DAZ Studio and TransPoser
ilnyne
Posts: 29
Technical question: If I install the latest version of DAZ Studio, will it in any way affect Carrara's Transposer? I always have to worry about that when I install new DAZ stuff, because if my Transposer gets zapped, I end up having to reinstall Carrara, which is a pain. Just wondering in advance if the new DAZ has any kind of fancy Carrara juju in it that's going to overwrite my older stuff?
Comments
What version of Carrara are you using? If my memory serves correctly, with the release of Carrara 6, transposer was no longer needed.
Heh heh *nervous laughter*
Carrara 5 Pro.
I purchased Carrara 6 Pro a while ago, but I hate the fact that they tried to turn it into a pseudo DAZ Studio. I like to do all my posing in Poser and then import into Carrara just for rendering, and the C5 importer is reeeeally useful for importing Poser content because you don't have to import all the bones and morphs and everything; you can import just the geometry basically, with all your poses and materials intact. Very useful resource-wise for doing scenes with lots of content in them.
In the newer Carraras you have to import all that extra stuff you don't need, and so I can only get a few characters loaded before the thing starts running slow and crashes on me. So basically, all the new versions of Carrara are useless for me, so I'm still using C5 Pro. It'd be really nice if on the next version they included a resource-lite import option. But it seems DAZ is dead set on forcing everybody to use Carrara the way THEY want us to, which kinda irritates me (as you can probably tell).
HI ilnyne :)
As far as I'm aware,.. installing Daz Studio 4.5 pro, onto your system, would install it into C:/ Program files / Daz3D / Studio.
It will also create a folder for your Daz /Poser content in , ...C: / User / (yourname) / My Documents / Daz3D / Studio / My Library
I'm guessing (because I don't have it) that as a Carrara plug-in, Transposer is installed into the Carrara / Extensions folder.
So,..there should be nothing in Daz Studio 4.5 , which should effect how Transposer works in Carrara 5, since they're different programs installed into different locations.
If you're still using a 32 bit system and OS,. then the crashes or memory issues you mentioned when using C6 or higher would be explained by the memory limitations of those 32 bit systems.
You should also be able to Keep C5 on your system, and have other, newer versions of Carrara installed,. this gives you the ability to go back if you want to,. I still have C6 and C7, as well as C8, and the 8.5 beta,. installed on my system,. and because they're different programs, in different locations, they don't cause any issues with each other , or any other software.
Being able to use Daz/Poser content , and being able to load it directly from the browser and work with it in the same way you would in Poser or DS,.. is one of Carrara's main features,. and has improved since C6.
personally I find that Posing a figure in Carrara is much easier than in Poser, since I can pull/push,. or select bones and move or rotate them, and I can also do that with multiple parts at the same time,. EG: select both hands and move them,.
There's also new tools like the Puppeteer, and NLA , which you don't have in C5, and those can make animating or posing much easier.
Hope it helps :)
I have to ask why you would be updating studio to a version which is incompatible with carrara 5? Studio 4 is genesis and genesis is not carrara 5 compatible. Extremely little of the new DAZ content will work in it. None of the new studio formats will work in it, none of the new save formats will work in it.
More over poser content works directly in newer versions of carrara, no need to import anything.
I think that's awesome, but for me it's been an issue of resource usage on my not-so-beefy system. I may give the new C8.5 beta a try (though last time I installed a newer version of Carrara, I lost my old import options and had to reinstall everything). What bugs me isn't that they added a bunch of new stuff. I think that's really great. What bugs me is that in the process, they removed some really unique and excellent resource-saving options for no good reason. While C5 doesn't allow me to load my Poser library directly like in the newer versions, it does give me the option to import them with or without all the frills, Options. Not a bad thing, DAZ!
It sounds like I'm probably safe downloading DAZ to my C:\ drive. I run Carrara from an external anyway, so it should be pretty well insulated anyway. Thanks for that info!
But you can convert Genesis to a CR2 and pose it in Poser, then import it from there into Carrara. In all likelihood, though, I'm eventually going to end up upgrading all of my stuff. The problem is, at the moment, I'm in the middle of a project and don't want to completely upend my workflow by messing up Carrara. The last time I installed new software on my system, it ruined my TransPoser, and getting C5 reinstalled and working properly again was a tricky, scary ordeal. I'd just prefer to avoid that if I can. So I figured I should ask you guys, 'cuz you know this stuff and I don't!
With you there. Installing studio 4 killed my work flow and there is no fix for it; tried for 3 weeks uninstalling, reinstalling, clearing out, none of it got things back to where they were before I installed studio 4.
HI ilnyne :)
There's an Option under File / Import, to import a poser CR2 file, and you have check-box options for loading deformers or morph targets, creating IK targets,.. or Not. (see pic)
technically you could rebuild genesis as an older poser figure,. but it's not the same,.. really it's not.
and yes you may be able to import that Cr2 into Carrara 5,. but it won't work the same as genesis in C8, the weight mapping is different for genesis, the UV mapping are different, the bone structure and IK are different,..
All these differences are why C8.5 is still in beta development. it's not easy,.
If it was,.. poser users would have converted genesis to poser cr2, and there would be no need for the DSON importer for poser.
Also,. Genesis will only open in Poser 9 or Poser pro 2012 (with the latest service packs) using the DSON importer, and as I've already tried to do it,.. you can save out the CR2 from poser, or save a complete poser scene,.. but it doesn't import to Carrara, or open from the browser because it's reliant on DSON technology in the DSON importer/converter for poser.
DS4.5 pro,. or Carrara 8.5 are the only applications which will load Genesis, without using a converter.
Hope it helps :)
That was very helpful. Primarily, I wanted to install DAZ Studio right now just to get a feel for Genesis, to see if it's worth it buying any more content for the figure. When (if) I do ultimately switch over and start using the newer generation content, I'll most likely just have to upgrade to Carrara 8.5 / 9, assuming it's been released by then.
HI ilnyne :)
You should have no problems adding DS4.5 pro,. and it shouldn't effect any existing software.
so, go for it, while it's free.
Genesis is definitely a big step forward, ..it's a single base figure. which can become any figure combination.
If you also include the (iconic figure shapes) which turn genesis into V3, V4, M3, M4, D3, Hiro, Aiko, Freak3, Freak4, SP4,.. etc,...
then there's the new V5, M5, H5,SP5 and character figure shapes like the Gorilla, Troll, or Anubis, figures which are all made for genesis.
All of these genesis figure shape, (and the older "Iconic" figure shapes) can be combined to produce really varied characters, or monsters.
The Auto-fit feature means that most of the clothing you already have for those "older" figures, can also be used on the genesis figure, and with any combination of Morphs, since it auto-fit's the clothing to the figure mesh, as long a you have the (iconic shapes) for those older figures.
clothing made for Genesis figure's, will work on any genesis figure shape combination.
So, there's less need to rush out on a shopping spree to get genesis clothing that fit's :)
Install DS ...have a play with it,..... wait for C8.5 to be released,. or,.. download the current Beta version.
:)
Thanks. I'm pretty well convinced now that DAZ won't eat my computer, so I'll go ahead and install it as soon as I get a stretch of free time to play with it. It's highly unlikely that it'll replace Carrara as my primary rendering app, but it'll be good at least to be able to get acquainted with Genesis.