3Delight,,? Anybody?

pbr, and whatever comes after it, are the future. if you want to do anything with your skills (create content, etc) pbr is the thing. if youre just making pretty pictures, whatever works for you.

As Silverboax says, I think it depends on the type of render you want & the capabilities of the hardwear & the operator.

I like ultra-realism, I'm doing it for fun & I have a passably good PC, so it is Iray all the way for me.

🙂

Yes I have used IBL Master. I like it, it is faster than the other lights. And if anyone hasn't "Fixed" AOA's lights to render faster, there is an article by Kettu that fixes the problem at : https://mustakettu85.wordpress.com/2016/09/10/shader-mixer-applied-crash-course-pt-1/

You use that on all the shader that does not have opacity, such as skin mouth or whatever. You just save it as shader preset, and then click on all surfaces you want with the fixed shader and click on that shader and it will apply the fixed shader, you will see a difference.

Also, I suggest https://zonegfx.com/lumina-materials-library/. This is also made by wowie from Daz. It is ubersurface2 presets for glass, metal, painted metal. I like them, they are my go to for metals and glass. Also if you have trouble getting realistic glass or metal, You will need a skydome if you have problems, you have to have something to reflect.

@apollo To answer your question, 3Delight is still in production, but less by Daz itself. The one included in Daz is over 2 to 3 years old. The new shader wowie is working on will include Kettu's script for scripted 3delight rendering, which makes use of more stuff that 3delight can use than by the crippled 3delight Daz has now.

One reason why Daz chose iray was for the majority of the users want just a 1-click solution to render without any actual work or understanding of the program itself. It caters to that one specific demographic. They do not want to fiddle with everything such as settings or anything that requires mental thought.

3Delight could be SO much more, but Daz crippled a majority of what the renderer is capable of. It has SO much more potential. You look at Maya's 3Delight, it has emission that is just like iray, make an object light up, give off light blah blah blah. Where is it for Daz? They could care less. They have basically given up on 3Delight as far as I can see. They have found their 1-click solution, and people will pay for it. Just like their models, sex sells, make a quick buck. Make something else sexier, make another quick buck, over and over and over.

But for the people that use 3Delight, it can do most anything iray can if you tweak everything. If you use the settings out of the box, you will get crapped on. Nothing that is default settings is worth using. If you are content with just meh, then default is for you, otherwise learn more about it, embrace it, and 3delight can produce results just like iray or better.

@undesignated - iRay is nVidia's renderer... it's used by more than just DAZ and the .mtl format is pretty much a standard these days regardless of what you use (more broadly PBR rendering workflows are THE standard for anything that needs to approach realtime or be done quickly).

Ask a dozen people in the 3d content industry (games dev, movies, TV production, etc.) what they use or are interested in the future of and I doubt any of them would mention iRay or 3delight unless they work for one of the vendors using those renderers.

FWIW the idea that a renderer is better or worse than another because of its ease of use is ludicrous... artists want to make art, not fight with inverse lighting calculations, bucket sizes, and a host of other technical aspects that are prone to make a lengthy render yield a poor result. FOr everyone else, there's vRay 😀