Show us your 3Delight renders

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  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057
    edited March 2018

    ...I managed to create pretty good refractive water (though it took quite a bit of doing) using a water surface shader by TJohn in my Old Swimmin Hole pic (the one with the blue skin alien kids which I think I posted here several pages back).  Will be nice to be able to do so with less guesswork.

    Took long as well to render even with the AoA lights.

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited March 2018

    Abducting Aliens:

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    Abducting Aliens pp.png
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    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057

    ...nice.

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    kyoto kid said:

    ...nice.

    Tks, kk:)

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057

    ...love the appearance as well as the theme. (who knows what's really going on over at Groom Lake?).

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057
    edited March 2018

    ...agh so many nice new items and all Iray only. Wanted to get the Bubble Suit for G3/G8 but having to convert that type of liquid translucent reflective shader is a real pain.

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    kyoto kid said:

    ...love the appearance as well as the theme. (who knows what's really going on over at Groom Lake?).

    Exactly my thoughtssurpriselaugh

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    kyoto kid said:

    ...agh so many nice new items and all Iray only. Wanted to get the Bubble Suit for G3/G8 but having to convert that type of liquid translucent reflective shader is a real pain.

    Found these in fast grabs, grabbed them really fast=)

    https://www.daz3d.com/metalized-glass-shaders-for-daz-studio

    https://www.daz3d.com/subsurface-gummy-plastic-shaders

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057

    ..I have both, very useful.  I used the partials from the Metallised Glass Shaders to create the glass surfaces in the bus stop scene.

    Finally picked up Reflective Radiance for 3DL.  Every seemed to keep missing it when it was on sale

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited March 2018
    kyoto kid said:

    ..I have both, very useful.  I used the partials from the Metallised Glass Shaders to create the glass surfaces in the bus stop scene.

    I see, I'm off to do some testing...

    kyoto kid said:

    Finally picked up Reflective Radiance for 3DL.  Every seemed to keep missing it when it was on sale

    Aah, have fun! Took a while to get the hang of it for me, but a very useful set indeed. And it comes with an IRay to 3DL converter (which I haven't tested yet).

     

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057

    ..didn't know that.  Thanks for the heads up on that.

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    Sven Dullah said:

    You're right, refractive water, could have rendered in progressive but wanted to use the pixel filter, still haven't looked into that scripting thing, will have to sooner or later, and yes I find it very odd that the filter option is not availible in progressive mode.

    The filter is not what I was talking about. If you want reasons why, I'd wager it's just efficient use of resources: the devs never intended progressive to be used for final production rendering, just for previews. Filtering is not some "lazy" postproduction operation; it's reconstruction filtering, taking place at the very time of rendering (basically the law of how you combine pixel samples - which are rays). This is why box 1x1 aka basically no filter is the most computationally efficient (aka fast); this is most likely why it's hardwired into progressive.

    I was talking about one of the defining features of, well, most production renderers actually - ability to finetune the extent to which a given surface contributes to this or that subset of tracing computations. Vanilla DS gives you just one "trace depth" slider - that sets three limits at once that don't have to be the same, and often it doesn't even make sense for them to be the same at all. Moreover, bounce depth can actually be set per-surface. So not only could your AO-based diffuse rays remain safely depth-capped at 1, all the other surfaces but water could have their specular depth capped at 1 as well. It's especially important when you have surfaces that trace reflections but do not require extra bounces and if you use indirect light.

     

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited March 2018

    Sven Dullah said:

    You're right, refractive water, could have rendered in progressive but wanted to use the pixel filter, still haven't looked into that scripting thing, will have to sooner or later, and yes I find it very odd that the filter option is not availible in progressive mode.

    The filter is not what I was talking about. If you want reasons why, I'd wager it's just efficient use of resources: the devs never intended progressive to be used for final production rendering, just for previews. Filtering is not some "lazy" postproduction operation; it's reconstruction filtering, taking place at the very time of rendering (basically the law of how you combine pixel samples - which are rays). This is why box 1x1 aka basically no filter is the most computationally efficient (aka fast); this is most likely why it's hardwired into progressive.

    Didn't know progressive was ment for previews, but it makes sense since that's how I use it when setting up lightning and shaders for a scene. And if I don't run into trouble with jaggies or other artifacts I do the final render in progressive mode because it's  (generally) 2-3 times faster than REYES, and I do understand that box 1x1 renders faster than sinc 7x7;)

    I was talking about one of the defining features of, well, most production renderers actually - ability to finetune the extent to which a given surface contributes to this or that subset of tracing computations. Vanilla DS gives you just one "trace depth" slider - that sets three limits at once that don't have to be the same, and often it doesn't even make sense for them to be the same at all. Moreover, bounce depth can actually be set per-surface. So not only could your AO-based diffuse rays remain safely depth-capped at 1, all the other surfaces but water could have their specular depth capped at 1 as well. It's especially important when you have surfaces that trace reflections but do not require extra bounces and if you use indirect light.

