Iray or 3DL for product creation?

[eclark1894]

I want to try and create for Poser and have DS support as well. I believe I can work most of it out with no real problems, but texturing is NOT my strong suit and honestly, I know next to nothing about DS materials. Here's my dilema. Let's assume i do decide to support DS. At best, I could only support one render engine initially, if that.

So,...
1. Which engine would be best to support, 3 Delight or Iray?
2. Do I HAVE to support both render engines?
3. What if i want to go ahead and release a Poser product with a DS version to come later? Is that possible... or wise?

 

[Alisa]

My input
1-if you can only support one, I'd say Iray.
2-no
3-it is possible. There are several ways to do this and it would be better to discuss it with me and Lisa when the time comes. Wise? Not sure.

 

[eclark1894]

Sounds good, Alisa. Thanks.

 

[WillowRaven]

My two cents ... I am not an Iray girl and many have lamented the fact that too many vendors don't create products for 3DL, anymore.

So though it's never required a vendor offer materials for both render engines, in my mind, both Poser and Daz users can use 3DL materials, but only Daz Iray users can use Iray-only. From a purely business standpoint, if only choosing one, I'd go with 3DL because Iray users can easily convert 3DL materials to Iray settings with a touch of a button, but it's not the same the other way around. Iray settings can not be converted to 3DL settings easily.

Smart money goes with 3DL. Older Daz users (pre Iray) can use it, Poser people can use it, and Iray people can easily adjust it. More availability to more people equals more return on you time.

 

[tparo]

My two cents ... I am not an Iray girl and many have lamented the fact that too many vendors don't create products for 3DL, anymore.

So though it's never required a vendor offer materials for both render engines, in my mind, both Poser and Daz users can use 3DL materials, but only Daz Iray users can use Iray-only. From a purely business standpoint, if only choosing one, I'd go with 3DL because Iray users can easily convert 3DL materials to Iray settings with a touch of a button, but it's not the same the other way around. Iray settings can not be converted to 3DL settings easily.

Smart money goes with 3DL. Older Daz users (pre Iray) can use it, Poser people can use it, and Iray people can easily adjust it. More availability to more people equals more return on you time.

If the product has Iray uber shader applied then apply the DS default or another 3dl shader you may have to replace a couple of maps but that works the other way as well, to be honest neither is quicker or easier.
Where is your evidence that smart money goes with 3dl, as you pointed out many venders are dropping 3dl support because fewer and fewer want it, Poser needs to alter 3dl settings especially if one of the more advanced shaders are used.
Personally I'm likely to pass on a product that doesn't have Iray mats.

 

[Pendraia]

Tparo, where are vendors getting the figures that 3DL is no longer used from? To my knowledge there have been no surveys...the fact that Iray products sell well does not by itself indicate people no longer use 3DL. I buy both and use both. To my knowledge there are a number of people that do this. I would buy a product based on if I like what it is not on which mats it has and frequently do. I even convert characters for Dawn and Dusk from Poser to DS which is way more than just a lack of mats. I know others who do this also.

 

[tparo]

Tparo, where are vendors getting the figures that 3DL is no longer used from? To my knowledge there have been no surveys...the fact that Iray products sell well does not by itself indicate people no longer use 3DL. I buy both and use both. To my knowledge there are a number of people that do this. I would buy a product based on if I like what it is not on which mats it has and frequently do. I even convert characters for Dawn and Dusk from Poser to DS which is way more than just a lack of mats. I know others who do this also.

I'm presuming from their sales, but I'm not aware of anything definite, but nor am I aware of anything that proves that many are still using 3dl. Maybe I'm seeing things from a different perspective, it does seem that here people using DS haven't quite moved onto Iray yet.
Personally I also still use both but would prefer to go from Iray to 3dl than the other way around (mainly as I use Iray the most these days and if I'm using DS its to use a particular shader such as PWToon or something).
But the dilemma for the OP is which renderer to support I would hate to see someone go to the trouble of supporting one only to have people declare that they would rather have had the other.
Oh and Pendraia I've upgraded to the latest 4.9 personally so far I aren't having any problems, but I don't organise my content at all.

 

[Pendraia]

Thanks for the info on updating tparo...

I also would hate to see them support the wrong thing. I do use Iray quite a bit but still have a huge investment in 3DL also. I use them both in different ways and can see a place for both. I find this either/or mentality which seems prevalent in 3D at the moment is actually quite limiting.

Many of the people who use DS here are a bit slower to update DS but I think that's more about being careful as we've been caught before with updates being buggy. I used to update straight away when I first began but now I tend to wait and see for a while first. I was actually thinking of posts I'd seen over at DS about 3DL rather than here though.

