"V3D HDR Master Bundle" (Commercial)

mariopirlo96

I am using DazStudio 4.21 Pro on Windows 11, but it is irrelevant now.
Because, what do you know! It worked!

Well, I guess what i missed in documentation was that the Render Settings have to be set to NVIDIA modus. This was not the case first.

Now it successfully rendered the exr, which was successfully converted to hdr (for Filament viewport), which then could be successfully loaded in a new Environment.
Further it is the question of finding the right resolution and maybe other settings, but it works perfectly.

So thanks a lot for your help! And this case is closed now.

V3Digitimes

Wooonderful. Concerning the resolution and other settings its so dependant of what you want to do that I let you find out what you prefer. Anyway it is a goid thing you mentioned this issue and its solution here. It may help other people and I will have a look if something can be done in the next update. Thanks for that!

jjoyner

@V3Digitimes, @barbult, @crashworship

Hello.  I bought the V3D HDR Creator Bundle two months ago and started exploring with it a few days ago.  Unfortunately, I don’t think my modest system (Win 10, 16Gb RAM, RTX 2060 with 6 Gb VRAM) is up to the task of creating a high enough resolution EXR file to avoid a blurry image.  I have read many times the posts between the three of you in early April and nothing that I try gives me a sharp image at the resolutions that I am capable of rendering – so far, only 8K.  Perhaps if I use Scene Optimizer to reduce the RAM/VRAM needed, I can do better.  I’ll also try the png xEV Creator to see if I can get a sharp HDR file with my system.

V3Digitimes

Hi jjoyner. Sorry you're having issues with the resolution you can reach. Indeed, if your hdr seems "blurry" you can have to main origins :

1. The hdr size (resolution). It's not obvious to give a recommended size since, after you use the hdr in your scene, it will depend both on the "proportion" of the hdr you will see on your final render (like 1% or 10%??) and on the resolution and size of the final render you want to make. But resolution is not the only factor acting on the backgound looking sharp or not. But before you try to push the size too high you can try to increase the number of render samples to see if things go better for you, as explained just after:

2. The number of rendered samples can also have a strong influence. But take care, taking account how Daz Studio handles the creations of those hdr so that they can then be loaded with the right "lightness" level, the renders tend to be super short with a minimal number of samples (and you cannot increase it easily). In this case I would recommend to use the render settings I provided, for render settings (I hope this still works in 4.22) :

• a. OBLIGATORY: Set "Max Time" to 0 AND "Render Quality Enable" to OFF : this way, the number of iterations (samples) is only determined by "MAX samples".
• b. Set the MAX samples at the value you want, if you made "a." then the render will stop at this exact numer of iteration, but you can safely cancel it at any iteration you want (provided you reached the Update Interval at least once)

Of course you can try with the png xEV creator, but this function was rather introduced for environments using fog, haze, vdb, night scene, well.. "not classical" scenes. I would personally try to increase the number of rendering samples until increasing this number does not increase the hdr quality any more, then I would increase the hdr resolution until my video card cannot support it (or until I find it is too big on my hard drive).

Let me know if you still have issues, you can contact me here or via MP this is the same for me :) and have a nice sunday!

DoctorJellybean

V3Digitimes said:

Hi jjoyner. Sorry you're having issues with the resolution you can reach. Indeed, if your hdr seems "blurry" you can have to main origins :

1. The hdr size (resolution). It's not obvious to give a recommended size since, after you use the hdr in your scene, it will depend both on the "proportion" of the hdr you will see on your final render (like 1% or 10%??) and on the resolution and size of the final render you want to make. But resolution is not the only factor acting on the backgound looking sharp or not. But before you try to push the size too high you can try to increase the number of render samples to see if things go better for you, as explained just after:

2. The number of rendered samples can also have a strong influence. But take care, taking account how Daz Studio handles the creations of those hdr so that they can then be loaded with the right "lightness" level, the renders tend to be super short with a minimal number of samples (and you cannot increase it easily). In this case I would recommend to use the render settings I provided, for render settings (I hope this still works in 4.22) :

• a. OBLIGATORY: Set "Max Time" to 0 AND "Render Quality Enable" to OFF : this way, the number of iterations (samples) is only determined by "MAX samples".
• b. Set the MAX samples at the value you want, if you made "a." then the render will stop at this exact numer of iteration, but you can safely cancel it at any iteration you want (provided you reached the Update Interval at least once)

Of course you can try with the png xEV creator, but this function was rather introduced for environments using fog, haze, vdb, night scene, well.. "not classical" scenes. I would personally try to increase the number of rendering samples until increasing this number does not increase the hdr quality any more, then I would increase the hdr resolution until my video card cannot support it (or until I find it is too big on my hard drive).

