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Daz Studio 5 development update

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  • algovincianalgovincian Posts: 2,613

    What exactly is it that you think is going to receive a substantial speed increase from native ARM code?

    I did some research on this last year, and this is where I think things stand:

    1. Iray includes native ARM support as of 2021.1.0:

    https://blog.irayrender.com/post/670184965599903745/arm-on-macos

    2. DS included Iray 2021.1.0 earlier this year:

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/7277496/#Comment_7277496

    3. As far as other aspects of DS go, I believe QT6.2 is the first version to include Apple Silicone support:

    https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-on-apple-silicon

    4. I believe DS5 is being built on QT5 - could have sworn I read that from somebody official here, but I can't seem to find specific mention of it now. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.

    - Greg

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    I don't get why DAZ 5 doesn't go for QT 6, if they need to rename it DAZ 6, so what? They no longer need to hurry since DAZ runs on new Apple computers again.

  • OmnifluxOmniflux Posts: 377

    Any references to Qt5 were probably because work to upgrade the version of Qt in use began before Qt6 was available. Other than changelog references, I do not recall DAZ stating a target Qt version, ever. The closest I have seen is by DAZ_Rawb in this post (page two of this thread) where he mentions work to support the change in the scripting engine for Qt5/6 is part of the delay in releasing DS5.

    In fact, the last two changelog entries that reference Qt specifically call out "Qt5/6".

    This, and the fact that one of (if not the only) reasons for the push to get DS5 out last year was Mac support, suggests they are actually targetting Qt6, especially now that they are no longer under pressure to get DS5 shipped.

    They have previously stated that some of their design and release decisions are based on the impact they have on breaking plugins, and Qt5 -> Qt6 would likely do that. That gives additional incentive to skip straight to Qt6 besides the fact that support for Qt5 ends for commercial licenses in 2023 or 2025 (depending on which license DAZ purchased).

  • TheMysteryIsThePointTheMysteryIsThePoint Posts: 2,946

    The difference between Qt5 and Qt6 is much less than the difference between Qt4 and Qt5, if I'm not mistaken, at least in the context of DAZ because of the changes to scripting.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    Omniflux said:

    Any references to Qt5 were probably because work to upgrade the version of Qt in use began before Qt6 was available. Other than changelog references, I do not recall DAZ stating a target Qt version, ever. The closest I have seen is by DAZ_Rawb in this post (page two of this thread) where he mentions work to support the change in the scripting engine for Qt5/6 is part of the delay in releasing DS5.

    In fact, the last two changelog entries that reference Qt specifically call out "Qt5/6".

    This, and the fact that one of (if not the only) reasons for the push to get DS5 out last year was Mac support, suggests they are actually targetting Qt6, especially now that they are no longer under pressure to get DS5 shipped.

    They have previously stated that some of their design and release decisions are based on the impact they have on breaking plugins, and Qt5 -> Qt6 would likely do that. That gives additional incentive to skip straight to Qt6 besides the fact that support for Qt5 ends for commercial licenses in 2023 or 2025 (depending on which license DAZ purchased).

    thanks, that's good to hear

  • algovincianalgovincian Posts: 2,613

    Omniflux said:

    Any references to Qt5 were probably because work to upgrade the version of Qt in use began before Qt6 was available. Other than changelog references, I do not recall DAZ stating a target Qt version, ever. The closest I have seen is by DAZ_Rawb in this post (page two of this thread) where he mentions work to support the change in the scripting engine for Qt5/6 is part of the delay in releasing DS5.

    In fact, the last two changelog entries that reference Qt specifically call out "Qt5/6".

    This, and the fact that one of (if not the only) reasons for the push to get DS5 out last year was Mac support, suggests they are actually targetting Qt6, especially now that they are no longer under pressure to get DS5 shipped.

    They have previously stated that some of their design and release decisions are based on the impact they have on breaking plugins, and Qt5 -> Qt6 would likely do that. That gives additional incentive to skip straight to Qt6 besides the fact that support for Qt5 ends for commercial licenses in 2023 or 2025 (depending on which license DAZ purchased).

    Let's hope that the QT version DS5 is being built on wasn't pinned at the start of the extremely long dev cycle, which might make some sense and have been necessary - who knows? The only reason I posted on the topic in the first place was because it seemed as though some people may have unrealistic expectations about hardware-based performance increases to be had. 

    - Greg

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,905

    "Daz Studio 5" (or whatever it is fianlly called) wil use the current stable Qt version when it is built, it will not use Qt 5 as that is at end-of-life already. That is the official word.

  • OmnifluxOmniflux Posts: 377

    We all look forward to the release of Daz Studio 5+ Advanced Pro Platinum with Qt8 for Daz Studio's 25th anniversary.

