How to choose Hair to use in DazStudio? (File size)

[maledeum]

Hello everybody,

I'm producing a series that will use renders from DazStudio.

My first is making Assets for each main character.

I've been using DazStudio for over a month to familiarize myself with the tools.

One thing that I found very strange and couldn't come to any conclusion about is the hair.

I've been looking for different hairs and it strikes me that the file size of some is 50mb while others reach almost 1 Gb. As I haven't created complex scenes yet, I don't know if these large hairs will be harmful in the long run. I saw that some hair makes DAZ slow even in texture mode.

I accept tips!

For now I was choosing them just for their appearance.

 

[Penumbral Evanescence]

Hello everybody,

I'm producing a series that will use renders from DazStudio.

My first is making Assets for each main character.

I've been using DazStudio for over a month to familiarize myself with the tools.

One thing that I found very strange and couldn't come to any conclusion about is the hair.

I've been looking for different hairs and it strikes me that the file size of some is 50mb while others reach almost 1 Gb. As I haven't created complex scenes yet, I don't know if these large hairs will be harmful in the long run. I saw that some hair makes DAZ slow even in texture mode.

I accept tips!

For now I was choosing them just for their appearance.

maledeum

While I am not personally a DazStudio expert, you may wish to browse their forums to see what they suggest in terms of reducing hair file sizes.

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

A useful tip pointed out by a Daz3D forum user:

 

[maledeum]

Thanks for your reply, you introduced me to a problem that I would definitely deal with in the future.

maledeum

While I am not personally a DazStudio expert, you may wish to browse their forums to see what they suggest in terms of reducing hair file sizes.

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

A useful tip pointed out by a Daz3D forum user:
View attachment 4109986

Thanks for your reply, you introduced me to a problem that I would definitely deal with in the future.
Hair with large base file size will overload scene files

 

[Penumbral Evanescence]

Hair with large base file size will overload scene files

Yeah, I mean especially given the fact that there may be large polygon counts or assets in a given scene that come pre-packaged with high resource-intensive file sizes. You want to optimize base file sizes across assets accordingly.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I've been looking for different hairs and it strikes me that the file size of some is 50mb while others reach almost 1 Gb. As I haven't created complex scenes yet, I don't know if these large hairs will be harmful in the long run. I saw that some hair makes DAZ slow even in texture mode.

It depend how the said hairs are made.

Initially they were all basic meshes in one piece that could be moved through morphs. But when DForce was introduced, it quickly appear that it was a relatively limited approach. Therefore, nowadays more and more hairs are "strand based", what mean that instead of a single big mesh representing all the hairs, there's a lot of small meshes representing a strand of hairs.
This offer more possibilities, like, to take an extreme example, having a realistic result when you pass the hand in the hairs. But obviously the more there's strands, the bigger will be the hairs by themselves and the longer it will take to render the scene. But in the same time, like each strand is partly independent, when it come to lighting by example, it give better results even when the hairs aren't DForce ready.

 

[Penumbral Evanescence]

having a realistic result when you pass the hand in the hairs. But obviously the more there's strands, the bigger will be the hairs by themselves and the longer it will take to render the scene. But in the same time, like each strand is partly independent, when it come to lighting by example, it give better results even when the hairs aren't DForce ready

Yeah, I get what you mean. The hand-through-hair appeal is a lot more recognizable (and mayhaps more immersive in a sense) if there are individual strands, but probably a lot more resource-intensive to render the scene given those individual meshes that would need to be generated in the tool.

I would presume that it is a perpetual balancing act between realism and performance to say it loosely so to speak.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I would presume that it is a perpetual balancing act between realism and performance to say it loosely so to speak.

Exactly. And a balancing that have to be done with each scene.
It obviously cost more, but ideally one should always have two sets of hairs, one being strand based, the other not. Then he switch between one and the other depending if how far of the focus point the character is.
Take by example a scene with two girls. One is leaving the room, the second is right in front of the MC. The first one will be in the background, seen from the back, and partly blurred. There's no need to have the same level of detail for her hairs than for the girl in foreground, therefore using an old generation hairs for her in that render will speed up the process, without having an impact on the result.

 

[maledeum]

I would presume that it is a perpetual balancing act between realism and performance to say it loosely so to speak.

That's what I had doubts about.
Having one hair for low definition and one for high is using resources intelligently, interesting.
I will take it into consideration in my planning. Thank you both for the tips