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"Reality" is OpenSource? Where can I find it?
https://preta3d.com/reality-now-open-source-software/
Since Iray came out I hadn't needed to use reality. I personally think Iray is better, but that's just my opinion. Other will probably feel different, but that ok, your allowed. To me Reality was a lot of work to maybe get good results when Iray is actually more user friendly and with better results. I spend less time in Iray than I do in Reality to get the same or better results. However, I do really enjoy Reality. It does have it's place.
I definitely hope the last version of 4.15 will be reasonably well done. I just worked for 3 hours on a render in 4.15.0.2, then suddenly it crashed when I adjusted a pose. I'd just saved the scene a minute before so no big deal I thought, but it would not open, DS kept crashing every time I tried.
Then I recalled that I have an old 4.12 beta installed, so I tried to open the scene in that. Didn't really expect it would work, but it actually opened without problems and rendered fine as well. After a few adjustements I saved the scene with a new name in 4.12, and that scene opened fine in 4.15. So here's another good reason for letting people have access to older versions, saved me several hours of work.
https://sourceforge.net/p/reality-plugin/code/ci/default/tree/
So you are saying there have been a stream of promises for 5-6 years....
And now all of the sudden, after going from 4.0, 4.01, 4.02, 4.03, 4.04, 4.05, 4.06, 4.07, 4.08, 4.09, 4.10, 4.11, 4.12, 4.13, 4.14, to 4.15, now we bypass 4.16 - 4.99 all the way to 5.0....
My point exactly!
And I'm not saying this to minimize the interest in seeing a better Daz. Quite the contrary, Daz has an opportunity, with an HD-bust + body figure model to not only provide us with a superior characrter modeling suite, but it has anopportunity to bypass the MH in development. Because, the MH developers are just sitting on their release, leaving users with very limited design options and abysmmal bodies and clothes.....
BUT - Think of all of Daz's clothing and morphs...on an HD bust MH-compatible figure! Their lack of design-paradigm opens up a HUGE lane for the Daz marketplace to take in business, because every MH user will be salivating for Daz content! More $$$$$ than Daz could imagine!
That's exactly one reason why I stay with my DAZ 4.14, as it rarely crashes on me. A lot of my fellow creators have similar issues as you with DAZ 4.15.
And to be honest, when DAZ needs up to 5 mins to start (constantly checking for connect-updates that it is unable to fix) and then needs 20+ minutes to load the scene, such crashes are absolutely unacceptable if you wish or need to create more than one image per week.
Loading times of my scenes are often longer than render times with render quality 3 and less. Every crash because of a faulty implementation of the new posing mechanics is a huge problem.
No, theya re saying that this has been incremental work but MacOS big Sur has forced the pace. Calling it DS 5 is useful as it means DS 4 can be left in people's histroies for plug-in compatibility while DS 5 is the future version. The idea that they would fgeel obliged to update the version number purely because of one other application going forward a version is completely without merit - after all, they never bothered about matching Poser versions, and that is a much more immediate comparison than one of the game engines.
+1
Actually 4.15 rarely crashes for me, and it loads in about a minute (maybe because I use DIM only, and never Connect). I only have 8 GB RAM and 8 GB VRAM in my render PC so I can't create huge scenes so loading time isn't that big either. I think long scene loading times, at least in cases when using newer characters, may have to do with having a lot of these characters and their morphs packs installed which slows down character load, which is well known. After uninstalling 80+ % of my characters, character load time dropped drastically. But this is a general problem, not a particular 4.15 problem, AFAIK.
4.15 has issues, but for me and what I use it for it's not a big problem, I just don't like the idea that when I save a scene I can't be sure that I can load it again, and I hope it's not something that's going to plague future versions.
You will have to strip out the license key logic. He explains that. That's actually the easiest thing for you to do.
More troublesome is since the open sourcing of Reality, you will need update it as to not violate the now stricter Windows 10 security. Then once you get those working you should strip out and update to use the newest LuxRender renderers but not bundle LuxRenderer with Reality anymore. I suppose you could package the LuxRenderer installer as a DIM installer package installed like DAZ Studio itself but seperate from Reality DIM installer.
Seeing as DAZ Studio is updating to QT 5 you'd also want to update Reality to QT 5 which would likely fix the problem with Windows 10 security in the same go.
