Considering purchasing Carrara but have questions....
Wonderland
Posts: 6,872
I'm considering buying Carrara but have a few questions...
It says it works on Mac 10.10 which I currently have but am considering updating. Does anyone know if there plans for an update for Mac?
Also, what really is the difference between Carrara and Daz studio? You can do basic modeling? But you can only really use Genesis 1 or V4 for autofit, and it does not support G3? Can you import clothed G2 Models, will the auto-fitted clothes stay auto-fitted once imported? Is the rendering as good as Iray?
Can anyone give me the pros and cons of Carrara and if you love it, can you tell me why and what it can do that DS or Poser can't? Thanks :)
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Studio is a program designed to take an existing model, pose it, conform other premade content to the same pose, and render it. Furthermore, you can take a static model and Studio has the tools needed to add "bones" to make posing possible. It also has tools to match/project the "boned" figure's shape to certain content shape. So, essentially, Studio is designed to manipulate and render pre-existing models.
Carrara has many functions, and several of those functions are in dedicated "room" and "specialty modelers."
1) Carrara has an Assemble room in which someone can load existing content, pose it, add bones to make posabe, etc. This is analogous to the core functions of Studio.
2) Carrara has a Render room. The render room does not have Iray, however, there are plugins for Octane and Lux renderers that serve the same function.
3) Carrara has a shader room. This is where the textures of models and other content can be changed. Very powerful.
OK, so these three rooms above pretty much cover all of the same functions as Studio.
4) Carrara has a vertex modeling room
OK, this room above performs the same function as Hexagon.
5) Carrara has a terrain editor that can be combined with replicators (more flexible version of instances) for landscapes and outdoor scenes.
6) Carrara has a realistic sky editor.
OK, these two rooms above perform similar functions to Bryce.
So far, Carrara has similar functions to a combined Studio/Hexagon/Bryce bridge.
7) Carrara has additional modelers (spline, metaball) to help make a variety of objects.
8) Carrara has particle systems
9) Carrara has strand-based hair that can be draped, blow in the wind, etc.
10) Carrara has two physics engines, one for hard objects and one for soft bodies.
11) Carrara has a plugin to use the new dynamic VWD cloth program.
There is more. But the point is merely that the functions that Studio fulfills are only a small part of what Carrara is.
Compatibility.
V1/M1-V4/M4 work relatively seemlessly in Carrara.
Genesis and Genesis 2 work in Carrara, but not seemlessly. Autofit generally works fine for me. In those cases in which it doesn't I've had little problem using Carrara'a tools to address it. I use Genesis 2 figures when I want to use a Daz figure, but many Carrara people still use V4/M4.
Geografts for Genesis and Genesis 2 do not work in Carrara.
HD morphs do not work in Carrara (regular morphs work fine).
Genesis 3 does not load in Carrara.
OK, thanks... Still concerned about the Mac upgrade option and some of these things may be over my head...
Sorry, I'm not a Mac user. Will have to wait on someone else for that.
Carrara is a Full 3D Suite of tools to allow you to create your own models,. add bones to a model (rigging) ,.Create morphs in your model,. Paint directly onto that model, or create shaders and add textures to that model,. animate that model,. Create a landscape (terrain) and trees or plants onto that landscape and drop in an ocean or lakes,. add clouds,. position the Sun in the sky,. and render that.
it also does a lot more than that.
Daz Studio allows you to load a premade figure,. add premade clothing and hair, create some basic animation, (no keyframe editor's, no alternate tweener types) and render that.
So,. if you want to learn more and create your own models props,. set's or characters,. or anything else you can imagine,. Carrara
As far as upgrading your OS,. if that OS doesn't support software which currently runs on the existing OS,. then you need to address whether that's a Good upgrade choice.
As for Carrara updates,. nobody here knows,. this forum is populated by Carrara users,. and Daz 3D Staff don't normally post anything about product development,. until it's done.
