Daz Studio Pro BETA - version 4.9.0.21!
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Well, I'd like to vent, too. But I'm not angry and frustrated with DAZ.
My rant is there are so many posts in this thread filled with complaints about DAZ Connect and the presumed future of DAZ Studio, posts asking for help are getting lost and overlooked. Some of us would like to take the Beta out for a test spin, but would like specific concerns addressed first. However, our questions aren't getting answered because DAZ_Jon, DAZ_Spooky and DAZ_Rawb are too busy addressing the complaints, and yes, misinformation.
I'm not suggesting those folks who take exception to encryption and DRM, or have other issues with the new DAZ Connect should be silent. But it would be nice if we could have two threads for this Beta: One thread for voicing concerns and/or suggestions, and one thread just for providing support to customers wanting to install and use the Beta. And then those of us who've actually installed and tested the Beta can come back into this thread and offer our experiences as point or counterpoint to that conversation.
I'm tired of being ignored. My voice is important, too.
Just checked raycace parameters - #192012 Bug Report - DAZ Studio doesn't pass GI ray cache attributes to 3Delight
Not implemented yet.
No Oren Nayar diffuse, no GGX/GTR specular, no raycaching, no raytraced subsurface scattering. Simply not worth the bother.
An IDL render with raycache enabled takes 36 minutes 57.50 seconds in 4.7. At that time mark, 4.9 beta is roughly 60% complete. It's absolutely mind boggling DAZ developers simply wouldn't enable a feature that allows performance improvements up to 30%.
+1
I fall in to both catagories; I've been venting.
I'm also looking for information.
I hate having my posts removed; I find it suspicious when it happens. (I would, however, heartily support removing posts from the thread if they were the vent variety in the thread meant for help; well, I suppose they could be moved?)
Hasn't for me, but it didn't stop me backing up every single thing first; I'd recommend doing the same.
So where do I find the database?
>wilmap
you can check CMS place by user preference,, good luck ^^;
Thanks for posting this info, wowie - it's much appreciated.
- Greg
I've read this entire discussion – people expressed many concerns about not being able to use the content library (as is the DAZ Studio Formats section) or to rearrange their files. But in my opinion, there is another, far more important and insidious problem. What if one day DAZ goes out of business or, for some reason, is no longer able to provide their services? It's not something we want to happen but nevertheless it's within the realms of possibility. What happens with all the content we bought? Since it's encrypted, it can't be used in other software. Even if someone creates an application meant to replace DAZ Studio, they won't be able to make it compatible with the encrypted content. So, in the end, we'll be left with gigabytes of unusable stuff that we paid quite a lot of money for. Now, this is a discussion that we've already had in the gaming industry – what if, say, Steam goes out of business? Valve said that they have contingencies in place should something like that happen and games would still be playable. And that brings me to my question – is DAZ going to give us a guarantee that they will provide us with a way to decrypt the content when they are no longer able to support their software/store?
Another thing I forgot: I use my content on multiple computers (at least a laptop and a desktop). I have all my libnraries installed on an external hard drive, and just need to plug it in: voilà, same libraries everywhere.
If I used the CMS I would neet to synchronize the DB between machines somehow to have the same directories everywhere.
My apologies if this question / concern was already raised:
Am I just paranoid to feel nervous that Daz Connect may be a sign that Daz Software may in the future move to the cloud and that the use of it may become subscription based – like Adobe Creative Cloud?
If you think about it, it is amazing that software like this is being offered for free (and thank you for that), so the next logical business step (especially now with an established customer base) will be to make the use of the software a monthly / annual subscription service?
Same situation here, I have two identical computers set up at home and at work and I carry a 2-terabyte drive back and forth; I assume that once the drive is set up to be the default directory and both computers have been authorized that we should be able to continue as we are (as it is now I also copy the DIM files and update so that I can download/find things on either computer); confirmation would be great, but I'm not worried too much.
For the record, I'm one of those who believe that DIM was a great idea. Until DIM, I had thousands of DAZ products that I hadn't found time to install (bought 'em on sale or got 'em free but didn't need 'em right away). I used to spend time organizing folders and manually installing, but when that take more free time than actually using the software it starts to sour the whole experience. Now that DIM's installed, I have all 11,000 items instlalled and anytime I can't find anything good ol' DIM shows me where all of the products' files are installed in a matter of seconds.
If DAZ believes they're going to improve on that, I'm all in. DAZ has had my back from Day One, I'm going to give 'em the benefit of the doubt this time 'round.
-- Walt Sterdan
Okay, I installed it and did a couple of quick tests. My old libraries show up and work just fine.
Using Daz Connect creates a cloud folder in your My Library which has its own complete directory structre as any other library would have. The difference is that in it, all of the daz type files (dsf duf whatever) are now of the .enc filetype. Images (ie. textures) remain unencoded and are as accessible and adjustable via external programs and in the surfaces tab as they were before, even from a Daz Connect character. Exports seem to function the same way. As someone who doesn't edit the Daz files, my workflow wouldn't be interrupted by these changes, but perhaps it would be for some others.
Accessibility to the encoded files to use them elsewhere if Daz ever disappears has been raised as an issue, but it's not like the setups of new Daz characters really work in anything else without exporting etc. at the moment anyway?
