2.0 plugin for Daz studio - when? (guesstimate)

[Jazbee]

I hope I'm proved wrong but I doubt that it will ever be possible to export whole DS scenes into 3rd party renderers.

Well, it is possible with Lux Render via the Reality plugin (and presumably Luxus, though I haven't used this one), however that is a CPU renderer. There may be other technical limitations with Octane which make it impossible to export the whole scene.

[linvanchene]

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[Spectralis]

I think DAZ are not interested in supporting Alembic properly just like they do not bother to create reliable pipelines to Lightwave and other software unlike Smith Micro's Poser and e-on's VUE. Customers have been asking for these features since DS was released but DAZ is primarily interested in selling content to the exclusion of everything else.

Now they are in trouble because of this lack of development. My impression is that this narrow outlook has resulted in less and less new customers so now they are trying to change the Platinum Club to make it more profitable and resorting to sales open to non members that completely devalue the PC in a desperate attempt to increase the profit margin. This is like an animal trying to eat itself - unless it receives nourishment from elsewhere it resorts to cannibalising itself. I know I'm over dramatising the situation but the point is that unless DAZ realises that it needs to open up its system to other platforms it will gradually lose relevance. Traditionally, there's always a more imaginative and hungrier competitor around the corner waiting to takeover when another competitor grows into a lumbering dinosaur. I wonder who that will be?

Just to emphasise my point take Carrara as an example of how poor DAZ's attitude is to development. This is a paid for product that has seen a point release in the two years I've owned it. This is supposed to be their flagship product but it is left to fall into redundancy compared to similarly priced competitors software. This is not because customers have not complained or sent in bug reports but because, despite all the constant pleas for updates, DAZ continuously ignores them or brushes them off. DAZ needs to change it's approach and attitude to customers not the other way round. I hope falling profits will scare them enough to realise their mistake and correct it asap.

While DS has some very good qualities its animation system hasn't been developed in years. DAZ excuses this by pointing out that the software if free or aimed at the hobbyist. These excuses are irrelevant because the R&D of any product is accounted for out of the profits of the whole range of products on sale. The distinction between hobbyist/semi-pro/pro is becoming less relevant as the hardware (computers, tablets, phones), software and its users grow more sophisticated. Hardware and software is becoming more integrated not less so unless DAZ starts to integrate its own products with those of other developers then it will fall behind that trend. It's cost Microsoft billions to catch up with this diversification trend but it's not been entirely successful at integration because of a legacy of trying to maintain a closed system.

[linvanchene]

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[Spectralis]

I think you're right that we shouldn't have too much hope. Based on DAZ's response to your threads on their forum they are very defensive or don't respond at all. I've posted in those threads but it seems that there aren't enough OR users to make a difference.

I'd like to see EA or another competitor shake up the market. Maybe Rendo or RDNA will team up with one of the companies you mentioned and change the game. I'm not too keen on Adobe's subscription based model as they generally aim for a higher end customer but who knows, they might develop a Lightroom style 3D application. FXHome has Hitfilm 2, for 3D compositing, that it might be possible to one day develop into a full 3D application. I really like their products and their attitude to customers so if anyone's going to shake up the market I hope it's them.

[Elele]

- - -

I truely believe that T_3 did more for DAZ studio in the last 6 months than DAZ has been doing in the last three years.


- - -

I don't
Though I have to admit I don't know much about it. I find DS pretty sweet, even when it wasn't free. I know I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for DAZ and their free/cheap programs. I got Cararra, bryce, hexagon and a butt load of content for free with a book that cost 15$. And that is how I got started about four years ago. I didn't know even know what a polygon was back then and got here pretty much for free. I would never gotten started if the entry price was more than 200$
And if my memory isn't letting me down in the last 3 years we've seen: Genesis, DIM, new/updated content creation tools, autofit, smoothing modifiers & collision detection, ...
Pretty awesome stuff if you ask me

I used to render in Carrara, but now I'm hoping to switch to Octane prefereably with the DS Plugin. That would be pretty sweet

[SiliconAya]

Update / Edit:
edited and removed parts because they will just lead more and more away from the original topic. sorry about that. Added the next sentence to put the bold part into the proper relation.

When comparing all the changes to 3Delight for DAZ Studio with the features that are currently being added to the OctaneRender plugin v.2x for DAZ Studio...

I truely believe that T_3 did more for DAZ studio in the last 6 months than DAZ has been doing in the last three years for their render engine.

Umm... of course he has, considering Daz do little for 3Delight other than license it off DNA Research (and 3Delight wasn't free for multi core computers until recently either), I don't believe they're involved in 3Delight development all that much, if at all.

Also, 3Delight has gone from version 9.0.119 - 2011-07-31 to 11.0.92 - 2014-07-27, covering major releases and many hundreds of point releases, it's a truly impressive amount of changes https://3delight.atlassian.net/wiki/dis ... ease+Notes (although DS only recently updated to 11.0.47).

In addition, DazStudio development has never been so fast or as professional/stable as it is currently. In the last 3 years we've gone from DS updates being a case of flip a coin and see if it'll work, to having minimal problems and generally very stable releases. In that time we've also had both DS 4.5 (only 2 years ago) and 4.6 released which were both very large updates adding amongst many other great features (as Elele partly listed) those little things called Genesis and Genesis 2 and while on the subject of changes, the changlog http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/s ... change_log for DS 4.5 to now is much much larger than 3Delight's, probably well over hundred pages of changes, the last DS update alone was 77 changes.
If you go back a little further to 3 years and 4 months you can include the release of Daz Studio 4.

