Ghost Lights - What's happening, and what's next.

artistb3

Masterstroke said:

artistb3 said:

Masterstroke said:

As much as I understand the frustration, I have to admit, that I do like the new way ghost lights are handled. It is infact more physical accurate. I'd use these ghost lights with window glass material, for it simulates the effect of light spreading in the glass quite nicley. For this an opacity level of 0.005 looks right to me.

Masterstroke, that's great. However, I contend that in order to properly serve it's customers, DAZ should build into DS a solution that allows us to choose whether to use our existing lighting schemes, unchanged, or to utilize the nVidia mod. If not, someone please explain to me how it is okay for DAZ to simply pass this problem on down to the PAs and end-users. I have spent more years in software development and software testing than I care to count.  We would never, ever have considered doing such thing.  

I'm not sure, if DAZ is to blame here. After all, we are talking about IRAY, which is Nvidea's software. They are in charge here.
I don't know, if it is possible for DAZ at all, to introduce a button, in order to toggle between those two shader features.

Yes, I think now we fully understand that the issue originated with nVidia.  My contention is that it doesn't matter where the issue orginated. It's common practice everywhere for software companies to rely on 3rd party developers for content.

Ever bought a car that developed a problem while still under warranty or that requited a recall?  Chances are that the offending part(s) are supplied to the automotive OEM by a 1st or 2nd tier supplier.  Who do you blame when your car doesn't work?  The supplier? Who fixes it? Do you even know or care who made the part? The same applies to software developement.  When I was developing software, we always relied on 3rd party suppliers for software libraries.  I can't begin to count the number of hours that I spent working around problems in supplier software that should never, ever be passed onto the end-customers. If I did that and blamed the supplier, the customer would be outraged and rightly so! 

If DAZ doesn't understand my argument then perhaps they should understand the potential economics. With every hour we spend working around new DS issues, our frustration with DAZ grows. It drives people away.

Haruchai

artistb3 said:

Masterstroke said:

artistb3 said:

Masterstroke said:

As much as I understand the frustration, I have to admit, that I do like the new way ghost lights are handled. It is infact more physical accurate. I'd use these ghost lights with window glass material, for it simulates the effect of light spreading in the glass quite nicley. For this an opacity level of 0.005 looks right to me.

Masterstroke, that's great. However, I contend that in order to properly serve it's customers, DAZ should build into DS a solution that allows us to choose whether to use our existing lighting schemes, unchanged, or to utilize the nVidia mod. If not, someone please explain to me how it is okay for DAZ to simply pass this problem on down to the PAs and end-users. I have spent more years in software development and software testing than I care to count.  We would never, ever have considered doing such thing.  

I'm not sure, if DAZ is to blame here. After all, we are talking about IRAY, which is Nvidea's software. They are in charge here.
I don't know, if it is possible for DAZ at all, to introduce a button, in order to toggle between those two shader features.

Yes, I think now we fully understand that the issue originated with nVidia.  My contention is that it doesn't matter where the issue orginated. It's common practice everywhere for software companies to rely on 3rd party developers for content.

Ever bought a car that developed a problem while still under warranty or that requited a recall?  Chances are that the offending part(s) are supplied to the automotive OEM by a 1st or 2nd tier supplier.  Who do you blame when your car doesn't work?  The supplier? Who fixes it? Do you even know or care who made the part? The same applies to software developement.  When I was developing software, we always relied on 3rd party suppliers for software libraries.  I can't begin to count the number of hours that I spent working around problems in supplier software that should never, ever be passed onto the end-customers. If I did that and blamed the supplier, the customer would be outraged and rightly so! 

If DAZ doesn't understand my argument then perhaps they should understand the potential economics. With every hour we spend working around new DS issues, our frustration with DAZ grows. It drives people away.

Which would be all well and good if it was an advertised feature, it's wasn't, it was a glitch that was exploited by another 3rd party.

So you are asking DAZ to reintroduce the 3rd party glitch or back engineer a way to emulate the glitch that a seperate 3rd party exploited?

In your car analogy, if you had your car super tuned by a specialist garage to take advantage of a glitch in the car makers suppliers software and then the software company fixed it so your tuning didn't work anymore would you complain to the car maker and demand they reintroduce the glitch?

This 'part' isn't covered by the warranty because it's not an advertised feature and was actually never meant to be there in the first place, just because someone found out how to exploit it to your advantage is not the fault of the car maker.

I feel your pain, I really do, I have loads of scenes like this similar to you.

