Daz Q: DAZ loading and things...

[coffeeaddicted]

Another topic.... yeah....

Well, this is just to confirm if it's just me or if DAZ is really that horrible.

Anyway, i noticed that when i render that the time for DAZ to gather all the information seems to take alone 6 minutes before the render even starts.
I think that it was quicker before.
I did a mini scene with basically only 3 characters for testing purposes. Scene is dim and red doing naughty things.
So there are some assets that flow into the scene and of course morphs. Morphs usually take time to load for sure.

Also, i still don't understand how DAZ actually really works. Like when checking how much vram is used when rendering. When i check with GPU-Z it says amount X but is that true? How can you measure it so you really know what is used for a specific render?
Damn, i wished i would by now know more about DAZ but it seems i still have too little knowledge about it's inner workings to understand my scene. If it will work or not or barely.
It just seems so awfully slow sometimes when i think it should be faster.

Now, i have separate folders for different things. Separate in the sense that i don't toss everything in the default folder but rather have it organized. Not sure if that has something to do with it. I just trying to make sense of it all.

At least i figured out how to crash DAZ. Placing a spotlight in some body will crash it very easily. Now don't ask why, but i did. Took me awhile to understand why it actually had crashed but yeah, don't place a spotlight in a body.

 

[MrAlbarn]

Hey yester, what are your PC specs?

Been working with DAZ a little more than a year. I can say yeah it's horrible, but it is an easy program to learn and can help you have renders faster. With a well organised PC, it can still take time to load.

There's always enigmas and things I still don't understand completely, but morphs, big size textures and the number of characters in a scene slow your render times or you can get a black render because your GPU isn't enough for the scene. Also, sometimes when you update DAZ or even your GPU drivers, chaos can be a constant, so find what suits better for you.

There's a debate about using it or not, but

You must be registered to see the links

is a great tool and helps with render times.

For GPU usage you can always use MSI Afterburner + Riva Tuner (comes with Afterburner) and check it out by yourself.

About the spotlight problem I can't answer that but it doesn't happen to me, that's a weird problem. I'd google the error, send a ticket to DAZ support and even using the DAZ forum which I hate.

Hope you find a solution for your problems!

 

[coffeeaddicted]

Hey yester, what are your PC specs?

Been working with DAZ a little more than a year. I can say yeah it's horrible, but it is an easy program to learn and can help you have renders faster. With a well organised PC, it can still take time to load.

There's always enigmas and things I still don't understand completely, but morphs, big size textures and the number of characters in a scene slow your render times or you can get a black render because your GPU isn't enough for the scene. Also, sometimes when you update DAZ or even your GPU drivers, chaos can be a constant, so find what suits better for you.

There's a debate about using it or not, but

You must be registered to see the links

is a great tool and helps with render times.

For GPU usage you can always use MSI Afterburner + Riva Tuner (comes with Afterburner) and check it out by yourself.

About the spotlight problem I can't answer that but it doesn't happen to me, that's a weird problem. I'd google the error, send a ticket to DAZ support and even using the DAZ forum which I hate.

Hope you find a solution for your problems!

Modest PC really.

I did reinstall everything.

To be specific. I am not talking about the render time itself but the preparation for the render when you start the render process.
With the new version, there are so many things that DAZ is checking, acquiring etc... This process alone takes on my machine like 5 minutes.
I think i recall that this used to be quicker.

Scene Optimizer did nothing for me really.

The way i do my scenes now is to cut as much away as i can. Using a Iray cam to cut the rest out of it and use a torus plane with my actual camera to light my character.
Also, not to have to many lights in the scene.

I mean it works and all but the starting part is what makes me wonder if thats my scene, my computer or if it's just normal.

Btw. i did have different asset folders within DAZ. It helps me to find things quicker and i think it is more organized.
The only thing in regards to morphs, i do mix and match morphs for expressions and such. So yes, each character has some morphs for sure but that should only, i think, matter when the scene is loaded but not in the render.

Anyway, thanks for responding. DAZ is an adventure on it's own.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

I've also noticed that daz seems to have a Big O problem the more characters there are in a scene. meaning it gets exponentially longer to open a file for each character added. If I have more that 4 characters (no clothes, default texture), It takes daz up to an hour just to load. My guess is its sorting through assets, ie all 4+ characters share the same assets, but for each character it still has to load it from scratch, then check with each pre loaded character for asset optimization (ie reusing identical textures) before repeating for each additional character (with the redundant checks taking longer the more characters are previously loaded). Similar when starting a render. I know in general loading time grow as more assets are being prepped, but I've never had such massive down times other than in blender if I have really complex light set ups, and that's maybe 10 minutes, not an hour of daz being 'busy' and unresponsive.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

