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Thanks for the response. I appreciate the way you keep up with all your product threads and offer so much help to your customers.
You're welcome. I wish the answer was better for the last question. I have sent an email to Daz to try and get more information on any possible workaround.
I try.
It is getting harder and harder though with over 100 products now. 
^I have a script in DS (I'm sorry that I can't remember where I got it - might even be included) that clears the memory (without needing to restart DS) so I believe it is possible to script for this (wish I could tell you more but scripting flies over my head). It's installed under 'Scripts>Utilities>Purge memory' . But then I just read that it might not include VRAM so maybe that's not possible (or another script needed entirely). So I guess this post wasn't as useful as intended in the end, sorry :p
Render Doctor sounds useful regardless though :)
Thanks for the reply. I'm still curious, though, about some aspects, because I've been hoping for a long time that someone, either in the DS programming team or a PA, would create something like this for animations, allowing multiple camera angles to be rendered in one "take." So my question is this:
Given that any animation is merely one "current frame" after another, is there some technical reason hardwired into DS why a script can't do what Render Doctor does for a given current frame, then automatically advance to the next frame—making that the "current frame"—and lather, rinse, repeat?
LOL. Thanks for trying
No, there is no technical reason. The reason is scope of the product. I put a lot of work into it just to do what it does. If I had added animations, I would have done a lot more than that (for example, I want to be able to animate materials) and it would have ballooned the scope, the effort, and the cost way beyond what I wanted to do right now. If this does well, I had planned to do an Animation Render Doctor at some point (if you have feature requests, put them here
)
Fantastic! If I can think of other feature requests, I will add them, but a function that would allow rendering of all animation cameras in one pass would be the biggest boon I can think of since DS appeared.
P.S. I understand, of course, that you had your own defined scope for this product and it is what it is; but given that Render Doctor is sort of a "proof of concept" of what I believed must be possible, rendering more than one camera view, I was asking about the other animation aspect purely out of curiosity about possible insurmountable technical issues. I'm very glad to hear that it's possible, and I know you will do an outstanding job if you do decide to take it on. I will be a first-day buyer if you do!
It's been so long, I practically forgot about this "coming soon" product. Is it still coming? Any release date? Don't let us spend all our money before it even gets to the store!
It is definitely sooner.
Sorry I cannot tell you more than that.
The word from The Future is that "soon" you will forget your pre-launch impatience and be rejoicing with your new capabilities and super powers, Ma'am. (Oh, wait, forget the super powers part. You're not supposed to know about those just yet.)
No, this product does not have anything to do with that. (Technically, you could set up a server and do it, but Render Doctor is not doing anything special to help you).
Render Doctor is released!
Hi RiverSoftArt. DAZ did not add the caveat "Note that Render Doctor is not for animations" to the product page.
I sent an email just now.
I hope they edit it. It is not fair to you or the customer since it was the first thing I thought when I saw. Oh look it can do animations. Luckily, I read your posting before hand. I will be buying it down the road because rendering 5 exposure levels and then megring them in GIMP would interest me and it seems this make the 5 renders a near point-n-click operation.
I just checked and I own 39 of the 112 products you have available on DAZ. So far, every product has delivered as promised. Thank you and keep up the good work. :-)
Thanks for the support!
As did I. There is virtually no other way to interpret the phrase in the opening sentence of the description, "automates the rendering of long sequences of images." Even Websters defines animation as "a motion picture that is made from a series of drawings, computer graphics, or photographs ... and that simulates movement by slight progressive changes in each frame."
Even the addition of a "disclaimer" that it is not for animation (should that ever appear on the product page) doesn't make the opening sentence any less misleading, but apparently they are married to it.
I find this insulting. I understand what animation means, and animation is never claimed in the description (nothing about timelines, animations, or even movement (except when framing a node)). I understand that people could interpret "long sequence of images" that way, so that is why I wanted the disclaimer (and am mad at myself that I forgot it), to make sure people picked up on the fact that animation was not mentioned. I go overboard to convince people NOT to buy my products mistakenly (the list of disclaimers on the Character Converters is long) as the support hassle is not worth it. I already spend a third of my time (at least and growing) supporting my products instead of creating products. I do not want to make it more.
I needed to be able to talk about the long sequences/series/lists/bunches/groups of images related to presets, cameras, scenes, nodes, exposures, and aperature that it renders without saying such a mouthful every time. I chose image sequence and sometimes image series.
I also saw the "long sequence of images" statement and thought 'animation'. But a quick read of the specifications made clear the purpose of the script. The language RiverSoft used was accurate, but was unintentionally ambiguous, and which has been acknowledged. The Webster's definition quoted above with respect to animation and "long sequence of images" as the sole meaning of the term is not accurate. It is one meaning, clearly not the only one. But I agree it is one that in this forum many of our minds jumped to. I absolutely would not believe that RiverSoft was intentionally marketing this script as something other than what it is. I would though look for a more obvious disclaimer given the apparent common misinterpretation of some of the central language in the ad copy.
I also almost bought it, but found this thread first. Definitely would have bought it if rendering animations with different cameras would be possible.
Quite frankly this product seems to be a severe case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. Excluding animations because of the increased scope of the product since then it has to support every one of the current features WITH animations - well idk I find a lot of those features rather gimmicky in the first place. Then again that might just be a thing of personal perspective. Maybe most people are more interested in composite images and consider 2d animations the niche feature...
I never said, suggested, or even remotely hinted that he or anyone at Daz was "intentionally marketing the script as something other than what it is." It never matters one whit whether a statement that is ambiguous enough to be misleading is "intentionally" misleading or "unintentionally." I have far too many decades of writing and editing for some of the biggest industry names in publishing and entertainment to be lured into the "intentionally" trap. Ambiguity is ambiguity, period.