I will be trying to do both when I do my next figure but I still need to get my head around setting up skins in Iray. I must admit that when I've looked at the shader network there seems to be lot in many of them that isn't actually being used. I know that I've removed parts and not seen any changes. I think many people just apply the uber shader and then fiddle with the settings.

In the end each vendor will have to decide what works for them I suppose.

 

[Dragonsegg]

Just input from a current Poser user. I will never buy content that does not have Iray settings if it is DAZ studio only. I may at some time convert to DAZ and if I do I have no interest in learning and rendering in 3DL. I am really on the fence between Poser and DAZ studio and I buy things for both, including Genesis 3 content I can't use in Poser. All that is keeping me from changing from Poser Pro 11 to DAZ studio is that I am also learning Blender and Superfly and Cycles render engines are pretty closely related so I really don't want to have to relearn everything again for Iray, but I will if it becomes obvious that DAZ studio is supplanting Poser. What is making me consider moving to DAZ is not the figures. I think the Hivewire figures are great although I would like more content for them and I have a lot of Genesis 2 content and older that works fine in Poser. Rather it is the fact that no one is making props, and structures and environments for Poser. I just love Stonemason and since he switched to DAZ only I have seen the amount of decent settings for Poser go downhill like it is being sucked into a black hole.

 

[kobaltkween]

It's relatively to translate basic materials- diffuse, reflective, refractive, scattering, metallic, etc., if you have a system that can make physically based shaders (and don't need procedural textures, which tend to be software specific). I've had little problem translating simple, non-procedural shaders among Firefly, Cycles, Luxrender, Mitsuba, and others. The only renderer I've had trouble with is 3Delight, and that's because it's pretty difficult to do anything approaching physically accurate with it. I've had to eyeball everything, and haven't found a sound way to use basic principles to combine physical properties. Nor have I been able to find anyone with that knowledge who might teach me. Someone who told me they were the equivalent of Bagginsbill for DS also told me they didn't understand shading math, didn't understand shading components, and just eyeballed everything.

That isn't to say it isn't worth it to make materials for 3Delight. It isn't to say you'd have the same difficulty I've had, because I do think of shaders in terms of physical components (diffuse/albedo, reflection, refraction, front scattering, and back scattering). If you're more of an eyeballer, then the process is probably the same. And all bets are off the moment you need to make complex layered materials with procedural elements. Most of all, I definitely can't judge how much extra work is worth it for you and how much isn't. I just know that in a game of "which one of these is not like the other," 3Delight stands alone.

 

[Lorraine]

Just my 2cents, I use 3dl because I like the look and iray makes my puter sad.

 

[Gadget Girl]

I think if you're going to sell on a site like Hivewire, there's definite reasons to have a 3dl version. I have no actual statics or anything, but I will say this. Daz is pushing so hard to make everything on their site Iray, DS 4.9 only. What that means is that there's a bunch of people (myself included) who almost never shop there anymore. Now yes, I'm a Poser user, so I'm going to get Poser versions of stuff not DS, but I definitely notice lots of people in the forum posting 3dl images, so people definitely still use it.

And, since you are working on environment sets, I think it's important to remember, that everything realized at DS recently of that sort has been 4.9/Iray only. So I think there's a lot of benefit to having a 3DL version for the DS users who don't want to use Iray or 4.9. I know a lot of DS users are worried about Daz's efforts to move to Daz Connect and to encrypted content (I know, at this point most Daz Connect content is still encryption free, but it's got a lot of users concerned). So if you are only going to support one, I think you are better off with 3DL.

That being said, you might find it's not that hard to do both for things like your house and stables. I can see the shaders for things like the plant props being trickier, but at least you don't need to worry about things like SSS for the walls of your house, and some of the other things that can make or break a human figure.

But remember, I have no proof of any of this. Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[eclark1894]

I think if you're going to sell on a site like Hivewire, there's definite reasons to have a 3dl version. I have no actual statics or anything, but I will say this. Daz is pushing so hard to make everything on their site Iray, DS 4.9 only. What that means is that there's a bunch of people (myself included) who almost never shop there anymore. Now yes, I'm a Poser user, so I'm going to get Poser versions of stuff not DS, but I definitely notice lots of people in the forum posting 3dl images, so people definitely still use it.

And, since you are working on environment sets, I think it's important to remember, that everything realized at DS recently of that sort has been 4.9/Iray only. So I think there's a lot of benefit to having a 3DL version for the DS users who don't want to use Iray or 4.9. I know a lot of DS users are worried about Daz's efforts to move to Daz Connect and to encrypted content (I know, at this point most Daz Connect content is still encryption free, but it's got a lot of users concerned). So if you are only going to support one, I think you are better off with 3DL.