I've also noticed that daz seems to have a Big O problem the more characters there are in a scene. meaning it gets exponentially longer to open a file for each character added. If I have more that 4 characters (no clothes, default texture), It takes daz up to an hour just to load. My guess is its sorting through assets, ie all 4+ characters share the same assets, but for each character it still has to load it from scratch, then check with each pre loaded character for asset optimization (ie reusing identical textures) before repeating for each additional character (with the redundant checks taking longer the more characters are previously loaded). Similar when starting a render. I know in general loading time grow as more assets are being prepped, but I've never had such massive down times other than in blender if I have really complex light set ups, and that's maybe 10 minutes, not an hour of daz being 'busy' and unresponsive.

Funny.
I figured that 3 characters is just to much to handle for DAZ. Shame.
It gobbles up 12GB of Vram for the tiny scene i have. Meaning just characters.
For my test scene there are 2 females and one male. So what i had to do is, since he is not be seen, decouple the genitalia from him and have just the 2 females and wonder, it ran quick.
Perhaps i could stripped him of the clothing but i got a little tired.
But this was a close up scene. So that takes alone more resources. When done from afar it should be ok with 3 characters (i think).

4 characters? I can forget that. Even though i have a RTX3060, i don't think i can do that. I usually load the female but depending on the scene i could strip them partially. Maybe then?

The scene was dim and now with only 2 of them, it rendered in 10 minutes. Saving got quick too.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

yeah, I started to make a file naming convension so that I can modify scenes as needed (ie remove a character) and save for a specific render, but then load up the big scene when I need to experiment with a new idea before trimming that scene down again and saving it seprately.

 

[MissFortune]

If I have more that 4 characters (no clothes, default texture), It takes daz up to an hour just to load.

An hour?

You mean like loading a saved scene, right? It takes like 10 minutes tops for bigger scenes for me. I have no idea why it'd take that long, unless you're working on a potato.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

An hour?

You mean like loading a saved scene, right? It takes like 10 minutes tops for bigger scenes for me. I have no idea why it'd take that long, unless you're working on a potato.

I'm certain I have some sort of file miss match going on (I still get duplicate assets errors now and then) I mean, sure I have everything on a harddrive (saving my ssd's for video games), but I'm working on a 4790K at a constant overvolt overclock 4.7 Ghz, 32 GB RAM, using a 1080Ti

 

[coffeeaddicted]

I just feel that 3 characters should be possible. Even if there is a limit what this shitty software can load, it feels like you have make several scenes parts to actually get a complete scene. One of the things i really hate.
Close ups are probably the worst.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

1 hour good god
I admire your patience, I can't even.

Download Daz3D Morph Manager 2.0 (v 1.1.0) or similar.
Especially if your G3/8/8.1/9 morphs library has reached critical size (!).

When you start a project, remove every morphs you don't use - greenlight/activate them only when you need them - or you know you will need them.

Or simply make a coherent Daz base of work, mine is Daz default morphs (base pose, base head, clones/UVs for autofit, default expressions...), dozen of g8 figures I use as base meshes and that's it, I'll add more if I need more.

Also bake your morphs. You locked that cool figure that use ThickAss shapes (123 morphs), BigBreastLover (56 morphs) and GrannyWrinkles (78 morphs). Bake it, you know load only 1 morph (and not 123+56+78).

But I want to iterate with my full morphs library?
F2>content>content directory manager>Daz studio format>add>'folder_of_your_removed_morphs'
Remove it from content manager once you're done.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

1 hour good god
I admire your patience, I can't even.

Download Daz3D Morph Manager 2.0 (v 1.1.0) or similar.
Especially if your G3/8/8.1/9 morphs library has reached critical size (!).

When you start a project, remove every morphs you don't use - greenlight/activate them only when you need them - or you know you will need them.

Or simply make a coherent Daz base of work, mine is Daz default morphs (base pose, base head, clones/UVs for autofit, default expressions...), dozen of g8 figures I use as base meshes and that's it, I'll add more if I need more.

Also bake your morphs. You locked that cool figure that use ThickAss shapes (123 morphs), BigBreastLover (56 morphs) and GrannyWrinkles (78 morphs). Bake it, you know load only 1 morph (and not 123+56+78).

But I want to iterate with my full morphs library?
F2>content>content directory manager>Daz studio format>add>'folder_of_your_removed_morphs'
Remove it from content manager once you're done.

Awesome, thanks. I'll definitly give that a look, I have a ton of morphs, i mean tons! as well as many custom sculpted characters (ported back and forth between blender and daz), so this may be the source of a lot of issues (that and I've been meaning to clean up my asset library since there's only a few morphs I regularly use any more other than my custom ones).

