Please include poly count/3Delight average render time in Hair product specs!

marcussrjbates_b1589f87c6

I make this request on behalf of all 3Delight renderers. The last four (most recent release) Daz Original hair products I've purchaced are all utterly useless to me, despite the products containing 3Delight render options, which fooled me into thinking these products might be 3Delight render "friendly"...which they most certainly are not! These products are, in my opinion, completely incompatible with 3Delight, increasing my render times by an estimated x4000 (I say estimated, I've cancelled the renders after 3 hours, and have not yet got a render to reach as low as the hair line, and that's without any other figures in the scene, compared to an average render time of around 12 minutes for a full scene containing 10-30 figures).

The above stat is made all the worse in that I am exclusively using AoA's advanced lights, have reduced the textures from 4000x4000 to 1000x1000, simplified the trans maps to almost Minecraft like levels, removed Spec, Bump and Displacement maps, and turned off several surfaces that map fine or thin hair. Without these drastic measures, after 3 hours Daz still hasn't rendered ANYTHING! (If anyone can suggest any further 3Delight render tips I'll give 'em a go, but my bag of tricks is exhausted, and my latest purchaces sadly consigned to the trash can).

It isn't fair to customers to advertise such products as usable by 3Delight users, and including a poly count, estimated 3Delight render times, or at least a prominent warning for 3Delight users would be appreciated...as it is I'm now so "gun-shy" of Daz Original Hair products (and feeling a little duped if I'm honest) that I won't be purchacing any further Daz Original Hair products until something changes (my G3 and G8 characters are making do with hair from my V4-G2 back catalogue...not ideal, but at least they render!)

To individual vendors I would ask that you isolate the finest strands into seperate Surfaces so we 3Delight users can experiment in reducing the models complexity.

 

Thank you!

Leana

"average render time" doesn't mean much, it will always depend on your computer and what else is in the scene...

Did you try turning Occlusion off in the surface settings for the hair? That usually helps reducing render time when using transmapped hair in 3DL.

marcussrjbates_b1589f87c6

Well, of course average render time means little unless you specify average specs, however it would be simple for Daz to specify it's own definition of an "average" scene, and a comparison could then be drawn by the customer. From what I've seen elsewhere in the Forums, my render times for similar scenes are quite rapid.

To answer your question, no occlusion used. I've basically reduced the hair down to an early V4 hair surface setting, using only a diffuse map and a transparency map, both of which I've reduced down to about the size of a postage stamp, have deleted everything else from the scene, including the figure wearing the hair, and I'm STILL bailing on the render after 3 hours with just the tiniest tip of the top of the hair rendered (the scene that was deleted contained 2x Genesis 3 figures, 15x clothing items, 2x Genesis 2 Hair models, 50+ props (including numerous other trans-mapped items)...rendering in around 12 minutes (acceptable for my animating). Yet these hair models on their own, using AoA's lights, are completely unrenderable...

 

Leana

I don't know what shader the 3DL mats for the hair used, but from memory when using the default DS shaders then Occlusion is considered "on" by default, you need to apply uberSurface (or similar shader) and turn it off explicitely.

WendyLuvsCatz

the one with the rack of TITANS who crytomines in their spare time is always going to get better specs than the laptop user who renders on a cooling stand praying it finishes before their CPU heat cutout activates

so yeah meaningless 

marcussrjbates_b1589f87c6

Not meaningless. Not if Daz specifies the criteria. If you purchace one item that Daz gives it's average render time as 20 minutes, and it takes you 30 minutes, then you buy a product they say 10 minutes and it takes you 15 minutes, you'd have a pretty good idea that a product Daz says will take 30 minutes is gonna give you a render time of roughly 45 minutes (a fairly standard principle of measurement- a fixed point of comparison...not YOUR average render times, but the average render times of a set computer owned by Daz, from which you can make a comparison...lets not rehash an argument that was dealt with back when humans decided to use the foot as a unit of measurement).

marcussrjbates_b1589f87c6

Leana said:

I don't know what shader the 3DL mats for the hair used, but from memory when using the default DS shaders then Occlusion is considered "on" by default, you need to apply uberSurface (or similar shader) and turn it off explicitely.

I have no idea how to do any o' that! 

Gone

You say that you are using AoA lights - but are you using the flagging option?

marcussrjbates_b1589f87c6

Gone said:

You say that you are using AoA lights - but are you using the flagging option?

Yes...and it's been great so far, quartering my my render times or better. It must be working too, as I always test the trans mapped products by attempting a render using the "Do Not Illuminate" option...which I suppose answers Leana's question regarding the shader used...if I wasn't using the an AoA compatible shader, it wouldn't render as a black silhoutte with the "Do Not Illuminate" set. I started using the AoA lights fairly recently as I noticed some of the newer hair models, being more complex, were slowing my render times in complex scenes to 20-30mins...not bad, but not really animation friendly. This cut the render times to between 5-12min depending on scene complexity.

But these newer hair models are paralysing my renders...as mentioned it's 3hrs or so to get to a 1% render even with AoA's lights. I know the models are much more complex, with many, many tiny geometry strands displaying indivdual hairs...I've even tried creating a new surface I can dump as many of these fine strands into as possible and then make that whole surface totally transparent, but it's not helping.

Gone

Ok, normally I use the "Primitive hitmode and Alt samples" option.

Could you give an example of the hair that is a problem because it sounds like you are describing fibermesh hair and not trans-mapped hair.