Learning Carrara and Need some Help?

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  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    Hi smiley  is it possible to de-mystify  'multiply'  in the shaders?

     

    thanks !!

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168

    I can give a couple of examples of how I use multiply and other operators.  On my iPad on public transport right now so can't post pics or screenshots. Sometimes, a shader will be affected by values between 0 and 1.  For example, an alpha between 0 and 1 goes from completely invisible, to partly invisible, to completely visible.  Another example would be a mixer of two colors (say blue and yellow).  The control of the mixer can be set from 0 to 1 to go from blue to green to yellow.  Similarly, I could have a complex shader that mixes two terrain shaders, with 0 being just the first terrain shader, then a mixture, then 1 being entirely the other terrain shader.

     

    Example of integrating the multiply. 

    . Let's say that I want a ghostlike effect in which the object is never more than (half there), but I want the parts of it to be (even less there) randomly.  More than 1 way to do it, but one way would be to start with the subtract operator and then use multiply.  the alpha channel will read 1 as white or 100%. And 0 is black.  So start with the subtract modifier.  In the first channel, choose value and set to 50%. In the second channel choose multiply.  Now multiply has given us two new slots.  In the first slot place a noise function for randomness. The noise function is going to return values between 0 and 1.  We only want values between 0 and 0.5 so they will be subtracted from the initial operator and not result above 0.5 or below 0. So, now place a value of 50% in the second multiply slot.  The net range of the alpha channel will now be 50% minus a random number between 50% and 0.   So, the alpha will never be more than (half there).

     

    i use the operators often for procedural shaders and mixers.  I just got the plugin Baker so that I will be able to generate texture maps from my procedural shaders.

     

    In what context are you considering using multiply?

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675
    edited August 2016
    diomede said:

    I can give a couple of examples of how I use multiply and other operators.  On my iPad on public transport right now so can't post pics or screenshots. Sometimes, a shader will be affected by values between 0 and 1.  For example, an alpha between 0 and 1 goes from completely invisible, to partly invisible, to completely visible.  Another example would be a mixer of two colors (say blue and yellow).  The control of the mixer can be set from 0 to 1 to go from blue to green to yellow.  Similarly, I could have a complex shader that mixes two terrain shaders, with 0 being just the first terrain shader, then a mixture, then 1 being entirely the other terrain shader.

     

    Example of integrating the multiply. 

    . Let's say that I want a ghostlike effect in which the object is never more than (half there), but I want the parts of it to be (even less there) randomly.  More than 1 way to do it, but one way would be to start with the subtract operator and then use multiply.  the alpha channel will read 1 as white or 100%. And 0 is black.  So start with the subtract modifier.  In the first channel, choose value and set to 50%. In the second channel choose multiply.  Now multiply has given us two new slots.  In the first slot place a noise function for randomness. The noise function is going to return values between 0 and 1.  We only want values between 0 and 0.5 so they will be subtracted from the initial operator and not result above 0.5 or below 0. So, now place a value of 50% in the second multiply slot.  The net range of the alpha channel will now be 50% minus a random number between 50% and 0.   So, the alpha will never be more than (half there).

     

    i use the operators often for procedural shaders and mixers.  I just got the plugin Baker so that I will be able to generate texture maps from my procedural shaders.

     

    In what context are you considering using multiply?

     

    displacement, hopefully smiley

    to use the displacement maps from the duf figures

    when i apply a duf shader, uses multiply with diffuse, dont understand why

    Post edited by Mistara on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168

    There was an old thread in which I experimented with trying to use the displacement maps that came with several G2F and G2M character products.  If I recall, you are correct that I had to use a fractional multiplier to greatly reduce the effect.  However, if I remember, Carrara's displacement shader needed more geometry.  I think I had more success experimenting with normal maps.  Will see if I can track down the thread.  I think it was the "best practices" for genesis thread, but not sure.

  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311

    The Diffuse shader (with Multiply) is NOT needed in carrara,.

    it's an incorrect translation from the Poser / Daz shaders,. which all use a Multiply function to multiply the diffuse texture map, over a colour value.

    in Carrara,.  you only need the Photo/texture map (diffuse) ,. and nothing else.