I think you should strip out the TCP/IP that Reality uses and use DSON files instead like other DAZ Studio render engines do. It is more secure. It will reduce the amount of code updates you have to do relevant to the network code (because they'll be none unless you integrate the DAZ Studio Render Farm API calls into Reality in the Render Parameters Configuration Options) and QT code both.
So get it working correctly on DAZ Studio 4.15 but at that time, don't update the bundled version of the LuxRenderer just yet, and then when DAZ Studio 5 is released you can update the QT API code and then update the LuxRender API version. You want to write it so that you need not bundle LuxRender with Reality but force the endusers to install the latest version of LuxRenderer themselves.
I'm not sure, if you don't enjoy coding for the sake of a hobby, how much time and effort you spend on Reality; as in DAZ Studio, Filament renderer features will be expanded, bugs fixed, and the memory footprint descreased, optimized, and improved. Ray tracing is ray tracing when it comes down to it and Filament does support muliple types of different vendor hardware that nVidia iRay does not support.
Also, I've noticed I've not got DAZ Studio Public Beta updates for some months now; so I think all DAZ Studio feature and bug fix work is stopped except the updating to QT 5. I could be wrong though.
my point is Reality if it were intigrated into D|S5 could suit the Mac users and those without Nvidia graphics cards
if they go with a Linux build it could be compiled for that too I imagine
I know that the loading time is because of all the stuff I have installed and that it is a general issue. But huge loading times and crashes, which are way too often, proven by all the people who experience them and complain about them in forums not allowed to be mentioned here, do not combine well.
So, no 4.15 for me.
And aside from the eyes, G 8.1 is totally uninteresting. And after all, there are good assets here in the store that already provided awesome eyes for G8.
It does seem like a great deal of work. If I remember correctly, the reason Paolo turned Reality into OpenSource is, he complained, that the OSes just kept changing too rapidly, and it was an enormous burden keeping up with this.
The speculative numerology discussion has been ended, it was not going anywhere and was a distraction from the main topic.
When daz release 5 Beta , at least show some screen shot photos to us .
For sure. That's why anybody that cares to update it should reduce it to being nothing more than translating DAZ duf files directly into the LuxRender compatible renderable scenes and isolate Reality from direct LuxRender integration as much as possible. And then most of the OS changes will be isolated and hidden in DAZ Studio's integration with QT API.
The porter might get a decent assist by looking at the coding work that Larsson has done with Diffiomorphic.
...the one feature of Reality I liked was the fact that once all the scene information was sent to the engine, you could close the file in Daz and even shut the Daz programme down to save resources then set it up to render in background. Unfortunately the Open Source version of Reality requires some skill with Python scripting even to get it to work with other software like Blender.
Would be nice if Daz would do something similar with Iray. True, there is batch rendering available, but at an added cost in software (Iray Server), and hardware (separate render box). Another option would be Daz offering rendering services as part of the new update.
...can you completely disable or delete Connect and Daz Central?
All valid good points. DAZ just seems to have its limits with regard to development resources (including hands) that it has available. That said, not being dependent on nvidia for ones core supporting app driving store sales would seem worth the expense and outlay ... if possible along side nvidia (since render pro is free). People just can't endlessly upgrade to expensive nvidia gpus. That is--in the longrun--a losing proposition because it will bankrupt lots of folks, except the rich, those making money off the store, or crypto miners who are impervious to nvidia prices, chip shortages, or whatever. Render Pro, if it works with MACs, is also a way to retain the MAC folks, since Apple and nvidia are unlikely to kiss and make up any time soon.
Yes, another insane feature of what underpins "development" in this area. It also forces people off the play field.
I don't know, I just don't use Connect/Smart Content, or log in with DS. I did for a short period once but dropped it again. DAZCentral I've never used, I've always used DIM. I recall DS sometimes offer to download and install content when loading an item that needs something I own but haven't installed, I guess that uses Connect, but I just say no and use DIM instead. It's either the one or the other, to me.
Another +1 for Linux support or at least Win7
I only use DIM. Not DAZ Central. When I start DAZ in online modus or activate it DAZ tries to actualize Smart contents. Apparently, it always tries to update the same 6 items and fails for 2. But I cannot figure out which. Next start it resumes the same process.
With regards to a Daz-Win and a Daz-Mac early access sessions - are the versions exclusive separate-entity products subject to their own tracking-development, or will any findings from early access be applicable to both, as in a 'universal' version. Wondering if any limitations of a Mac version or a Windows version will be considered such theat the final release is near-identical, or might one be more advanced and "have more" if say one version has an easier time with things than the other.
