Better Renderer?
2getit
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Comparing both Poser and Daz Studio, what are the advantages and disadvantages to both?
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Fortunately, this Holy War question has a short answer. They both can use LuxRender.
So they both can have grainy unfinished renders? Not sure that was what the OP was talking about.
But seriously Lux isn't necessarily better, just different. And even going in that direction there are alternatives for both programs in that area.
EDIT: Might as well put my 2 cents in here for the OP. If you have both software packages then learn the renderers yourself and formulate your own bias. I think it largely has to do with time, a lot of people don't devote time to learning how to get a good render using different engines and so they tend to support the one they know best. I look at rendering engines as a challenge and try to get the most out of each one I play with. I tend to find that I like using one or another for different things.
I strongly feel that there are a lot of good renderers available to Poser/Daz users, but even the built in engines are really good if you learn them.
Thank you, I was just wondering since I do not have Poser yet and just weighing my options
I of course would say that whichever one you use, the better render engine is in Bryce, so transfer your set up figures etc into a Bryce environement and render it there.
BTW that is me talking as a Bryce Addict, not an official comment. :coolsmirk:
Poser's default lights are better than Daz Studio's lack of default lighting, but I wouldn't recommend stopping with the defaults anyway! Even very rough and quick renders in Poser look decent because it starts with three lights. But to really get something spiffy you need to devote a bit of time to lighting and materials in all renderers.
And chohole's comment confirms what I said earlier. Whatever you use most will be your preferred choice. I tried Bryce and disliked its renders for humans! But I know people make great things come out of it.
I tried downloading bryce before and kept getting a corrupted file when extracting the zip folder, plus does bryce handle animations?
And I would be the first to agree with you there. For close up renders etc it can be challenging to set things up in Bryce, but isn't that ture of every app or render engine. This topical render is actually one of my better ones, and did take a long time playing to get it to look right.
http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?&ACT=50&fid=41&aid=30274_R1rq53PUGtaTYALOy8ff&board_id=1
Some people get some quite good animations from it.
The best way to download Bryce is actually to purchase it through the store. http://www.daz3d.com/shop/software/bryce/bryce-7-pro
If you do get a failed download, remember to clear your browser cache before you attempt to doonwload again, as otherwise your browser will pick up the previous attempt form the cache and fail at the same point.
I use both. Here's my take:
DAZ - Pros: Intuitive user interface, native Genesis support, shorter (in my opinion) learning curve. Cons: native 3Delight (render engine) is much slower than Poser's Firefly engine. Standalone 3Delight may be faster, depending on your machine, since the free version only allows 2 cores. Requires a plugin to animate. Difficult to add ambient occlusion nodes to surfaces, making UberEnvironment the choice method to get AO effects, which are global and sometimes grainy. No IDL without Lux.
Poser - Pros: Firefly is much faster than Daz's 3Delight, includes native IDL, more documentation for advanced material settings (node-based) including SSS and AO. Includes native support for volumetric atmosheres (haze). Cons: Interface is... challenging, at least at first. Some components are fairly useless -- Face room, hair room, etc. Poser "people" (Alyson, etc.) lack the support and quality of DAZ figures.
There is a significant amount of overlap, where both products provide excellent performance. For example, both have great lighting options, the ability to run 3rd party scripts, render DOF, control render settings, etc.
And before I get jumped on for my statements about render times, I have actually rendered benchmark scenes on my machine and have consistently found a 30-50% difference in render times between DS and Poser, always in Poser's favor -- using DS4.5 Pro and Poser Pro 2012.
I like them both. If DS had quicker renders, I'd use it much more than I do. I'm lukewarm about Lux. IDL in Poser gives me results that approach Lux renders. And I'm less than enthusiastic about non-native render engines, because one usually has to alter material and light settings for the 3rd party engine.
Since you said you don't have Poser yet I guess you may have some time to tinker with Daz. There are a lot of things to improve your render mostly lighting and materials. A bad set of cloths can look a lot better with a different texture or even with just an improved shader added to it and some setting tweaks.