    If you load a base Victoria 4 figure,. and simply render what carrara loads in,. you'll see a Green tone to the skin,. which is obviously wrong,. but you don't see that same green tone in a Poser or DS render,. because they work differently. the render engines work differently,. the shaders work differently. and the shaders were built to work correctly within those programs.

    Any Poser / Daz "content" you load into carrara,. is "translated" into carrara's shaders,. ..and that translation isn't perfect.

    If you think about it,. a "photo based" texture map,. should not need any adjustments,. it's already an adjusted composited image

    a Multiply function, multiplies the Colour value, with the colours of the photo/texture. to change the image.

     

    Carrara ships with shaders pre-built for V4 / M4 ,. They're also a good example of "how to" build your own shaders.

    with ALL "imported" (non carrara native) content, you should check the shaders and adjust them to work better in Carrara, or whatever other software / render engine you're using,

    relying on carrara's Automatic shader conversions works to an extent,. Generally speaking you can load in a figure,. render,. and it looks OK.

    but when you adjust the shaders to work correctly in Carrara,.  then it looks much better.

     

    In many shaders,. you can see that not all of the maps are being imported,. and some channels have Multiply, or other incorrect values for Carrara.

    the Bump map ,. Specular (highlight) maps may not be loaded,. and you'll need to load those manually, to build a better carrara shader.

    For example: look at the relection channel (for the eyes) in any Poser/Daz figure,.  it's normally using an image map,. to create a "fake" reflection.

    the reason for this is,. the standard render engine in Poser / Daz cannot calculate the real reflections in the scene.

    Carrara can use real scene reflections and real transparency / refraction,. rather than relying on texture maps to provide a fake reflection ,. or an Alpha map for transparent areas.

    On displacment,. Carrara doesn't work the same way that DS does,. so the displacement works differently,. you won;t get the same results in carrara,. you'd probably be better using a normal map in the bump channel.

    hope it helps

     

     

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168

    I was wrong about the location of my displacement-map-in-skin-shader tests.  Haven't found the thread yet.  However, this other thread might have some useful info anyway.

     

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/798751/#Comment_798751

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    As 3Dage says, some textures import with multipliers where none is needed. Multiplying a texture with white has no effect, so you can just use the texture.  Sometimes a pale cyan colour is used as a multiplier, this is to counteract a redness that comes from using SSS in Poser and again, as the SSS is not translated into Carrara, you can do away with the multiplier and get a more natural result.

    A couple of ways you COULD use a multiplier are to add tone to a skin to make it darker or to give it a specific hue, probably best not to overdo the shade, it should be a pale and light colour.  Or if you want to add a glow, just putting the texture in the glow channel may not be bright enough, so multply it with the 0-10000% shader and set the value to greater than 100% (say 1000% for a 10x multiplier).

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551
    edited August 2016

    It might not be needed, but CAN be used to create many more different types of result. 

    Add - will increase the brightness of one source by another source, where black adds nothing, and white creates white as a final output - and everything in between.

    Subtract - similar to add, but inverted.

    Multiply - multiplies this input by the other source to give a new result.

    So if you're using Gamma Correction, for example, and one (or more) textures or channels give really washed out results, try multiplying the channel by itself. Additionally, we can multiply the color map by a color gradient which is controlled by a specular, bump, or color map to create a whole new look - which I find to be quite useful when making monsters or other creatures without having to make new maps.

    Really neat about Carrara, the resolutions so NOT have to match, as long as the maps work with the UVs - so we can use low resolution maps multiplied by high ones. (In the image below, the skin blemishes are added using a color gradient controlled by a 512 x 512 specular map against a 2000 x 2000 color texture map)

    Try making a color gradient where one side is red, the other side is green, and under "Shader" place a map which works with that figure - like a color, specular or bump map. Then multiply that by the original color map. Recently there were many generation 4 products on sale for really low prices. Some of these were texture expansions which contained many maps for different results. Those sorts of thing can really bolster the ability to combine effects like this to create all manner of characters!

    Using the above example, we can also use Multiply to deepen the effect of the Highlight channel. Sure, we could also just lower the brightness of the image map. But sometimes it can be fun to multiply two colors together to achieve entirely different results! For example, when I was just working on my new Eye shaders, I'm using multipliers in the highlight channel with a fairly broad Shininess value to cause a colorful inverse gleam on the Iris.