Also was imagining could it at somepoint even be web-based so that any user could access on any platform, or is that not possible given individualized user content inventories.
Connect is easy - just don't log in to your account from Studio - ever. If you log in, Studio/Connect will automatically download and install any and all metadata updates which can put your smart content out of sync with your content library.
Central is pretty much the same - just don't use it. Use DIM or download and install products manually.
Maybe that is what Ron Knight was channeling when he wrote to face Reality.
It's been my experience DAZ tries very hard to keep both versions on par with each other; occasionally it's not possible, such as with Filament. Mac users don't have Filament yet, but as it's been explained to me it's not because of Big Sur, it's because of the version of Qt that's currently being used and updated. Filament works on Windows with the current level of Qt, but the Mac requires a newer version. Updarting Qt (which has been in the works for longer than Filament, Big Sur or m1 Macs) kills a number of birds with one stone, Filament for Mac, Big Sur for Mac, newer UI code (which, hopefully, will allow more font size and other interface customization for Windows and Mac users), and a host of other things they no doubt have up their sleeves. With the the pre-beta (and the betas to come) there may be different things working on either platform and not on the other or both working or both not working; the point of the betas is to try to iron out the little quirks. It is probable that a bug in the code will affect both versions and killing the bug will fix both. When they first launched DAZ Studio, the initial release was, if I remember correctly, delayed for a few weeks because the Mac version wasn't ready yet and they wanted a simultanous release; as a Mac user I thought that was very considerate, but I wouldn't have minded the Windows people getting it early as I was confident that the Mac version was "almost there". As to a web version, always possible but I doubt very much they'd go with the cloud-based model. Many people still have fairly slow internet, some people would have to pay for the kind of extra usage that would cause, running anything and I personally abhor the thought of not being able to run a program because the Internet was down.
-- Walt Sterdan
I still like kyoto kid's idea.
While I do very little photorealistic work (I focus on "lower end" render styles) I really enjoy what I've seen of the Render Pro stuff. While some people have said it's not up to par with iRay, in many cases it just doesn't have to be. I love looking at the iRay renders folks here do, and I freely admit enjoying checking out the store previews each day, it's like touring little art museums over coffee every morning, but I just have no interest in doing it myself. I've noticed for a lot of the hobbyists here, making art for themselves, part of the hobby is trying to do more and more photorealistic renders until the whole purpose is to see how good you can get and how fast you can do it, and compare notes with others doing the same, and that's great for them; it's kind of like working on your hot rod or vintage car, even though you'll never use it full-time insead of your "real" car. Comparisons between these high-end prints, or between Render Pro and iRay remind me of reviews in old camera magazines that I used to revel in back in the 80s; experts would compare shots by zooming in 500x or 1000x to see which camera/film/lense/flash was better, but most people don't do that. I'm confident if you printed out glossy renders from Render Pro and iRay at their best and showed them to your neighbour Larry from down the street, he's not going to see any real difference. In the printing business, a lot of "accurate" colour prints are changed to "pleasing" colour for different markets or different printers.
With DAZ being up to their necks just getting a stable relase out in the next few months, I'm sure they can't really answer what GPUs or features (new or old) will be in the final release, I doubt they're close enough to a finished product to safely guess. I doubt they have time or manpower to add and support a new rendering engine, like Render Pro, but I can see it as a possibility down the road (even if via a Published Artist). It wouldn't replace iRay, obviously, but I wonder if it might replace 3DL? DAZ uses a very limited, older version of 3DL if I'm not mistaken, and I doubt they're interesting in investing in a higher-priced license when they aleady have iRay, but if Render Pro is as good or better then the current version of 3DL (which doesn't use GPUs), uses GPUs if you've got them, of any kind, and is open source, it might be a good move for them in the future. Drop support for an engine with a licensing fee for an open source one without the fees, and probably the same amount of tech support once it's up and running.
Lots to dream about, but I think we shouldn't speculate or worry too much until we have at least an actual beta in our hands (not the pre-beta), by then we'll be able to get a better handle on what we're going to be working wth.
-- Walt Sterdan
(emphasis mine)
...and that happened with my provider last night several times. with no reson or warning given (In the old mainfame days, sysops would give useres ample warning to save your their work and sign out whan a shutdown was for scheduled maintenence), and my account with thme is current.
Would really be fumed to suddenly lose work because of that.
It's also not only outages, but it would penalise those with download or usage limits as well as with slow connect speeds.