Jay Versluis

Just my two cents: I'd strongly consider releasing a new version for 4.20+ and leave the orginal product as is for legacy versions of Daz Studio. Many users continue to use them, and updating the product would break it for those. Better to make a clean cut and have both options available, like you suggested with a generous discount for current owners. Another option would be to have 4.20+ and 4.16< versions in the same product, but that would make it a bit cluttered and might make for confusing user experience.

Togire

This new feature to have the luminosity of a surface multiplied by the opacity before renderingis is interesting IMHO. It should work even if the opacity is based on a map and could provide very interesting effects (for instance a mostly invisible surface with varying luminosity, lights with holes, etc).

The problem is indeed the way daz has managed it. They should have anticipated the problem and provided a fix for ghost lights. I am certain that for someone that knows daz scripting it  would not require more than a couple of hours to write a script that traverses a scene, finds all surfaces with a non zero luminosity and an opacity below 1 and multiplies the luminance by the inverse of the opacity. Probably a freebie will be done by someone to do that.

If this script had been provided with the release of 4.20, people would have accepted that without complaining too much. Instead without this kind of script, people  need to apply the '"Iray Visible to Primary Rays' fix and/or change the luminance to their surfaces and this can be seriously tedious.

KindredArts

Jay Versluis said:

Just my two cents: I'd strongly consider releasing a new version for 4.20+ and leave the orginal product as is for legacy versions of Daz Studio. Many users continue to use them, and updating the product would break it for those. Better to make a clean cut and have both options available, like you suggested with a generous discount for current owners. Another option would be to have 4.20+ and 4.16< versions in the same product, but that would make it a bit cluttered and might make for confusing user experience.

I'm following along with this thread and i know things are getting a bit heated. I think Jay sums up my feelings on the issue though. The truth is that i made the original ghost light kit very early on in my daz career, and these days i wince every time i see it because i know i could have made it much larger, much more comprehensive and of significantly more value to the end user. If i'd have known it would be so deeply embedded in peoples work flows, i would have invested more time in it. Now that a lot of new users are getting directed towards IGLK, i'd like to make it as best as i possibly can.

I know i can't please everybody, and i respect all of your input on the issue. I probably would have gone a different way if i hadn't put up this thread. I'm going to leave the legacy products untouched in peoples libraries, so you can still use older builds without issue. I will release an updated version at a significant discount to legacy users. It won't be a simple port of the old set either, for a couple of dollars you'll have access to a wider range of lights, utilities and helpers to make your lighting setup more efficient.

Even though some of you may disagree with my decision, I'm going to suffer paralysis by analysis if I don't make a move soon. I'll keep everyone up to date with the methods i'm using so you can mirror them in your own scenes should you wish. Right now I think i'm going to go for a mixture of primary ray culling along with the old low-cutout method for the legacy sets. This should give the best of both worlds and limit noise/fireflies.

Anyway, thanks everybody! I'll keep checking in.

 

Haruchai

KindredArts said:

Jay Versluis said:

Just my two cents: I'd strongly consider releasing a new version for 4.20+ and leave the orginal product as is for legacy versions of Daz Studio. Many users continue to use them, and updating the product would break it for those. Better to make a clean cut and have both options available, like you suggested with a generous discount for current owners. Another option would be to have 4.20+ and 4.16< versions in the same product, but that would make it a bit cluttered and might make for confusing user experience.

I'm following along with this thread and i know things are getting a bit heated. I think Jay sums up my feelings on the issue though. The truth is that i made the original ghost light kit very early on in my daz career, and these days i wince every time i see it because i know i could have made it much larger, much more comprehensive and of significantly more value to the end user. If i'd have known it would be so deeply embedded in peoples work flows, i would have invested more time in it. Now that a lot of new users are getting directed towards IGLK, i'd like to make it as best as i possibly can.

I know i can't please everybody, and i respect all of your input on the issue. I probably would have gone a different way if i hadn't put up this thread. I'm going to leave the legacy products untouched in peoples libraries, so you can still use older builds without issue. I will release an updated version at a significant discount to legacy users. It won't be a simple port of the old set either, for a couple of dollars you'll have access to a wider range of lights, utilities and helpers to make your lighting setup more efficient.

Even though some of you may disagree with my decision, I'm going to suffer paralysis by analysis if I don't make a move soon. I'll keep everyone up to date with the methods i'm using so you can mirror them in your own scenes should you wish. Right now I think i'm going to go for a mixture of primary ray culling along with the old low-cutout method for the legacy sets. This should give the best of both worlds and limit noise/fireflies.

