OcDS 2.1 PRE RELEASE 5th

[Squirtle]

Stonemason's 'Streets of old London' is relased 'in celebration of Iray release', all previews are rendered in iray and the product still doesn't have iray material presets (at least not mentioned on product's page). Marketing

Edit: And it seems that Urban Sprawl will not be released this year (wait for it too) - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/820844/

Ha! Well that's disappointing. Still, since Iray is now the default renderer for DAZ, once the vendors have time to catch up with the new technology every DAZ store product should come with Iray shaders instead of 3Delight (or perhaps both). I bought Stonemason's Streets of Old London, and it looks good in Iray with the default material settings, like a wet rainy day. Still, I'd prefer proper Iray shaders.

Some Iray skin shaders that DAZ vendors like Mec4D have been developing and showing off in the DAZ forums look fantastic, and I expect we'll see high quality custom V6/M6 skin shaders from her or someone else in the store soon (there is one Iray skin shader package in the DAZ store already, but it doesn't look too great to me). The RedSpec skins available for Octane DS seemed to satisfy a lot of people, though it was too stylized for my personal taste, and I'm looking for more photorealism (I got results more to my taste by fiddling with variations of tonysculptor skin). The large customer base for DAZ products should entail a wide variety of new skin shaders coming out.

If an updated DS Octane plugin is stable and can be made to accurately and automatically translate Iray shaders to Octane materials that would make it a useful tool for current Octane license holders. To attract new users at the current price of entry though, I'd guess it would need to offer significantly more.

[Spectralis]

Ok, here is my OcDS 1.2 vs iRAY verdict:

1. OcDS's viewport is more responsive and final renders are faster than iRAY.

2. To my eyes iRAY renders a more realistic scene using just the sky lighting environment.

3. Everything loads perfectly in iRAY but in OcDS I often need to adjust materials.

4. The iRAY viewport and panes integration in DS makes adjusting a scene much easier.

5. The instant OcDS viewport update makes adjusting a scene much easier.

6. iRAY has a less cartoony look to its conversion of DS materials.

7. Domes and HDRI environments are much easier to set up in iRAY and work well.

8. I forgot how quick it is to be able to use DS camera and lighting presets now that I have iRAY.

Conclusion: I prefer the look of an iRAY scene but the speed of OcDS still puts it ahead atm. If DAZ solves the instant iRAY viewport update and improves render speed then I think they'll have cracked it. Unless the OcDS release offers something incredible I can't see it attracting iRAY users right now.

Thanks to asennov for help with installing DS 4.8. All seems to be working well atm.

[ch0pper]

there are few iray vendors at the moment

http://www.daz3d.com/05-27-more-ysabeau

[bmosalt]

Unless the OcDS release offers something incredible I can't see it attracting iRAY users right now.

Honestly I can't see why anyone would choose to purchase OcDS now that iRay has been officially launched. Why would you throw a bunch of money at Octane plus the plugin when you can work with a similar renderer for free? I've only spent a short amount of time testing iRay, but the first thing that's noticeable is the speed. OcDS is far superior in that regard at the moment. But iRay will improve and evolve, and it's a huge new market for DAZ so they will throw their weight behind it. I don't know what the future is for OcDS (it's hard enough knowing what the present is for it thanks to the lack of communication), but I can't see how it will be justifiable cost-wise for t3 to continue to develop the plugin.

[Spectralis]

I switched on the Optix Prime acceleration in iRAY and a 15 sec scene took 14 sec to render. Not much of a saving but on larger scenes that take longer those extra seconds could add up. It probably won't work for every type of scene but a 15 minute render might take 14 minutes with Optix switched on. A 14hr render might take only 13hrs and so on. For those who render animation that can sometimes take days Optix might save me a few hours.

I keep all CPU settings switched off because it really slows down renders. They take approx 50% longer with CPU switched on. Not sure why though because I've got a fairly fast CPU and hoped that it would add to the render speed not slow it down.

I'm getting some pretty good renders at 250 iterations in iRAY. I don't think it's necessary to go beyond 500 for animation really. Although this might depend on the scene. I'm finding it harder to get a good daylight render in iRAY compared to OcDS though.