The products you own show up in the Smart Content tab with a cloud icon; click on it for yet another login box and then it will download and install the content into the previously mentioned cloud library folder. I don't know if there is another way to access your cloud items. I didn't see another window for it. I still don't like Smart Content because it just smashes all the different character generations together, and I like to organise everything separately. The Categorizing options haven't improved/been changed at all that I can see.
Shopping:
There is a shop tab now but it is easy to close (I'm sure someone will like it, but I already have a web browser and it's much bigger and nicer looking, thank you.) I haven't tried using it to buy anything from the store directly into Daz yet so can't feedback on that. Personally I look at the Daz website every day - the daily emails have been great - and really don't need to be reloading the store every 2 seconds. New things do not appear on the store that quickly, so I don't get this fuss about "real time updates!!" for products, because we all know that these updates are few and far between (generally only once if there is an issue with a new item, and that's it.) I get the point of wanting to make the shop more visible to users, but as someone who knows how to load the shop webpage, it doesn't make me any more likely to want to buy anything than before. I haven't seen any suggested buys yet, but I'm still wary that Studio will soon become an advertising program for the store, since that's the logical (and really stupid because your customers will hate you) thing to do.
I'm trying to install it, but DIM keeps saying "Install Failed!" Any help please.
Check public builds are ticked in options as the shop page suggests, otherwise try installing only the main package first and then the other parts? When I installed it I selected them all, it installed the main file and deselected all the others, and I had to redo them after, but there was no error. Not sure what to suggest beyond that, sorry.
I refuse to install either the CMS or DIM so as long as that stays the same then this wont really bother me any, haven't bought anything from here in nearly 2 years (even longer for the other stores), and I don't see that changing any time soon,
However I do have friends who do buy regularly, and I usually end up having to do the odd tweak to a rig for things they aren't happy about, and that's before building hundreds of morphs into outfits, that way they don't get the shrink wrap effect from the crappy morph projection system.
So the big question is will I still be able to save these kind of changes back to an encrypted item like I currently can with the regular DSON content.
Everything checked and it downloaded OK. It just fails to install. Oh well looks as if I'm not going to be able to try it.
Rather than having to do a complete re-install at each iteration, content, plug-ins etc., is it not possible just to patch an existing functional install from for example 4.8 to 4.9?
In the Install Manager, go to Settings and then click the big View Log button, then scroll down to the bottom and see if you can see any sort of error explanation there as to what went wrong. The only time I've had things not install was because the zip itself was faulty and a new version was soon released but other people have installed this beta so I'm not sure what else would have caused it other than some sort of issue that cropped up with your particular download.
(Obviously, the second thing to try is deleting it and downloading it again.)
People have reported doing this type of thing with the beta, yes.
This is a main concern of mine as well. I really wish someone at DAZ would chime in on this.
DAZ_Jon addressed this concern here:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/936241/#Comment_936241
So, when DRM gets put in place.....since they seem quite unwilling to even consider (despite the large number of protesting and concerned users) removing it, what will happen when:
1) The files continue to be pirated just as much after a short period due to enterprising crackers?
or
2) The PAs discover (I'm sure, much to their surprise) that their sales do not increase....or actually decrease?
Because history has shown that one or both will be exactly what happens....
DAZ staffers are talking about us using 'slippery slope' reasoning and arguments, yet they are using the same kind or arguments to support the inclusion of DRM.
(And Spooky, if you read this, just a note: Don't just post that a premise is invalid....include why, or the post is just frustrating to readers, and possibly insulting to the OP)
Honestly it doesn't look particularly hard to pirate the new encoded content: it'd just take more work than copying and pasting the downloaded zip currently does, which might deter one or two people from uploading things they've bought, I suppose. From what I've seen adding DRM just makes pirates more determined to break it on principle, and makes customers more likely to go for pirates DRM free versions than the DRMed ones that limit legitimate users.
On the one hand I feel like it's sort of a waste of everyone's time and potentially upsets many Daz customers. On the other hand, at least this proposed system doesn't look like it'll be too inhibiting to regular users and you can still edit swap move textures and export the same as ever, so I'd rather this than something more draconian.
So long as I can access what I buy at any time offline, export it to other programs and import it back in, as morphs or standalone obj, and access and edit texture image files freely, I don't see how it would effect anything I could currently think of.
It should be much faster than that, because the version of 3DL in 4.8 (which is higher than the one in 4.7) is one version before a noticeable speed up in raytrace cached renders...the version in 4.9 benefits from that increase, so the actual speed up should be more than 30%.
Not by directly editing the files...
Thanks! :)
Let me check. Just rendered the scene again in 4.9 with raycache enabled. Sorry, mjc1016, it doesn't seem to be the case. Actually takes longer in 4.9 beta compared to 4.7. It's still rendering past 50 minutes. I'll render it again to see if it's a fluke.
Edit:
Definitely not a fluke. Rendered, restarted the app, rendered again. Same results. Restarted the PC, rendered with just occlusion and render times are in line with previous results. But once you switch to UE2 indirect light mode with raycache enabled, DS 4.9 beta is slow, very slow. Something that's around 30 minutes with 4.7 now goes close to 1 hour (52 minutes 42.4 seconds). Might be a good idea to check performance with the 3delight standalone. All i have is 12.0.19, which is the current build available to download from the website.
Please file a support ticket so we can try to figure out what is stopping it from installing.
It's OK now Spooky. Someone told me to try installing it as Admin and it worked.
Thanks