Anyway, thanks everybody! I'll keep checking in.

 

Thanks for the update. Waiting (im)patiently for your updated products :)

inquire

@KindredArts: Thanks so much for what you're aiming to do. I am a legacy user, and I look forward to your newer product. 

Richard Haseltine

alainmerigot said:

This new feature to have the luminosity of a surface multiplied by the opacity before renderingis is interesting IMHO. It should work even if the opacity is based on a map and could provide very interesting effects (for instance a mostly invisible surface with varying luminosity, lights with holes, etc).

The problem is indeed the way daz has managed it. They should have anticipated the problem and provided a fix for ghost lights. I am certain that for someone that knows daz scripting it  would not require more than a couple of hours to write a script that traverses a scene, finds all surfaces with a non zero luminosity and an opacity below 1 and multiplies the luminance by the inverse of the opacity. Probably a freebie will be done by someone to do that.

If this script had been provided with the release of 4.20, people would have accepted that without complaining too much. Instead without this kind of script, people  need to apply the '"Iray Visible to Primary Rays' fix and/or change the luminance to their surfaces and this can be seriously tedious.

Such a script might help with straight ghost lights, it would not be able to handle surfaces with an opacity map as the needed adjustment would depend on the area of the surfaces that was now losing its lighting effect.

artistb3

Haruchai said:

artistb3 said:

Masterstroke said:

artistb3 said:

Masterstroke said:

As much as I understand the frustration, I have to admit, that I do like the new way ghost lights are handled. It is infact more physical accurate. I'd use these ghost lights with window glass material, for it simulates the effect of light spreading in the glass quite nicley. For this an opacity level of 0.005 looks right to me.

Masterstroke, that's great. However, I contend that in order to properly serve it's customers, DAZ should build into DS a solution that allows us to choose whether to use our existing lighting schemes, unchanged, or to utilize the nVidia mod. If not, someone please explain to me how it is okay for DAZ to simply pass this problem on down to the PAs and end-users. I have spent more years in software development and software testing than I care to count.  We would never, ever have considered doing such thing.  

I'm not sure, if DAZ is to blame here. After all, we are talking about IRAY, which is Nvidea's software. They are in charge here.
I don't know, if it is possible for DAZ at all, to introduce a button, in order to toggle between those two shader features.

Yes, I think now we fully understand that the issue originated with nVidia.  My contention is that it doesn't matter where the issue orginated. It's common practice everywhere for software companies to rely on 3rd party developers for content.

Ever bought a car that developed a problem while still under warranty or that requited a recall?  Chances are that the offending part(s) are supplied to the automotive OEM by a 1st or 2nd tier supplier.  Who do you blame when your car doesn't work?  The supplier? Who fixes it? Do you even know or care who made the part? The same applies to software developement.  When I was developing software, we always relied on 3rd party suppliers for software libraries.  I can't begin to count the number of hours that I spent working around problems in supplier software that should never, ever be passed onto the end-customers. If I did that and blamed the supplier, the customer would be outraged and rightly so! 

If DAZ doesn't understand my argument then perhaps they should understand the potential economics. With every hour we spend working around new DS issues, our frustration with DAZ grows. It drives people away.

Which would be all well and good if it was an advertised feature, it's wasn't, it was a glitch that was exploited by another 3rd party.

So you are asking DAZ to reintroduce the 3rd party glitch or back engineer a way to emulate the glitch that a seperate 3rd party exploited?

In your car analogy, if you had your car super tuned by a specialist garage to take advantage of a glitch in the car makers suppliers software and then the software company fixed it so your tuning didn't work anymore would you complain to the car maker and demand they reintroduce the glitch?

This 'part' isn't covered by the warranty because it's not an advertised feature and was actually never meant to be there in the first place, just because someone found out how to exploit it to your advantage is not the fault of the car maker.

I feel your pain, I really do, I have loads of scenes like this similar to you.

No, sorry, nice try but doesn't work.

Edit: I have yet to see an argument that even comes close to convincing me I should re-build all of my light and setups and be happy about it because it wan an nVidia defect and now it's fixed. I am fine with the defect fix. But I am not fine with the fact that DAZ is not properly (my analysis) backing up it's customers by building in support for existing setups. Was it ever mentioned here before 4.20 that "Ghost lights were never meant to be, at all"? 