[Squirtle]

I switched on the Optix Prime acceleration in iRAY and a 15 sec scene took 14 sec to render. Not much of a saving but on larger scenes that take longer those extra seconds could add up. It probably won't work for every type of scene but a 15 minute render might take 14 minutes with Optix switched on. A 14hr render might take only 13hrs and so on. For those who render animation that can sometimes take days Optix might save me a few hours.

I keep all CPU settings switched off because it really slows down renders. They take approx 50% longer with CPU switched on. Not sure why though because I've got a fairly fast CPU and hoped that it would add to the render speed not slow it down.

I'm getting some pretty good renders at 250 iterations in iRAY. I don't think it's necessary to go beyond 500 for animation really. Although this might depend on the scene. I'm finding it harder to get a good daylight render in iRAY compared to OcDS though.

Having CPU rendering turned on seems only beneficial to people who have a non-compatible GPU. If you have a good Nvidia GPU, it's best to just let it do its thing without having to work in tandem with the CPU. It does seem a shame to not make use of a good and expensive CPU, I hope the two can play better in the future.

[voto1979]

Sorry IRAY guys you dont get it! Ok daz3D update there render engine which is great. But with Octane I can use almost every 3d package where I feel comfortable or where things are easy to do. I export all the stuff or I use the plugin to transfer anything to the standalone version or I can render in any application with a single render engine. Work with the tools you can get the most out of it.. and if Octane is not the tool of your choice anymore, stop at least yelling around and spamming the forum / thread with the offtopic IRAY.

[Spectralis]

Sorry IRAY guys you dont get it! Ok daz3D update there render engine which is great. But with Octane I can use almost every 3d package where I feel comfortable or where things are easy to do. I export all the stuff or I use the plugin to transfer anything to the standalone version or I can render in any application with a single render engine. Work with the tools you can get the most out of it.. and if Octane is not the tool of your choice anymore, stop at least yelling around and spamming the forum / thread with the offtopic IRAY.

If I wanted to render in Lightwave why would I use DS? Why not buy the LW plugin? Those who can afford these packages don't need DS. Want to use DAZ content in LW then that's pretty straight forward now too. Your argument just doesn't make sense. Not only that but what you claim is possible only in the most rudimentary form. Or perhaps you have access to the latest builds which offer so much more? If so please share your work process so we can follow it too.

As for comparing iRAY with OcDS you seem a little defensive. As an owner of OcDS I want to make these comparisons because there's plenty to learn about unbiased rendering that can be adapted to both renderers. Over at DAZ they don't seem to mind us making these comparisons on their forum so why not here? Of course any mention of iRAY on these forums could be banned or moved to some hidden forum that nobody uses but that would be very petty and might annoy customers. Not as much as waiting 2 years for a properly working plugin but annoying nonetheless. Anyway, it's not like this forum is used much apart from wondering when the next plugin update will arrive.

[asennov]

Sorry IRAY guys you dont get it! Ok daz3D update there render engine which is great. But with Octane I can use almost every 3d package where I feel comfortable or where things are easy to do. I export all the stuff or I use the plugin to transfer anything to the standalone version or I can render in any application with a single render engine. Work with the tools you can get the most out of it.. and if Octane is not the tool of your choice anymore, stop at least yelling around and spamming the forum / thread with the offtopic IRAY.

At least with DS it doesn't work this way - you export to standalone and have then to setup materials (manually or with aid of Lua), manually check if some material is missing or mapped wrong due to geograft, or camera settings have changed, or environment settings etc. and fix it manually before render in standalone. And if then you find that you have to adjust animation - so all of the above again. Too much time wasted for me. Even when using integrated renderer I always have to check if camera, environment and other animation settings are loaded correctly before I hit 'Render' button (and after that I have check the result frame by frame again).

And I think that it's not offtopic to compare render engines and approaches to their integration into DS with Octane and OcDS here (even 3delight vs Octane). I want to use applications available to me in the most productive way considering all available options and their cost.

[asennov]

there are few iray vendors at the moment

They released a bunch of material packs but materials mostly use the DAZ Uber Shader (aka iray default layered shader ) so you can DIY if you have base textures. Intricate materials utilizing the power of Shader Mixer or custom MDLs have yet to come. With Shader mixer one can make material that will look identical in 3delight and iray - would be cool to have such packs for grounds, buildings, skin etc.