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Noob questions

andolaurinaandolaurina Posts: 673
edited December 1969 in New Users

I have been a serious Poser user for many years, but I'm trying to give DAZ Studio Pro 4.8 a serious try now. I've tried searching the forums for these answers but have gotten more confused, especially reading the iray threads.

1. I can find content in my content directories (which I added over in the content directory pane on the right). How do I get things to show up under "Smart Content" on the left? I got nothin'!

2. Iray: I try to render in Iray and the results are really grainy, even if I leave it for 10-20 minutes. I'm using the default settings but tried to tinker a bit but nothing improved. Ideas?

3. Do most people who use 3Delight render with gamma correction on or off? I'm used to always having Gamma Correction on in Poser (set at 2.2).

4. Am I supposed to do something special to materials and skin settings to make them show up properly in Iray renders?

Sorry. I'm sure these are stupid-basic questions but I'm lost.

Comments

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    1. The Content Management Service is probably not running...which operating system do you use?

    2. Iray is only faster than 3Delight if you are using GPU rendering...and for that you need an Nvidia video card of fairly recent vintage. Even with that, without proper light and materials, it can take a very long time to render.

    3. GC...ON!

    4. If it doesn't say it has Iray specific materials, then yes, converting them will be best (it sort will autoconvert...but well, it's passable, but not optimal).

  • andolaurinaandolaurina Posts: 673
    edited December 1969

    I'm on 64-bit Windows. How do I start or restart the content management service?
    Video card = Nvidia GEFORCE GTX. I'm sure I was using both lighting and materials that were not iray friendly.
    Thanks for answers to 2, 3, and 4. :-)

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,613
    edited December 1969

    A few questions to help pinpoint what's going on with your Smart Content:
    1) In the Content Library pane, do you see 3 items (DAZ Studio Formats, Poser Formats, and Other Formats) or 5 (the above plus Products and Categories)?
    2) Did you install PostgreSQL CMS?
    3) In the Content Library options menu (rectangle with horizontal lines in the upper corner), is "Start CMS" grayed out? If it isn't, does clicking it change what you saw in question 1?

  • andolaurinaandolaurina Posts: 673
    edited December 1969

    1. I see 5.
    2. Yes.
    3. No, it's not grayed out. I tried to select that but nothing happened.

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,613
    edited December 1969

    Okay, from the Content Library options menu try Content DB Maintenance > Re-Import Metadata.

    If that doesn't work, try Content DB Maintenance > Reset Content Database; then try to Re-Import metadata again.

  • andolaurinaandolaurina Posts: 673
    edited December 1969

    Ah brilliant! Thank you so much!!!

    That picked up a ton (probably all) of my DAZ-purchased content.

    I guess the CMS has to have DAZ meta data to load something as smart content (?). For example, I guess it doesn't scan a Poser directory and pick up the files from that (e.g. for content purchased from other places). Right?

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 11,839
    edited December 1969

    andolaurina said:
    I guess the CMS has to have DAZ meta data to load something as smart content (?).
    Yes, only content with metadata shows up in smart content tab.
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    andolaurina said:

    3. Do most people who use 3Delight render with gamma correction on or off? I'm used to always having Gamma Correction on in Poser (set at 2.2).


    DAZ Studio only added gamma correction a few years ago, but they left the default values at gamma correction "off" and gamma 1.0. I always render with gamma correction "on" and gamma 2.2, but there are issues with the DAZ material when you use gamma correction. Most DAZ material in the store has been setup to render at gamma 1.0 and you sometimes need to make adjustments at gamma 2.2 to get good results. Most frequent issues is specular strength seems to be way too high on hair and clothes at gamma 2.2. Also I frequently have to set the gamma to 1.0 on hair opacity maps so it does not get gamma corrected.


    4. Am I supposed to do something special to materials and skin settings to make them show up properly in Iray renders?

    I have generally been applying the Iray Uber Base shader (in DAZ Studio Formats -> My DAZ 3D Library -> Shader Presets -> Iray -> DAZ Uber) to most surfaces for Iray renders. For some surfaces like water, shiny metals, ... I've been using other shaders from that folder and the NVIDIA MDL Examples folder. These are shaders, so you need to select the surfaces (not the figure) you want to apply them too.

  • andolaurinaandolaurina Posts: 673
    edited December 1969

    Thanks so much. This is all hugely helpful!

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,613
    edited December 1969

    I may be mistaken, but I believe gamma correction only applies to the texture maps, not the control maps. So bump, displacement, specular, etc., aren't affected by whether gamma correction is on or off.

  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    fixmypcmike said:
    I may be mistaken, but I believe gamma correction only applies to the texture maps, not the control maps. So bump, displacement, specular, etc., aren't affected by whether gamma correction is on or off.

    I agree that the opacity map should not be gamma corrected, but DAZ apparently relies on the Gamma being set to 1.0 on the map to prevent that. Most hair opacity maps seem to have the gamma set to zero, which apparently causes gamma correction.

    I showed the difference of setting the opacity map gamma here:.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/38199/P90/#666365

    The effect is small with some hair, but it was fairly large on that hair.

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    OK...one more time...for Mike...

    In studio, the image gamma setting isn't really setting the gamma, it's passing a parameter on to the render set up (in 3Delight, that would be tdlmake...not sure where/what in Iray). On an image map, setting Gamma to 1.0, basically means 'don't do anything'; setting it to 2.2 means "correct this"; leaving it/setting it to zero, means 'guess'. Now that guess is going to be based on where and what the 'mode' of the map is. Some control map slots seem to be 'hard coded' to always pass a 1.0 to the render set up part of Studio, but not all of them...for some reason opacity is not (I'm not sure which other ones aren't, but there are a couple more). Those others, if the image is RGB it WILL BE CORRECTED! So if you have a "black and white"/greyscale map that is a jpg and is set to RGB, instead of greyscale...it will be corrected, instead of being left alone!!! Png and tif images may be more likely to be handled correctly...

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,613
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for the clarification, much appreciated.

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    Ideally it should be all location...plug something into one of the control slots, 'suspend' correction. On the 3Delight side of things, passing the parameters to tdlmake would be easier if all the control slots were 'not corrected'.

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