Let me know if you still have issues, you can contact me here or via MP this is the same for me :) and have a nice sunday!

Starting with 4.22.0.1, setting the Max Time to -1 disables the maximum time in seconds as a criterion for render loop termination. The maximum setting for Max Samples is 25000 (it can also be disabled by setting ot to -1).

jjoyner

V3Digitimes said:

Hi jjoyner. Sorry you're having issues with the resolution you can reach. Indeed, if your hdr seems "blurry" you can have to main origins :

1. The hdr size (resolution). It's not obvious to give a recommended size since, after you use the hdr in your scene, it will depend both on the "proportion" of the hdr you will see on your final render (like 1% or 10%??) and on the resolution and size of the final render you want to make. But resolution is not the only factor acting on the backgound looking sharp or not. But before you try to push the size too high you can try to increase the number of render samples to see if things go better for you, as explained just after:

2. The number of rendered samples can also have a strong influence. But take care, taking account how Daz Studio handles the creations of those hdr so that they can then be loaded with the right "lightness" level, the renders tend to be super short with a minimal number of samples (and you cannot increase it easily). In this case I would recommend to use the render settings I provided, for render settings (I hope this still works in 4.22) :

• a. OBLIGATORY: Set "Max Time" to 0 AND "Render Quality Enable" to OFF : this way, the number of iterations (samples) is only determined by "MAX samples".
• b. Set the MAX samples at the value you want, if you made "a." then the render will stop at this exact numer of iteration, but you can safely cancel it at any iteration you want (provided you reached the Update Interval at least once)

Of course you can try with the png xEV creator, but this function was rather introduced for environments using fog, haze, vdb, night scene, well.. "not classical" scenes. I would personally try to increase the number of rendering samples until increasing this number does not increase the hdr quality any more, then I would increase the hdr resolution until my video card cannot support it (or until I find it is too big on my hard drive).

Let me know if you still have issues, you can contact me here or via MP this is the same for me :) and have a nice sunday!

@V3Digitimes,

Hello and thanks for your fast reply.  I’m a hobbyist at this stuff and now that I retired four years ago, I can “play” as it as much as I want each day.  I forgot to add in my original post that I'm using version 4.21 (I don't plan to migrate to version 4.22 anytime soon.) and that my laptop's processor is an Intel i7 (9th generation).

As I wrote earlier, I’ve read and reread your conversation from early April and tried many of the suggestions offer by you and @barbult.  I’ve pushed render samples as high as the default 100 and lowered the luminosity setting in HDR creator. I’m still experimenting to find the right combination of settings (and patience with rendering) that gets me as close to where I want to be as possible.  I’ll use more of your recommendations to try to get there, though.  As I also wrote, that place may not be possible with the limited VRAM/RAM that I have.

EDIT: One of the experiments that I tried yesterday was to try to create a sharp HDRI with just basic primitives in the scene to make the scene as light on RAM/VRAM as possiblle.  I loaded three cubes, changed the colors on each and changed the environment to Sun-Sky Only.  I did not change any parameters in the HDR creator script but still got a blurry 4K HDRI.  I realize that 4K is not optimal but I was hoping that with just three primitives in the scene, that I would get a sharp(er) output.

On a side note, I want you thank you very much for Scene Optimizer.  I bought it two years ago and it is a mainstay in my 3D toolbox.

Artini

I also got blurry renders with 4K resolution.

Minimum acceptable was 8K, but 10K is even better.

I am also limited by hardware on my computer

(graphics card with 8GB VRAM, but at least Nvidia).

