OCDS vs IRAY render speed (and feature) comparison

[larsmidnatt]

Hair opacity went crazy unfortunatly.

You need to lower the ray epsilon to fix that.

Paul

is it possible to hand out some kind of... tutorial or guideline with tips and hints like that for new users? i spent days and weeks testing things like that by myself and i bet i dont even know the half of the possiblities of octane until now

even without all those little bugs remaining ocds is so much better than iray in its current state. but... nvidia is a huge corp meanwhile, if they just dump enough money into their project... iray is more or less brand new

I suggest new users go through the Octane Standalone documentation and maybe the old video tutorial series. Once you get familiar with Octane, you see how it applies to the plugin.

Iray has been around a long time, but not for DS. Iray in DS is not the same thing you get in 3DS Max.

And to mimic what others have said, I can't stand the DS material solutions. I got Octane to get away from those limitations and Iray didn't help any in that regard.

If using OCDS 2.x, no need to reduce texture size to fit in the Vram. Just use the OOC feature. It's something Iray doesn't have.

I do like that our Plugin tells us how much Vram it is using, we don't have that with Iray and it was somthing that bothered me. And by default Iray for DS limits texture sizes to 2048, you can change it though. Most textures for characaters from Generation 4 onward are ~4096. 2048 can still give you great results with unbiased renders, even with pinups, but I still prefer the higher resolution ones (cause I do lots of closeups)

I use coherent ratio a lot for still renders, it can improve speeds more than Otoy advertised But I am overzealous and will often use 1.0, for a lot of the renders I do it causes no issues. Sometimes with certain surfaces you really need to stay around .5. Coherent ratio gives me about double the render speed(i think more but I am rendering so can't stop to test).

I find OcDS/Octanes Sunlight+Sky texture feature very useful. I even use Sunlight+HDR when I am lazy and don't want to set up mesh lights

Also, I noticed you used PMC. If you test Pathtracing VS PMC you may find they look the same depending on the materials used. Since many of my materials are simple (not made of jade) you don't see a difference. So I do suggest people test the two and see if it is worth the additional time with PMC. Most of the time I just use pathtracing myself.

Big thing for me is OcDS is very customizable and very fast compared to Iray, especially for interactive work. I very much like that I can have the color picker up and slide around colors and see it update in realtime in the preview window. I would need to buy a much better video card to get half decent feedback with Iray.

[larsmidnatt]

BTW, regarding Ray epsilon, in the plugin you don't need to do this manually. If you just nudge the camera tad it will automatically recalculate the ray epsilon.

It's really tough/impossible to have a comprehensive tips and tricks guide because there are lots of different things people could focus on. But hopefully this helps a bit.

Also, that hair quirk seems more like a displacement/alignment issue. I think you said you turned off displacement, which means the next step would be to see if the scalp is overlapping the head(scale the hair up 0.1% may fix it). Even if it is intended to be invisible, its not great if surfaces share the same space. Not sure why it would be weird with one kernel and not the other however.

is it possible to hand out some kind of... tutorial or guideline with tips and hints like that for new users? i spent days and weeks testing things like that by myself and i bet i dont even know the half of the possiblities of octane until now

If you run into something, you could try asking us on the forums. Right now I think we are the best resource.

[sikotik13]

To add on, one could probably build said beginner's guide from various posts around these forums. I think linvanchene started a thread for such not long before primarily moving on to the standalone forums. At some point, I may have to quit playing around and actually compile all of the advice and tips I have used/modified into a coherent thread myself Oh, and lars, I'm not sure what card gets good feedback with Iray, since it seems to be an issue of the actual method it uses to display updates just takes a while to rebuild. Theoretically, if the GPU were the chokepoint, then I should have roughly half of the delay you do by using twice as many cards (each with more VRAM), and I doubt it's much faster, if at all. There's an incredibly obvious lag between making a change and it updating, and it grows exponentially with scene complexity for me. Pretty much why (aside from the clearly much-hated shader mixer style... thing) I never really touch Iray outside of the odd curiosity about something. I'm sure with preset materials (which I don't think I've really used much, so I can't judge objectively), the results are obtainable in a similar time-frame, but presets all looking alike are kind of what made me like the idea of Octane in the first place, something to make whatever I make my own instead of a rehash of what everyone else is doing. Just my thoughts on it, of course.