    So, looking at this image, notice how the highlight of the irises are opposite the highlights on the skin. This is caused by using a concave iris shape. I think all Daz figures' irises are convex (bulging outwards), following the arc shape of the rest of the eye, which causes the highlights of the eyes to appear on the same side as the highlights of the skin. Jeremy Birn teaches that eyes naturally cause an inverse gleam - which we may simulate easily by shaping the iris concave (bulging inwards). So when I saw Arki's EYEdeas 3+ in the store, I was just about to try reshaping the iris mesh a second time - which was fairly easy the first time, but by buying these, I don't have to - plus I get the other added benefits of being able to light-link the separate eyes figure, since Carrara won't let us link lights to just a specific bone within a rig. 

    Anyways, I'm using Gamma Correction = 2.2, which has really been my favored method of rendering these days. I was getting great results without multiplication before, but by multiplying the highlight map (I used a color map, as I wanted a colored effect in the gleam) by a completely different map of a completely different artist to get the result shown. The somewhat broad shininess value of somewhere around six or so let the highlight pass across a large portion of the concave iris, yet is tight enough to stop it from spilling onto the side I want to remain shadowed - which is actually where the highlight is on the skin.

    Magaremoto, whom is a friend which I respect highly (and am constantly learning a LOT from), noted that Rosie's skin looked too smooth - or something similar. At first I thought he was talking about bump. But then I noticed that he was using a skin product which doesn't even use bump! So I concluded that he must have been talking about imperfections in the color - something which ALL skin has... it's made up of multitudes of tiny little dots of multitudes of colors to create the color that we see.

    After trying many, many different texture kits, I came back to the same one that I have been using. I just like it best. But to add the skin imperfections, I used the specular map of the standard resolution Victoria 4 map, provided by Daz 3d as the controller shader of a color gradient, which was set from very light brown on the right to white on the left, which adds very little (multiplying by white is the same as not multiplying at all) except for the subtle freckles and minor imperfections seen here.

    Additionally, I felt that the inside of her mouth and her teeth were turning out a bit too bright. I went to the Color channel which has a Texture Map, and set it to Multiply, and then Ctrl/Dragged the color map into the new source 2, multiplying the color map by itself. This didn't actually change the color, but deepened it in my Gamma Corrected render. After seeing that work so wonderfully, I did the same (almost) to the hair - except instead of using the same color map, I chose a different map for the same product, and reduced its brightness, creating a bit more natural look to the hair. If I take that multiplied hair color channel into the reflections channel (not shown here), it turns out looking very real indeed... but takes too long to render, for my liking. But it provides a very realistic looking hair!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551
    MistyMist said:

    Hi smiley  is it possible to de-mystify  'multiply'  in the shaders?

    So actually, Multiplying times white equals no change to the original source and multiplying times black darkens the result to pure black. The multiplier is using values between 0 (zero), which is equal to black and 255 which equals white in the RGB scale. 

    So Multiply can be used to great effect to darken the current result, where Add would be used to great effect to brighten the current result.

    Multiplying by a color is basically like blending that color into what was already there before adding the multiplier. So if we need the texture to be a bit more red, we could multiply it by shades of pink, for example.

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    thanks!! smiley

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    Don't forget to visit:


    A community Project webspace for Carrara Animators!!!

    ► Carrara Plugins FAQ & Information - By Jay_NOLA
    Jay compilled and organized a great measure of info regarding Plugins specific to our
    beloved Carrara. FAQ, Information and Links to help you determine which are right for you. Thank You Jay_NOLA!

    ► Comprehensive List of Video Tutorials on Carrara - by FractalDemensia
    The purpose of this thread is to collect, consolidate, and make available a comprehensive list of all video tutorials available on Carrara.

    Fun Swordworks Promo

    Just for Fun! - A movie made using test renders

    More fun stuff can be seen at my YouTube Channel, like

    Getting Started in EnvironKits - Woodlands

    Build a scene using Daz3d content in EnvironKits - Woodlands (we'll use the Daz3d Palenque Ruins to make a cool hidden temple scene!)