When I first started with Daz I wondered why all my renders were all plasticy. Then I started learning about how to improve the lighting. Then the skin. I still learn and experiment to this day.
Be careful with materials designed for a different software because they can hold a render back. For example a lot of props you find may be for poser and have poser material settings that don't work as nicely as they should in Daz. Some products have materials for both, some don't.
And just to shake things up don't forget about Carrara and with the 8.5 beta you can now use Genesis in it as well as well
I would suggest you alter material and light settings even with native renderers. If in this case if alter meant "start from scratch" then yes you nearly start anew with a 3rd party engine but that works fine if you have a workflow and know you are using a different engine anyway.
I just don't encourage 3rd party engines to those who haven't really taken the time to learn what comes in the software. What comes built in is capable of a lot, has a lot of support are versatile and free. While I really enjoy Octane(which for me has replaced Lux), I still use the built in renderer for a lot of my renders because realism isn't everything.
And I've learned how to keep things rendering quickly.
I wholeheartedly agree. If there aren't DS mats, going into the material settings is critical to optimizing your render times. And if one is using DS mats in poser (i.e., Genesis content), the same can be said in reverse.
I would suggest you alter material and light settings even with native renderers. If in this case if alter meant "start from scratch" then yes you nearly start anew with a 3rd party engine but that works fine if you have a workflow and know you are using a different engine anyway.
I just don't encourage 3rd party engines to those who haven't really taken the time to learn what comes in the software. What comes built in is capable of a lot, have a lot of support are versatile and free. While I really enjoy Octane(which for me has replaced Lux), I still use the built in renderer for a lot of my renders because realism isn't everything.
And I've learned how to keep things rendering quickly.
I suppose I meant that I have a much better grasp of what alterations to my settings will do in the native render engine. Learning to truly optimize the render settings is kind of the challenge of ALL 3D programs. I have a solid grasp of those ideas in DS and Poser because I've used both programs extensively. My aversion to 3rd party engines is that it's akin to learning a whole new program. I could do that. I HAVE done that (DS, Poser, Vue, Cararra, Bryce, 3DSMax/mental ray, etc.), but I don't want to. I haven't seen evidence that Lux is any better than Firefly for Poser, at least not without ridiculous render times. I can already export most Poser scenes into Vue or 3DSMax for rendering -- programs I know well -- but I usually don't. Lighting in almost all instances starts nearly from scratch. All materials need to be examined. If I wanted to do all that, I'd just MAKE my scene in Vue or Max, so I wouldn't have to light and texture twice. Maybe it's just that I find Lux incredibly non-intuitive. I've used it... But I'm meh on using it instead of Firefly.
I also agree that Octane kicks the pants off Lux -- have seen amazing renders from Octane. I'll eventually get off my butt and see if I like Octane's interface better than Lux's.
Octane will have a DazStudio plugin soon (as will Poser), Octane already has one for Max and a bunch of other software. I'm using the standalone software at the moment and I will say it's pain initially. Does have a demo version but I am still anxious for the plugin. I've gotten used to the standalone but a plugin will still save time in a few areas. It's become my preferred path for realistic renders (when realism is what is called for)
That isn't to say that DS (3Delight) DOESN'T support those features...because it does. The problem is, without 3rd party 'add ons', exposing them in the 'native' shader setup means delving deeply into ShaderMixer/Shader Builder. In other words...Poser has them 'exposed' while DS has them hidden. The support is there...the UI isn't.
That isn't to say that DS (3Delight) DOESN'T support those features...because it does. The problem is, without 3rd party 'add ons', exposing them in the 'native' shader setup means delving deeply into ShaderMixer/Shader Builder. In other words...Poser has them 'exposed' while DS has them hidden. The support is there...the UI isn't.
Can't you get AO or SSS with PWSurface or Ubersurface? And ubersurface comes with DS 4 right?
Can't you get AO or SSS with PWSurface or Ubersurface? And ubersurface comes with DS 4 right?
