A Couple of Daz questions

[Morgan42]

Hey everyone, I have a few questions about Daz if you would be so kind.

I just bought a beast of a computer, Ryzen 9, RTX 2070 Super, 32 gigs of RAM and decided that while I have it I might as well fully plunge into Daz:

1. I can render iray figures by themselves in around 5 minutes per figure (although 3 figures tend to render in 11 minutes), however, once I add the premade environments (like apartment interiors, etc) the renders can take between 30-55 minutes. Is this normal?

2. I heard that when you render, Daz renders EVERYTHING in the scene, whether it's in the viewfinder or not, is this true? Do people just hide assets that aren't being used prior to rendering (essentially only having one wall, a bed and the figures visible)

3. If I start removing walls, I notice my lighting tends to get messed up. Is that normal? Do people usually keep the walls, ceiling and lighting-emitting assets and hide everything else?

4. For Dicktator, is there a way to keep the matched color of the figure and still use the shell for textures or do I have to manually match the color onto the shell?

5. I'm having trouble understand scene optimizer for Daz. Are you supposed to select all your assets (minus the character figures) -> lower the textures -> save the scene to a .duf file -> exit daz -> reload daz -> load the .duf file saved through scene optimizer -> render? If I do this should I still hide assests not in view (if that's what I should be doing?)?

6. Also, if you can, can you tell me your average render times? I'm not doing anything crazy with particle effects or crazy lighting or anything, just iray figures standing around in a room. I just want to know if I have an urealistic view of where I should be. My prior computer rendered just iray figures in around 40 minutes so this is a huge upgrade for me.When I saw the 5 minute render time for just a figure I freaked out.

7. Are there any common render settings I should be using? Or any recommended lighting set ups? (presets, etc)

8. Extra question: For "final renders" that you're going to use in a comic or game, what resolution do you render at?

 

[m4dsk1llz]

1. Yes, especially with environments. Iray is pretty dumb and will render items not in the camera view if they exist in the scene, You would need to cull them if you want to regain speed, or just don't worry about them.
2. You answered your own first question.
3. Lighting bounces, when you remove the surface it is supposed to bounce off of, even if not in the camera view, your lighting will be naturally messed up.
4. I don't use Dicktator, maybe someone else will chime in.
5. I don't use Scene optimizer either, never like the results, maybe someone with more experience will answer.
6. Render times have so many variables, there is no way to even give you an average. What I suspect you are looking for is, "If I have the hardware I mentioned what should I expect in render times?" No one can really give you a 'real' answer.
7. There are a lot of very good DAZ users here, they should be the one to answer.
8. I personally render in 4k then do any post in 4K, then downsize to 1080P.