     

    Really though, I appreciate the fact that the release schedule appears to be driven by the development team and not marketing. The stability of the SDK and scripting interface after DS4.5 has been great and releasing because the product is at a good point to do so rather than because it needs to be released NOW is a good sign.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,905

    To be fair Daz Studio 3 was also, a few bugs aside, SDK-stable - as was the later Daz Studio 2. Unfortunately the reputation for requiring a plug-in update with every release from earlier iterations stuck for a long time.

  • vozolgantvozolgant Posts: 207

    Hopefully they've revamped the posing system.  The current posing system is abhorrent.  Even Poser Pro; outdated software, has a better posing system than DAZ.

  • wolf359wolf359 Posts: 3,828

    vozolgant said:

    Hopefully they've revamped the posing system.  The current posing system is abhorrent.  Even Poser Pro; outdated software, has a better posing system than DAZ.

    I am preparing a Daz studio 4.2x vs Poser 11, Comparision Video for you tube.

     

    I would like the hear your input..

    Can you post a specific example of where you believe posers  Dials are functionally superior to Daz studios sliders, powerpose & puppeteer panel system??

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,905

    "Abhorent" really isn't helpful - what are the problems, to you, and what would be better?

  • niallb67niallb67 Posts: 0

    Hopefully, the jump of QT versions whether it ends up being 5 or 6 will improve the general responsiveness of Daz. Specifically the viewport performance in texture rendered mode. Honestly, it annoys me endlessly how the viewport will become a choppy mess with more significant scenes or highly detailed environments. I almost wouldn't mind if Daz didn't promote these products directly in the store to be used on this software. 

    A True Dream Home | Daz 3D - Products like this are an exact example of a beautiful environment that suffers unacceptably degraded performance until you disable the visibility of all vegetation when using the viewport to move characters or interact with the scene in any way (would be okay if we were given a heads up). Switching the manipulation draw style to wireframed cant be counted as an acceptable compromise - Have fun posing your characters in that mode...

    When I check the resource monitor, I can see that my CPU is sitting at 20%, the GPU is almost idle and the viewport is still a laggy mess.

    Hopefully, Daz 5.0 with its backend updates will be able to use resources better to ensure a smoother experience. 

    To save anyone the question. No, I don't have iray on in the mini viewport by accident and I have gone through the forum and read the advice on improving viewport performance, helps but is still not acceptable. 

    As you can see my specs are fine. Just in Daz studio's current state, it doesn't want to properly utilize them.....

    Spec: 

    Windows 11

    Ryzen 7 3700x

    32 GB ram DDR4

    Titan RTX

    Daz content folder stored on SATA SSD

     

  • inquireinquire Posts: 2,198

    vozolgant said:

    Hopefully they've revamped the posing system.  The current posing system is abhorrent.  Even Poser Pro; outdated software, has a better posing system than DAZ.

    Could it be just time spent on one app vs time spent on another? I got used to posing in Poser. When I switched to DAZ Studio, I found posing more difficult. But, as I learned DS, I came to feel that posing is easier and better in DS.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,905

    niallb67 said:

    Hopefully, the jump of QT versions whether it ends up being 5 or 6 will improve the general responsiveness of Daz. Specifically the viewport performance in texture rendered mode. Honestly, it annoys me endlessly how the viewport will become a choppy mess with more significant scenes or highly detailed environments. I almost wouldn't mind if Daz didn't promote these products directly in the store to be used on this software. 

    A True Dream Home | Daz 3D - Products like this are an exact example of a beautiful environment that suffers unacceptably degraded performance until you disable the visibility of all vegetation when using the viewport to move characters or interact with the scene in any way (would be okay if we were given a heads up). Switching the manipulation draw style to wireframed cant be counted as an acceptable compromise - Have fun posing your characters in that mode...

    When I check the resource monitor, I can see that my CPU is sitting at 20%, the GPU is almost idle and the viewport is still a laggy mess.

    20% would be about three cores in full use on your system, I think. How are you checking GPU use? Task manager is not, by default, useful in at least some cases.

    Hopefully, Daz 5.0 with its backend updates will be able to use resources better to ensure a smoother experience. 

    To save anyone the question. No, I don't have iray on in the mini viewport by accident and I have gone through the forum and read the advice on improving viewport performance, helps but is still not acceptable. 

    As you can see my specs are fine. Just in Daz studio's current state, it doesn't want to properly utilize them.....

    Spec: 

    Windows 11

    Ryzen 7 3700x

    32 GB ram DDR4

    Titan RTX

    Daz content folder stored on SATA SSD

     

  • niallb67niallb67 Posts: 0

    Richard Haseltine said:

    niallb67 said:

    Hopefully, the jump of QT versions whether it ends up being 5 or 6 will improve the general responsiveness of Daz. Specifically the viewport performance in texture rendered mode. Honestly, it annoys me endlessly how the viewport will become a choppy mess with more significant scenes or highly detailed environments. I almost wouldn't mind if Daz didn't promote these products directly in the store to be used on this software. 