Im running DS 4 and I don't have ubersurface
After selecting your object or group of surfaces, you'll find HumanSurface and UberSurface under the Surfaces Tab, select presets, then shaders.
pwSurface2 HAS both AO and SSS.
Ubersurface has SSS and what is labeled as Occlusion but it is not labled as AO.
Uber shaders are found in your DS Content folder in the Content Tab. By default in DS45, the folder they are in is called Shader Presets.
ah found it, although I have no idea how to use it lol
Can't you get AO or SSS with PWSurface or Ubersurface? And ubersurface comes with DS 4 right?
The 'problem'...UberSurface, UberEnvironment and pwSurface are '3rd party' and not 'native' Studio items like the Poser controls for those features are. So, while, yes, the US and UE included in DS3.x and above 'enable' those features it still doesn't mean they are 'native'. Although I suppose the example ShaderMixer presets that have been included just as long do qualify as native, just how many people actually know about those, let alone use them?
Can't you get AO or SSS with PWSurface or Ubersurface? And ubersurface comes with DS 4 right?
The 'problem'...UberSurface, UberEnvironment and pwSurface are '3rd party' and not 'native' Studio items like the Poser controls for those features are. So, while, yes, the US and UE included in DS3.x and above 'enable' those features it still doesn't mean they are 'native'. Although I suppose the example ShaderMixer presets that have been included just as long do qualify as native, just how many people actually know about those, let alone use them?
I'm not sure what you mean by native here - those are shaders, included with DS. So are the non-uber lights and the Default DAZ Shader, so I would have said they were equally native - they are now DAZ-owned, as far as I know, so it isn't as if they can be whisked out by the creators.
The 'problem'...UberSurface, UberEnvironment and pwSurface are '3rd party' and not 'native' Studio items like the Poser controls for those features are. So, while, yes, the US and UE included in DS3.x and above 'enable' those features it still doesn't mean they are 'native'. Although I suppose the example ShaderMixer presets that have been included just as long do qualify as native, just how many people actually know about those, let alone use them?
I'm not sure what you mean by native here - those are shaders, included with DS. So are the non-uber lights and the Default DAZ Shader, so I would have said they were equally native - they are now DAZ-owned, as far as I know, so it isn't as if they can be whisked out by the creators.
The Uber stuff is now DAZ owned? I thought just the pw stuff was...
But, it was that the features, while exposed in things generated in ShaderMixer could be called 'native', just like the Poser controls for those options, Uber items were 3rd party and don't quite qualify...yeah, it's just semantics, but trying to convince the 'other side' that DS has had these features, natively, for a long time is like beating one's head against a block wall. They weren't surrounded by flashing lights and arrows saying "I'm a SSS shader!!!!", so the assumption was, the feature wasn't there in DS. 3Delight has had SSS, AO and all the rest for a very long time...so technically has DS.
But back to the OP's original question...
As far as renderer's go...just how many major motion pictures (or minor, independent ones, for that matter) use Firefly? How many use 3Delight (out of the two most common Renderman implementations, 3Delight and Prman, it's a toss up as to which one is used more in production work)? How many use others?
Each and every one has its strong points and its weaknesses...
. mistake . Someone left herself logged in. Repeated under *my* login.
EDIT: Sorry about the previous post... someone used my terminal and forgot to log herself out....
Wow, I take a day off to help a friend and look what I miss…
It doesn’t matter who owns what. If it ships with the product, by definition it is native. Since UberSurface and UberEnvironment have both been included since DS3A’s release, they are no more 3rd party than the Shader Mixer or any other piece.
Yes, DS has had a lot of capabilities through 3Delight for a very long time. DAZ overestimates the abilities, and motivation, of the user base.
As far as renderer’s go…just how many major motion pictures (or minor, independent ones, for that matter) use Firefly? How many use 3Delight (out of the two most common Renderman implementations, 3Delight and Prman, it’s a toss up as to which one is used more in production work)? How many use others?
