Daz Studio 5 development update

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  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310
    DAZ_Rawb said:

    Hi everyone. Drum roll please...

    Details of the upcoming Daz Studio 5 early-access Pre-Beta:
    ....Filament and Iray...

    Could you please share if the built-in 3Delight version is going to be eventually updated to the final RSL build of 12.5.8 (from 2017, not 2015 as the build currently bundled)?

    DAZ_Rawb said:

    - Anyone who has Daz Studio 4 in their account will be able to keep it. You'll be able to continue to download and use it for the foreseeable future.

    Time to back up installers in case one plans to live beyond "foreseeable", I see.
    I pretty sure you can still download daz studio 3 and 2 so I see limited reason to doubt that.
  • melaniemelanie Posts: 791

    My main concern is that I hope it doesn't mean I'll have to buy a super-duper computer that will handle DS5. I'm having some problems rendering in DS 4.15 as it is. I sometimes can't render two people in one image without it crashing DAZ Studio and shutting it down. Will this be too powerful for my computer? I have only a Dell laptop iwth 16GB RAM and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with Max-Q design. I can't afford an industrial-strength computer. Just wondering.

  • doubledeviantdoubledeviant Posts: 1,171
    edited July 2021
    DAZ_Rawb said:

    - Anyone who has Daz Studio 4 in their account will be able to keep it. You'll be able to continue to download and use it for the foreseeable future.

    That's appreciated. The current (and only) general release of 4.15 is six months old and lacks significant fixes included in the current beta (for memory leaks, etc). Can the 4.15.0.14 beta be promoted to general status, please, so we have a proper manual installation for a stable 4.15?

    I'm interested in Studio v5 of course, but in the meantime I'd like to try 4.15 for Filament and Genesis 8.1, but the lack of an up-to-date 4.15 has put me off (and cost Daz the sale of several products that would have otherwise interested me).
    Post edited by doubledeviant on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,182
    edited July 2021

    @DAZ_Rawb  Thanks for the info on operating systems.  Please continue to update this thread  as operating system choices are made or other issues arise.

    Post edited by Diomede on
  • Gusf1Gusf1 Posts: 257

        What I'ld like to see is the ability to adjust the fonts in the program like EVERY other windows program.  I've been using Studio for many years and I'm getting older and my eyes aren't as good as the used to be. 

                                  Gus

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,113

    DAZ_Rawb said:

    Hi everyone. Drum roll please...

    As Director of Technology for Daz 3D, I wanted to give you some big news.

    Carrara 9 ? cool

  • TirickTirick Posts: 230

    I love the current tool, and 90% of it works really well.

    My largest wish-list item for future developement is better memory management, so I'm really hoping 5 improves on that. The ability to clear locked vram and maybe actually closing down out of background memory in a reasonable amount of time once the application is closed would be fantastic  (it can hang in task manager for 15-20 min after closing sometimes). Closing a scene and then reopening to clear memory so I can actually finish a render is frustrating to say the least. 

  • - Major Update will be Daz Studio release running for Macs, no other major features in the Pre-Beta.

    - All Plugins and some scripts will be broken. The SDK won't be available with this first release, but will be following it up at a later date. Some other less used features won't work at launch, but will be coming online throughout the year.
    - This release will work on at least x86 Macs (with both Filament and Iray). We are still investigating if this initial early-access release will run either natively or through emulation on M1 macs, but M1 support will come during the continued development of Daz Studio 5

    This is exactly what us Mac users have been wanting. Thanks!

  • bytescapesbytescapes Posts: 1,844

    I am wryly amused that @DAZ_Rawb's announcement has reversed the usual order of things: the Mac users are happy, and the PC users are complaining.

    Reading between the lines, the PC users should also be pleased by this announcement. The "major foundation change" probably refers to upgrading from an ancient version of the Qt toolkit (I think DS4 is based on one that shipped in 2015) to a more modern one, and possibly other changes as well. While the immediate obvious benefit is that the Mac version will go from "does not work properly on recent Mac OS's" to "works on recent Mac OS's", having a PC build based on a newer Qt should also pay off for PC users as well. The short-term impact will be smaller, but in the longer term this move may bring benefits such as greater stability, a more responsive interface, and faster development cycles. And given that DAZ are probably also making other changes to support their long-term plans, the foundational change could be good news for everyone.

    I don't work for DAZ and don't have insider knowledge of what exactly they're doing. But based on my interpretation of what they have disclosed, it sounds as if this is good news for PC users too, even if the payoff isn't quite as immediate as it is for Mac users.

