Long-ish question about Daz3D specific PC build...?

[vaguelydelightful]

First of all, apologies if this isn't the right thread to post this. In that case, I'd appreciate it if you'd redirect me to the appropriate ones. Okay. Now. Long time lurker and first time poster here. So, be gentle with me. Within reason.

I'd appreciate some feedback on a few thoughts that have been running around my mind, on and off, for the past couple of months. So...I write. Not for a living, but close to it. And for the past few years, I've been starting to go deeper down the rabbit hole of erotica, whose bottom I've yet to touch even now.

I've written quite a few things on the subject and just the other day I stumbled over these two and a half almost-completed but totally forgotten scripts (one for a long running not-so-safe-for-work comic and the rest for two visual novels) I had tucked away somewhere, in a drawer that shan't be named. Alas, I'm sort of looking to move past the whole 'the unstoppable power of imagination' schtick and towards plucking my shit out of the ether and trying to add some meat on those bones, as it were.

For the past little while, I've been looking more seriously into Daz3D and its capabilities, and I've come to the conclusion that it would complement my work more than nicely, what with my sub-par CG knowledge, non-existent tech know-how and squiggly lines drawing talents.

Is such a thing achievable, without selling a kidney and/or pawning off one's life essence? [shuts eyes tightly, hoping for the Ancient Aliens's crazy hair guy to pop up somewhere]

What does 'a big scene' mean? What does 'a small scene' mean? Like, literally. I mean, are we talking about, like, Helm's Deep type stuff here, with crowds of characters and mud and rain particles and angry orcs and wizard saviors? Are we talking about more than a couple characters and an environment? Unfortunately, I'm not terribly keen on this whole 'being-vague-and-cryptic-about-things- um...thing that I seem to have hit my head into, every time I've tried to look further into this. Can we possibly help out the me's of the world a bit, with some specifics?

What're we talking about here, cost-wise? A thousand dollars? Two? T-three? M-mmore...? [faints un-damsel-y]

I would appreciate it if you'd just put me out of my misery right here and right now, if I'm gonna be dick-slapped with Threadrippers or showered with CUDAs and water-cooling, and just let me know I oughta continue using up this old noggin' for stuff and invest in a bonsai tree or something, instead.

I want to give you a few points of reference, if possible, to maybe shed some light on what it is that I'm thinking about. rendering wise, in not so many words:

Visual novels, the likes of:
- Dreams Of Desire
- City Of Broken Dreamers
- Becoming A Rockstar
- The DeLuca Family
- Milfy City

Comic artists whose work I enjoy, render-quality wise. Among other...things:
- Blackadder
- Epoch3D
- SquarePeg3D
- NLTMedia
- X3Z
- Haneto
- Intrigue3D
(What kind of PCs do these folks have, anyway? Is that even public knowledge or is it like that whole weird Voldemort thing?)

Now, I haven't the faintest idea where exactly on the food chain my standard of referenced quality sits, but for me, what I've listed above seems pretty darn delicious, if you'll pardon my french.

I'm not looking for crazy animations or reproducing the Nakatomi Plaza in 8K or whatever. Just IRAY stills of, like, nice environments coupled with props and maybe four-five of those dreamy G8 models, with their porous HD skins and physics-y clothes and however many polygons of cuddly hair...?

Is that...something that's in the realm of down to earth financial possibility here, as long as I can avoid auctioning off my future grandchildren's souls over a couple of processor cores, a texture pack and waiting for menopause?

Well, if you've stuck with me so far, sorry for the long-winded curiosity. First post jitters and excitement, and all that. And thanks.

Looking forward to talk to whoever cares to. Hopefully, it won't be just me and the crickets.

 

[DS23G]

Big scene vs. small scene is more about how much VRAM it'll need than about how much stuff you can cram into it. Three of those G8 HD models might be enough to max out your GPU (other factors like lighting and overall environment also play a role obviously), while you'd be able to fit in more than double the amount of that with low texture G2 models.

Now, I don't know if you want to build an entire new system or just beef up your current one, so lets say we're just talking a new GPU here (which generally is the most important component when talking about DAZ): If you're on a budget, a 1080ti would probably the best bet for you. 11GB of Vram is as good as it gets in the "actually affordable for mere mortals" category, any card with more than that, like mid-level Quadros or the Titan RTX, will be way above your price range. I also don't think going for the RTX 20xx cards is worth it right now if you can find a 1080ti for about 500-600 bucks.

 

[Domiek]

For Daz you need cuda cores, that's pretty much it. The better the card, the less time you waste waiting for renders to finish.

Octane Render is free for one GPU. This renderer is much faster than Iray that comes with Daz.

Careful though, this is also a rabbit hole. All you need is a GPU and Daz to make games. However, there are so many different softwares you may start learning in order to achieve something specific you can't do in Daz alone.

 

[Synx]

You don't need a monster PC, as long as you plan your renders ahead of time. You can que up renders (with some addon or script, no idea precisely I just know it's possible), so if rendering takes long you can just que up several over night or when your out to work or something.

A better PC will ofc help with render time, but unless you got a pc from a decade ago with ancient parts, you should be alright.

 

[HopesGaming]

From DeLuca 0.01 to 0.03 I was using;

Gtx 1070 8gb
16 GB ram

From DeLuca 0.04 to 0.05 I used (and still using):

Rtx 2080ti
40 GB ram

1070 was good and did its job fine. But once I started adding a lot of characters in one scene the GPU struggled (more than 3-4 without optimizing (a plugin for daz to lower texture on stuff))

Ram is also important, especially if you use assets for outdoor scenes (such as grass, trees, buildings, etc.) then it is really taxing and my 16GB really couldn't follow up.

This is all for iray and a mid tier gpu with decent ram should be good enough as long as you are not making something that require a lot. A simple game with few characters on scene.

 

[CulayTL]

A better PC will ofc help with render time, but unless you got a pc from a decade ago with ancient parts, you should be alright.

https://f95zone.to/threads/render-queue-1-2-5-15-aug-2019.28632/

Half true.. but having a monster gpu still helps and not only by time.. for a complex scene, 3-4 chars, one living room or outdoor scene with quite a few props, emissive, reflections, glass, water etc, you may be surprised that your render will be rendered trough the CPU or won't even start so when you wake up or come back from work you may be a little disappointed on the results.

Take it like long term thing.. spend more on the GPU and your electri bill won't jump trough the roofs that much