Also, I tend to use coherent ratio at 1 myself more often than not. Not that it matters as much for me, since I tend to use the Direct Lighting kernel more often than not, but it makes the previewing process feel much more fluid for me. For what it's worth, I never actually found PMC to be much better for anything other than caustics, and unless they changed the documentation/intent at some point, that's all it's really for anyway. Would cover things like the jade material you were talking about and water reflections, and not much else I can think of off the top of my head. Other than that, unless I horribly misunderstood the documentation, it's identical to pathtracing, and due to its intent, supposed to be the slower of the two.

[Spectralis]

I've noticed that the IRAY lag is much worse when using HDRI rather than the daylight mode on my system. In either case it's impossible to use so I just switch off IRAY when editing and then back on when I want to see what it looks like. Not a convenient workflow which is why I was so relieved when this OcDS beta could render animation. Even though OcDS has a lot of extra features, not all of which are essential, I think DAZ know their market where many customers want point and render ease of use. It is sometimes useful to use a commercial lighting product because they can offer some amazing results and a base to learn about lighting from. Also, not everyone who wants convincing shaders has the time or skill to create them so a little help from a commercial product goes a long way. Many of us use the Genesis figure which are commercial products so not everything has to be created from scratch. I'd like to see more products for Octane - the RedSpec shaders are one example of how a 3D party can really help the community have more realistic skins in their renders.

[larsmidnatt]

I'd like to see more products for Octane - the RedSpec shaders are one example of how a 3D party can really help the community have more realistic skins in their renders.

Thing is, Octane users are not the same as the 1-click daz user base. Most Daz users don't use Octane. I got Octane so I wouldn't ever be dependent on commercially sold shaders ever again. I am not unique. You may notice that the main group selling Octane Shaders on the daz market are making Iray ones too. We can predict how this unfolds *wink*

Kinda like when Reality was all DS, then made a Poser version, forgot about DS users for years...Cause Pas aren't there to help you. They are there to make money, and help you sorta (as long as you keep buying, and you happen to buy what sells the most).

From the Octane forums, I think the Daz community is pretty lively compared to the state of the plugin, but it's a vocal minority. However, if you check the rest of the Octane forums, you won't see users buying premade shaders...And they are really the majority of Octane users...the DS Octane community isn't that big. And if you think selling people who bought an "expensive" render solution and plugin more stuff is a solution you might not be thinking about how the core DS audience views this all. That's a lot of stuff to buy!

So just keep that all in mind, what you want, versus the reality of it all. The Daz forums are filled with people who want to buy something to make their renders look better, not so much here. The few times I myself got Octane shaders for Daz it was because a PA who made content was an Octane enthusiast, who decided to bundle Octane shaders in the product. in one case they did sell them separate and I got out of principle(my tropical bundle!). However at least one former Octane enthusiast PA has sold at least a handful of Iray shader packs recently. They are PAs to make money, and Octane isn't really the market. Iray is.

You can learn to make great renders. If you ever bought a single shader pack, well dissect it and figure out what is going on. Replicate it. Improve it. Don't be limited and dependent on it...

I never actually found PMC to be much better for anything other than caustics, and unless they changed the documentation/intent at some point, that's all it's really for anyway. Would cover things like the jade material you were talking about and water reflections, and not much else I can think of off the top of my head. Other than that, unless I horribly misunderstood the documentation, it's identical to pathtracing, and due to its intent, supposed to be the slower of the two.

that is how i understand it as well.

And for Iray, unless you have a Quadro card, yeah forget about it. That's what makes Octane so great, it actually is very fast on much more modest hardware. Like a GTX 760

[Spectralis]

I bought OcDS to make better renders not to spend a lot of time making shaders. The large number of novice users asking questions here over the years confirms that OcDS isn't a tool primarily for experts. Octane has a shader library so it isn't just geared to those who want to make everything from scratch. OcDS also does a pretty good job of converting a lot of DAZ content which I assume most here still use in their scenes? The whole point of DAZ Studio is using content and there are huge markets for content selling to the high end market as well so I don't agree that there's this distinction between those who do everything from scratch and those who buy content. 3rd party content can be extremely useful and might potentially help our community. I never experienced this purist attitude here until after IRAY came on the scene. It seems like an unnecessary attempt to defend the virtues of OcDS which we all accept anyway and could put off those in the DS community who might still want to join this one. I can't speak for the rest of the Octane forums but I'm pretty sure Carrara and Poser users use a mix of content and roll their own.