  • I'm looking forward to trying this out, can't wait! smiley

  • 3Don3Don Posts: 690

    I am not a super-techy. What is x86, a Mac reference? And, What is Filament and Qt libraries.

    Good to hear DS5 will run on Macs.

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,371

    Like many others here, a fix for MAC users does not really excite me, but I am happy for those users.

    I guess the one bit of comfort for us windows users is that we can ignore 5 to start with (since if will have no new functionality, and all plug-ins are broken), and so it will be the MAC users that get to switch to 5, and therefore are the ones that have to help iron out all the bugs and issues.

  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310

    I am wryly amused that @DAZ_Rawb's announcement has reversed the usual order of things: the Mac users are happy, and the PC users are complaining.

    Reading between the lines, the PC users should also be pleased by this announcement. The "major foundation change" probably refers to upgrading from an ancient version of the Qt toolkit (I think DS4 is based on one that shipped in 2015) to a more modern one, and possibly other changes as well. While the immediate obvious benefit is that the Mac version will go from "does not work properly on recent Mac OS's" to "works on recent Mac OS's", having a PC build based on a newer Qt should also pay off for PC users as well. The short-term impact will be smaller, but in the longer term this move may bring benefits such as greater stability, a more responsive interface, and faster development cycles. And given that DAZ are probably also making other changes to support their long-term plans, the foundational change could be good news for everyone.

    I don't work for DAZ and don't have insider knowledge of what exactly they're doing. But based on my interpretation of what they have disclosed, it sounds as if this is good news for PC users too, even if the payoff isn't quite as immediate as it is for Mac users.

    Yeah I always get excited by rewrites underlying code. But I'm a Blender user and they've had several over the years. Most of them included broken plugins, even some lost features, but in the long term it has been great, and has allowed the program to modernize and add things that would have been impossible otherwise.

    I think free software has an easier time with this. As an inverse to blender there is another 3d modeling program that was famously in need of a core rewrite, but they started it and then realized it was going to take a while and the final product might not have perfect feature parity. So, figuring it would be harder to sell a release without shiny things, they shelved the rewrite and kept slowly releasing feature updates working around the unworkable core.

    Idk about anyone else, but I'd rather be Blender than Lightwave
  • RainRain Posts: 335

    Gusf1 said:

        What I'ld like to see is the ability to adjust the fonts in the program like EVERY other windows program.  I've been using Studio for many years and I'm getting older and my eyes aren't as good as the used to be. 

                                  Gus

    Me too!  I'm REALLY old and the font is teensy, I have a big screen and it doesn't help.  And, yay for the MAC.....I've waited patiently ;-)

  • StarkdogStarkdog Posts: 163

    Hello Don,

    x86 is a type of Intel chip that were in Macs until recently.  Apple now has their M1 processer chip, and they are moving the Apple platform back to their own chip.

    Filament is a "lighter-weight" PBR(Physically-Based Renderer) rendering engine.  I really haven't looked into it much, as I mostly use Iray.

    Qt libraries are a set of "building blocks" and compiler used to build applications in C++.  DAZ Studio is built in C++, and thus needs a way to compile all the different functions and subroutines into one cohesive program.  Qt is one such platform to compile C++ for both PC, MAC, and I also believe Linux as well.

  • Hopefully at some point DS can support monitors with different scaling. Having a 4k monitor as the main and 1080p monitors for the others, I'd like to specify different scaling on the 4k. This currently causes windows moved to the other screen to just disappear.

  • kyoto kid said:

    PerttiA said:

    richardandtracy said:

    If I can make a plea for continued Win 7 support I'd like to make it. Or at least don't put in something un-necessary to break Win 7 support. There are still a number of Win 7 machines with a reasonable life left and sufficient grunt to cope with what can currently be thrown at them, and can probably cope with future stuff adequately for a few years. Shortening their useful lives would be a shame.

    Same plea for continued Windows 7 support and/or adding Linux to supported operating systems. 

    ...+1 particularly for Linux. Love to dodge the whole W10/11 issue altogether. 

    Big thanks to the entire dev team. It seems like this is setting ducks in a row for future improvements and paying down technical debt. So even if there are fewer outwardly visible improvements, I'm sure this is a very, Very Good Thing(tm).

    I would like to chime in and express that a Linux port would be a godsend.

    And, of course, the SDK documentation is of even higher importance because I'm not sure I have the energy to reverse engineer the same things all over again; I'd really like to make a movie at some point instead of writing tools to make a movie :)

    In any case, thanks for the dev's hard work.