    Hmm, all I can say is that there are many people around here waiting for the Awe-Shader. And I agree things would have been better had the options to finetune ray tracing been included. However, things being what they are, we can use REYES, progressive mode, scripted 3Delight or IRay, if we want to render inside DS. Or we can learn scripting and coding and whatnot if we have the time and patience needed. I learn something new for every stupid render I do, and I enjoy it, but if I had to make a living doing 3D art I'd probably look at other applications/renderers that have the options you mentioned. This is supposed to be fun,right? The moment it starts to feel like work I'm ot of herelaugh

     

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057

    Sven Dullah said:

    You're right, refractive water, could have rendered in progressive but wanted to use the pixel filter, still haven't looked into that scripting thing, will have to sooner or later, and yes I find it very odd that the filter option is not availible in progressive mode.

    The filter is not what I was talking about. If you want reasons why, I'd wager it's just efficient use of resources: the devs never intended progressive to be used for final production rendering, just for previews. Filtering is not some "lazy" postproduction operation; it's reconstruction filtering, taking place at the very time of rendering (basically the law of how you combine pixel samples - which are rays). This is why box 1x1 aka basically no filter is the most computationally efficient (aka fast); this is most likely why it's hardwired into progressive.

    I was talking about one of the defining features of, well, most production renderers actually - ability to finetune the extent to which a given surface contributes to this or that subset of tracing computations. Vanilla DS gives you just one "trace depth" slider - that sets three limits at once that don't have to be the same, and often it doesn't even make sense for them to be the same at all. Moreover, bounce depth can actually be set per-surface. So not only could your AO-based diffuse rays remain safely depth-capped at 1, all the other surfaces but water could have their specular depth capped at 1 as well. It's especially important when you have surfaces that trace reflections but do not require extra bounces and if you use indirect light.

     

    ..indeed progressive mode is so efficient for test rendering.  I can often see what's wrong within the first 45 seconds or so instead of waiting for the process to complete (or with Iray, for enough noise to clear so I can see some details)

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited March 2018

    Sven Dullah said:

    Two Stonemason sets combined, AoA lights, rendertime 1h 5min. Upping raytrace depth from 1 to 2 doubles rendertimes:)

    You had to do it for the water, right? Wowie's megaforce shader will come with separate per-surface bounce settings. If DAZ had put those few lines of code in back then in 2010, we 'd likely have a different vibe in the community now.

    So how much of a difference do you expect this will make in a scene with some reflective/refractive surfaces and maybe a couple of Area lights?

    Also, if one was to write a script to be able to utilize the filters in progressive mode, would that mean rendertimes would be equal to REYES-rendering? When comparing REYES to progressive in testrenders I've noticed there are also differences in how shadows and reflections look. So there must be something else in progressive mode that speeds up the tracing process?

    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    edited March 2018

    Close Encounter

    Rendered overnight in REYES, no idea about rendering times, made a nice skin using a V4 mat and the https://www.daz3d.com/metalized-glass-shaders-for-daz-studio, very versatile product;)

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    Post edited by Sven Dullah on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057

    ..that is impressive.

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    kyoto kid said:

    ..that is impressive.

    TY! One nice feature of the metalized glass shader is that it has individual control of ray trace depth for refraction and reflection. (What Mustakettu is talking about). I just hope those settings override the render settings, have to look into that;)

  • DPWDPW Posts: 267

    Hi. 

    I put this together a while ago and never got to finish it. It was rendered in 3Delight. 

    Just thought I'd share it with you all :)

    Cheers,

    Dean

    https://vimeo.com/115727444

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621
    Deanpw said:

    Hi. 

    I put this together a while ago and never got to finish it. It was rendered in 3Delight. 

    Just thought I'd share it with you all :)

    Cheers,

    Dean

    https://vimeo.com/115727444

    Hi! Wow I'm really impressed:) Outstanding use of light and camera! Also the animation worked really well. Thanks for sharing!! You say you never finished it, what happened? You must have put a fair amount of hours on that project. I mean just the rendering part must have taken weeks and months? Well that was inspiring, I have a number of unfinished animation projects, and this made me want to continue working on them;) Thanks again=)

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057
    Deanpw said:

    Hi. 

    I put this together a while ago and never got to finish it. It was rendered in 3Delight. 

    Just thought I'd share it with you all :)

    Cheers,

    Dean

    https://vimeo.com/115727444

    ...very well done. Yes, why was it never finished?

  • SaphirewildSaphirewild Posts: 6,668
    kyoto kid said:
    Deanpw said:

    Hi. 

    I put this together a while ago and never got to finish it. It was rendered in 3Delight. 

    Just thought I'd share it with you all :)

    Cheers,

    Dean

    https://vimeo.com/115727444

    ...very well done. Yes, why was it never finished?

    Yes Inquirey minds would like to know why this amazing anamation was never finished?

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    Also, if one was to write a script to be able to utilize the filters in progressive mode, would that mean rendertimes would be equal to REYES-rendering? When comparing REYES to progressive in testrenders I've noticed there are also differences in how shadows and reflections look. So there must be something else in progressive mode that speeds up the tracing process?

    Of course there is.

    There are a few hiders (separate modules) in 3Delight. The one DS uses by default is the old one, based on the REYES architecture.

    It has no progressive mode because REYES cannot do it.

    The one that DS invokes for progressive mode is actually the newer raytrace hider. This is what makes raytracing faster.

    You can use filters with the raytrace hider when it's not in progressive mode. This is what DS scripting can help with.

    You cannot use filters with progressive mode in 3Delight.

    Why can't we use the non-progressive raytrace mode via the vanilla DS render settings? You'll have to ask DAZ 3D.

     

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933

    So how much of a difference do you expect this will make in a scene with some reflective/refractive surfaces and maybe a couple of Area lights?

    Depends on the specific shaders, as I said.

    For instance, I did 3Delight mats for Chanteur's Elevator kit. Lots of glass. They use UberSurface because it comes with DS. UberSurface uses some ancient way of rendering refraction. It renders a) slower; b) with artefacts - as compared to the GGX model built into trace() these days. And GGX is considered inherently slow.

    But an AO-only light should render faster than a generic brute-force GI. It will look like AO, obviously.

    The lights we have in DS, both UberEnvironment and UberArea, are very... peculiar. Technically, AO should not invoke any further diffuse bounces. But somehow UE gets slowed down with an extra bounce allowed, doesn't it? Similarly, UA lights: they are firefly-prone with actual GI, though a "classic" area light coded from scratch is not. Why? Is the variable falloff code to blame? Unless DAZ/omnifreaker decide to publish the sources, we will never know.

    So what you could do is run a test yourself... you have my stuff. If you just set up a vanilla-shaded scene, with UberSurface, UE and UA, refraction etc, but use my "raytracer general" preset instead of progressive, then see what changes with diffuse bounces set to 2 or 1 (my default specular bounce of 3 is barely enough for refraction) - you may have your answer. Tuned to your computer performance, to boot.

    Per-surface adjustment, again, will matter the most when all surfaces use expensive tracing (glossy reflections, like in a fully contemporary shaded scenario). You don't want dry skin to have three reflection bounces, but glasses on the table and a polished sword may necessitate six+ if they reflect each other and are in focus.

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933
    Deanpw said:

    Hi. 

    I put this together a while ago and never got to finish it. It was rendered in 3Delight. 

    Just thought I'd share it with you all :)

    This is great. The final sequence with the door is especially cool.

  • BradCarstenBradCarsten Posts: 856
    Deanpw said:

    Hi. 

    I put this together a while ago and never got to finish it. It was rendered in 3Delight. 

    Just thought I'd share it with you all :)

    Cheers,

    Dean

    https://vimeo.com/115727444

    That was very well done. The sound editing is amazing. Do you have any plans to revisit it?

  • Sven DullahSven Dullah Posts: 7,621

    @Mustakettu85

    Thanks for clarifying things again=) Very interesting pieces of information indeed! These things are not easy to grasp for a musician making obscure non-art on his spare time. I'm going to try what you suggest, we'll see what happens...

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057
    edited March 2018

    ...well running some tests with Reflective Radiance on the bus stop scene and crikey it is slow even with occlusion turned off for plants and hair. Discovered the reason, it uses UE2.  May return it as I don't need utilities that slog the render process down to Iray CPU speeds.

    I'd be better off faking bounce with a low intensity neutral distant light below the ground plane  at a 90° angle to the one used for the "Sun" with shadows turned off.

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    How about that.

     

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,057
    edited March 2018

    ...yeah didn't realise it used such a resource hog.  I thought it was simply a set of lights to fake bounce light similar to how some of Dreamlight's old light sets worked.  If I wanted to use UE2, I would have just loaded that in.

    Also after I deleted it and turned the distant light I was using for the sun back on then ran another test, I only got the indirect lighting component from IBL Master so I closed the scene without saving and reopened it.  Not sure why that happened.

    Fortunately I am in the 30 day refund period.

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
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