    A True Dream Home | Daz 3D - Products like this are an exact example of a beautiful environment that suffers unacceptably degraded performance until you disable the visibility of all vegetation when using the viewport to move characters or interact with the scene in any way (would be okay if we were given a heads up). Switching the manipulation draw style to wireframed cant be counted as an acceptable compromise - Have fun posing your characters in that mode...

    When I check the resource monitor, I can see that my CPU is sitting at 20%, the GPU is almost idle and the viewport is still a laggy mess.

    20% would be about three cores in full use on your system, I think. How are you checking GPU use? Task manager is not, by default, useful in at least some cases.

    Hopefully, Daz 5.0 with its backend updates will be able to use resources better to ensure a smoother experience. 

    To save anyone the question. No, I don't have iray on in the mini viewport by accident and I have gone through the forum and read the advice on improving viewport performance, helps but is still not acceptable. 

    As you can see my specs are fine. Just in Daz studio's current state, it doesn't want to properly utilize them.....

    Spec: 

    Windows 11

    Ryzen 7 3700x

    32 GB ram DDR4

    Titan RTX

    Daz content folder stored on SATA SSD

     

    Hi Richard, 

    Gave up on using the standard windows resource monitor a while ago. As you say, it's not great in some use cases. 

    I have been using HWinFO64 for the last couple of months which seems to give more accurate reports. 

    The most significant bit for me is I can hear the fans. They aren't working hard, and GPU fans are barely spinning, yet the Daz texture rendered viewport will still be very unresponsive. 

    Turn on the Iray viewport, and the fans spin up, making my room sound like an airport terminal, and GPU usage goes to 100% (as it should).

    Hopefully, 5.0 will be an improvement in the ability to utilize system resources in the GUI and non-iray viewport. 

     

     

     

  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,678
    I must admit that for normal, low-ish Res display, DS does compare poorly against something like a game engine. I have the 'Flowscape' landscape generator program. That can have thousands of plant instances visible, wind and animation effects and still respond faster than DS in texture mode. Shame, really, as it reduces the enjoyment of image creation in DS. It'd be nice to imagine DS5 being closer to a game engine in its response. Regards, Richard.
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,244

    Did I miss something? I didn't see any announced intention to improve viewport performance in DS 5. Is it just user wishful thinking?

  • niallb67niallb67 Posts: 0

    barbult said:

    Did I miss something? I didn't see any announced intention to improve viewport performance in DS 5. Is it just user wishful thinking?

     

    Just wishful thinking. If they are going to go through all this work on Daz 5.0, I figured they must be trying to improve the viewport performance a bit. I mean it's one of the most common complaints about studio on this forum. The dev team must be sick of reading about people complaining about it at this point. 

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,244

    Thanks for the clarification.

  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,678

    Must admit I phrased it as a 'Would be nice if...' too.

    Regards,

    Richard

  • ChakradudeChakradude Posts: 260

    So is studio 5 slotted for next year now? Is there a beta tester list to get on?

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    Chakradude said:

    So is studio 5 slotted for next year now? Is there a beta tester list to get on?

    Prior to release, DAZ has usually opened the 'beta' (Public Build) for anyone to try. The beta's can be 'bought' at the store (for free)
    When a build is officially released and no longer considered 'beta', it's called a General Release.

    There's also a Private Build, which is "limited to a select group of individuals", which usually means invitation only.

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    niallb67 said:

    barbult said:

    Did I miss something? I didn't see any announced intention to improve viewport performance in DS 5. Is it just user wishful thinking?

    Just wishful thinking. If they are going to go through all this work on Daz 5.0, I figured they must be trying to improve the viewport performance a bit. I mean it's one of the most common complaints about studio on this forum. The dev team must be sick of reading about people complaining about it at this point. 

    I think you would benefit from doubling your RAM.

    32GB's is not enough to keep Windows from using virtual memory with heavier scenes. At least I noticed a clear improvement in responsiveness when I went from 32GB's to 64GB's

  • takezo_3001takezo_3001 Posts: 1,979
    edited September 2022

    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

    Instead of a bunch of whiz-bang features that are riddled with bugs, it would be much better to have a small, base implementation that works and is well documented. Then dev community around DS is active, passionate, and would do the rest. Look around the SDK forum to see the kind of things people wanted to implement, but quickly gave up. Some couldn't even get the SDK plugin sample working, some got stuck on other very simple things early on, and some had cool things almost working, but got stuck on another important part.

    But right now, it is too difficult to develop addons for DS when you have to research the simplest things and sometimes resort to trial and error and trial and error and trial and error ad infinitum.