    Fun promo of EnvironKits - Badlands demonstrating the Lava Lake preset rendered as an animation as-is with it's default settings

    Fun Promo for dB Animation Kit 1 for the Millennium Dragon 2

    Introducing Genesis in Carrara (from back when Genesis 1 was new, and Carrara 8.5 was just released)

    Painting with Shadows - a fun experiment in learning Carrara's wonderful Global Illumination system

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    ► Your Carrara Browser
    Making great stuff isn't as cool if you can't remember where you put it. Let's get some good habits going right from the start

    ► Daz Install Manager - Installing Custom Poser Runtimes
    Basic walkthrough of designing your own custom runtime structure

    ► Navigating in Carrara
    some good tips on how to get around the work space, go to where you want to be at specific times, and how to send stuff to specific locations within your scene

    ► AniMating in Carrara

    ► Some Miscellaneous Tips & Tricks

    ► Working with Content
    With Carrara 8.5 beta, this software is getting much closer to true compatibility
    with Daz Studio. This article attempts to illustrate what can and cannot be taken back and fourth.
    It also covers some of the basic techniques required to get the most out of any Poser/DS content
    within Carrara.

    ► Dynamic Hair
    Now including a link to Jonstark's video tutorial series!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551
    edited August 2016

    ►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄

                Visit the Table of Contents              

    ► Forum Help Links

    ► Genesis - Carrara 8.5 - DIM Support Thread Links
    Got questions about Genesis use in Carrara, DIM use for installing?
    This page lists links to threads that have answered many questions to common problems

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    Ever want to animate clouds? Learn to use Particle Emitter in Carrara? Here's a great (and really fun!!!) place to start, authored by our very own McGuiver!

    ► Particle Clouds & more

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    Astronomers always say that we all want to know where we really come from ;)

    Ever wonder about Carrara's History?

    ► History of Carrara by Ringo Monfort

    ► Classic Carrara - Render Images by Ringo Monfort

    ► Firelight3D's History of Carrara


    Carrara version 1 Carrara version 2 Carrara version 3

    Carrara version 4 Carrara 5 Pro Carrara 6 Pro

    Carrara 7 Express Carrara 7 Pro Carrara 8 Pro

    Ray Dream 3D Infini-D Amapi 3D v5 Amapi 7.5 Pro

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    Back to Learning Carrara!

    As promised above, let's continue to examine ways to learn how to use Carrara through products made for Carrara that appeal to us.

    When I look for Products to Learn From, I'm not looking for exact things of what I'm looking for - or looking to create, but for products that have contents that will teach me further aspects of Carrara that I want to learn.

    For me, this began in many ways. I bought mmoir's Mystic Gorge because it looked like a fantastic scene that I could use in my animations. Later I've discovered that I was learning a lot about using Carrara in the process. Not only through his wonderful tutorial file, but also just by examining how the scene was constructed. Then later on, when I wanted to figure out how to make Carrara trees that render fast, I immediately went to that scene, because I already know that those trees render So fast!

    Speaking of learning from Gorgeous scenes, we shouldn't even really bring up that topic without mentioning one very important name in Carrara:

    Howie Farkes

    This image drove me Nuts when I first saw it. I had to buy it, thinking that I'd do all I could to find out how to use this product to create a render just like this in my own Carrara.

    Guess what? I didn't have to 'figure anything out' in order to make this image! Just set the camera to that preset spot and hit the render button! Ouch!

    So I'm into animations so I can't go making this kind of realism all the time. At least not without making some adjustments - and that makes for an excellent way to learn! Instead of trying to "Fill" the scene, we're trying to reduce some of the render time in whatever ways we can - when we need to. Other times, we just plan for long renders and go for it!

    Either way, a walk through any of Howie's scenes is truly a Carrara Learning Experience!

    Supreme detail in the shaders of everything from the leaves on the trees to the dirt on the ground. Preset tree templates for Carrara's plant editor, multiple model objects for drag-n-drop ease in any scene, shader presets, various preset camera angles (found using the camera's "Set Position To" feature) along with the amazing scenes themselves... these things are truly a wonderful value!

    Our friend, Steve K (Gary Kennedy on YouTube) does some awesome examples of how we can use a single render within animations, simply moving the camera around in post! He might use something like After Effects, I'm more familiar with Project Dogwaffle Howler, which allows us to keyframe in zooms, rotations and trasformations (along with anything else we might want to keyframe in, like effects and color grades, etc.,) and he does this to great effect! He really has to vbecause he's always performing 48 hour (I think?) film challenges. He's really good at it, too!