And the English language is far, far, far too robust and flexible for anyone ever claiming that "Oh, it just can't be said any other way." It always can be said in ways that are clear, straightforward, and unambiguous. That starts, though, with a willingness to correct ambiguity.
This has absolutely zero to do with the quality of the product or its creator. Yes, I know very well that Riversoft has some fine, unique, utterly professional software products. He also has an ambiguous statement as the opening sentence (aka "the lede") of the description for this product that is ambiguous enough to have initially tripped up more than just me. It could easily be written at least 10 different ways, any one of which would be less ambiguous and more precise. But as I said above, the fix for ambiguity always must begin with the willingness to recognize the ambiguity and to fix it.
In that same vein, there is another product called "Content Wizard" that doesn't manage content, but instead manages zip files that contain content, and that is so patently inarguable that if you DO have lots of CONTENT, but you DON'T have the zip files the content originally came in, "Content Wizard" will not do a single thing for you.
And if you or anybody thinks that CONTENT is a ZIP FILE, I invite—no, I URGE you—to attempt to load a zip file into a DS scene, and get back to me with the results. I'll wait. I'll just buff my nails or something.
As I said above, which is inarguably true: The fix for ambiguity is always—always—easy to do. It is impossible to do, though, where there is rigid unwillingness to fix it, or even to admit the existence of the ambiguity.
Riversoft has said he likely will do a follow-up product that will do animations, and I have said, and mean, I will be an instant buyer. I wonder, though, what he will do for an opening description sentence ...
Well, you appeared to do that when you said there was no other way to interpret "a long sequence of images" other than animation, implying either incompetence or intention to deceive in using that language in the ad copy. I saw it that way, and apparently RiverSoft took it as an insult. If that was not your intention, maybe your language was...ummm...ambiguous?
In this case, yes, it's very easy because the customers have said loud and clear what they/we view as ambiguous. Ambiguity is in the eye of the beholder, and there are many eyes beholding out there, with just as many opportunities for statements that are perfectly clear to the author to be interpreted in weird and wonderful ways by the each reader based on their experience and use of language. Please continue to call out apparent misrepresentations in ad copy for the products here. I'm right with ya on that.
I am loving this product. I frequently do large numbers of alternative renders in an OCD kind of way, and this lets me get other stuff done while I'm doing a series of images. But what do I do when I've started a several-hour process and discover I set something wrong? The Cancel button on the "Rendering in NVIDIA Iray" tab can't be pressed since Render Doctor is in charge, but the Cancel button on the Render Doctor window can't be pressed either for some reason. I can put Render Doctor into the background by clicking the Close button in the title bar of the Render Doctor window, which makes the window go away but leaves it continuing to run, and now nothing prevents me from clicking on Cancel in the render tab. That is inelegant. I am running version 4.12.2.6 Public Build under MacOS 10.15.5.
As for the word choice argument I vote for replacing all instances of "sequence" with "series", as sequences are ordered while a series may be either ordered or unordered. (Please excuse my mathiness, I know that it can be triggering for some.)
Just trying to head off more trouble:
"Image series" would be the worst choice of wording, in my opinion, since that is the exact wording Daz Studio uses for rendering frames of timeline animation. "Series of images" is too close to "Image series".
Usually I can click to cancel the render and click to cancel Render Doctor. Rendering yields the processor to Daz Studio. I believe this is intended to let you click Cancel on the rendering dialog. However, it also looks like it allows you to close Render Doctor. I will try and detect that a render is happening and at least post a warning.
Well, I unequivocally apologize for anything I said that you found insulting. I had no intention whatsoever of insulting you. On the contrary, the only reason I brought the ambiguity up at all was a good-faith effort to help you enhance the presentation of the product you have put so much work into, not denigrate it. I would be very grateful, though, if you would say specifically what you found insulting. The word "this" is, itself, ambiguous.
Okay. That's understandable. In copywriting I sometimes worked with a client through 10, 15, or more iterations of the all-important lede to get it right. My experience with software marketing goes all the way back to the Cinemaware games (which may be before you were born), so I'm not ignorant of or insensitive to the difficulties sometimes in arriving at mot juste, as the French say: the most concise and accurate statement of product purpose and results. In my experience, that is well worth the time and effort, though.
On a cursory look, I think you have optional language solutions in hand in your own video presentation about the product. I didn't take detailed notes, but what I got from your demonstration is that the software allows the automated creation of multiple still-image renders from any given scene, offering complete customization of views, cameras, material presets, and exposures for each individual render. As a bonus feature, it even offers the ability to automatically load and render different scenes, each scene having all the same customization options for multiple renders.
That's what I took from your own presentation, and that, to me, doesn't suggest animation capabilities the way the language "automates the rendering of long sequences of images" does. But YMMV.
Thank you. I appreciate it. The phrasing "virtually no other way to interpret the phrase...Even Websters..." triggered me this morning.
I thought it was cool you worked on Cinemaware games when you mentioned it in another thread. I have fond memories of Wings.
Your description is not quite accurate (though close) as each of the different major render options are separate. The exposure/aperture/image resolutions are available for all though.
Disclaimer is now on the producdt page.
This looks like quite a useful product! For my NPR work I do a series of render passes, and before each render a different shader has to be added to every object in the scene - three different shaders and three different render passes. Does anyone who has this product know if Render Doctor can do that? From the description, it sounds like it probably can, but I wanted to make sure before purchasing it. If anyone who has it could verify that it can do that, I'd really appreciate it! :D