 

V3Digitimes

I agree 4 k is most of the time to low resolution, except if you use the hdr to create small images like cartoon vignettes. I generally use like Artini 8 to 12 k resolution with on my side 200-2000 samples (depending if I launch them at night or not).

jjoyner

@3DVigitime, @barbult

If I could easily render at 10K or above on my RAM/VRAM limited system, I would definitely take that route but, both usually get maxed out along with 100% GPU utilization when I attempt to go higher than an HDR 8K render.  The render may still be happening but the render iterations slow to a crawl – perhaps 11 iteration after several minutes with hundreds of iterations to go.  That would likely take hours on most scenes and most likely on CPU only if I set Daz Studio to allow CPU fallback.  I can sometimes manage 8K depending on what is loaded with an object/scene.  I’m also using Scene Optimizer and Camera View Optimizer to try to help.

On April 6 in this thread, you and barbult offered the following advice:

3DVigitimes

Indeed, when you load your exr, your camera sees only a "small" part of it, so you have to make sure your exr size is big enough.

barbult

Let me show in pictures what V3Digitimes said above. She is absolutely correct that the blurry pixelization is caused by the HDR dimensions (4000 by 2000 in your case) being too small for the zoomed in camera view you are using in your final 1920 by 1080 render. There are three options that I can think of. You can try one, two or all three.

1) create a much larger HDR, if your computer can handle it

2) don't zoom in so far with your camera (i.e. use a smaller camera focal length)

3) render a smaller final image so the available pixels don't have to be stretched so much.

I realize that there are many variables at play, but in general, what camera focal length (I’ve gone down to 35 mm) and/or render size might I try to help improve the situation on my limited system. 

Again, thanks much!

V3Digitimes

I won't be able to help a lot about focal length. I don't worry about it when I render the exr, except when I use depth of field. When I don't use depth of field, I think I remember from my tests that I noticed no differences in the rendered exr. When I render my images using the hdr as a background image/lighting I don t worry about the focal lenght too because in general the size of the final is ok with the size of the hdr.... Ps: sorry for the eventual spelling errors I am on my phone (computer not available and phone with small characters, old eyes, and bad languge autocorrector).... Maybe users who usually make big renders or who cannot render big hdris because they don't have enough memory will be able to help you. Have you checked if teducing the dmme size could help?

jjoyner

V3Digitimes said:

I won't be able to help a lot about focal length. I don't worry about it when I render the exr, except when I use depth of field. When I don't use depth of field, I think I remember from my tests that I noticed no differences in the rendered exr. When I render my images using the hdr as a background image/lighting I don t worry about the focal lenght too because in general the size of the final is ok with the size of the hdr.... Ps: sorry for the eventual spelling errors I am on my phone (computer not available and phone with small characters, old eyes, and bad languge autocorrector).... Maybe users who usually make big renders or who cannot render big hdris because they don't have enough memory will be able to help you. Have you checked if teducing the dmme size could help?

OK.  No, I have not experimented with dome size yet.  I will though.  Thanks.

V3Digitimes

Not sure at all it will help even if my intuition says there might be a small improvement optimising the dome. But only a small... I am so sorry I have not a magic button for people who cannot render with the video card... :(

jjoyner

V3Digitimes said:

Not sure at all it will help even if my intuition says there might be a small improvement optimising the dome. But only a small... I am so sorry I have not a magic button for people who cannot render with the video card... :(

No worries.  When I bought my laptop four years ago, its specs were fair for what the latest Daz Studio content required.  Now however, I have to be carefull with certain content because of their memory requirements.  A new system (perhaps a desktop) may be on the horizon.   :)

barbult

@jjoyner the comment about using smaller focal length was aimed at the render that USED the HDRI, not the CREATION of the HDRI, if I recall. I'm traveling and don't have the bandwidth to write much now.

jjoyner

barbult said:

@jjoyner the comment about using smaller focal length was aimed at the render that USED the HDRI, not the CREATION of the HDRI, if I recall. I'm traveling and don't have the bandwidth to write much now.

@barbult - OK.  That makes sense in that changing the camera focal length in the creation of an HDR didn't  improve my situation.

Artini

Yes, creating 10K HDRIs on my desktop takes also hours and the files are so big,

so I am rarely creating a new ones.

My hope is to learn using skyboxes in Unity

and export them as a 360 degree panoramas in EXR format.

I have not succeded to get enough light from them, yet.

Exporting from Unity is very fast (less than a minute),

but my graphics card limits resolution of the created HDRIs.

I have not  succeded to create a HDRI with more than 6K resolution in Unity, yet.

The other problem is, that in Daz Studio, the base of such HDRi is high in the air

(in the middle of the height of the HDRI).