The latest update for Daz Studio — Studio 4.20 — delivers a collection of features and improvements that are sure to add a new level of depth and detail to your renders.
Most notably, Daz Studio 4.20 supports volumetric rendering in Iray, offering enhanced control over a variety of 3D effects. Rather than creating the illusion of clouds or fog, these effects can now exist as volumes in your scenes.
What is Volumetric Rendering?
Volumetric rendering covers a variety of effects made possible through the implementation of “volumetric” data, or in other words, data discretized on three-dimensional grids. This can include things like clouds, smoke, fire, and more. In simple terms, these effects become 3D objects contained within your scene.
In the past, effects like these were often added in post-processing. This involved adding 2D images with transparency into the scene and manipulating them to appear like they were actually there. While careful and skilled editing can produce great results using this method, it’s certainly not ideal.
With Studio 4.20, you no longer need to bother with the tedious creation of these “faked” effects thanks to volumetric rendering in Iray and VDB support.
Add New Depth to Your Renders with VDB Support
Soar through the clouds, drop meteors from the heavens, and set your scenes ablaze with the volumetric rendering capabilities included in the latest Iray integration for Daz Studio 4.20, featuring VDB file support.
Whether you’re importing your own VDB files (filename.vdb) or using imaginative new products made by Daz Published Artists, VDB support allows you to add a variety of effects to your scenes to create incredible 3D artwork like never before. The 4.20 update also adds a new shader to the Default Resources for Daz Studio that allows you to load VDB files and create your own effects.
Want to experience the impact VDB files have firsthand?
This KA Rocket Launch VDB offers a great introduction to volumetric effects with a collection of rocket flames and VDB smoke — also available in the Countdown to Launch Mega Bundle. Keep an eye out for new VDB products coming soon to the Daz Store!
Other Features & Fixes
While volumetric effects are the star of this update, you’ll also find several other new additions and fixes to enjoy. Here are a few highlights from the Daz Studio 4.20 release notes:
- Updated to the latest version of Iray (2021.1.0). In addition to volumetric rendering, this also adds guided sampling which should speed up the rendering of those dark corners of your scene.
- Create your own volumetric effects. A new shader has been added to the Default Resources for Daz Studio that allows you to load VDB files and create your own effects.
- A fully supported ghost light solution. Ghost lights used to be dependent on bugs in Iray and would stop working when those bugs got fixed. However, this release provides ways to create lights and flag them to have fully supported ghost lights that will keep working even as Iray is updated.
- Scripting API additions. Scripts built with these new functions will be forward-compatible with the upcoming Studio 5 release.
- Many bug fixes and stability improvements. This release has been in beta for about three months, giving it plenty of time for bug fixing and stability improvements.
Download Daz Studio 4.20 Today
The latest Daz Studio release opens the door to exciting new volumetric effects and more ways to add depth and realism to your scenes. We can’t wait to see how the addition of volumetric effects transforms your artwork.
Download Daz Studio 4.20 from your DazCentral or DIM and create amazing 3D art with new volumetric effects today!
Andrew says:
Volumetric Rendering when,where and how?
The Admin says:
Daz Studio 4.20 supports volumetric rendering in Iray and adds VDB support. You can download this latest version of Daz Studio now! If you don’t have Daz Studio, you can get it free here. However, if you need any further assistance, please submit a ticket so we can help you out.
Andrew says:
Yeah! got help from community!
Jackie McClements says:
Would love to know how to use the ground fog but can’t find any help anywhere.
The Admin says:
We have additional content and tutorials planned for the near future. Stay tuned for more on creating and using volumetric effects in the coming weeks!
Dartanbeck says:
Awesome! Rock On, my Daz 3d Dev Friends!
I must say, I’ve been a die-hard Carrara enthusiast (still am) for over ten years now – only really ever going into Daz Studio to use some of the great Content Creation Tools.
Lately, however, I’ve been practicing solely within Daz Studio and really loving the experience.
It’s truly incredible what you all have done with this software that I’ve tinkered with from time to time since beta version 0.7! Wow… that was some time ago, and D|S was still learning to crawl.
I’m really loving the hard work!
Thanks!
Andrew says:
The image just above this comment section is all that done with Daz?
The Admin says:
Yes! The image was rendered using Daz Studio with a few brightness adjustments in Photoshop. The image was created by KindredArts
Shadi says:
Where can one find a tutorial on how to get started with these new features? I updated Daz3d and I see no new menus or features in any of the tabs. All looks identical to previous versions
The Admin says:
We have additional VDB-related content and tutorials planned for the near future, stay tuned! In the meantime, here’s a quick overview video made by one of our team members. You can also explore volumetric rendering effects with some of the new VDB products in the Daz Store.
Art Himself says:
Figuring it out – totally fun and totally confusing for a disabled person such as my self; I LOVE IT!!! Many experts like Jay Versluis & Josh Darling always willing to help us novices. Daz3D along with OpenVDB.org are humbly considerate & generous – keeping your prices free and/or reasonable. That is truly appreciated and probably helped many people such as myself keeping up our sanity and countenance during hard times.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!
wan says:
> [..] this release provides ways to create lights and flag them to have fully supported ghost lights that will keep working even as Iray is updated. [..]
Where can I find more info about this? Where do I set this flag and how should it be named to be recognized as a ghost light? Does it work with all light sources or just specific ones?
The Admin says:
Thanks for the question. We’ll be updating the default resources to include the needed property in the near future. In the meantime, you can find a description in the release notes here.
“Added support for enabling/controlling “Iray Visible to Primary Rays” when NVIDIA Iray is the active renderer. If a DzBoolProperty (user) property, named ‘Iray Visible to Primary Rays,’ with the property group path of ‘Display/Rendering/Iray,’ and a default value of true, is added to a node, the value of this property is used to specify whether or not an object is visible to primary rays (i.e., directly from the camera).
“