[sikotik13]

I really ought to check my posts for stream of consciousness sometimes. I was attempting to imply that I am in the camp that uses some things as a base and builds from there, and that I detest the shader builder built into Daz Studio, limiting my options on that front, while the NGE in OcDS tears apart my limits (so far, at least). I, personally, like the limiting factor on my creativity to be myself, not my tools. I find that to be the case with OcDS, or I would have left it long ago.

I would honestly be pleased if Daz pulled their heads out of their software and built an interface not requiring 40 pages of an outdated manual to start grasping how to build something in their shader mixer. I don't see it happening, based on their business model. Likewise, personally, I found a user's version of skin material to be pretty good, lightly modified it here and there over the last year or so, and now skin never looks "right" to me without it. It probably lacks all kinds of accuracy, and is lacking in complexity only to probably RedSpec shaders at this point, for how simple it appears. At the end of the render though, it looks like my render with this skin, regardless of base maps used. I never got that feeling from anything in 3Delight or LuxRender based. I don't doubt it likely is entirely on me that it seemed that way, but I never felt I had the tools available in a manner I could wrap my head around to fix it.

I'm unsure if I'm actually surprised there are as many of us here as there are, honestly. I kind of felt I was alone in a market wanting things spoon-fed to them (judging by their forums), but got here and realized there were people even more ambitious than me. I think linvanchene, in particular, had a habit of kind of pointing out alternatives to alternatives in just about every manner I hadn't thought of. Ways it wasn't built like what I knew, and the exploration is still fun. I didn't even realize I had lost that enjoyment in creating in Daz until OcDS brought it back. And much, much faster. Iray, to me, in that mindset, is like a half-step forward, without getting rid of the problem in the first place. It is possible to create, people do it every day, but they know those tools, or have a different definition of create than what excited me. I don't begrudge Iray what it is, I just recognize that it is not for me. I'm also unsure why anyone pointing out the virtues of their preferred software in it's own forum is considered elitist, personally. I kind of expect that if you went to Blender's forums, most fans of it would tell you why they thought it was better than anything Autodesk makes. Kind of makes sense to me, otherwise they'd be in the Autodesk forums saying the same things about Blender. From a modelling standpoint, in that particular instance, I have no preference, it's all a bit out of my area of familiarity. In the actual rendering itself, I have a preference, and am stating it. All opinions presented are from the viewpoint of that preference, as I expect it usually is for anyone with one. I don't consider that elitist, nor can I recall reading anything anytime since Iray actually came out that was elitist, merely preferential.

[linvanchene]

I bought OcDS to make better renders not to spend a lot of time making shaders. The large number of novice users asking questions here over the years confirms that OcDS isn't a tool primarily for experts. Octane has a shader library so it isn't just geared to those who want to make everything from scratch. OcDS also does a pretty good job of converting a lot of DAZ content which I assume most here still use in their scenes? The whole point of DAZ Studio is using content and there are huge markets for content selling to the high end market as well so I don't agree that there's this distinction between those who do everything from scratch and those who buy content. 3rd party content can be extremely useful and might potentially help our community. I never experienced this purist attitude here until after IRAY came on the scene. It seems like an unnecessary attempt to defend the virtues of OcDS which we all accept anyway and could put off those in the DS community who might still want to join this one. I can't speak for the rest of the Octane forums but I'm pretty sure Carrara and Poser users use a mix of content and roll their own.

To clear some things up:

I do realize that there are a lot of people who actually also might be interested in purchasing DAZ3D content with OctaneRender shaders set up.

As far as I am aware I purchased must products in the DAZ store who featured OctaneRender materials.

The basic idea I am having is that it is faster to take licensed content and edit it than to do all the work for every asset in Zbrush myself.
I edit content for several reasons:
- Editing colors and material properties is needed to alter most assets to fit the intended Color scheme for the project.
- Editing assets in a very time efficient way is important in client work when the client wants to save some money by using premade assets but still wants them to look unique.


I do not know the exact numbers but there are some DAZ customers who spend between 300-800+ US$ on content each month.

This means some DAZ3D users spend more money on DAZ3D content each year than the cost of Maya and Cinema4D and other advanced software.