As firefly doesn’t exist outside of Poser anymore, there’s NO PROFESSIONAL ANYTHING being done with firefly. It’s just the nature of the beast. With that being said 3Delight != DazStudio, although it could be argued that DS is just the UI for 3DL. Most of the 3DL work being done comes from Maya, SoftImage, or other high end software capable of working in standard RIB. I’d love to hear of instances where DS work was directly used in the industry.
I do know of instances where DAZ content was used, but I cannot verify the use of DS. I’ve heard rumors of Carrara being used for prototyping but, again, I’ve not been able to verify that.
EDIT: On the "others": there are many boutique pieces of software being used in the in the industry, more than most realize. It is true that Renderman (represented primarily by PRRenderman and 3Delight) is still the most dominant rendering engine, but this is mostly due to the amount of experience that can be leveraged.
This is true of all software. Use the tools for the job and let the work speak for itself. The ultimate test of a 3D software’s prowess is when it can add SFX into live action scenes and one cannot tell that it has been done. In other words, your best work is the work that no one notices. grin
Kendall
Also, it's very possible to get AO on surfaces in DS using Shader Mixer. I stole a bit from some forum posts and wrote a tutorial on it. The tutorial was done in DS3A, but shader mixer is pretty much the same in DS4/4.5, so it would still work.
Tutorial Here. I think Shader Mixer has a LOT of potential... if only there were DOCUMENTATION. Ack.
As firefly doesn’t exist outside of Poser anymore, there’s NO PROFESSIONAL ANYTHING being done with firefly. It’s just the nature of the beast. With that being said 3Delight != DazStudio, although it could be argued that DS is just the UI for 3DL. Most of the 3DL work being done comes from Maya, SoftImage, or other high end software capable of working in standard RIB. I’d love to hear of instances where DS work was directly used in the industry.
I agree with Kendall. Is using a professional render engine really the point? And, okay maybe I'm wrong, but are there really many of us (DS/Poser users) who are, um, rendering professionals? I know there are many people who earn good money making CONTENT, but most of the people in this forum are not likely to be using any of the programs listed for serious, professional images/animation. The low cost and ease of use (little training required to get started) is the reason so many hobbyists and dabblers begin with these platforms. I'm not a snob about my software. I use what fits the bill. I try to keep the learning curves to a minimum. And I honestly don't expect to turn out Pixar-quality work. The high-end render engines are cool, but as larsmidnatt pointed out, sometimes realism isn't what you're after.
And, yes, back to the OP's question... Which one's better?
Both!
But maybe I just think so because I'm a mom of twins. :D
And I find DAZ's interface more challenging. That's why no one can actually answer the question, because both can do stunning things. It's just a matter of personal preference.
That isn't to say that DS (3Delight) DOESN'T support those features...because it does. The problem is, without 3rd party 'add ons', exposing them in the 'native' shader setup means delving deeply into ShaderMixer/Shader Builder. In other words...Poser has them 'exposed' while DS has them hidden. The support is there...the UI isn't.
And, unfortunately, the documentation isn't either. It is so sad to me that one of the biggest cons regarding DAZ (i.e. lack of documentation) seems like the easiest fix of all.
And, unfortunately, the documentation isn't either. It is so sad to me that one of the biggest cons regarding DAZ (i.e. lack of documentation) seems like the easiest fix of all.
RenderMan (RiSpec), as used in 3Delight, is very well documented. Some very good documentation can even be had for free. Some other docs are not so free.
As was said previously, it is all marketing. SM TRUMPETED that they *now* had SSS in Poser, and the Poser masses swooned. Many of the uninformed even went on to claim that Poser was now even further ahead of DS because DS didn't have SSS. Why did they have that misconception?
Because DAZ didn't market that DS had those features. But think about it. DS has spent the majority of it's existence as a free program. There was no direct monetary gain to be made by spending resources to trumpet features of a free program.
There's nothing stopping the community from getting together to crowd-source a set of documentation. DAZ has even facilitated this with the Wiki. Yet folks would rather complain about lack of documentation than to try to write up some text to help move that goal along.
Kendall