That's all from software that is currently FREE. I paid for DS4Adv and was about to pay for Pro when it became free and I'm more than happy that I did pay for it.

On the subject of Alembic, I think it's rather clear that Daz are putting there development resources where it matters/what is used most, ie DazStudio, I'd be rather surprised if many people bought the Alembic, it's a nice premium feature, but I doubt if may DS users would care one way or the other about it. But what gets used, gets updated and while certainly not bug free, the GoZ plugin is a good example, it gets frequent updates and I must say, works pretty damn well and has a reasonable sized user base in content creators and artists who make once off morphs.

You must remember we (Octane users) and Alembic users are a small minorities of more advanced users, which I'm sure are dwarfed by the number of Reality users, which in turn is only part of the overall Daz Studio user base, so Daz's limited development resources are going to be mostly focused on what it used by most of these all these different users. I for one much prefer the more frequent and stable Daz Studio releases.




This is in no way a defence of their lack of api/sdk docs.

[PizmoSF]

Perhaps the best way to encourage DAZ to improve their product is to keep on creating great renders (you know what I'm talkin' about siliconaya, I've seen your DA site -- all sexy and fabulous). Personally I'm very pleased with the Octane DAZ plug-in. Sure I'm looking forward to the new functionality, but I'm thrilled with the things I can do with it the way it is (thank you t3). And it's obvious DAZ has development and marketing problems, but the things it has focused on it has done well, especially the base models. Frankly, I just can't afford the professional alternatives.

I use Octane, Daz, Filter Forge, (learning) Blender, ShaderMap2, all cheap/free programs and I'm still discovering on new ways to use things. With my pieces I put on DeviantArt, I always try to say "rendered with Octane Render". People seem to like 'em, and perhaps it might encourage people to check Octane out. I started from zero about a year and half ago, and one thing that has profoundly impressed me with the independent 3D art community, is their resourcefulness and commitment. I think it's the artist community that will lead the way and the companies will follow.

[feloem]

I've bought this software 2 month ago and still there is no plug-in for Octane 2.x. I don't care about the reasons!!! I want a clear answer when we'll get that damn update?! Is there any way to return the plugin and get money back? I'm seriously thinking about migrating to Poser. Octane to Daz is a very nice plug-in, very nice, but it is full of bugs, it is beta and it not supporting 2.x features.
Otoy should be aware that out there, there is a serious competition between render engines. Few years ago Octane was the only true solution for GPU render but the things have changed. TheaRender for example is a very strong Render engine, it has good documentation opposite to Octane - Octane for Daz Studio's documentation is a shame!!! The only thing that could make a person to chose Octane and not Thea, Indigo or Arion is the plug-in offer. But if Otoy does not respect us and give not a clear date for the plug-ins release and a serious good documentation, it may lose many clients...

[garand3d]

I've bought this software 2 month ago and still there is no plug-in for Octane 2.x. I don't care about the reasons!!! I want a clear answer when we'll get that damn update?! Is there any way to return the plugin and get money back? I'm seriously thinking about migrating to Poser. Octane to Daz is a very nice plug-in, very nice, but it is full of bugs, it is beta and it not supporting 2.x features.
Otoy should be aware that out there, there is a serious competition between render engines. Few years ago Octane was the only true solution for GPU render but the things have changed. TheaRender for example is a very strong Render engine, it has good documentation opposite to Octane - Octane for Daz Studio's documentation is a shame!!! The only thing that could make a person to chose Octane and not Thea, Indigo or Arion is the plug-in offer. But if Otoy does not respect us and give not a clear date for the plug-ins release and a serious good documentation, it may lose many clients...

You are not alone. There are many of us here who have been waiting a lot longer than that and are now extremely anxious to get our hands on the updated plugin. For me too, I chose Octane over those other renderers you mentioned mainly because of the DAZ Studio plugin.

I don't know if there is some kind of incentive or penalty from OTOY for its plugin developers to dish out updates as fast as the standalone gets updated or otherwise. Hearing how long the average dev times have been for each version of the OCDS beta releases, I'm inclined to believe it's more of a laissez-faire type of set-up. Or maybe the DS plugin just gets more leeway because DS is still deemed as 'non-industry standard', which is a shame IMO.

That being said, this is by no means bashing OTOY, or t_3. I wish him all the best and money in the world to continue his work, because I love DS and Octane (and I hope he gets faster at it too, by golly!). Neither am I white-knighting for t_3 here, but God knows what kind of ordeal he's had to go through being a one man army in this undertaking, with DAZ allegedly not being very supportive about this plugin and all. But that's understandable, DS after all already comes packaged free with 3Delight, whose maker probably holds a lot of sway on DS's development - or not, this is just pure speculation on my part.

Being the only person on the job, t_3 does have other worldly matters to tend to other than coding. And as to why t_3 wouldn't enlist anyone's help right now is anyone's guess, but I'm sure he has a valid reason for that.

Yes, like many of us here, as a paying customer I'm frustrated (and appalled) by both OTOY and t_3's apparent lack of communication on this matter, but I see a lot of potential in the OCDS plugin and thus I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.