Daz Render quality and time questions

[Nithhogg]

Hi everyone, I've been doing some renders in DAZ and wanted to ask how my renders look in terms of noise/quality as well as the time it takes to render and see if anyone has any advice. I set my renders to be 2560*1440 and resized them to 1920*1080 to try and reduce some noise after. I turned off rendering quality and set max samples to 15000. In the first image I didn't use noise filtering and in the second one I did and I was mainly concerned if the image with noise filtering on looks decent or if I should try rendering again with more samples.

Spoiler: Image 1

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Spoiler: Image 2

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I used Iray to render and I have an AMD Ryzen 5 5600G as well as a 3060ti. I kept both CPU and GPU ticked and also used the scene optimiser before I rendered and both images took about 2 hours and 20ish minutes to render. Does this seem like a decent time for a scene like this? Thank you for your help!

 

[MidnightArrow]

Iray doesn't do out of core rendering, so ticking both GPU and CPU is pointless. Also Iray only works with Nvidia GPUs so your AMD isn't going to do shit.

The first image, the only noticeable noise is in the glass tube. It looks fine, even with that slight noise. The second one, Daz's denoiser is fucking terrible, so if you're going to go the distance to 15,000 samples you might as well not use it. Two hours twenty minutes sounds a little long when using Scene Optimizer, but it totally depends on how many textures you have and how much you shrink them by.

What stood out to me more are the bad geometry and textures. You can see obvious JPEG compression artifacts on the wall diamonds. Not sure if that's because you used Scene Optimizer or because the texture are just badly made. And the smooth shading is failing on those waist high things around the tube. You can see obvious flat faces on the round parts.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

Ticking both GPU and CPU is in fact detrimental in all figure cases since a-lot-of-time.

>about 2 hours and 20ish
Yeah, no.

Can you share a save?

Two hours twenty minutes sounds a little long when using Scene Optimizer, but it totally depends on how many textures you have and how much you shrink them by.

Also no. Has next to nothing to do with it.

 

[Nithhogg]

What stood out to me more are the bad geometry and textures. You can see obvious JPEG compression artifacts on the wall diamonds. Not sure if that's because you used Scene Optimizer or because the texture are just badly made. And the smooth shading is failing on those waist high things around the tube. You can see obvious flat faces on the round parts.

I loaded the prop in a different scene and the waist high parts around the tube just look like that even before being optimised or changed in any way. I can see the compression around the diamonds too now which is disappointing because I'm not sure why its there. Could that be noise too perhaps?

Can you share a save?

Here's a save of the scene, do you need all of the assets zipped as well?

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[MidnightArrow]

I loaded the prop in a different scene and the waist high parts around the tube just look like that even before being optimised or changed in any way. I can see the compression around the diamonds too now which is disappointing because I'm not sure why its there. Could that be noise too perhaps?

I'm not saying you did anything wrong, I'm saying the asset's smooth shading wasn't done properly in the first place.

As for the images, it's probably JPEG compression because 99% of the textures Daz sells are saved in a lossy format to so they take up less space. When you use those textures with bump mapping, the artifacts cause distortion because the bump map isn't a smooth gradient anymore.

Iray also has a texture compression setting in the advanced render settings. Iirc it's done with JPEG compression or something similar. It's also lossy and will cause the same artifacts, so crank those up to like 9000 and see if the problem goes away. If it doesn't, it's baked into the textures and you're SOL.

 

[Nithhogg]

I'm not saying you did anything wrong, I'm saying the asset's smooth shading wasn't done properly in the first place.

Oh I realise, I was just disappointed because other than that I do like the prop.

I didn't realise either that Iray did compression automatically so I'll render again later tonight and see how it looks afterwards. I'm just gonna render this one at 1920*1080 and see the time it takes and how it looks to see if I want to continue rendering it larger and resizing it down or just do it at a lower resolution as well.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

Here's a save of the scene, do you need all of the assets zipped as well?

You must be registered to see the links

Should be fine.