To be honest , when I ran into the issue at first I thought daz crashed. But it was a critical file of mine so I allowed it to run its corse, so happy i did, now waiting is a regular practice of mine (worst case senario was an all night load)

 

[coffeeaddicted]

1 hour good god
I admire your patience, I can't even.

Download Daz3D Morph Manager 2.0 (v 1.1.0) or similar.
Especially if your G3/8/8.1/9 morphs library has reached critical size (!).

When you start a project, remove every morphs you don't use - greenlight/activate them only when you need them - or you know you will need them.

Or simply make a coherent Daz base of work, mine is Daz default morphs (base pose, base head, clones/UVs for autofit, default expressions...), dozen of g8 figures I use as base meshes and that's it, I'll add more if I need more.

Also bake your morphs. You locked that cool figure that use ThickAss shapes (123 morphs), BigBreastLover (56 morphs) and GrannyWrinkles (78 morphs). Bake it, you know load only 1 morph (and not 123+56+78).

But I want to iterate with my full morphs library?
F2>content>content directory manager>Daz studio format>add>'folder_of_your_removed_morphs'
Remove it from content manager once you're done.

So much to learn... does it never stop?

For the morphs, i found great bimbo shapes from this guy.

You must be registered to see the links

. Kind of eliminating the need for too many morphs. For lazies like me.
I am kind of lazy and most i don't really enjoy. Though i have breastmixer which is kind of nice.

But yes, morphs in general.
I really limited the morphs i have installed because if not, you really swim in morphs.

I definitionally will try that tool. Maybe it will improve my life.

If i understand it correctly, any character you install comes with it's own morphs. So the more you have, the more...

 

[mickydoo]

Long shot -

Go into each characters perameters tab and under general - mesh resolution - Render sub(D) level (minimum) it should be on 3 (Gen 8.1 default is) I and others have had number change to 5 for some reason.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

I have to admit i never really understood the meaning of subd level and what they mean for the render.
In any case. I made it so i can have 4 characters in a scene. Ok, i cheated a little.
Female is as she came, i chose this time Mercy (such a lovely character), Ms.Black and Shawn and on top of that i had a generic Gen8 male switched to mat color via shader. This works on my machine. The scene is really kind of basic with some old poser asset.
I got to read on that subd for future reference though. I did notice that each figure seems to have their own numbers so there is no uniformity for a character. Kind of random.

Ms.Black (based on Victoria) SubD 4
Mercy (Gen8F) SubD 2
Shawn (Gen8M) SubD2
Gen8M SubD2

So i am not sure why Victoria based is SubD 4. Are there reasons it has to be high?

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

I have to admit i never really understood the meaning of subd level and what they mean for the render.
In any case. I made it so i can have 4 characters in a scene. Ok, i cheated a little.
Female is as she came, i chose this time Mercy (such a lovely character), Ms.Black and Shawn and on top of that i had a generic Gen8 male switched to mat color via shader. This works on my machine. The scene is really kind of basic with some old poser asset.
I got to read on that subd for future reference though. I did notice that each figure seems to have their own numbers so there is no uniformity for a character. Kind of random.

Ms.Black (based on Victoria) SubD 4
Mercy (Gen8F) SubD 2
Shawn (Gen8M) SubD2
Gen8M SubD2

So i am not sure why Victoria based is SubD 4. Are there reasons it has to be high?

SubD level are quite easy to grasp.

G8f figure is :
-16k polys at subD 0 (base level)
-65k polys at subD 1
-260k polys at subD 2
-1M polys at subD 3
-4M polys at subD 4
-16M polys at subD 5
-And so on (Daz will crash at subD 7 or something if remember right).

Keep in mind those polys are not free and eat your VRAM - and will cripple your viewport.

Base level (SubD 0) is nearly never used for figures except for exports or say figures in the background that don't need high level of polys. When artists scult a figure they have to choose at which level of subD they will scult its details (the morph you gonna be using in Daz). A 18yo teenager girl don't need really need high subD in comparaison with a 65yo. Hard wrinckles in forehead, dark cricles under eyes, neck and so on. Even then, a lot fortunately can be done with good normal/bump maps - those maps are sculted and baked at higher level subD but will be used on lower subD mesh to increase details.

Generally I found subD 2 or 3 to be generally 'ok' for most figures, even for close up. Especially if your goal is chaining renders. Now here comes the "HD morphs". Most of them are sculted at subD 4 which is quite a gap (in Daz environment), meaning also don't use them under that level. Tbh I find subD 4 to be a weird spot, not good enough to pull enough fine details, too high to be "chain rendering" efficient. If you're not showcasing I'm not sure it's worth it 98% of cases (could be wrong tho).