That being said, you might find it's not that hard to do both for things like your house and stables. I can see the shaders for things like the plant props being trickier, but at least you don't need to worry about things like SSS for the walls of your house, and some of the other things that can make or break a human figure.

But remember, I have no proof of any of this. Just my thoughts on the matter.

I'm not writing 3DL off, GG, but at the same time, I honestly don't want to learn four render engines. Fortunately, Poser makes it easier. Superfly tries, for the most part to interpret materials for Firefly, as I understand it. I don't think that's the same with Iray and 3DL. So if i can make it work, I will, but I'm not going to delay releasing a product for a long length of time until I have a set for each renderer either.

 

[Gadget Girl]

I'm not writing 3DL off, GG, but at the same time, I honestly don't want to learn four render engines. Fortunately, Poser makes it easier. Superfly tries, for the most part to interpret materials for Firefly, as I understand it. I don't think that's the same with Iray and 3DL. So if i can make it work, I will, but I'm not going to delay releasing a product for a long length of time until I have a set for each renderer either.

I totally get not wanted to learn four engines. And yes, Poser has made things a lot easier. So I know the store has had many products that first came out for one set of software, and then they added the other. I haven't tracked how often this is done as a second product, or just an update to the first one.

And yes, when it comes to SF and FF, the majority of FF material works just fine in SF. In my experience it's only skins, that look awful, and sometimes shinny surfaces that don't come out right. The nice thing, is that if you are planning for SuperFly materials, you can create your FireFly materials so that they will look just fine if the person has SuperFly.

 

[eclark1894]

That's actually one of the reasons I really needed to get PP11.

 

[Gadget Girl]

Well, even if you aren't able to get a version of 11 right away, you could have someone test for you to see if there are any issues in SuperFly. I'm thinking for you windows might be the tricky thing. When I was testing Rae's kitty ponies, everything but the eyes looked fantastic in SuperFly. It just took a little tweaking to get the eye reflection to look good in SuperFly.

 

[eclark1894]

Actually, here's my deal with that. D3D has some shaders he's selling as merchants resources, so I'm gonna snatch that up for Superfly. Basically, my intent right now is to texture for Firefly, and render it in Superfly. Whatever Superfly can't translate, I'll use Cycles shaders instead. So I'll have one texture set for Firefly and one for Superfly. I don't know if Iray and 3DL can do that, but we'll see what I can work out. Right now, I' just hoping I won't have to start texturing from scratch on each renderer.

 

[Rae134]

I use almost exclusively Iray (my computer sucks so that's why my scenes are usually small and not very detailed ) and alot of my content was made for 3DL and all I do is add the Iray Uber shader to it and most of the time I don't even need to tweak it (that is talking about things that use textures not shaders). Anything that has a shader I just select a corresponding Iray shader for it (if I have one).

The only things I haven't been happy with has been mostly really old products that have crappy or LoRes textures.

And while baked reflections are nice on 3DL eyes, Iray ones are better without them because if the eyes are set up correctly it will render with correct highlights (I'd rather have separate reflection maps so you can add as needed).
And I'm really appreciative that GG made Superfly eye materials for my Kitty Ponies (which is still with QAV).

 

[Gadget Girl]

forgot that most of your textures start out in Blender. So actually, SuperFly shouldn't be hard for you at all. And old products with low rest textures can be a problem in Superfly as well. I've especially found I have some skys that don't work at all in Superfly because as soon a they render in Superfly you just start seeing the pixels in the clouds. Luckily there are lots of newer skies out there.

 

[RAMWolff]

You can sort of support both rendering engines pretty easily Earl. Create your support materials or shaders for iRay save those out and then when you want to make it compatible for the 3DL just select each object, go to the Surfaces tab and select all of the surfaces and then apply the dzDefault Shader to it all (that is under the Shader Presets > DS Defaults folder) If it's skin of some sort you can go and change the Lighting Model drop down from Plastic to Skin. Then save those out in a new folder.

Say you want your barn to be for both. Make sure your textures are to your liking (for wood I'd suggest setting a Normal map to get a good grain, easily made for free here:

NormalMap-Online Drag and drop your diffuse map to the left box and away you go, you can choose between PNG or JPG formats)

Once you get all that set up and do your text renders and like what you see make sure you have a Materials sub folders under your main product, one for iRay and one for 3DL. Save to the iRay folder and then convert using my above instructions and save those to your 3DL folder after you approve your test render for that. Make sure you change your rendering engine to 3Delight before rendering....