    Just an excellent example of how to use scenes with this magnitude of realism in more ways than one might expect!

    But here's another thing:

    With this whole Stoney Creek Bundle, I've gone through and saved many of the individual aspect to my browser - handy for adding to other scenes, or building new ones from scratch! Check this out!

    If you're not familiar with creating your own custom browser structures in Carrara, this article will help:

    Your Carrara Browser
    Making great stuff isn't as cool if you can't remember where you put it. Let's get some good habits going right from the start

    So I made a "Plants" folder and started adding some of these amazing plants into that folder - complete with shaders. To do so, I'd select the plant from the instances tray on the right - often from within a replicator. Then I'd hit Edit > Send To Origin to zero the position of the item. (I won't be saving the scene after this session, btw. I'm in Carrara specifically to create a catalog of useable content in any other scene - even one of these!)

    He's got special trees that are only used for canopy, seedlings for ground cover and density, ground cover plants like ferns and flowers, some of these are already included in his custom Objects folder he provides.

    I also saved the ground, the shaders, his water (even though I most often use my own that I've made - it's always nice to check out his for more inspiration - he's a real pro!!!) rocks, pebbles and anything else I could think of to grab, center, and save. I'm just dragging these things (after Send To Origin) into the browser with my Plants folder selected. They save in there Super-Fast. 

    Here was something that really changed my life. I made a new folder in my browser called: Lighting, and I saved his wonderful "Fake GI" dome. It's different that mine, and is very, very cool! I made mine (the system in EnvironKits) to more or less work in any scene no matter what you throw at it - no matter how huge we decide to make the scene. That has the benefit of working at any distance in any scale. 

    Howie's, on the other hand, is a very specific lighting system scaled to the size of scene he's made. The really cool thing is that he's made it to work on a Huge scale of scene (I'm not talking about Scene Magnitude, this is for Medium Magnitude scenes) so it will work in nearly any situation as well. But really, really nice!

    He's using Spot lights - giving a LOT more control over the overall effect of the lighting. For a more dense forest scene, we could reduce the range a bit, making the lighting less powerful the closer it gets to the ground. We can soften the spread of the cone - and we could even add a light cone effect, if we wanted to create a light-driven fog effect. I'm having a lot of fun experiment ing those - adding a Gel to the spotlight, and then using that gel in the light cone effect's setting to creat fog within the volumetric lighting... really sweet possibilities!

    Even better - and the most fun... In Howie Farkes scenes, we get to be a virtual photographer. Walk around, aim our camera, and shoot some images!

    It's a shame that "The Art Zone" web pages are no longer available. He had a full-support product article for each of his products in there, which explained his experiments regarding Translucency, Lighting, Render Settings... he had a LOT of details about why he set his defaults where they are, and how he suggests changing them for this reason or that. I miss those pages. If I find that I have them saved on an older hard drive, I'll ask him if I can post the info up in this forum - so valuable. 

    I bought one of his wonderful Arboretum products, which GREATLY expands upon how wonderful Carrara Plant Editor prests can be! Using the plants as they come is amazing enough, but we also get to use his presets when making our own custom plants, large or small, with his incredible plant shaders - another fantastic learning experience is to look hard at how his shaders are set up!

    Thanks Howie... we all love you from the Carrara Discussion Forum!

    To Be Continued....

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551
    edited October 2016

    Continuing on with some of the excellent inspiration and learning through the teachings of Mike Moir, I can never forget his lead within the Carrara Community Movie Project. I knew that I'd be wanting to revisit those posts, so I'm glad that I had the foresight to save this:

    ► The Carrara Community Movie Project
    This is a consolidation of CMP links

    Within that is an index to various threads. One in particular (for an example) is 

    Carrara Community Movie Project - Modeling start for assets
    Okay, guys and gals.
    Here is a watch model that we can start with , it doesn’t have to be this exact watch but something simple like this would be good. This is a learning process too so post your progress and ask questions if you need to. Happy modeling and we look forward to what you come up with. cheese
    Cheers. - mmoir

    (The italicized text under the link/heading is a copy of some of the text within the first - or one of the first few posts as a description or example of what that thread contains)

    ...and within that is this stuff from page 3

    Mike makes this gorgeous head, followed by the rest of him, for use to learn how to rig and animate. I still have a few copies of him saved - versions of my attempts at rigging - each pretty decent - but it also led me to the idea that I'm not a rigger. While I think I can get down and turn out a really good rig - my interests towards what I Want to do lies elsewhere! ;)

    But these CCMP pages are interesting. I feel that they hold the key to why I lost interest in the project, but also hold many keys to things that I love about the whole thing.

