Daz Studio 5 development update
DAZ_Rawb
Posts: 817
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.
Details of the upcoming Daz Studio 5 early-access Pre-Beta:
- Release timing for this early-access preview is coming soon, at the very end of this month (July) or sometime next month (August).
- This will be a pre-beta release. Normally we wait until the software is completely finished before releasing it.
- 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.
- It will install into a new location, so you can run it along your current Daz Studio (release/beta) without problems.
As for the final Daz Studio 5 release:
- The timeline for this is to have it out near the very end of this year.
- Features and enhancements will be rolling in through the rest of the year.
- 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.
I hope everyone is just as excited about Daz Studio 5 as we are.
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Comments
So other than making Mac users happy, what other new things can we (non Mac users) look forward to?
Sounds exciting! I'm looking forward to seeing what the new version brings.
Thank you for the Daz Studio 5 update, DAZ_Rawb!
This is very much appreciated!!
I have an M1 MacBook that I'm itching to try DS5 pre-beta on. I hope it runs under Rosetta 2, but would understand if that won't happen in the first release(s) of the (pre-)beta versions. I'll keep using my x86 MacBook Pro (i9) with DS 4.12.0.86 on it for the foreseeable future until DS5 is stable on M1/Apple Silicon.
I'm sure that moving to a newer version of Qt has been a challenge and will help bring technical advances to DS that Qt 4 didn't allow for.
Please express our thanks to the Development Team and the Executive Team for working to make sure Mac owners get continued support for DS.
Thanks again for the update!
Lee
Interesting news! Thanks for letting us know.
...so will the "pre beta" overwrite any current beta installed?
Could we also get the list of system requirements for PCs?
...and will this mean Genesis 9 is on the way?
Wow, Daz 5 really does exist!
The plugin in deal is going to cause all kinds of havoc. I'm sure you guys understand that, but Daz Studio is what it is in large part because of the plugins it has to improve QoL and add whole new features and functionality. Maybe if 5 contains many of these features out of the box it may soften the blow. But losing old favorite plugins will indeed be a real blow for a lot of users.
But still, I am excited to see Daz move forward. It needs to happen, assuming 5 is built well for the future.
Also, I wouldn't be caught dead using a Mac, but good for them. They deserve a bone once in a while.
What is x86 Macs?
Content should be compatible between the versions and there is a lot of effort being put in to make as many of the plugins as possible compatible.
Plugins however need at least a recompile and more than likely some changes under the hood to work with the new core. There won't be a backwards-compatibility mode for Studio 5 but you would still have Daz Studio 4 available for download so you can use them with that.
Daz Studio 5 will install to different locations than Daz Studio 4, so it should not conflict with any release/beta installation you have.
For what versions of OS we support I know we are still looking at our options, but it will be 64-bit only for sure.
What do you guess this particular part of the announcement means?
...by "backwards compatibility" this means creating a scene in the 5 pre-beta stays in the 5 pre-beta just like "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"?
I am happy to see it as it will help DAZ Studio become better quality.
As long as you get your library locations mapped correctly and they don't rely on any yet to be converted plugins you should be able to load and save scenes freely between the two of them. Daz Studio 5 will eventually add new features that 4 doesn't understand but that is similar to trying to load Iray content in Daz Studio 4.7 or earlier.
Will product pages be carefully annotated to reflect those products only usable in Studio 5, instead of a blanket Studio 5 when they are not yet ready?
I had to give up using DS on my iMac as it only had a nVidia 660 card and not enough RAM to manage Studio 4.10, so I had a Windows 10 computer built, that is now having problems with newer products. So the question on what would a baseline or optimized Windows computer requirements is pertinent.
Otherwise, I am very interested in your news.
Mary
Excited to see what improvements the new version will bring!
I don´t want to speculate since there is no point to that but I imagine it might be some major stuff! Otherwise they´d just be calling it 4.16, right?
Sounds like this will potentially break some stuff I hold dear. GenX, XTransfer, Fluidos, Mesh Grabber, Scene Optimizer, Ultra Scatter, Instancify... (to be honest I don´t know what the difference between a script and a plug-in is.) So I reeeeally hope that we can keep using version 4 without problems and possibly receive support for a looooong time. I like what I´m reading so far.
Same plea for continued Windows 7 support and/or adding Linux to supported operating systems.
...I tend to rely on a large number of pluguns and scripts like Zev0's Skin Builder, Growing Up, and other morph/shaping plugins, Generation X2, and other Merchant resources for character development as well as Wowie's Awe Shader for 3DL and various G8 - G3 conversion scripts. I may give the initial beta a pass until more such content iis updated (though GenerationX2 likely looks to be done as the PA passed on a few years ago, one of the reasons I didn't make the full move on to G8 as the plugin is instrumental in character development).
Also is this going to include a new version of Iray as well? I understand Nvidia is dropping driver support for W7/8.1 this fall so will that affect GPU performance particularly for those of us with older GPUs like Maxwell and Pascal?
...+1 particularly for Linux. Love to dodge the whole W10/11 issue altogether.
As someone who sold an iMac in order to buy a PC capable of running DAZ Studio, I don't see much in this announcement to excite me. After seeing various mentions of the move to QT5 I was hoping for DS5 to appear sooner than the end of the year. A few clues about what new features all of us can expect might increase my level of excitement.
I second the call for a Linux version but have a pessimistic expectancy in that regard.
I think the numbering is based off what version of QT they're using. The recent release notes by rbtwiz say they're moving to an improved version of QT, which I assume is QT5.
Unfortunately QtScript, which Daz's scripting is based off, isn't supported by Qt anymore, hence the impending plugin-o-opcalypse.
The good news is that the creators of all but one of those are still alive and active, and so could potentially have a DS5-compatible version ready quickly.
What does it mean for DS4 if QtScript isn´t supported anymore? I looked up Qt on wiki and I barely understand what it is
Yeah... GenX, though.
Perhaps this will motivate Zevo to make an equivalent Xtransfer product, that would actually be great.
QT handles all the boilerplate stuff of an application. Windows, buttons, etc. Frameworks like that let you write windowing code once and then takes care of porting it to different OSes.
QtScript being deprecated is like if your vintage car breaks down. If nobody is making the parts for it, then you have a whale of a time fixing it.
I'm pretty sure the situation is not as dire as that.
I also am interested in this as well. I don't want to be caught out buying items that are incompatable with my currently used version.
Skin Builder, the conversion scripts, and Generation X don't leave relics, they do their work and produce regular content with no remaining depenency on the creation tool so you could continue to host those in DS 4 and open the scenes in DS 5.
Growing Up is morphs and posing, so there is no reason to think it wouldn't work in DS 5. The same is true of the merchant resource morph and texture sets.
The shader is the only item you list that might be problematice, but even there we have no idea what the potential triggers for incompatibility may be.