DAZ Viewport - Turn off Oppacity Maps?

SpyroRue

Is there a way to turn off oppacity maps in Daz view port? I'm trying to set up a forrest/jungle render scene, but the trans maps in the viewport are causeing very serious lag! I want the oppacity to still work in the actual render, but not to appear in the viewport.

Can anyone help?

Thanks

Zev0

You can create a shader that turns them on and off. Basically you create one to disable and one to enable. Have a look at this thread.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/7397/

SpyroRue

Thanks Zev! I'm having a read. Atm, I worked out it was softer on the computer to hide trees that ive already placed, as well as characters. Just means the new trees placement is a bit of a guess... But I'm working in 'zones' on the scene, to avoid double placeing items.

Thanks again :)

Zev0

What I do more now is change my viewport to smooth shaded while constructing a scene and just switch back to texture shaded when I need to see details.

Mattymanx

I find that anytime I am working with a large scene, it is easier to split it up into parts then it is to have it all loaded at the same time.

In this case having the forest as its own scene and each fully dressed character as their own individual scene.

If you need to place and pose a character after you built your forest then you would load the forest in after the character and then remove all that you do not need. So you would end up with the forest floor and maybe a few trees in the scene with the character and then when the pose and placement is complete, remove anything not related to the character and save the scene.

What this does in the end is it makes dealing with each character or element faster and thus easier since the load and save times will be a lot faster and of course your computer can handle what your doing a lot better too. Also if you need to go back and make a minor tweak on one character you dont have to load everything else too.

When it comes time to render, just load the first one and merge the rest. Just make sure you save your desired camera angle in one of the scenes too along with your lighting!

Porsimo

Zev0 said:

What I do more now is change my viewport to smooth shaded while constructing a scene and just switch back to texture shaded when I need to see details.

This is what I do too - as long it's the textures and transparency maps and not the polycount that are slowing things down. Even in case of high polycount changing temporarily to solid bounding box for moving objects and camera helps a lot.

SpyroRue

Thanks guys! I've began to recreate the scene in parts, Characters will have their own, the forrest will be broken up into sectors and lighting will come into play with appropriate light obstructions matching all of the separate scenes. I may render the character one separately and layer them into the final render (Shadows and Lighting matched of course). I'll try out the smooth shaded as well.

Thanks everyone! :cheese:

Mattymanx

A little lighting/surface tweaking tip:

If the surfaces look good under day time lighting then they should look good under most any lighting.

at least thats the theory.

Joe Cotter

Mattymanx said:

I find that anytime I am working with a large scene, it is easier to split it up into parts then it is to have it all loaded at the same time....When it comes time to render, just load the first one and merge the rest.

If you have different parts to the scene that don't interact directly with lighting such as background elements and foreground elements, the scene can even be rendered in parts and merged together in a 2D program afterwards. This allows re-rendering a much smaller project if only an area needs to be tweaked. In this case, make sure the overall lighting is the same in background and foreground renders. localized lighting for the foreground only need to be in the foreground render usually.

Dreamlight has some tutorials on an advanced version of this.

Just make sure you save your desired camera angle in one of the scenes too along with your lighting!

Mattymanx

Gedd said:

Mattymanx said:

I find that anytime I am working with a large scene, it is easier to split it up into parts then it is to have it all loaded at the same time....When it comes time to render, just load the first one and merge the rest.

If you have different parts to the scene that don't interact directly with lighting such as background elements and foreground elements, the scene can even be rendered in parts and merged together in a 2D program afterwards. This allows re-rendering a much smaller project if only an area needs to be tweaked. In this case, make sure the overall lighting is the same in background and foreground renders. localized lighting for the foreground only need to be in the foreground render usually.

Dreamlight has some tutorials on an advanced version of this.

Just make sure you save your desired camera angle in one of the scenes too along with your lighting!

It may be a time saver for small areas but even still, one never knows all that influences an area of the scene so you run the risk of missing elements. On top of that, the more you have in a scene, the more of a nightmare it is to combine it to look as though it was never split up. DS is more then capable of rending it all together.

adamr001

Changing your viewport to smooth shaded instead of texture shaded helps alot too.

SpyroRue

Thanks guys heaps... I got it running alot smoother now, even to the point where I can actually load characters to the jungle set. The smooth shaded view was very helpful, I did break up the set, and it all fits together nicely :) Thanks very much for all your help!! :cheese:

Skiriki

adamr001 said:

Changing your viewport to smooth shaded instead of texture shaded helps alot too.

Daft question -- how do I do this?

Jaderail

little round moon looking ball with down arrow under it it the right hand of the viewport, for me.

Skiriki

Thanks. Now, does anyone know how to get back mouse pointer that just vanishes without any explanation whatsoever?

Jaderail

Skiriki said:

Thanks. Now, does anyone know how to get back mouse pointer that just vanishes without any explanation whatsoever?

Nope, Not I, never had that happen but once. I did have the kitty cat semi-virus once, really a joke app, a kitten would pop on screen and chase your pointer down and eat it, took a reboot to get it back, standard uninstall cure it.

Zev0

Skiriki said:

Thanks. Now, does anyone know how to get back mouse pointer that just vanishes without any explanation whatsoever?

I've had that happen alot. Mostly when I overload my system by doing too many things at once. Just save close and open again and you're good.

Skiriki

Yeah... well I somehow scrunched two buttons at the same time while I had bits of Genesis selected and the pointer just vanished and didn't come back unless I swapped to other programs. If I save and quit, and then reload the scene, it does reappear, but it is kinda tedious (considering how I'm trying to get this big-ass scene positioned just right), if it happens again.

robertsharp1981

I have had my mouse dissapear while painting weightmaps for say like dForce and noticed its only not in the viewport, but it does show up once I move it over to one of the docked tabs like the scene tab and I figured out that if it does that, I can select a different item in the scene and then re-select what i was working on and it comes back.