    Mike Moir always being part of what I really enjoy about it - same with many others, like 3DAGE, Wendy, Roygee, Antara, Headwax, diomede... there are a lot of really fun people here! With a lot of really fun ideas and lessons!

    Back to inspiration from Mike, that page I've linked to also includes some links to some cool videos on modeling heads, these two being my favorites:

     

    That particular CCMP thread is also the one which has 3DAGE's super-awesome Carrara Watch, and Roygee's Gold Coin!

    Much of what was left behind from the CCMP in this forum was later picked up again at CarraraTors


    A community Project webspace for Carrara Animators!!!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    But that entire thread has some wonderful posts - various works on watch models, inspiration towards creating specific subdivisions, storyboards (Antara even has some templates for download), Wendy and Roygee do some cool stuff with Mike's model guy, etc., it's fun!

    ► The Carrara Community Movie Project
    This is a consolidation of CMP links

    Has plenty more threads full of posts around this - the first attempt since I've joined the forum of attempting such a large endeavor. 

    Here are some more cool things I've been saving links to:

    ► Working with Content
    With Carrara 8.5 beta, this software is getting much closer to true compatibility
    with Daz Studio. This article attempts to illustrate what can and cannot be taken back and fourth.
    It also covers some of the basic techniques required to get the most out of any Poser/DS content
    within Carrara.

    ► Dynamic Hair
    Now including a link to Jonstark's video tutorial series!

    ► Carrara Plugins FAQ & Information - By Jay_NOLA
    Jay compilled and organized a great measure of info regarding Plugins specific to our
    beloved Carrara. FAQ, Information and Links to help you determine which are right for you. Thank You Jay_NOLA!

    ► Comprehensive List of Video Tutorials on Carrara - by FractalDemensia
    The purpose of this thread is to collect, consolidate, and make available a comprehensive list of all video tutorials available on Carrara.

    320+ TUTORIALS at CARRARA CAFE

    Pete Gregorio has a wonderful online video tutorial that demonstrates some
    wonderful features within Carrara's Vertex Modeler:
     Carrara 8 Gears Tutorial

    Holly Wetcircuit - (3D.Wetcircuit.com) - One of our very own Carrara forum members, Holly is not only a Carrara enthusiast, but she is dedicated to helping her fellow artist - and her focus is definitely on Carrara! Her tutorials are accurate and entertaining, and very professionally put together. Her site is the first place to go if you're looking for anything related to Carrara. She has a great set of links to all currently available plugins and tutorials beyond her own, as well as some great freebies as well. Thank you Holly... You Truly ROCK!

    Cripeman's Video Tutorials - This is my attempt to categorize the great video tutorials by our very own Cripeman! My ambition is to keep this catalog up-to-date always. Cripeman is a true Super Hero protecting civilization from Carrara quandaries.

    Carrara Resources at The Best 3D.com
    Philip Staiger, one of the developers of Project Dogwaffle, is a huge Carrara fan. He used to work for Eovia when they took over Carrara and released version 2! He loved it then and it remains to be his favorite 3d tool to this day! No wonder. Carrara rocks!
    I am really growing to enjoy the unlimited resources found at TheBest3D.com - There are tutorials galore, for many various apps for many different techniques. The videos conducted by Philip are my favorite of them due to his immense knowledge combined with his wonderful personality.

    Evil Producer Thread Posts - Useful information provided by one of our very own Carrara 3d Artists
    Pros and Cons of Carrara DOF Vs. Postworked DOF I was mentioning how long I was waiting for a DOF (depth of field) calculation, which happens after the image is rendered. The image in question was a giant image designed to wrap around a scene as a background image - and was taking a L O N G time, indeed! Thanks again EP!:coolhmm:

    Johnny Ray Has a Blog regarding Daz Studio Displacement in Carrarawhich is a very nicely written and illustrated article following his journey of experimentation regarding this interesting, and useful technique

    Some Videos from Mark Bremmer

    Sci Fi Funk Has a growing list of excellent Carrara Animation and Optimization Tutorials, that are made as he continues his never ending quest towards meeting his 3d Movie goals.