  • FSMCDesignsFSMCDesigns Posts: 12,755

    hard for me to get too excited since I will never use a mac again and until some of the new features are annouced, I'll just continue on, but I am glad DS is still being worked on and updated. The main feature i want out of DS5 is better handling of resources and memory. 4.15 is too resource intensive and unless DAZ addresses that, more users will be looking to outside of DS for their rendering needs.

  • DiscipleDisciple Posts: 95
    edited July 2021

    benniewoodell said:

    usahawansufi6c2 said:

    Are we finally getting Soft Body Physics? :( 

    And proper IK? Fingers crossed laugh 

    I'm looking forward to seeing what Daz 5 looks like and thanks for the coupon! Going to poke around my wishlist and see what to snag! 

    Another voice here calling for motion-capable IK. For details, check out my gallery. Thanks for the coupon. 

    Hallelujah!
    Disciple

    Post edited by Disciple on
  • AdenLKAdenLK Posts: 14

    I hope that Daz 5 brings a lot of news. But I think it will take a long time for us to completely migrate from Daz 4 to Daz 5.

  • DAZ_Rawb said:

    Hi everyone. Drum roll please...

    As Director of Technology for Daz 3D, I wanted to give you some big news.  The Daz Studio team has been hard at work on a massive foundation change for Daz Studio that will be released as Daz Studio 5! Our project has been the #1 priority for the team for quite some time now, and it's almost done. Since we know how important getting a Mac version of Daz Studio is to all of you, we are switching up our release plans (from our normal releases) to get you a look at the upcoming Daz Studio 5 as soon as possible.

     

    Sometimes I find small bugs, but I don't find a well-targeted place to report them. With version 5 in beta it would be great to have a better planned place for us to report the bugs found.

     

  • GatorGator Posts: 1,312

    We'll have to see.  It's hard to get excited about it with no real features announced (outside of it working for M1 Mac users).  laugh

  • DaveFDaveF Posts: 1

    3Don said:

    What is x86 Macs?

    Those are Macs that use X86 Intel processors. I hope that explains it clearly enough.

  • Why do I have this sinking feeling in my gut that my present pc rig will not cut the mustard on DS5?

  • What will the minimum and recommend specs for hardware be? Will maxwell gpus be supported? Because some of us (like me) aren't rich and can't afford that RTX nonsense 

  • wsterdanwsterdan Posts: 2,351

    scott762_948aec318a said:

    We'll have to see.  It's hard to get excited about it with no real features announced (outside of it working for M1 Mac users).  laugh

    And non-m1 Macs that use the current (and even, partially, the last) operating system. DAZ doesn't really run on Big Sur, the operating system released in October, 2020 and some people report losing some features in Catalina (released October, 2019), with machines running on Intel Macs. The m1 users are still in the minority of even the group of Mac users, but it's good news nonetheless.

    -- Walt Sterdan 

  • I'm quite excited about this.... on the long, loooong run. I'm expecting having to buy again a lot of plugins and scripts so I probably won't touch Daz5 unless it gets some extremely cool new feature, which I don't expect to happen this year. I assume by the end of the year we will have a fully working "vanilla Daz5" and theeen the good stuff will come. So yeah, the future is looking good, I hope.

  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,727
    Mystiara said:

    i remember windows 3.1.  never a 1,2 or 3.0

    i remember a stephanie petite 3.0

    I saw an A4 scanner in 1987 that only worked on Windows 2. The interface was almost identical to the Apple 2. Then came that massive step overlaid on DOS, Windows 3.0, Networking was added to make Win 3.1

  • father1776father1776 Posts: 982

    Daz 5 will be new and great and ...

    I have no clue what will be different ...lol

    I will ask one thing

    Will daz studio 5 be FULLY compatable with a space mouse?

    It is the industry standard and FULL combatibility would greatly

    improve my work flow.

    Lately been working 6 hours a day in DAZ so work flow is everything right now.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500

    I think that some people are getting ahead of the curve here. I doubt that we will see things like soft-body physics or a decent IK system, etc. It seems to me that DAZ Studio will have an updated platform and any nice-to-have's might come along later, if at all. The community has been asking for a Linux port as well as soft body physics and a good animation toolkit for as long as I have been using DAZ Studio (almost two decades). We eventually got IRay and dForce although I suspect many of us would have liked other options. Who knows - the new framework might open the doors to long wished-for features but I'm not holding my breath.

    I also suspect that there will be considerable costs when it comes to replacing plugins but I would like to see some kind of listing of what will break and what will migrate easly.

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