The Mac FAQ

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  • Totte,

    Am donating as soon as I hang up ! You are my own personal jesus christ ( to paraphrase "the matrix" ), all thanks, will continue with your program, and probably bug the shit out of you with questions, probably going to be busy for awhile Rendoinstalling all the products I've purchased for the last 7 years from Rendo so you get a break for awhile !

    Thanks Roger

  • Hey Totte,

    thanks again for your app, hope no offense with the JC comment, by the by when I deleted DAZ,  within the program it lost my password, not on their website, only within the program and DIM

    any thoughts on how to repair that ?

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,947

    Password for what? Connect or?
    Password is your store login, same as here, so use Key Chain Access.App (in Applications/utilitirs( , look for DAZ3d and you find it

  • Geminii23Geminii23 Posts: 1,327
    Totte said:
    rkopinski said:

    thanks Brian, don't know what ditto is, looked it up, says it's a program for windows clipboard, I'm a mac user

    Can I recommend my little installation program for Mac OS X
     

    I second this recommendation.  Have been using on Mac for a long time.  Thanks for such an awesome tool!!!

  • Thanks again Totte, your program is great !

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,947

    You're welcome. I wrote the first one for a friend when I got tired of fixing his Runtime all the time after he broke it. Then it evolved a little.

  • I have a 5,1 12-core MacPro, 64 GB of RAM, and an AMD R9 280 GPU.  I can barely navigate around my scene which is the Airport Island model.  The model is easily the largest thing I have ever loaded into Daz.  It's gigantic.  The bounding box view is the only view I can use that doesn't take forever to move a camera around in.  iStat Pro says I'm using less than half my available RAM.  Just for fun, I loaded the same scene into Daz on my Windows box that has a 7th gen i7, 16 GB of memory and a GTX1070.  The performance is pretty much the same.  I don't care about render speeds, at least not at this point.  I just want to be able to navigate around the model with at least wire frames showing.  Bounding boxes are so 1995. ;-)  I clearly am doing something wrong.  Any thoughts?

    TIA

    JP     

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,947

    First -bounding boxes will technically not be faster according to the Devs
    Second, Check your Preferences / Video / Optimiztion, set it to best.
    Third, divide huge scenes into grouped sections and only show needed parts.

  • Totte said:

    First -bounding boxes will technically not be faster according to the Devs
    Second, Check your Preferences / Video / Optimiztion, set it to best.
    Third, divide huge scenes into grouped sections and only show needed parts.

    Well, there is no Video under my preferences.  However I did solve a lot of the problem by changing the manipulation draw style to wire frame in the viewport settings.  Rearranging my groups as you suggested helped too.  Thanks!

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,947

    Here, called interface btw:

     

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  • Just to be sure (not much of a DDS “power” user) - Gen3/8 is only available through DAZ Connect or DIM? Neither works on my Mac (10.11.6) and can’t seem to find a manual install like previous versions. Not a big deal and provably due to my Security/privacy/spam software I’m running..

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,947

    Just to be sure (not much of a DDS “power” user) - Gen3/8 is only available through DAZ Connect or DIM? Neither works on my Mac (10.11.6) and can’t seem to find a manual install like previous versions. Not a big deal and provably due to my Security/privacy/spam software I’m running..

    Which version of OS X are you using? DIM 64 bit works AFAIK.

    And if you run some AV software that blocks IP conections I think that is the problem and nothing else.

  • Wow, thanks for the quick reponse! I;m using OSX 10.11.6. DIM can;t find my account and DAZxonnect only does a partial install. So that does mean Gen3 has no manual download?

    Thanks again for the help.

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,947

    If DIM can't find your account, do you allow DIM to access the internet?

  • BobWinkBobWink Posts: 4

    I've been using DAZ3D for about four years. Since then, I've collected a number of OBJ files. I haven't been able to figure out how to import MTL (material files). As you can see in my attachements, the MTL file is lighter which cannot be imported. Thank you for your help.

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  • MiloMilo Posts: 511
    BobWink said:

    I've been using DAZ3D for about four years. Since then, I've collected a number of OBJ files. I haven't been able to figure out how to import MTL (material files). As you can see in my attachements, the MTL file is lighter which cannot be imported. Thank you for your help.

    The .mtl is a file that maps / points to the textures, it doesnt contain any itself I believe.  Example of a section below.  if you exported a .obj you have to tell it to collect the maps it then usually puts it in a directory and the mtl file points to it.  DS when you export an .obj you have to tell it to do that.

    newmtl Cover
    d 1
    Ns 0.85000002
    Ni 0
    Ka 0 0 0
    Kd 1 1 1
    Ks 0.17254902 0.15686275 0.019607844
    Km 0.02
    map_Kd /Maps/BookM.jpg

     

  • inquireinquire Posts: 2,171

    Looking ahead to the next Macintosh Pro:

    It looks like the next version of the Mac Pro won't have Nvidia graphic cards. I'm currently using a late 2013 edition of the Macintosh Pro, which has AMD graphic cards. I was interested in the Nvidia because DAZ Studio uses the Nvidia system for fast 3D rendering. Still, I can render with the CPU. How much faster would the next version of the Mac Pro be? I know this is an iffy question, but still I'm wondering. What would you want if you were buying the next version of the Macintosh Pro?