DAZ 3D content is created for DAZ Studio and uses the .duf file format and it is the only software in which the content works fully.
Neither Poser nor Carrara nor other free options like Blender are an alternative to work with DAZ3D content.

And that is the reason why it would be important to finally get a fully working OcDS plugin that can once again be recommended to other users looking for advanced options AND also to users looking for ready to render content with OctaneRender materials.

If anyone wants actually to create and sell content with OctaneRender materials set up then it would make sense to use the distribution system of DAZ3D that is allready set up.

So why is that not happening?

Because OctaneRender is not integrated into DAZ Studio the same way as 3Delight and Iray are.

You can create and setup OctaneRender materials for complete scenes and save them as .duf files. (compare Andrey Pestryakov - Tropical bundle)
You can place OctaneRender materials as templates in the materials tab and then save a .duf (compare RedSpec)

BUT you cannot save material presets for specific surfaces as .duf files and load them.

This means currently all those people creating assets for DAZ3D still have not an option to easily create OctaneRender material .duf presets.

You do not want to reload the whole figure each time. You just want to quickly switch only one surface to see how that looks.

So IF 3d assets sold in the DAZ store would feature OctaneRender material it would actually save me more time because I could start editing based on an allready set up OctaneRender base material.

But as it is now we are stuck with that autoconversion.

And once again that current autoconversion of the OcDS plugin is the main reason why I stopped working with OcDS and put DAZ3D, Otoy and OctaneRender on hold for months. I cannot waste an hour fixing issues the plugin created to start working on the scene.

And BTW one of the reasons why the Iray autoconversion in some cases looks more flattering is because the OctaneRender default Imager setting uses that Agfacolor HDC 100 plusCD response curve that adds a somewhat green tint to everything.

- - -

To sum this up:

I guess in a few years
- the render speed will be similar in most render engines.
- the image may look exactly the same without being able to tell in which engine it was created.

What will matter in the end is HOW comfortably we can create the CG image.

Is the process of working full of creative options or limited by features that could have been implemented but were dropped from the list because of time restrictions or they were not found important enough from a business point of view?

t_3 did a great job to add A LOT of useful features unique to OcDS that make working with materials and creating scenes a joy. In theory.
Unfortunately that does not matter if in practice the BASICS are still or once again not working as they should be.

- - -

I hope this post makes it very clear that the current inactivity on the OctaneRender forum is NOT because I am now using IRAY but because I am still waiting on a useable OcDS plugin.

[Spectralis]

I love the RedSpec shaders for Octane. There's nothing like it for IRAY. I also edit a lot of the auto converted shaders myself so I understand how important it is to have the OcDS node editor compared to the IRAY mess. But I do need a content base from which to edit and that includes shaders which is why I appreciate 3rd party ones like RedSpec. Never in a million years would I be able to create the wonderful RedSpec shaders for Darius and Monique and even if I did have that ability it's sometimes not cost effective to spend time doing so if they can be bought off the shelf. I buy HDRI's rather than make my own because it's so much easier and because others make them so much better than me - the same applies in many cases to shaders. Each year I buy a lot of content and probably do spend as much as a years subscription to Autodesk products so I agree that it's a shame DAZ won't cater for us more. But I think it hasn't helped that the plugin is still in beta. DAZ are risk averse so they won't back a horse unless it's in the race.

[Spectralis]

t_3 did a great job to add A LOT of useful features unique to OcDS that make working with materials and creating scenes a joy. In theory.
Unfortunately that does not matter if in practice the BASICS are still or once again not working as they should be.

- - -

I hope this post makes it very clear that the current inactivity on the OctaneRender forum is NOT because I am now using IRAY but because I am still waiting on a useable OcDS plugin.

I'm fortunate enough to be able to animate with the new release so I can carry on with work until the final release. My frustration in the past was mainly due to being stuck on 1.2 because of animation problems. But I can understand from past experience the frustration of others if the latest release is still problematic for them. We each have different levels of requirement so it'll be great once everything is working well.

In the past I drew the conclusion that the reason DAZ went with IRAY was partly due to the OcDS plugin delays but having received an email from Smith Micro about Poser in which they're adopting the Cycles renderer (rather than the OcDS poser plugin) this leads me to believe that the cost of adopting Octane is making it look less appealing to the 3D vendors at the lower end of the market.