    I am more fearful of DS5 than I am excited about it because if Sagan breaks, I don't know if I have the energy nor will to stumble around in the darkness in order to get it to work again, and never be able to be sure if it really is working rock-solid, rather than just working until a certain set of conditions cause it to crash.

    We don't need Daz to implement a bunch of new features. We need them to stabilize and document what we already have. A developers' guide, not a pile of header files and documentation that states no more than the incredibly obvious.

    This is why I despise workarounds as a solution instead of fixing the actual bugs themselves, as those IGNORED bugs end up screwing other components of the program!

    There still exists a persistent bug which doesn't keep the preview render in focus for the scene/char in focus unless the figure is selected.

    So if you have the hair selected, and update the cam's position then the entire scene goes out of focus, then you have to select the char model again in order to fix it! 

    Also frustrating is another persistent bug that exists when you use the scroll wheel to zoom; as it auto-jumps from the char/prop off-centre, both of these bugs were ignored in favour of these infuriating workarounds! It has got to the point that I always bristle whenever I read about another workaround in lieu of an ACTUAL fix! 

    My fear is that they re-use any of DS4+ buggy code for DS5!

    Post edited by takezo_3001 on
  • SevrinSevrin Posts: 6,306

    DS5 is obviously not done, so there's nothing Daz will discuss publicly. 

    In the meantime, I'd be more interested in further details about the G9 character that is actually scheduled to be released in a few weeks.  We were promised an FAQ for last Thursday, and Daz hasn't provided any details since.

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    Sevrin said:

    DS5 is obviously not done, so there's nothing Daz will discuss publicly. 

    During the G9 presentation, when Jay mentioned the release of DS5, the non-verbal message he sent was "Something came up, don't expect it before the spring..."

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    richardandtracy said:

    I must admit that for normal, low-ish Res display, DS does compare poorly against something like a game engine. I have the 'Flowscape' landscape generator program. That can have thousands of plant instances visible, wind and animation effects and still respond faster than DS in texture mode. Shame, really, as it reduces the enjoyment of image creation in DS. It'd be nice to imagine DS5 being closer to a game engine in its response. Regards, Richard.

    Yeah... Being able to build your own world, or county at least, where your characters could go exploring while you took snapshots or video of their escapades... A dream 'someone' had, when starting this hobby some 20 years ago wink

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,054

    ...beginning to feel more and more that Daz5 will require some serious upgrading of hardware that will leave those of us with older tech even further behind.  Not everyone here can afford the "latest and greatest". (I'm still running with 24 GB of system memory and a slightly hamstrung Titan-X because of the RTX "emulation".

    Still not totally assured whether older versions of Windows may be dropped  for Daz5, as most other software has already done so (even Blender since v. 2.93). Nvidia ceased driver update support for both 7 and 8 last year.  So far the latest Daz beta version (4.20.178) still has the same driver requirement (471.41) for GPU rendering which has been the case for the last several beta releases.

    The last available driver for W7/8 is 472.39 which is four updates beyond the current one in use by Daz/Iray  There was also one (473.62) which was released specifically  for W7 (which is what I am using).

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,905

    takezo_3001 said:

    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

    Instead of a bunch of whiz-bang features that are riddled with bugs, it would be much better to have a small, base implementation that works and is well documented. Then dev community around DS is active, passionate, and would do the rest. Look around the SDK forum to see the kind of things people wanted to implement, but quickly gave up. Some couldn't even get the SDK plugin sample working, some got stuck on other very simple things early on, and some had cool things almost working, but got stuck on another important part.

    But right now, it is too difficult to develop addons for DS when you have to research the simplest things and sometimes resort to trial and error and trial and error and trial and error ad infinitum.

    I am more fearful of DS5 than I am excited about it because if Sagan breaks, I don't know if I have the energy nor will to stumble around in the darkness in order to get it to work again, and never be able to be sure if it really is working rock-solid, rather than just working until a certain set of conditions cause it to crash.

    We don't need Daz to implement a bunch of new features. We need them to stabilize and document what we already have. A developers' guide, not a pile of header files and documentation that states no more than the incredibly obvious.

    This is why I despise workarounds as a solution instead of fixing the actual bugs themselves, as those IGNORED bugs end up screwing other components of the program!

    There still exists a persistent bug which doesn't keep the preview render in focus for the scene/char in focus unless the figure is selected.

    So if you have the hair selected, and update the cam's position then the entire scene goes out of focus, then you have to select the char model again in order to fix it! 

    Also frustrating is another persistent bug that exists when you use the scroll wheel to zoom; as it auto-jumps from the char/prop off-centre, both of these bugs were ignored in favour of these infuriating workarounds! It has got to the point that I always bristle whenever I read about another workaround in lieu of an ACTUAL fix! 

    My fear is that they re-use any of DS4+ buggy code for DS5!

    Somethign not doing what you want it to do is not necessarily a bug. From your description DS is doing exactly what you tell it to do.

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