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,947
    inquire said:

    Looking ahead to the next Macintosh Pro:

    It looks like the next version of the Mac Pro won't have Nvidia graphic cards. I'm currently using a late 2013 edition of the Macintosh Pro, which has AMD graphic cards. I was interested in the Nvidia because DAZ Studio uses the Nvidia system for fast 3D rendering. Still, I can render with the CPU. How much faster would the next version of the Mac Pro be? I know this is an iffy question, but still I'm wondering. What would you want if you were buying the next version of the Macintosh Pro?

    CPU renders would be faster, but nVidia and Apple are still like two kids in the sandbox where both fed each other with a showel of sand.
     

  • MiloMilo Posts: 511

    I saw it had some very nice high end video cards, its too bad daz didnt go with the more open standard for gpu rendeering, that being said thunderbolt 3 will allow you to use nvidia graphics cards even on a mac mini.  I think black magic designs got the egpu stamp of approval but its been awhile since I looked.  I have reality for ds which uses the mac gpu, I am attempting to learn blender and do a daz to blender for final workflow

  • inquireinquire Posts: 2,171
    edited June 2019

    I've read that there may be a device that could contain graphic cards [think Nvidia] which could be connected to a Mac, and the graphic cards could be used in 3D rendering. I've been wondering if that were a posssibility, a certainly, a probability, or just massively wishful thinking.

    Is this what Milo is talking about? Would the manufacturer be black magic designs? I'll Google it. What is the egpu stamp of approval? Don't know that term.

    OK, I found mentions like this: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicegpu/

    But I don't see anything about Nvidia cards. Does anyone know more? Any links, please?

    OK, here's more and the Nvidia cards are mentioned: https://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/ConfigGuides/DaVinci_Resolve_15_Mac_Configuration_Guide.pdf

    What is DaVinci Resolve?

    Post edited by inquire on
  • inquireinquire Posts: 2,171

     

    DaVinci Resolve is available in the Mac App store, version 15.3.1. On the blackmagicdesign site, version 16 is described: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/ ;

    Among the claims, it says "Dramatically improved GPU accelerated performance for all 3D operations." My Question: would DaVinci Resolve increase the speed of rendering with the GPU in DAZ Studio?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,602
    inquire said:

     

    DaVinci Resolve is available in the Mac App store, version 15.3.1. On the blackmagicdesign site, version 16 is described: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/ ;

    Among the claims, it says "Dramatically improved GPU accelerated performance for all 3D operations." My Question: would DaVinci Resolve increase the speed of rendering with the GPU in DAZ Studio?

    No, it means 3D operations within Da Vinci Resolve,

  • MiloMilo Posts: 511

    resolve is a video editing suite of products with effects and such

    check it out here https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/

    if you google egpu mac and egpu nvidia mac there are some sites with how tos and result some of the pages are older.  there is a patch that apparently had to be applied, but i havent dug into it in a while.  

  • inquireinquire Posts: 2,171
    inquire said:

     

    DaVinci Resolve is available in the Mac App store, version 15.3.1. On the blackmagicdesign site, version 16 is described: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/ ;

    Among the claims, it says "Dramatically improved GPU accelerated performance for all 3D operations." My Question: would DaVinci Resolve increase the speed of rendering with the GPU in DAZ Studio?

    No, it means 3D operations within Da Vinci Resolve,

    Thank you for that information.

  • inquireinquire Posts: 2,171
    Milo said:

    resolve is a video editing suite of products with effects and such

    check it out here https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/

    if you google egpu mac and egpu nvidia mac there are some sites with how tos and result some of the pages are older.  there is a patch that apparently had to be applied, but i havent dug into it in a while.  

    Well, it might help if we sought out Apple and requested the Nvidia cards as an option in the new Mac Pro, or other new Macs. I did. I'm told others did as well. Maybe if enough of us do that it will produce results.

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,947
    inquire said:
    Milo said:

    resolve is a video editing suite of products with effects and such

    check it out here https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/

    if you google egpu mac and egpu nvidia mac there are some sites with how tos and result some of the pages are older.  there is a patch that apparently had to be applied, but i havent dug into it in a while.  

    Well, it might help if we sought out Apple and requested the Nvidia cards as an option in the new Mac Pro, or other new Macs. I did. I'm told others did as well. Maybe if enough of us do that it will produce results.

    The Apple nVidia grudge is as an old Dwarven grudge, written down in the book of grudges to never be forgotten or forgiven. Sad as it is, Apple has always been closer to ATI (now AMD). Apples first 3D stuff, Quickdraw 3D and Rave, was built directly ontop of the Rage chipset from ATI and Apple had ATI chips on the motherboard on the 7xxx series PowerPC machines.
     

  • rsharp_3144816rsharp_3144816 Posts: 99
    edited June 2019

    AFAIK, there were very little or perhaps no pro-level Macs to use nVidia cards.  I know the dual proc G4, G5, any Xeon-based Mac Pro (to include the new one) and the iMac Pro all use AMD (was ATI).