Aldor64

KindredArts said:

Jay Versluis said:

Just my two cents: I'd strongly consider releasing a new version for 4.20+ and leave the orginal product as is for legacy versions of Daz Studio. Many users continue to use them, and updating the product would break it for those. Better to make a clean cut and have both options available, like you suggested with a generous discount for current owners. Another option would be to have 4.20+ and 4.16< versions in the same product, but that would make it a bit cluttered and might make for confusing user experience.

I'm following along with this thread and i know things are getting a bit heated. I think Jay sums up my feelings on the issue though. The truth is that i made the original ghost light kit very early on in my daz career, and these days i wince every time i see it because i know i could have made it much larger, much more comprehensive and of significantly more value to the end user. If i'd have known it would be so deeply embedded in peoples work flows, i would have invested more time in it. Now that a lot of new users are getting directed towards IGLK, i'd like to make it as best as i possibly can.

I know i can't please everybody, and i respect all of your input on the issue. I probably would have gone a different way if i hadn't put up this thread. I'm going to leave the legacy products untouched in peoples libraries, so you can still use older builds without issue. I will release an updated version at a significant discount to legacy users. It won't be a simple port of the old set either, for a couple of dollars you'll have access to a wider range of lights, utilities and helpers to make your lighting setup more efficient.

Even though some of you may disagree with my decision, I'm going to suffer paralysis by analysis if I don't make a move soon. I'll keep everyone up to date with the methods i'm using so you can mirror them in your own scenes should you wish. Right now I think i'm going to go for a mixture of primary ray culling along with the old low-cutout method for the legacy sets. This should give the best of both worlds and limit noise/fireflies.

Anyway, thanks everybody! I'll keep checking in.

 

 Dear KindredArts,

I own number of your products including (GS 2 & 3), and I appreciate your effort and kindness in this situation (which definitely not your fault but DAZ itself).

As a person many years working in IT, I should admit that what happened is an example of one of the worst customer treatments when company releases a product which brakes compatibility and denies hours of work of its users. Even if NVidia decided to make significant Iray changes it was up to DAZ to make an ahead announcement in time and also to provide at least acceptable ways how to deal with it. There are plenty other threads related particularly to coexistanse of different versions and possibility to run few instances in parallel in the same time. Despite it looks like not related but they are all have same root, because as one of the pretty cheap "solutions" would be coexistance two not bethas but two releases which could allow to properly use old scenes and in same time create something new.

Also, despite I put all my hope in KA effort, I feel (and afraid) that it is possible that there will be no real fix of the problem but just something (might be slight better) than proposed by jag11 script. Practically, I don't know about others but I will stay with the old version at least until there is a final conclusion about the problem, and if there is none, sorry I will not go forward and would not recommend it to anyone else.

Finally, I think that volumetrics (in proper implementation) is very important, and what I missed in the DAZ all the time is possibility to have "atmospheric" renders as, for example, in VUE (or even as it was in Bryce).  Initially, I was very excited by the announcement, however, DAZ succeeded totaly disapoint with it 

Dear, KA, thank you again for your products and your work, I still look forward to your conclusion.

 

Togire

Richard Haseltine said:

alainmerigot said:

This new feature to have the luminosity of a surface multiplied by the opacity before renderingis is interesting IMHO. It should work even if the opacity is based on a map and could provide very interesting effects (for instance a mostly invisible surface with varying luminosity, lights with holes, etc).

The problem is indeed the way daz has managed it. They should have anticipated the problem and provided a fix for ghost lights. I am certain that for someone that knows daz scripting it  would not require more than a couple of hours to write a script that traverses a scene, finds all surfaces with a non zero luminosity and an opacity below 1 and multiplies the luminance by the inverse of the opacity. Probably a freebie will be done by someone to do that.

If this script had been provided with the release of 4.20, people would have accepted that without complaining too much. Instead without this kind of script, people  need to apply the '"Iray Visible to Primary Rays' fix and/or change the luminance to their surfaces and this can be seriously tedious.

Such a script might help with straight ghost lights, it would not be able to handle surfaces with an opacity map as the needed adjustment would depend on the area of the surfaces that was now losing its lighting effect.

Of course, you are right and some tweaks would be required with an opacity map. But most of the time, people are complaining about plain ghost lights and a script that automatically solves the problem 90% of the time would be (much) better than nothing.

Paintbox

Thanks a lot @KindredArts , I am sure you will deliver something good!

AdenLK

 @KindredArts, I have the Iray Ghost Light Kit, Iray Ghost Light Kit 2, Iray Ghost Light Kit 3 and Iray Ghost Light Kit.