Download the Demo of Carrara (30 days trial,. full PRO version,. no limits)
www.downloads.com
http://download.cnet.com/Carrara-8-Pro-Mac-64/3000-6677_4-75362544.html
Try before you buy
hope it helps
I've been using Carrara on the Mac since the beginning. It works well on El Capitain (10.11) with the exception of one annoying issue. There's a forum thread that talks about El Capitain compatibility. I couldn't find it. If for some reason there's a missing texture when a file is opened Carrara pops up a menu to find and open the missing texture. In 10.10 and earlier versions the file name was displayed in the top of the menu with message like, file xyz is missing, please locate it. Apple changed something in 10.11. The dialog box still comes up but the name of the missing file is no longer displayed. The issue doesn't happen to me very often. I have two ways of getting around it. Open the same file with Carrara 7.2. It works correctly in El Capitain. Usually the missing texture is obvious and I can go in and add it in the shader room.
I use El Capitan 10.11.6, and with the exception of the missing texture alert that Brian mentioned above, it works fine.
As others have said, Carrara is a full 3D suite. You can start with a blank screen and build a complete scene (including morphs and rigging) and render it to a still frame or an animation without leaving the program. You can still use premade content either for Poser or for DS (with a few exceptions on the DS side), either as is, or you can modify the heck out of it should you wish.
But one of the biggest differences between Carrara and Studio occurs right here in the forum. Post a thread here asking how to do something, and you'll get probably 5 or 6 ways to do it, with links to videos & tutorials on the side (there's almost never just one way to achieve something in Carrara!). Post a thread in Studioland and you'll probably get back a list of products to buy.
diomede wrote:
.....Genesis 3 does not load in Carrara
well that's not totally true: if you convert the mesh of gen3 into triangles within ds and save as duf, carrara may load it and you will have mesh and hip to parent ("attach skeleton" function). you miss the geografting but I'm working hard on it
Good to know. Thanks.
my pleasure,
if you need the figure only you may do this way:
- in ds extract donor figure under the rigging submenu
- save the whole scene and import the duf file in carrara
you 'll get the correct shaders but you lose the possibility to animate the figure (maybe); morphs work fine
anyway it's worth to make experiments by yourself
if you love physics and want to animate, Carrara is everything to Love!
animate trees
animate clouds
animate sky
animate ocean
all terrain you could ever desire
animate logos
really? kewl! thanks!!
the skeleton stuff is myterious.
I found this thread yesterday when I was on the fence about Carrara. Thanks to Wonderland for starting it. and thanks to everyone who supplied such helpful answers. I've actually owned Carrara before in the dim and distant past - I was a lot newer to DS and 3D then and couldn't get Carrara to do a thing, so I sent it back and got a refund. I felt the same way about Bryce, but was outside the 30-day refund window when I conceded that I couldn't do a thing with that either. Fast-forward a few months to when I opened up Bryce in a fit of boredom and ended up spending the rest of the day getting to know and love it. Ever since then, I've wondered if it would be worth having another look at Carrara. Sales have come and gone, but past experience with it has made me reluctant. Until yesterday, when the prospect of using some of the things I've been using other programs for (e.g. modelling) and some of the things I don't really have at all (e.g. particles) in one program which could easily access and make use of much of my vast stash of content became too tempting.
So... after a few hours of thinking about it a bit more, I bought and installed Carrara yesterday and resigned myself to the huge learning curve that was going to be necessary to produce anything. Except that it wasn't, and I've managed to do loads. Nothing stellar, because I'm still experimenting (in an 'I'll read the documentation later' kind of way. *Blush*), but I've actually created images and videos, landscapes, particle fountains and even done a bit of modelling, all of which is more than I managed last time! As for the features of the program, every time I think I've been out-wowed I find something else it can do and am saying 'wow' all over again.
I'm not even sure why I angsted about buying it for so long yesterday either. Yesterday's sale meant that it showed up in my cart at $11.20. What a steal.
If you have the money and gets stuck or want to fast track your leanring you can buy PhilW's tutorials marketed as Infinate Skills and they are awesome there are quite a few people here who will go back and relook at them every once in a while to refresh our memories on who a tool works. I know the price might seem high but get it while it is on a sale and you will enjoy it.
here are the links
This one covers the basics ove every thing including the kitchen sink. http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-8-5-tutorial-video-11-5-hours-long-instant-digital-download
This one is pretty much moddling http://www.daz3d.com/advanced-carrara-techniques
This one is how to improve your renders using Carrara http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-realism-rendering-training-video.
