Daz Studio Guides - Progressive Rendering
Daz Studio Guides - Progressive Rendering
Daz Studio Guides - Progressive Rendering
This small tutorial will cover the Progressive Rendering sub menu within the Render Settings of
Daz Studio. This guide made using Daz Studio 4.15, some information may be outdated if using a later
version of Daz Studio. If you wish to find a brief overview of the render settings within Daz Studio I
recommend you read the brief guide from renderguide.com.
Daz Studio while a good software for rendering enthusiasts and professionals alike, tends to have
some shortcomings when it comes to documentation. Fortunately for you (and me) the progressive
rendering settings is not one of those things. Apart from the Post SSIM setting which is new to Daz
Studio relative to the other settings available. First let us look at the Render Settings window (tab):
The above image is taken from my own settings on a recent project, and I recommend that you
don’t just copy the setting but truly understand what they do. That said, let us break down each sub
section and setting found here.
First, we have the Update sub section, within which you will find “Min Update Samples” and
“Update Interval (secs).” These settings are specifically relating to how the image is updated from the
attempts the software makes at producing the image.
Next, we will cover the completion subsection of the Render Settings menu. This section
pertains to telling the software when to stop rendering. Otherwise, it could in theory render forever. If
the software reaches any of the requirements set out by these settings it will stop the render. Though
according to some information, I have dug up, the Render Quality parameter overrides max samples.
Figure 3: Completion settings sub menu
Min Samples:
The minimum samples setting is rarely useful to users of Daz studio, however as it suggests it
sets the minimum number of samples the software must reach to stop a render. This means that the
software cannot stop until the sample number is higher than what is set here.
Max Samples:
The maximum samples setting correlates to the number of converged iterations or “samples”
that the software can reach. The default for this is set to five thousand, with a maximum of fifteen
thousand. If you are not using the render quality settings this will be the major factor in determining if
your image is complete. If you have changed your update samples settings, you may have to increase
this number beyond fifteen thousand in order to get a clear image (depending on the scene).
This setting can be set to zero to turn it off.
Here is where things start to get interesting, and the level of understanding of the software
settings begins to have a stark fall off. Render Quality and SSIM can work hand in hand, much like the
max samples and minimum samples settings.
Figure 4: Render Quality settings, set to ON
Render Quality:
This one is sort of a mixed bag of information so bear with me.
As defined by the Daz documentation render quality is simply that. At a lower value, the
software will render the equivalent of something you would see in a video game (OpenGL). At higher
values, the software emphasizes the image quality over the time it takes to render. OpenGL is a very fast
render type, so anything beyond the first setting of 1, does not use this. The render quality setting has a
maximum value of 4. However, you can change this number to a crazy value such as one thousand. To
my knowledge (and experiences) a value higher than 4 has no bearing on the render quality.
As defined by some general information I have dug up, render quality overrides the max time
and max samples settings (I have not experienced this). The setting increases render time linearly each
time the number is increased. Setting it to two doubles what it would take at one and so on and so forth.
Further defined by information found elsewhere, this setting determines how close any pixel has
to be to its prior sampled value before it is considered “converged.” The higher this value, the closer in
value any pixel must be to its prior value before it is considered “converged.” In other words, if a pixel in
the center was sampled at being “Blood red” (simplifying this by the way), then the next x number of
samples must also come up with “Blood red” to consider that pixel converged.
Personally, I use render quality and set it to 4 for final product images. Results may vary, but I
have seen no issues. In my experience the Render Quality setting will render the image until either the
rendering converged ratio is met, or the maximum samples or max time are met.
At this point we will be entering the realm of the somewhat unknown as Post SSIM is new to Daz
Studio. Post SSIM uses AI learning to determine if an image is complete, or when it will complete.
Further I have read that post SSIM uses the same technologies found within the denoiser. And no, Daz
studio isn’t learning from your images per say. Instead it is using profiles which come as part of NVidia
drivers to determine what an image may look like.