Are you going to make an updated version for each of these products or are you going to make a new product that will have all the functions of all these products?

Richard Haseltine

Aldor64 said:

KindredArts said:

Jay Versluis said:

Just my two cents: I'd strongly consider releasing a new version for 4.20+ and leave the orginal product as is for legacy versions of Daz Studio. Many users continue to use them, and updating the product would break it for those. Better to make a clean cut and have both options available, like you suggested with a generous discount for current owners. Another option would be to have 4.20+ and 4.16< versions in the same product, but that would make it a bit cluttered and might make for confusing user experience.

I'm following along with this thread and i know things are getting a bit heated. I think Jay sums up my feelings on the issue though. The truth is that i made the original ghost light kit very early on in my daz career, and these days i wince every time i see it because i know i could have made it much larger, much more comprehensive and of significantly more value to the end user. If i'd have known it would be so deeply embedded in peoples work flows, i would have invested more time in it. Now that a lot of new users are getting directed towards IGLK, i'd like to make it as best as i possibly can.

I know i can't please everybody, and i respect all of your input on the issue. I probably would have gone a different way if i hadn't put up this thread. I'm going to leave the legacy products untouched in peoples libraries, so you can still use older builds without issue. I will release an updated version at a significant discount to legacy users. It won't be a simple port of the old set either, for a couple of dollars you'll have access to a wider range of lights, utilities and helpers to make your lighting setup more efficient.

Even though some of you may disagree with my decision, I'm going to suffer paralysis by analysis if I don't make a move soon. I'll keep everyone up to date with the methods i'm using so you can mirror them in your own scenes should you wish. Right now I think i'm going to go for a mixture of primary ray culling along with the old low-cutout method for the legacy sets. This should give the best of both worlds and limit noise/fireflies.

Anyway, thanks everybody! I'll keep checking in.

 

 Dear KindredArts,

I own number of your products including (GS 2 & 3), and I appreciate your effort and kindness in this situation (which definitely not your fault but DAZ itself).

As a person many years working in IT, I should admit that what happened is an example of one of the worst customer treatments when company releases a product which brakes compatibility and denies hours of work of its users. Even if NVidia decided to make significant Iray changes it was up to DAZ to make an ahead announcement in time and also to provide at least acceptable ways how to deal with it. There are plenty other threads related particularly to coexistanse of different versions and possibility to run few instances in parallel in the same time. Despite it looks like not related but they are all have same root, because as one of the pretty cheap "solutions" would be coexistance two not bethas but two releases which could allow to properly use old scenes and in same time create something new.

You didn't read the beta threads, in which the issue was discussed at length?

Also, despite I put all my hope in KA effort, I feel (and afraid) that it is possible that there will be no real fix of the problem but just something (might be slight better) than proposed by jag11 script. Practically, I don't know about others but I will stay with the old version at least until there is a final conclusion about the problem, and if there is none, sorry I will not go forward and would not recommend it to anyone else.

Finally, I think that volumetrics (in proper implementation) is very important, and what I missed in the DAZ all the time is possibility to have "atmospheric" renders as, for example, in VUE (or even as it was in Bryce).  Initially, I was very excited by the announcement, however, DAZ succeeded totaly disapoint with it 

Dear, KA, thank you again for your products and your work, I still look forward to your conclusion.

 

johndoe_36eb90b0

Masterstroke said:

As much as I understand the frustration, I have to admit, that I do like the new way ghost lights are handled. It is infact more physical accurate. I'd use these ghost lights with window glass material, for it simulates the effect of light spreading in the glass quite nicley. For this an opacity level of 0.005 looks right to me.

You could have already created lights which are not visible to camera but are visible in a reflection by turning off Render Emitter on regular Iray light sources (say a spotlight).

mycheermail

Jay Versluis said:

Just my two cents: I'd strongly consider releasing a new version for 4.20+ and leave the orginal product as is for legacy versions of Daz Studio. Many users continue to use them, and updating the product would break it for those. Better to make a clean cut and have both options available, like you suggested with a generous discount for current owners. Another option would be to have 4.20+ and 4.16< versions in the same product, but that would make it a bit cluttered and might make for confusing user experience.

Thanks, I absolutely second your proposal.

Greybro

Griffin Avid said:

Maybe then, just release them as a new(er) product.

And have them say, the originals work in Daz.XXX and this new Ghost Lights 2.0 is for Daz new release DAZ.XXXX and above. 

What happens if I open an Old Scene- built using the old lights? 

