Testing High-Speed Ray Tracing Rendering of DAZ Scenes with EEVEE NEXT in Blender 4.2 on ZorinOS Linux
Since the Linux version of Blender 4.2 is pre-installed on ZorinOS, I attempted to import a DAZ scene directly, but it was not possible.
Therefore, I installed the Windows version of Blender 3.6 LTS using Windows App Support, and since I succeeded in importing the DAZ scene with the DAZ Importer, I was able to load it into the Linux version of Blender 4.2 via a Blender scene file (.blend).
Blender 4.2 allows for photorealistic rendering much faster than traditional Cycles thanks to EEVEE NEXT ray tracing rendering.
・DAZ Studio Win NVIDIA Iray: approx. 24 minutes
・Blender 3.6 LTS Win Cycles Noise Threshold 0.01: approx. 20 minutes
・Blender 3.6 LTS Win Cycles Noise Threshold 0.1: approx. 2 minutes
・Blender 3.6 LTS Win EEVEE: approx. 5 seconds (not ray tracing)
・Blender 4.2 Linux Cycles Noise Threshold 0.1: approx. 2 minutes
・Blender 4.2 Linux EEVEE NEXT: approx. 10 seconds (ray tracing)
Importing DAZ Scenes into Blender
Installed via Windows App Support In DAZ Studio, I attempted to use the Diffeomorphic DAZ Importer to import a DAZ scene directly into the Linux version of Blender 4.2 pre-installed on ZorinOS, but it was not possible.
In the case of the Windows version of Blender 3.6 LTS
Installation and DAZ Scene Import
Similar to DAZ Studio, I installed the Windows version of Blender 3.6.14 LTS using Windows App Support, and when I imported the DAZ scene, it succeeded.
★ When attempting to import a DAZ scene with the DAZ Importer, the following message is displayed.
When you click "Wait for response", it will appear again, but you can import it by repeating the process of clicking "Wait for response" several times.
Rendering
When rendering as usual with Cycles (noise threshold 0.01), it took about 20 minutes. Since it took about 24 minutes in DAZ Studio, it is almost equivalent.
Increasing the noise threshold to 0.1 makes it quite fast at about 2 minutes. I believe the difference in image quality is at a level that cannot be visually detected.
In EEVEE for Blender 3.6 LTS, it is not ray tracing, so the difference in image quality is obvious, but it is very fast at about 5 seconds, so it may be useful depending on the application.
For Blender 4.2 on Linux
Loading a Blender scene file
When you save a DAZ scene imported in the Windows version of Blender 3.6 LTS as a Blender scene file (.blend), you can load the DAZ scene into the Linux version of Blender 4.2 pre-installed on ZorinOS.
Fixing environment lighting
However, loading the HDR file used for environment lighting fails, resulting in pink dummy lighting.
This can be resolved by reloading the HDR file using the Linux file path instead of the one described with the Windows file path.
The Windows file path for the HDR file is as follows.
C:/Program Files/DAZ 3D/DAZ Studio4/shaders/iray/resources/DTHDR-Ruins-B500.hdrUsing this as a reference, reopen the HDR file.
By default, hidden files/folders starting with a "." are hidden, so open the menu icon in the top right and check "Show Hidden" to make them visible.
Follow the path tree using the Linux file path as shown below, select "DTHDR-Ruins-B500.hdr", and click "Open Image".
/home/dazgen/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/DAZ 3D/DAZ Studio4/shaders/iray/resources/DTHDR-Ruins-B500.hdrThe part after "/Program Files…" is the same as the Windows path.
For the leading "/home", select "Home" from the "System" section on the left of the file view to open it.
Once the HDR file is loaded, the environment lighting will be correct.
Rendering with Cycles
Cycles (noise threshold is 0.1) will be used for rendering.
The rendering time was about 2 minutes, which is almost the same as the Windows version of Blender 3.6 LTS.
Rendering with EEVEE NEXT
Change the render engine to "EEVEE", ensure that "Shadows" and the "Ray Tracing" option below it are checked, and then render.
Since there was no change from before, I investigated the cause and, referring to the article below, changed other settings related to lighting.
In the article above, the "Background Light Strength" is set to 0.3, but since it was still dark, I increased it to 1.0. Other parameters and settings follow the article above.
After checking in the render preview, perform the rendering.
Successfully performed EEVEE NEXT ray-traced rendering, and the rendering time was about 10 seconds, which means high-speed rendering is possible even without using the GPU.
The following is a comparison image of rendering with DAZ Studio's Iray, Blender 3.6 LTS's Cycles (noise threshold 0.1) and EEVEE, and Blender 4.2's EEVEE NEXT ray tracing.
Summary
Since the Linux version of Blender 4.2 was pre-installed on ZorinOS, I tried importing a DAZ scene directly, but it failed.
Therefore, I installed the Windows version of Blender 3.6 LTS using Windows App Support, and after importing the DAZ scene, I succeeded by using a Blender scene file (.blend).
Starting with Blender 4.2, features like ray tracing can now be used in EEVEE, which has evolved into EEVEE NEXT. I am introducing this because photorealistic rendering, which took about 24 minutes in DAZ Studio's Iray, can now be done extremely quickly in about 10 seconds.
Moving forward, I would like to incorporate this into creating digital bishoujo works, combine it with physics simulations, and apply it to creating realistic works using Genesis 9 models alongside Tensor Art and Face Transfer 2.