I only used subD 4 in the past mostly for (subtle) facial expression purpose, trying to achieve something close to photorealism. Which is a whole different matter than doing a VN prototype.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

SubD level are quite easy to grasp.

G8f figure is :
-16k polys at subD 0 (base level)
-65k polys at subD 1
-260k polys at subD 2
-1M polys at subD 3
-4M polys at subD 4
-16M polys at subD 5
-And so on (Daz will crash at subD 7 or something if remember right).

Keep in mind those polys are not free and eat your VRAM - and will cripple your viewport.

Base level (SubD 0) is nearly never used for figures except for exports or say figures in the background that don't need high level of polys. When artists scult a figure they have to choose at which level of subD they will scult its details (the morph you gonna be using in Daz). A 18yo teenager girl don't need really need high subD in comparaison with a 65yo. Hard wrinckles in forehead, dark cricles under eyes, neck and so on. Even then, a lot fortunately can be done with good normal/bump maps - those maps are sculted and baked at higher level subD but will be used on lower subD mesh to increase details.

Generally I found subD 2 or 3 to be generally 'ok' for most figures, even for close up. Especially if your goal is chaining renders. Now here comes the "HD morphs". Most of them are sculted at subD 4 which is quite a gap (in Daz environment), meaning also don't use them under that level. Tbh I find subD 4 to be a weird spot, not good enough to pull enough fine details, too high to be "chain rendering" efficient. If you're not showcasing I'm not sure it's worth it 98% of cases (could be wrong tho).

I only used subD 4 in the past mostly for (subtle) facial expression purpose, trying to achieve something close to photorealism. Which is a whole different matter than doing a VN prototype.

That is quite fascinating. Well, yes. Makes sense. I am still struggling to judge if i should manually drop them down.
Ms.Black is SubD4 i suppose that is because she is older. Though i don't see to many details if i am honest. Now bump maps are a different topic.
Recently i found a guide that explains how you can add veins to your character. This is quite interesting as it opens more possibilities. Not relaying too much on other skins for some features but to make your character rather personal.

I have to admit that i am a lazy user. I usually don't delve to much into the details of the software. I just want it to work the way i envision it should.
So i have to learn more and how to do things on your own.

Now back to the figures.
Even though it is kind of forbidden to back things in the figure, i assume that is for sharing and selling. Probably.
So this would already make things a little easier though i am not sure how how it will affect other things like breasts for example.

Thanks for sharing again. Step by step learning made easy.

 

[TessaXYZ]

I've also noticed that daz seems to have a Big O problem the more characters there are in a scene. meaning it gets exponentially longer to open a file for each character added. If I have more that 4 characters (no clothes, default texture), It takes daz up to an hour just to load. My guess is its sorting through assets, ie all 4+ characters share the same assets, but for each character it still has to load it from scratch, then check with each pre loaded character for asset optimization (ie reusing identical textures) before repeating for each additional character (with the redundant checks taking longer the more characters are previously loaded). Similar when starting a render. I know in general loading time grow as more assets are being prepped, but I've never had such massive down times other than in blender if I have really complex light set ups, and that's maybe 10 minutes, not an hour of daz being 'busy' and unresponsive.

An HOUR? Yeah, something's not right. I have a file with my 17 characters (so far) and that takes me 7 or 8 minutes to open.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

An HOUR? Yeah, something's not right. I have a file with my 17 characters (so far) and that takes me 7 or 8 minutes to open.

Wait, you said 17 characters? How. Why. What???

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

Thanks for sharing again. Step by step learning made easy.

ouéééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééé (ou pas)

 

[osanaiko]

Slow load times in Daz are directly related to the number of "character morphs".

Morphs come from two sources: assets like "200 in 1 expression slider" packs, and characters which have their own set of morphs (often hidden from the UI as joint controlled morphs JCM etc).

So as you download and add more and more characters and morphs packs to your Daz app, you will find that Daz gets slower and slower to load a new scene.

Technically, this is because of a design flaw: scene files can have characters in them which have values set for morph sliders. If the relevant morph slider is not present, Daz used to crash on loading that scene. So they made it so daz re-scans the entire installed assets to load all morphs for the relevant character generation, one by one, before it starts loading the character. Worse, it appears to repeat this process for each figure in the scene (facepalm).

As No_Name said, the only way to deal with this is:

1. only install specifically the morphs/characters you need (but probably the horse has bolted out the open gate)

2. uninstall all the morphs/characters (you DID use Daz Install Manager, right? ooops)

3. use MorphManager (yay!) to move the unused morphs and characters out of the Daz asset folders and into a temp folder