Dude. (Shakes Head) This is not the way.

Leana

Aldor64 said:

Even if NVidia decided to make significant Iray changes it was up to DAZ to make an ahead announcement in time 

There was an announcement ahead in time. Daz released several betas using a version of Iray where ghost lights didn't work. The problem was discussed at length in the 3 months since the first of those betas was introduced. There was also an announcement recently that the latest of those betas would soon turn into a general release and people should backup their previous versions installers.

Obviously, people don't read those.

UHF

Leana said:

Aldor64 said:

Even if NVidia decided to make significant Iray changes it was up to DAZ to make an ahead announcement in time 

There was an announcement ahead in time. Daz released several betas using a version of Iray where ghost lights didn't work. The problem was discussed at length in the 3 months since the first of those betas was introduced. There was also an announcement recently that the latest of those betas would soon turn into a general release and people should backup their previous versions installers.

Obviously, people don't read those.

That's really not nice for anyone official at Daz to say.  Daz has been pushing its auto install whatever..  forever. (DazConnect?) It auto magically installs everything for better or for worse (there are complain threads).

I'm unusual in that I manually download and backup and install all products as that has always been the way with Daz Studio.  (This usually gets like a blank response from Daz who seem to forget that this is how large swaths of the customer base do, and always have, used Daz.)

So.. Now people need to manually backup some products (list please.. this affects more than just Ghost Lights) set them aside, and now wait for solutions. Or take a step back, and learn how to do things manually?

Nice...

algovincian

Leana said:

Aldor64 said:

Even if NVidia decided to make significant Iray changes it was up to DAZ to make an ahead announcement in time 

There was an announcement ahead in time. Daz released several betas using a version of Iray where ghost lights didn't work. The problem was discussed at length in the 3 months since the first of those betas was introduced. There was also an announcement recently that the latest of those betas would soon turn into a general release and people should backup their previous versions installers.

Obviously, people don't read those.

I hesitate posting this as I'm not trying to be argumentative, but not everyone wants to spend time working for DAZ as a beta tester. In the 4.20 General Release sticky post:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/551251/daz-studio-4-20-0-x-pro-general-release/

I may just be missing it, but I don't see this issue listed in the "Known Issues" section, nor do I see advice to backup zips for previous general releases because this release is definitely going to break stuff.

Full disclosure - I use the betas and have learned to run betas alongside the general realeases and save zips for previous versions, but shouldn't this info really be listed in that thread? Also, and I'm not saying there may not be reasons, but for sure DAZ makes it hard to DL and install older versions compared to other software.

- Greg

 

nicstt

outrider42 said:

leegreen69 said:

Paintbox said:

KindredArts said:

Griffin Avid said:

Maybe then, just release them as a new(er) product.

And have them say, the originals work in Daz.XXX and this new Ghost Lights 2.0 is for Daz new release DAZ.XXXX and above. 

What happens if I open an Old Scene- built using the old lights? 

This is also an option. I've learned a lot in the past six years since the original ghost light set so i could probably just scratch make a new set and give a 90% discount to the original owners so people can pick up the new versions for around a dollar. So the older builds will stay in your catalogues unchanged, and you can have the never builds on hand should you want them.

It's a bit tricky to know what the correct course is at the moment. 
 

I would personally favour this option. This keeps older versions of DAZ and scenes working as is (many still work with older DAZ versions in production) and I really don't mind buying a new set for a new version when / if I switch. 

I have purchased (and continue to do so) many of KA's products; I own all the Ghost Light kits and also find them invaluable! However, I for one, would not be in favor of paying for the same functionality that I have already paid for just to get them working in a newer release of Studio; I made the switch to 4.20 primarily for the ground volumetics found in the environment tab and had no idea that it would "break" ghostlights. In any other part of IT, when a commercialy available product is updated and there are "extensions" coded against a previous release, then the Release Notes of the new upgrade is a flag to developers to update their products (free of charge to a customer) to align to impacts indicated in the Release Notes in advance of the Product Upgrade (or closely timed) so as to minimize/reduce impacts to customers. This is product support and I would expect all Content Artists impacted by a Daz Upgrade to freely update their products to provide Customers the value they have already paid for... This is certainly not the popular opinion on this thread, it seems, BUT I do not intend to pay for the same product functionality twice.