    Eric Winemiller (DCG) put up a new tutorial on getting started with Toon! Pro. Get started with Toon! Pro TutorialIt's awesome to see developers put some input into training new users on how to get going with the products they make. Very cool! Thanks Jay_Nola for the heads up!

     

    Carrara 8 Training Videos from Infinite Skills
    These are explanations of the training videos featuring Phil Wilkes and include some great sample footage from the series. I strongly recommend these products unless you feel that you are an absolute expert at using Carrara.
    Learning Carrara 8
    Advanced Carrara Techniques

     

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551
    edited October 2016

    Speaking of Holly Wetcircuit, I really have to turn you on to this wonderful article she's written:

    10 Reasons You Need a Falloff Shader

    "What if I told you there is a single effect that can deliver more visual impact from your renders, allowing you to redefine reflection, highlight, and shadow with the contours of your scene objects. Create photoreal fabric and glass shaders, and enhance skin with subtle, flattering effects that render in a fraction of the time of subsurface scattering. Well it’s all true. It’s called Falloff, and it’s not included with Carrara but probably should be."

    Read the Article on her Blog!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    ► Inspirational Animated Movies and Videos is a great thread to grab inspirational things to watch from, as well as to add thoughts, ideas and links to yourself!

    There are a lot of posts in there about Harryhousen and other greats of yesteryear, but please feel welcome to add anything from new to old, from animated to live-action to Cartoon or even plays. 

    Especially if you know of fun, inspirational videos that we can watch over the internet, like YouTube, Vimeo or something else - even Netflix, I'm sure many of us have that, too!

  • I bought Cararra in a recent sale for a decent price, and worked up 1 nice render that I was quite happy with.  But when I tried to expand on it by adding DAZ Studio figures and clothing, things started not going so well.  I just discovered this thread and it looks great!  Tons of stuff to go through.

    But in the meantime, can someone advise me on what won't work in Cararra?  I have Genesis 1 M and F, Genesis 2 M and F V4 and M4, and a couple of G3 figures.  Are all of these generations compatible in Cararra?

    I tried a Genesis 2 male character with DragonLord outfit, which is says it's  compatible with Genesis.  Loaded it up and posed it in Studio.  But when I tried to import it into my scene in Cararra, the clothes weren't fitting properly.  So, I tried it on Genesis 1 male.  Same thing.

    Any suggestions?

    Thanks!

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    G3 will crash Carrara... DAZ is supposedly working on this problem.  I'm posing using G2 .ds not .ps allthough Poser files work also and sometimes better. Try this... load an empty scene and try just loading the DragonLord outfit.... Do Not import it... instead Load It using the Browser tab for Content, I have better luck with the Content tab as opposed to the Smart Content tab but that may be me or my system. You can also load poses through the Conten or the Smart Content tabs. I've done both for all figures G2 back to Generation 2... my Generation 1 figures have gone missing from both DS and Carrara. A lot of folks prefer to use V4 or rather V4.2.

    I've only started posing in Carrara recently as I'm on vacation from Studio.  I'm reading a First Steps - Setting up a sample scene in Carrara with plant, terrain, sky and hair by diomede. He is currently adding new things to learn for anyone wanting to learn Carrara... I've used it since version 4 Pro and learning from his thread as well as this one.

    Both Dartanbeck, this thread, and diomede are great contributors to learning for the Carrara community. All Carrara users help in their own ways be it with a question or an answer.

    If you get interested in modeling the check out my threads both are aimed at new - seasoned users.

    Hope that helps.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    Yes. For now, Genesis 3 is NOT compatible with Carrara at all.

    As for the rest, try this for fun, if you have a little time to kill:

    (sound is horrible, I babble a lot)

    Continued with this one:

    I have a few other Carrara related videos on my YouTube channel if you can get past my shortcomings of hastily released videos! LOL

    This one is just for fun, and stars M4 and V4, my favorite figures still to date!

  • Thanks @wgdjohn .  I will give that a try.  Also, thanks for the link to Diomedes tutorial.  Looks most helpful.

    I do have G2F and V4.2, and was thinking about loading DragonLord outfit to them.  Would it work?  For swapping outfits between generations in Studio, autofit is needed.  Does Autofit work in Cararra?

