Just saw this pop up in free stuff and decided to check it out. I thought I'd post some initial thoughts here.

https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/96489/lynx-render-studio-free-01

(I am not the developer or associated with this product in any way.)

So what is this thing? Basically, they built a tool using Unity that lets you load Daz Studio models via the Daz-to-Unity bridge.

It's still quite basic as it's so new. You can load models and poses, and switch the models from one pose to another. Loading models works in the free version. To apply multiple poses you have to have the paid version. The paid version is a subscription but it's not very expensive. It also gives you much higher render resolutions, the free version is capped at FHD 1920x1080.

The model appears in a circular studio environment. There's a basic wooden floor you can show or hide. You can add your own 2D background. Lighting is fixed 2-point key light / back light setup.

You use the keyboard controls to move around. Arrows move the model L/R-U/D, ASDW-QE moves the camera. You can zoom in or out, rotate horizontally. No vertical rotation yet.

Rendering is crazy-fast. Speed-wise, it's on par with Filament in DAZ Studio. Quality-wise it's between Filament and Iray. Much better than Filament, but not quite as detailed as Iray.

They have some good YouTube videos on basic usage. That's where I'm getting a lot of this info from.

My own initial experiments were only able to get so far. To be fair, I'm using a slightly older version of DS (4.16 vs. the 4.21 they use in the videos.) As a result, I had a slightly different export dialog than what they showed, I'm pretty sure I got all the export settings right, but maybe I didn't.  My machine is also older / slower with low GPU memory. Any one of these things might have contributed to how it went.

How it went was I was able to get models to load, but not textures for some reason. I exported an existing character who was wearing multiple conforming wardrobe elements. The model looked great - very detailed and just as it had in DS, clothes and all - but it just stayed in the "yellow plastic" version. The video told you not to embed textures on Unity export, but I tried it both with and without embedded textures and it didn't matter. Oddly, the textures that appear in the export folder were mostly normal maps for me, and I think some LIE maps, but not the main textures. I guess those are embedded in the FBX file?

Models retain their original pose, so even if you don't go for the pro version you can get the pose you want in DS and then render it in Lynx. You just cant switch to a different one. Offsets are retained too so make sure your model is close to 0,0,0 before you export, as trying to get the camera in the right spot for an offset model is a little tricky.

My model was wearing earrings but these got moved off her head by the export process. This must be a Daz thing not a Lynx thing because I saw it happen in the DS viewport while the export was processing. (These were parented prop earrings, not conformers. All the conforming clothes / jewelry stayed where they were supposed to be.)

I wasn't able to render. At all. 😥 There are two modes you can use to capture images, but neither worked for me. They just hung the app. There's a viewfinder frame that flashes red briefly when you capture a render, but on my machine it just stayed red and then the program was borked. Renders are supposed to end up in a specific folder, but that folder never appeared. Not sure if any of this was because the model had no textures loaded, if the exported file was corrupt somehow, or if it was due to some other bug. (EDIT: Also might have been a monitor issue. I was running a multi-monitor setup and using the app on my external monitor which is powered by DisplayLink.)

I'd love to see what results others are getting! This provides another great rendering option for DS and I'm looking forward to seeing it mature. Maybe once I finally upgrade DS it'll work for me. 🤞

Hi, cloudwatcher. Thank you very much for testing Lynx Render Studio and for writing this review. I don't want to interfere in this thread, but as you say that the program has given you problems, I wanted to clarify some aspects of its operation and give a couple of tips so that you or other users can solve them.

When exporting with the Daz to Unity plugin it is not necessary to include the textures because the plugin generates a file with the location of these files in the user's computer. As you say, the export folder only has some normal maps and details because Daz generates them before the export, but it is typical there are hardly any images in this directory.

If no textures are being loaded, it means that the program is not finding the files on the archive system or that it doesn't have access to them because they are in a protected folder. I would recommend two tests: firstly, run Lynx Render Studio with administrator privileges to see if it is able to access the textures.

And secondly, open the [your_model_name].dtu file that is generated when exporting from Daz to Unity with a text editor, you will find it inside the exported folder. In that file, scroll down until you find a "Texture" section that contains a path to a file on your computer; you should check that the path is correct by looking for that texture in the file system. It is possible that the file has been moved or that the path contains a path to a file on your computer.

Thank you for your patience, hope we can help you solve the problem if you are still interested in trying and using Lynx Render Studio.

On the other hand, about the problems you mention when taking the renders, I wanted to clarify that the Renders folder should be created automatically before every capture if it's not there, so you should not worry about this aspect.

We could also be facing a problem with privileges, the program could crash if it does not have permissions to create or use directories in the location where it has been placed. Therefore, the advice to run with administrator privileges could apply to this case.

Of course, both the multi-monitor configuration you mention and the system drivers could be the cause of the problem, which in this case would be complicated to solve. At this point, we could only recommend trying to unzip the original file in another location, and if possible, on another computer.