There are also MMoir's excelent tutorials as well.
Moddeling http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-modeling-tutorials
a Walk Cycle Animation which is very good. http://www.daz3d.com/create-a-walk-cycle-in-carrara
In the mean time take a look at the Carrara challenges threads for all sorts of information.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45254/learning-tips-and-tricks-from-prior-carrara-challenge-wip-threads#latest
And you will notice that we are a very helpful forum.
there are a variety of plugins that can assist you as well such as Fenrics http://www.daz3d.com/fenric#index=4
the Luxcore PBR Render Engine found in this thread. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/50130/luxuscore-carrara#latest
there is much information in Darts new thread for Learning Carrara http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/103416/learning-carrara-and-need-some-help#latest
Thanks for that, chickenman. I've wishlisted PhilW's tutorials and am watching tons of YouTube videos as well whenever I get a minute. Investigating the plugins and Darts' thread are also on my to-do list. This is indeed a very helpful forum :)
PhilW's tutorials are excellent, and even if you're an expert using Carrara, I guarantee there's tons of stuff even most experts never realized Carrara could do (years later, and Carrara is still surprising me with how much it can do... basicaly everything).
I don't think it has been mentioned, but there is a less pricey way to get access to those tutorial videos, through the Infinite Skills (dot com forwardslash carrara, if you want to search it out) site. It's a membership site, where you can join for a month at a very low cost, watch any of their library of videos (which includes Phil's tutorials) and then let your membership expire.
Hmm, actually looks like the site might have changed ownership? So maybe it doesn't work the same way anymore... but looks like you can actually join for free at the moment if I'm reading their promo correctly.
I'm not saying these courses aren't worth owning (they absolutely are completely worth buying), just pointing out there might be a more cost efficient method.
Carrara is much more than Studio or Poser... below are a few things I didn't see mentioned above.
You can create content, 3D models, props and more in Carrara either for yourself or to sell at vendors like DAZ and other places.
Render time with Carrara's native renderer is super fast, seconds or minutes, compared to Studio's slower 3Delight or very slow IRAY..
Much like your username... using Carrara you feel like Alice and will truly be in Wonderland. :)
$11.20 wow
big difference from what I originally paid for Version 6 then all the upgrades thereafter!
Enjoy
That really depends on what you render, how and for what purpose you render it for and in which resolution...
I had some scenes which rendered for couple of days and I rendered more then few animations where individual frames took less then 2 min.
Comparing different renderers is like comparing apples and oranges, expecially if you throw biased and unbiased ones into the same basket ...
What I'm trying to say here is, like with every renderer out there, there is a balance between quality of the render and a speed, there is no free lunch, I'm afraid
Of course you are indeed right. I've only put together rather rather simple scenes for Carrara Challenges all with Carrara content and my own objects and none with 3D figures with hair etc, which do take longer. Silly me... I should recreate what I did in the past in DS/IRAY or 3Delight with Carrara's native renderer. As far as Quality I know that IRAY will win out. Thanks for reminding me... I need to install LuxRender to get Luxus working. Too bad my billfold isn't fat enough for Octane.
Thanks for endorsing my videos, guys! Even I still learn new stuff about Carrara and how to use it.
Can't imagine anyone knowing all about any particular thing.
go to the luxcore theread and try lux core in Carrara
Oh, wow!!! You are going to Love the Ride you are about to embark upon!!! :)
Welcome!
Wow... a steal indeed. Glad you took the plunge. :)
Regarding the videos... I bookmark, in browser, all I want to revisit... makes it a lot faster finding them. Even after repeating what they explain I still go back and watch them when I need help or have forgotten one important step.
You might find this thread to be fun:
Learning Carrara and need some help?
Inside that thread are all manner of links to fun ways of getting to know Carrara from the written word to videos, as well as links to download complete copies of the two Carrara-specific web magazines that I know of, C3DE and 3D Xtract e-zine... a must have for any Carrara enthusiast!
Come on in and have a look around!
There's also a whole other site with forum dedicated to Carrara users interested in animation: