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Rendered at 20x20 PS, diffuse depth 3 spec depth 2, 256 hairsamples, FullHD size. Using spec2 (AS BRDF) + coatlayer with GGX BRDF at 20% on skin. Small adjustments to bump/displace/SS, light exposure levels...Total Rendering Time: 9 hours 24 minutes 37.36 seconds. Could probably be reduced to less than an hour with proper settings
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You only need a HEDT platform if you need extra expansion (more than two graphics cards, storage arrays, video capture cards etc) or use application that utilizes extra bandwidth. A standard desktop can still offer extra expansion, but it's always going to be more limited. I checked out Puget Systems yesterday and the difference between a desktop and HEDT system can be significant.
How important is the GPU for anything you do, though? If you're CPU rendering, unless you also do a lot of video editing or such, I would think that basically any old GPU would work.
Yeah that's what I told my computerguy, and so he didn't offer me a proper one, as wowie just pointed out, I might want to do Octane or IRay, who knows lol...not to mention UE5. The ProMac though can apparently handle it rather well.
Might as well give you the context: I'll soon be 60 years old. Just retired and sold my business. I've been dreaming of a monster rig for a couple of years now. I own my house. I have a descent car. I have a sweet wife. I have nothing but time and no obligations. So why wait, and for what? I live now, that's all I know...
Hm yeah I'm slowly grasping the overkill factor here haha, and I get that ANYTHING is better than what I currently have. And you're right of course, I checked Puget Systems today.
Congrats, May your days be many and your troubles be few.
If I can offer a bit of an advice from personal experience, never go overkill. Just because you've saved a decent chunk of money does not mean you need to spend it frivolously. Stuff happens.
For realtime stuff, an addon GPU is a must. I'm more interested in Unity than UE though. Unity's latest demo is more impressive compared to UE5, particularly in terms of charater rendering/animation.
Words of Wisdom, thank you:)
Will check out Unity also, lot of studying ahead. What's your opinion on getting a software that supports 3DL 13, Kettu was apparently not impressed with Maya, said it's buggy as hell?
Still leaning towards the Mac alternative. I get it's bloody expensive (to put it mildly), however, the advantage of just transferring the OS, content and soft/hardware to the new machine has to be considered also.
Aaaaaaaah...
I personally like Houdini, but I get its not for everyone. The other option is C4D, though its more expensive (even the subscription one compared to Houdini Indie). If you don't mind going the adventurous route, do a USD export from Blender, open the resulting USD file in USD viewer and plug 3Delight NSI Hydra render delegate to the viewer.
As for the hardware setup, honestly you don't need to migrate everything. Keep your old Mac and just setup a SMB share of your runtime. Granted, loading will likely be slower than if you have the runtime locally, (especially from a local SSD). Though, unless you're willing to pay for a full license, 3Delight NSI free license is limited to 16 cores/threads.
...wondering about rendertimes with a 12-16 cores rig...and of course 3DL 13 in general...
And I'm also considering getting a significantly cheaper Macbook Pro AND a PC with a descent GPU, so still open to any suggestions or thoughts:)
Made something for LL Render A Month challenge - love the new GI, contact shadows, well the lot
Some Houdini 3DL links
Introduction
Free 3DL NSI download
Seems to be limited to 12 cores.
Love the update,@wowie! Here I used two light planes outside the windows, environment with "reflections only", that's it. 1024 Irradiance samples, diffuse depth 3, reflection depth 2, 12x12 PS. This was simply not possible with previous versions
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11 small ceiling emitters, diff depth2, spec depth1, default rendersettings: (made with previous build, rendered more or less straight off)
I did a lot of tests to troubleshoot noise problems. Hopefully, there should be no more even at 1024 samples.
Adaptive sampling is automatically done under the hood, along with optimized sampling when diffuse/spec hits a bounce threshold.
I generally don't see that much difference with/without setting manual depth (which is what you want with optimization).
I did some testing between 8x8 pixel samples and 20x20 pixel samples. The difference in terms of render time wasn't as big as I expected. There were noticeable differences in output though (highlights in 20x20 PS is a lot dimmer).
This I love:)) It's obviously doing its thing:))
I like what it does, especially with heavy DoF.
...on a side note, will make my hardware decision tomorrow, fingers crossed..
...and so I went with a MacPro 16 core 48Gb RAM 2Tb SSD, will have to wait around 4 weeks..
...meanwhile, enjoying the new build...
@wowie, if still around...
You're running the latest DS 4.20? Looks like I have to upgrade from 4.9. Tested it with OSX Monterey on my Macbook Pro and it does not work well. (the splash screen loads upside down, file options are greyed out etc. I can drop scenes into DS from the finder and render, that's about it). If I'm informed correctly, some plugins like GenX2+add-ons don't work in 4.20?
Edit: Will try to configure as dual boot, running El Capitan/DS 4.9 on one partition...
I've tested my stuff on both DS 4.20 and DS 4.7 for Windows 64 bit. Works as expected. My guess is what you're experiencing is a DS for Mac issue(s). If that is what's happening, there's literally nothing I could do.
Tks, yeah it's the OS, as I said I will try a dual boot setup, if that doesn't work...well...maybe time to leave the DAZ ekosystem?..
Nah, will go this route and see where it leads me. Worst case scenario: I just use the latest DS along with your stuff, network the old machine and run GenX and other incompatible stuff from there... or along these lines;) I'm sure I'll find a new workflow anywhich way...(famous last words LOL)
You could also dual boot Monterey and Windows.
Very valid point, thank you!
Made this fun little SS-test. Both are rendered with 1024 Irradiance- 256 SS- and 256 Hairsamples, diffuse depth 3, specular depth 2, 16x16 pixelsamples. There's just a strong(ish) backlight and a dim keylight + environmental reflections.
First one has an internal skeleton, the other one has non. Gotta love raytraced SS:)
Total Rendering Time: 6 minutes 58.9 seconds:
Total Rendering Time: 6 minutes 42.48 seconds:
Methinks this is just as good a workaround as any, to fix the issue with DAZ- ears that are way too thick, without having to use controlmaps
...one more with the skeleton, raised Irradiance samples to 2048, rendered at double pixel size and overkill 24x24 pixelsamples, Total Rendering Time: 44 minutes 39.45 seconds:
New AWE build available on wowie's gumroad, DA or google drive! (AWE Hair, AWE Surface and AWE Shading Kit)
Back up the installed build if you want to keep it, or move it to a new folder/location. Install manually by opening/extracting the ZIP files and replacing the .dsl shader files in your applications/DAZ4.xx/shaders/wowie (or something like that, check your file/folder hierarchy before you do anything stoopid
).
I haven't installed yet, will probably post some tests and comparisons later (if they still allow us to upload stuff). According to wowie, diffuse specular/reflection refraction etc should be close to the old build, SSS is new, so remains to be seen...
Well, not able to attach files, but managed to install the shader updates. Will post a comparison when forums allow, but it looks like a new deal again:)) Old SS settings don't work, very obviously;))
I set up this test scene with the old build:
Installed new shaders and touched nothing (only one thing, environment blur from 5% to 0.0005%, probably a mistake by wowie, well this is a hotfix, np)
Found out the easiest way of adjusting diffuse is using the awe environment camera based exposure, changing ISO from 800 to 400 seems to be a good starting point...testing continues...
Edit: I see some seems on the skin but they are on both renders, so must have missed some controlmaps or gamma settings, oh well..
Ok uploading not possible as usual, starts looking like all the actual DAZ staff left years ago and handed it all over to AI, which is now having fun on our behalf...(I've always suspected the tech/sales support is not human)
...anyway...I will describe what I've found out so far regarding the new awe build:
Diffuse now gets appr. 2-3 EV brighter with the same lightlevels (tested only with PTarealighs so far, hence the blown out skin in the above test), so I.ve drawn the conclusion it's best to start there (by bringing down light levels) when opening old scenes. I think this was the right way to go and things feel more in balance when you get used to it.
Translucency is working better and looks more convincing. Levels need to go down a bit compared to the old build, maybe...
I have a feeling Fresnel is stronger and is behaving quite nicely. It seems to react much better to changes to IoR.
SSS is different but, with the right light levels, not overwhelmingly different;) It's much less saturated for sure. Will take some more testing to get used to.
There seem to be some exposure changes to the Environment shader, and some weirdness I have to look into, probably related to using embedded color profiles or the likes??
AWE Hair, well, translucency is way better. Noise levels are apparently way better. Render times slightly slower, I believe.