    Personally, I've just been moving to software that embraces hardware better.  For example, Cinema4D.  While expensive, its users have hardware-based solutions on all platforms.  Plus, their aquisition of RedShift along with migrating that to support Metal is a huge win.  And, with OTOY's similar move with Octane, this will benefit users with either AMD or nVidia.

    These days, my DAZ usage is dwindling towards zero; forcing me to use CPU rendering just because of my platform choice is uncool.

    Post edited by rsharp_3144816 on
  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,947
    rsharp said:

    AFAIK, there were very little or perhaps no pro-level Macs to use nVidia cards.  I know the dual proc G4, G5, any Xeon-based Mac Pro (to include the new one) and the iMac Pro all use AMD (was ATI).

    Personally, I've just been moving to software that embraces hardware better.  For example, Cinema4D.  While expensive, its users have hardware-based solutions on all platforms.  Plus, their aquisition of RedShift along with migrating that to support Metal is a huge win.  And, with OTOY's similar move with Octane, this will benefit users with either AMD or nVidia.

    These days, my DAZ usage is dwindling towards zero; forcing me to use CPU rendering just because of my platform choice is uncool.

    The Mac Pro 2008 came with nVidia GTX-680 or the nVidia 8800GT and there were an option for the nVidia Quadro 5600 FX, and the lowend card was a GT-120 for the 2009 Mac Pro.

     

  • rwhyattrwhyatt Posts: 17

    Not sure if this is the place for it, but I want to run some potential Mac plans by some people.

    I am currently running on a 2010 Mac Pro, single Quad Core with original Radeon 5770 graphics card, although I have upgraded the RAM and added hard drives.  All in all although I am fine with normal renders, particularly using Reality/Luxrender, I have been rather limited in what I can do with Daz's advanced features.  I have never been able to get d-force to work without crashing, and I obviously can not use iRay to it's full potential.  I also can not update to the current OS, 10.14, since the graphics card does not support Metal.  Speaking of the card, I have also been seeing indications that the it is starting to fail, with little coloured squares showing up on both of my monitors in non-busy (all dark and/or all white) areas.  So I have been holding off on doing much graphics intensive, including games and rendering, to hold off any full failure.

    I want to stay with the Mac OS.  So I have been hoping that Apple would release a new Pro before the graphics shuts down totally, and have been saving up money earmarked for it.  As we all know, they did announce a new Pro, but even with my savings, I would probably only be able to get the low-end setup, particularly since I am in Canada.  They have not announced that it will even be available up here, never mind the price, but just converting from $US to $CDN at least gives me a rough price.  And the $ to feature ratio of the low end offering leaves me underwhelmed.  For various reasons I do not want to get an iMac or iMac Pro.

    So I have been considering some options.  Near as I can tell, I have basically three choices:

    1. Upgrade my current Mac so that I can at least update to 10.14.  

    2. Try to build a Hackentosh.

    3. Hold my nose and buy a new Pro, and hope that I can upgrade in the future

    There are downsides to each.  

    In reverse order, Number 3 is obvious, both for what I get now for the cost and looking to the future, particularly for rendering.  

    Number 2 has the fact that at this time I am not comfortable with the tweaking that would need to be done to get it working, and keep it working through OS updates.  That may change in the future, but not at this time.  

    And while Number 1 is viable, indications are that even with a metal-compatible graphics card, I will not be able to run 10.15 on a 2010 Pro, at least officially.  A minor hack may let me run it, but no guarantee. Security updates will continue for 10.14 for a few years, but it is officially end of the line for support for the 5,1 towers.

    So what I have come up with is a combination of sorts of 1 and 3.

    I will get a well-outfitted used 2013 Trashcan Pro to use as my main computer.  This will also allow me to upgrade the OS at least for a few more years (I hope) and see what else comes along.  When I do update from it, I will be able to still use it as part of a render cluster.

    I will also upgrade my current Pro as much as I can.  Dual 12-core, 128 GB of RAM, some USB 3 cards (both normal and USB-C for future use) and of course, the graphics card.  I am leaning towards possibly dual Nvidia k5000's so that I can use iRay.  The computer would then be updated to 10.14 and be used as a file server because of the HD's that I already have installed as well as a render platform (Not sure if I can iRay render remotely though, although I can always go directly onto the computer if I want).  It can also be a backup computer if something goes wrong with the main.  At this time I only have an older Mini for that purpose (which I also use when I luxrender)

    I have been pricing this out, I even with currency conversion, shipping, and duties I should be able to do all of this and have a few hundred of my savings left over.  Everything except for the graphics cards I can get at Other World Computing, although I may go ebay for some of it anyways, since that is where I would need to go for the graphics.

    So, does this sound like a viable plan?

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,947

    My instant reply is 
    4) - run 10.13.6, try to find an nVidia GT-120 to drive the screen ( or another EFI compatible nVidia card) and put in an GTX-1070 or 1080 for iray render, and toss out the CD/DVD (I have two in some machines) and toss in SSD disk on those interfaces, and toss in 48GB RAM at least.

    I know, but I really dislike 10.14 and what I've seen of 10.15 turns me off even more.

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