray. It is annoying...