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    Thanks @wgdjohn .  I will give that a try.  Also, thanks for the link to Diomedes tutorial.  Looks most helpful.

    I do have G2F and V4.2, and was thinking about loading DragonLord outfit to them.  Would it work?  For swapping outfits between generations in Studio, autofit is needed.  Does Autofit work in Cararra?

    Auto-fit works on Genesis 1 and 2. 

    Carrara, being a modeler, also works quite well for making clothes for your characters and figures.

    That being said, we can use Carrara to make clothing that was made to fit one thing into something that fits another. This is a bit on the advanced side, but I'll mention the brief overview:

    Load in the figure you want the new clothing to fit to into Carrara - leave it in the default t-pose

    Load in the OBJ of the clothing item (Found in the Data folder or in Runtime > Geometry)

    With the clothing OBJ selected, click the little wrench icon in the upper left of the interface window (enters modeleing mode in the Assemble Room)

    Reshape the clothing to fit this figure

    When done, click the hand icon where the wrench icon used to be

    Export the reshaped clothing OBJ

    Bring the new OBJ into Daz Studio, with the figure used in Carrara already loaded in

    Use the Transfer utility to turn the new clothing OBJ into a coforming Clothing item for the figure

    Save to the library

    It really is that simple!

    The steps taken within that sequence might require a little practice - but not really that much. It can be as simple as using Soft Selection in the modeling tools, selecting the most major areas that make the clothing not fit the intended figure, and pull or push them around, scale them up or down, etc.,

    It can even become fun and addicting!

    diomede has some really cool threads about doing this sort of thing. I have a video regarding the Transfer Utility part of things in Daz Studio:

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited October 2016

    Boris,  Also check this out for adjusting clothing... applies to anything in Carrara.

    Carrara 8 Modeling with Figure Posed below is a pic of what it will look like at the iintro.  I've not been able to connect it as a video that you can click on to play or go to yet.

    Carrara 8 Modeling with Figure Posed

    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168

    Here is a thread that is focused on using genesis and genesis 2 content in Carrara. It includes the (very) good and the bad.   It also includes autofit.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45361/best-practices-using-genesis-and-genesis-2-content-in-carrara/p1

    When I use a human Daz figure, I very often use genesis 2.  Using Studio, I have converted more than 100 items for Victoria 3 and Victoria 4 for use with G2F in Carrara.  Similarly, I have used Studio to convert M3, M4, and David 3 content for use with G2M in Carrara.  Even more amazing to me, I have used Poser's wardrobe wizard to convert items made for Poser 7's male (the occupations and world leader series) for use with Michael 4 and then used Studio to convert the result for use with G2M.

     

    Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, you can use Daz content designed for V4 and M4 for use with G2F and G2M in Carrara.

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    Boris - As has been said, G3 is a no-no (for now at least) but V4.2 (and previous generations) work well, and Genesis and G2 work, albeit with a few wrinkles around the edges. Autofit generally works, probably not quite as well as in Daz Studio but it works.  I tried loading the DragonLord outfit onto Genesis/Basic Male and there were a couple of items that caused issues - the Pants and the Harness. I think these may use an old file format (DSF) that used to be used by DAZ. You may be able to load these up in DS and then export from there, or re-save a DUF version?

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168

    The Dragonlord outfit that I have is designed for Genesis, not Genesis 2.  To use with Genesis 2, I first used Studio to convert the items for use with Genesis 2 and then used the "save as" preset feature.  I then opened the preset in Carrara.  The process is described in the thread linked in the above post.  I noticed that the dragonlord outfit when applied to Victoria 6 does not meet the Daz forum TOS so I included a tube top.  Also, it is a multilayered outfit so you may have to adjust for a tunic overlapping a harness or similar issue.

    ff01 dragonlord save as wearable preset.JPG
    1122 x 815 - 103K
    ff03 dragonlord confrmed to V6.JPG
    1534 x 974 - 157K
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    Best Practices for using Genesis and Genesis 2 in Carrara thread

    is now at the top of the list in

    ► Genesis - Carrara 8.5 - DIM Support Thread Links                                              
    Got questions about Genesis use in Carrara, DIM use for installing?                               
    This page lists links to threads that have answered many questions to common problems 

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