Questions about 3Delight
XoechZ
Posts: 1,102
Hello!
I have some questions about 3Delight - not the standalone version, but the version inside DAZ Studio:
1. How can I see which version is used by DAZ Studio?
2. Can I replace the 3Delight version by a newer one or is this only possible with a DAZ update?
3. Why is DAZ Studio not updated with new 3Delight versions more frequently?
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
1. The release notes should tell you, if nothing else.
2. No
3. Presumably because it is a customised version, hence the answer to 2.
Ok, thanks for the answer. I have not read anything about a 3Delight update in the release notes for a long time. So I think that DAZ Studio still uses version 10. Version 11 is out since October and if you have a look at the release notes (at the 2Delight website), this is a great update:
Performance & Quality
•Ray-tracing performance has been improved to such a degree that we now recommend using the ray-tracing hider as the default renderer for scenes with highly complex geometry (instead of REYES). Users can expect gains up to 20x faster when using multi-bounce global illumination and glossy reflections.
•Ray-tracing of motion-blur, even in the most extreme cases, is not a problem anymore. Performance is such that there are no objectionable speed differences between motion-blurred and static frames.
•Ray-tracing of dense and translucent surfaces, such as hair, is up to 3x faster.
•Ray-tracer startup time has been accelerated. Space partition build has been multi-threaded and other, geometry specif optimizations, have been implemented.
•Sampling in the ray tracing algorithm has been greatly improved. This means that less samples are needed to obtain noise-free images, especially with image based lighting.
•Subsurface scattering is 5x faster when combined with the path tracer.
•Multi-threading scalability have been improved for both the REYES rendering algorithm as well as in the path tracer.
•Better multi-threading of texture reads. This can drastically improve render times when using a very large number of texture files. We measured improvements of up to 25% faster.
•Rendering dense volume clouds (region with many interior shaders) is up to 2.5x faster.
•Point-cloud writing is now multi-threaded.
•Shader compiler produces better code and is able to use up to 50% less varying variables as before. This translate to faster renders.
•Access to very large files have been improved by using memory mapped I/O when possible. This is especially useful when accessing large point-based files.
•Memory usage for very large polygonal meshes has been reduced. We measured up to 4x less memory used on some typical production scenes.
•tdlmake is 2x faster.
I think this is the reason why the latest free standalone version (which is limited to 4 cores) renders faster than the DAZ Studio version. When can we expect an update in DAZ Studio?
Imho the render engine is the heart and soul of DAZ Studio. So I wonder why no one is interested in this?
Basically, the way it was explained in the past is that DS is not getting the latest version, on purpose...it's got something to do with the contractual obligations/etc.
My guess, is that DS5 will include 3DL 11(if not before)...but most of those improvements were in the later builds of 10 and are now in DS. According the version switch on tdlmake the build in 4.6.2.117 is 10.0.170, which if I recall was one of the last builds before 11 hit the streets. It's a Sept 5th build and 11 came out in early Oct. (only 4 more builds, with 2 of those being released on the same day, before the first release of 11...10.0.174)
I believe but can not say for sure that DS is always four builds behind. If not it is very close to something like that.
In DS you could always render to RiB and bring that into the standalone.
3DL is currently at 11.0.38 for the paid licenses and 11.0.22 for the free version.
Sorry, the free version is currently 11.0.31 :-)
Yes, and that is exactly what I am doing. Test renders in Studio, final renders with the standalone.
There is another big advantage with the standalone version:
It does not freeze your PC when rendering. So you can start a render, minimize the window and continue your usual work. And as said before, the standalone is as fast as the Studio version.
Yep. There was someone around here somewhere I learned that from. They always did RiB renders so they could get to work on a new scene while the previous one was rendering.
As an aside, and another option, the good guys at Blender released Cycles as a standalone renderer.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.6/Source/Render/Cycles/Standalone
Its a bit more pragmatic than that.
DAZ has to weigh up 'keeping up with the latest 3Delight' against changes to the SDK and all the plugin updates that implies.
As much as I want those new features (Have you looked at the new 'Re-light' feature?), I appreciate the stability.
I just hope that whenever that 3Delight build that does path tracing instead of REYES as the default hider is incorporated into Studio, we'd get either a Big Notice or a switch to go back to REYES...
Or is it already path-tracing by default, and I didn't notice??
The default iss till REYES, Progressive gives you the hider.
Sweet, thanks.
I don't think it is default, because DS is still at 10.0.x builds of 3DL...and I'm not sure it is default in the recent builds of 3DL 11.0.x, either.
One of the most recent ones had this up rather proudly in the changelog. It may've been 3Delight for Maya, though.
I looked up what the big name software users have to say about the path tracer in 3Delight, and they were, like, "Same problems as in Arnold!" =)
Anyone ready to go physically plausible renderman here yet? I noticed in the DS beta changelog there was a new bsdf() brick reported for Shader Mixer...
One of the most recent ones had this up rather proudly in the changelog. It may've been 3Delight for Maya, though.
I looked up what the big name software users have to say about the path tracer in 3Delight, and they were, like, "Same problems as in Arnold!" =)
Anyone ready to go physically plausible renderman here yet? I noticed in the DS beta changelog there was a new bsdf() brick reported for Shader Mixer...
Yeah, I think it is 3DL for Maya...but again, that's one of the most recent builds which you need the paid license to get and the Maya/Softimage/stand alone versions aren't always par on features. The free license stand-alone is several builds back and DS is a few behind that...so I don't think we need to worry about (anticipate) it for a while, yet.
Just wanted to mention that 3Delight Standalone (free version) was updated to version 11.0.44 ! :-)
New DAZ Studio beta list of improvements:
8) Updated 3Delight to 11.0.47
Woo hoo!!!
Are the Render Engine Setup panel still working?
I did a render using this setup, look the shading rate at 0.010 and using Progressive Rendering, the final time was almost 5min for a Genesis on level2 HD with raytraced hair, comparing both renders...no difference, even the "normal setup" on left was more slow than the "xtreme" setup.
Progressive mode has always used its own settings. We don't have access to those.
Daz has chosen some sort of adaptive sampling with preset values. (That's an educated guess from using the progressive modes in C4D). It ignores shading rate, shadow samples and I think, even ignores Uberenvironment sample settings.
Having said that I just compared the previous progressive mode to the new beta and I save over a minute on a 5m render. The new 3delight is faster for me.
Thanks for the info, Prixat. :smirk:
I'm not sure that's totally true about all the settings being locked. It may have been at one time. I know features for progressive render were restricted early on for the Maya and Softimage crowd from reading their forums. But there are parameters listed on the 3Delight site for the hider and I did some render tests this morning in the current DAZ Studio release (not the beta yet) changing various settings and coming up with quite different render times and different renders using progressive render. It is all raytracing and is meant for improved motion blur, depth of field, rendering some problematic geometry, GI, and also for more accurate reflection and refraction than the REYES render engine can provide according to what I read at 3Delight. DAZ's early promotion video just suggested their use for checking your lighting and quick feedback. It does seem that Sinc was programmed in as the error where it has to be changed to Box always comes up whether you change it or not. Box is the setting that should be used for progressive render according to 3Delight. So it fixes that for you. Gain also appears to work as an "exposure" setting and that is what 3Delight refers to it as. I had good results turning it up to 2.0. Lowering some of the other settings resulted in renders between 4 to 10 minutes using an AMD 8350 8 core CPU and 16 GB RAM.