I can understand why one would feel this way. But Ghost Lights were released back in 2016. This product is going on 6 years old. The other Ghost Light products are a few years old, too It is not realistic to expect to get 100% free product support for eternity, especially from 3rd party vendors. What if the vendor is retired, or is at a different point in their lives? 6 years is a long time, eternity is even longer. <.<

If the product was still new, then yes, I would expect a free update, absolutely. Or perhaps if it was a Daz Original. But neither of these is the case. If the product is updated for free, then that is fantastic, but if ends up being a new product with perhaps new functionality, then IMO that is ok as well if there is a discount tied to it. It depends on just how much work has to be done to properly update the product.

If an item has a shelf-life, i'd like to know what it is.

After all, that affects how much I will pay for it.

Alternatively, Daz should keep versions of studio available so folks can use that version if they wish.

Personally, I have plenty of backups - and I've adapted my workflow to no ghost-lights.

Richard Haseltine

UHF said:

Leana said:

Aldor64 said:

Even if NVidia decided to make significant Iray changes it was up to DAZ to make an ahead announcement in time 

There was an announcement ahead in time. Daz released several betas using a version of Iray where ghost lights didn't work. The problem was discussed at length in the 3 months since the first of those betas was introduced. There was also an announcement recently that the latest of those betas would soon turn into a general release and people should backup their previous versions installers.

Obviously, people don't read those.

That's really not nice for anyone official at Daz to say.  Daz has been pushing its auto install whatever..  forever. (DazConnect?) It auto magically installs everything for better or for worse (there are complain threads).

Nothing gets installed automatically, the base applications and content will ask (but you can switch the prompt off) and anything else a deliberate selection step.

I'm unusual in that I manually download and backup and install all products as that has always been the way with Daz Studio.  (This usually gets like a blank response from Daz who seem to forget that this is how large swaths of the customer base do, and always have, used Daz.)

So.. Now people need to manually backup some products (list please.. this affects more than just Ghost Lights) set them aside, and now wait for solutions. Or take a step back, and learn how to do things manually?

Nice...

Wonderland

 

KindredArts said:

Griffin Avid said:

Maybe then, just release them as a new(er) product.

And have them say, the originals work in Daz.XXX and this new Ghost Lights 2.0 is for Daz new release DAZ.XXXX and above. 

What happens if I open an Old Scene- built using the old lights? 

This is also an option. I've learned a lot in the past six years since the original ghost light set so i could probably just scratch make a new set and give a 90% discount to the original owners so people can pick up the new versions for around a dollar. So the older builds will stay in your catalogues unchanged, and you can have the never builds on hand should you want them.

It's a bit tricky to know what the correct course is at the moment. 

Please don’t change the old ones! Not all our computers can handle the newest DS versions. DS 4.14 beta is the last usable version for me with my retro 1080ti (which I thought was high end when I purchased it.)  Just call it vs 2 or something, please don’t overwrite old files! 

inquire

I believe KindredArts has written that he will release new versions, and if you have the old ones on your computer, they will not be overwritten should you install the new ones. Given that, I think he has removed the older versions from his store. He has also written that he intends to offer discounts to legacy users (those who have already bought his older versions of Ghost Lights).

Wonderland

inquire said:

I believe KindredArts has written that he will release new versions, and if you have the old ones on your computer, they will not be overwritten should you install the new ones. Given that, I think he has removed the older versions from his store. He has also written that he intends to offer discounts to legacy users (those who have already bought his older versions of Ghost Lights).

Good but not sure why the older version is being removed from the store. Not everyone has the highest end graphics cards. I was so excited when I first got my 1080ti but now it’s completely worthless as everything new goes directly to CPU. They need to put which graphics cards are needed for individual products and that anything above DS 4.14 beta is not usable at all with a 1080ti or below. I do this for a living but can’t afford the latest graphics cards. They are really limiting who can use their products now. I’m shopping more at Rendo now because the products don’t all go to CPU or crash my computer, 

KindredArts

Wonderland said:

 

KindredArts said:

Griffin Avid said:

Maybe then, just release them as a new(er) product.

And have them say, the originals work in Daz.XXX and this new Ghost Lights 2.0 is for Daz new release DAZ.XXXX and above. 

What happens if I open an Old Scene- built using the old lights? 

This is also an option. I've learned a lot in the past six years since the original ghost light set so i could probably just scratch make a new set and give a 90% discount to the original owners so people can pick up the new versions for around a dollar. So the older builds will stay in your catalogues unchanged, and you can have the never builds on hand should you want them.

It's a bit tricky to know what the correct course is at the moment. 