Some observations tho:
Denoiser kick in way too early to provide great result.
There is zero 'real' light outside emissives.
Nearly all surfaces are metallic kind from what I see (tone it down, keep some reflections & save rendering time)
No use of Iray planes
Seems you hard downscaled from 4k to 1k, which is quite a gap (!).

2h20 is way way too much for that type of render with a 3060 imho. You need to optimize your surfaces (does not means downscaling everything). Iray compression is fine, especially for the card you got.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

I use the default samples for my final render. Not matter how long it takes.
No denoiser.

 

[Nithhogg]

I did another render while I was at work and I cranked the compression threshold up, which appears to have fixed the compression visible on the diamonds. I also unticked CPU in the advanced settings for Iray but for some reason this made the render take even longer. I cancelled it just now after 5 hours and the render was only a quarter done. Is there anything obvious I might have missed that would cause this?

Spoiler: Render

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Edit: Ok So I turned the render compression down and also restarted my computer. The render time only took 1 hour and 15 now but I can see the compression so I'll have to play around with that a bit more. Either way, 1 hour and 15 is a lot better time for rendering this. Does that time still seem long though or about right?

 

[MidnightArrow]

I did another render while I was at work and I cranked the compression threshold up, which appears to have fixed the compression visible on the diamonds. I also unticked CPU in the advanced settings for Iray but for some reason this made the render take even longer. I cancelled it just now after 5 hours and the render was only a quarter done. Is there anything obvious I might have missed that would cause this?

Spoiler: Render

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Edit: Ok So I turned the render compression down and also restarted my computer. The render time only took 1 hour and 15 now but I can see the compression so I'll have to play around with that a bit more. Either way, 1 hour and 15 is a lot better time for rendering this. Does that time still seem long though or about right?

Sounds like Daz Studio being Daz Studio. It's real fucking picky when it comes to what it wants to render.

I used to get about 15,000 samples after about two hours, and you have a better GPU than me, so 1 hour 15 minutes sounds about right.

 

[Rell games]

You can check this out:

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It helps a lot to hide minor noise while keeping the overall quality of the image. In my cases, results are great even with 1000-2000 samples.

 

[MissFortune]

while keeping the overall quality of the image.

Should also note that in return for speed, you're losing texture and detail. Especially at that many samples.

 

[Nithhogg]

Daz

Sounds like Daz Studio being Daz Studio. It's real fucking picky when it comes to what it wants to render.

Yeah it seems Daz does like to be a bit funky with rendering times. I tried to render it for a final time with the compression up high and it was going to take maybe 20 hours judging by the speed so I opened a different file of the same scene that I optimised a little differently and rendered again and it took 1 hour and 10 minutes luckily, which finally gave me this.



Thanks everyone for your help as well, I really appreciate it.

 

[Turning Tricks]

I know this isn't really pertinent to your original concerns with render times, but I thought I should point out a couple of other issues with your render here...

Probably the biggest issue, noticeable right away, is that the character in the bunny suit on the right has his right foot about an inch above the ground. Looks odd in a standing still pose.

Second, I don't know what it is... maybe reflective strips? But on that device's base (the "petals"?) are recessed areas that are either transparent or reflecting the metallic green floor, making it look like you are seeing through those "petals". Seems to be a poor asset job but you could fix those in Photoshop in like 2 mins.

Finally, the over all lighting is kind of confusing... Seems the scene ties to convey the "device" is generating a lot of the ambient light and you can see a decent shadow on the girl on the left, but you don't have a corresponding shadow on the guy in the bunny suit. The brightness of the bunny suit is also detracting from the scene, IMO. I've seen this before when white colors are cranked too high in some clothes. maybe tone the surfaces down a bit? I'd also suggest doing a re-shoot of just the two characters with a bright spot directly in front of them to generate that kind of edge glow around them, common with 3 point lighting. That would accent the devices importance and brightness, while also highlighting the two characters IMO. Right now, your eye is immediately drawn to the guy in the bunny suit and you barely notice the elf chick.

Just some - probably unwanted - scene composition tips

 

[Nithhogg]

Nah I'm happy for all tips! Theres always something I miss when working lmao but I fixed the foot on the right. I thought I had fixed it before but I suppose I didnt. I don't really know photoshop but I'll try and fix those strips too. It doesn't look like there are any holes in the actual prop and it isn't clipping but still for some reason.