Please don’t change the old ones! Not all our computers can handle the newest DS versions. DS 4.14 beta is the last usable version for me with my retro 1080ti (which I thought was high end when I purchased it.)  Just call it vs 2 or something, please don’t overwrite old files! 

Yep, i know there's a lot of people running pre-RTX cards and older builds. I will leave the older legacy builds as they are, but i can't put them back on the store obviously. 

Leana

UHF said:

Leana said:

Aldor64 said:

Even if NVidia decided to make significant Iray changes it was up to DAZ to make an ahead announcement in time 

There was an announcement ahead in time. Daz released several betas using a version of Iray where ghost lights didn't work. The problem was discussed at length in the 3 months since the first of those betas was introduced. There was also an announcement recently that the latest of those betas would soon turn into a general release and people should backup their previous versions installers.

Obviously, people don't read those.

That's really not nice for anyone official at Daz to say.  Daz has been pushing its auto install whatever..  forever. (DazConnect?) It auto magically installs everything for better or for worse (there are complain threads).

I'm unusual in that I manually download and backup and install all products as that has always been the way with Daz Studio.  (This usually gets like a blank response from Daz who seem to forget that this is how large swaths of the customer base do, and always have, used Daz.)

So.. Now people need to manually backup some products (list please.. this affects more than just Ghost Lights) set them aside, and now wait for solutions. Or take a step back, and learn how to do things manually?

Nice...

Older versions of DS are not available anymore once a new version is released and the only way to rollback is to backup your installers. That might not be what people would like but that has been the case since the first version of DS and I doubt it will change.
Giving a heads up that a new version was coming so people could backup the old one if they had not done so already was actually rather nice, there usually isn't any notice.

And nothing installs updates to Daz Studio automatically without your consent.

namffuak

Leana said:

UHF said:

Leana said:

Aldor64 said:

Even if NVidia decided to make significant Iray changes it was up to DAZ to make an ahead announcement in time 

There was an announcement ahead in time. Daz released several betas using a version of Iray where ghost lights didn't work. The problem was discussed at length in the 3 months since the first of those betas was introduced. There was also an announcement recently that the latest of those betas would soon turn into a general release and people should backup their previous versions installers.

Obviously, people don't read those.

That's really not nice for anyone official at Daz to say.  Daz has been pushing its auto install whatever..  forever. (DazConnect?) It auto magically installs everything for better or for worse (there are complain threads).

I'm unusual in that I manually download and backup and install all products as that has always been the way with Daz Studio.  (This usually gets like a blank response from Daz who seem to forget that this is how large swaths of the customer base do, and always have, used Daz.)

So.. Now people need to manually backup some products (list please.. this affects more than just Ghost Lights) set them aside, and now wait for solutions. Or take a step back, and learn how to do things manually?

Nice...

Older versions of DS are not available anymore once a new version is released and the only way to rollback is to backup your installers. That might not be what people would like but that has been the case since the first version of DS and I doubt it will change.
Giving a heads up that a new version was coming so people could backup the old one if they had not done so already was actually rather nice, there usually isn't any notice.

And nothing installs updates to Daz Studio automatically without your consent.

Both DIM and Central will list the new version as an update. This is the time to make copies of the currently installed version before downloading the updates. The file names are IM000<sku>; you can find the SKU by hovering the mouse pointer over the product entry in DIM -  where it is called Product ID.

kyoto kid

...as to backing up previous Daz installers I've done that ever since I started in this, for if a newer release was buggy I could always roll back the to the previous stable version.  Granted it was easy before the DIM as the installers were individual .exes.  Afterwards I just made sure to make copies of the .zip files for  each version I was using at the time and saved those in the backup folder with the old Bitrock installers. 

Even though  I don't have any of the actual Ghost Lights products, I have been keeping up with this thread as I already had been making my own as needed using planes and spheres. 

I agrtee having to do major surgery on exisitng scenes is no fun. I've done it.

WendyLuvsCatz

none of this is going to change anytime soon and it is affecting PC gamers too

 

I am now thinking very hard about any new purchases and whether I can at least adapt them for Unreal Engine, Carrara or other software

THAT DOES NOT RELY ON A NVIDIA CARD even though I do have a now considered old 980ti and cannot afford anything better 

I don't like the attitude of DAZ at all,

yes I keep several versions of D|S including the latest beta

(I have been zipping up installed betas with all the plugins in the program files folder before upgrading which has proved a lifesaver)

 

BTW Kindred Arts, I have done renders of all your sets I own in other software so no issues there and use your Glass for Filament a lot