I wanted to have this scene be of the two characters talking and preparing the tank for a body and then later have a closer shot of the body in the tank, but how does this look? I just pushed the camera in so there is a bit more focus on the tank in the scene and I might just put the body in now too rather than come back and show the scene a second time with the body in it.

 

[Turning Tricks]

Nah I'm happy for all tips! Theres always something I miss when working lmao but I fixed the foot on the right. I thought I had fixed it before but I suppose I didnt. I don't really know photoshop but I'll try and fix those strips too. It doesn't look like there are any holes in the actual prop and it isn't clipping but still for some reason.

I wanted to have this scene be of the two characters talking and preparing the tank for a body and then later have a closer shot of the body in the tank, but how does this look? I just pushed the camera in so there is a bit more focus on the tank in the scene and I might just put the body in now too rather than come back and show the scene a second time with the body in it.

View attachment 2205449

I actually liked your original overall scene layout, tbh. But it's always good to have different angles and frames, to mix it up in dialogue stretches. I'm not keen on that green suit though. Did you try some sort of metallic shader or silver? Maybe gunmetal grey? There's a lot of shader assets out there that you could try, even the Daz stock ones have some goo examples..

As for the this new frame... Maybe have the original wide angle shot, then zoom in between the two characters here and focus on the tank, with just part of the characters on either side of the screen. You could turn on Depth of Field with you camera and set the focal length to blur the characters and be sharp on the tank. That would be a cool two render transition I think.

 

[Nithhogg]

I actually liked your original overall scene layout, tbh. But it's always good to have different angles and frames, to mix it up in dialogue stretches. I'm not keen on that green suit though. Did you try some sort of metallic shader or silver? Maybe gunmetal grey? There's a lot of shader assets out there that you could try, even the Daz stock ones have some goo examples..

As for the this new frame... Maybe have the original wide angle shot, then zoom in between the two characters here and focus on the tank, with just part of the characters on either side of the screen. You could turn on Depth of Field with you camera and set the focal length to blur the characters and be sharp on the tank. That would be a cool two render transition I think.

I downloaded the suit from the forums here and I just double checked and the person didn't upload all the files unfortunately so the suit doesn't wanna change colours. It appears as white when rendered.

I think I will keep the original shot and then zoom in to this shot or the one I am rendering now which is mostly the same except with depth of field on, and then one last one even closer that will be over the shoulder or even a bit closer of just the figure in the tank.

With transitioning between the shots as well I may change the poses of the characters but I'm not too sure yet. I'll see how it feels with dialogue and the scenes all together and then go from there and see if I need to change poses or if it feels alright with the same poses.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

I downloaded the suit from the forums here and I just double checked and the person didn't upload all the files unfortunately so the suit doesn't wanna change colours. It appears as white when rendered.

I think I will keep the original shot and then zoom in to this shot or the one I am rendering now which is mostly the same except with depth of field on, and then one last one even closer that will be over the shoulder or even a bit closer of just the figure in the tank.

With transitioning between the shots as well I may change the poses of the characters but I'm not too sure yet. I'll see how it feels with dialogue and the scenes all together and then go from there and see if I need to change poses or if it feels alright with the same poses.
View attachment 2207598

You probably can put some shader on that suit.
I do that sometimes on fake fabric.
There are some clothing shaders that are pretty good and maybe that will get you some other color or overall appearance.
Also, check perhaps render-state if there is a different source or version.

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[Deleted member 1121028]

rendered again and it took 1 hour and 10 minutes

With all due respect, it's still horrible result with a 3060 and a simple 1080 render.
Especially if your goal is to make a VNs (where you constantly need to min-max chain render).
Problem is not really lying in render setting (bring me back in the days lol), nor denoising.

People need to get a grip on Uber shader (which is quite obese) and how to be 'cost' efficient with it.
Lightning and how it's done also play a huge part. You need to tame that shit before anything else.
Nobody want to hear that lmao.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

1h10 on this and no one bat an eye.
Fucking lmao.