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Is Carrara a good alternative to Blender?

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  • magaremotomagaremoto Posts: 1,227

    if I should refer to this clips I would say not yet a good alternative for PR animations:

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    It's awesome that Blender's got some nicely hefty backing in addition to the already prominent development community. Bravo!

  • magaremotomagaremoto Posts: 1,227

    I'll definitely be looking into it, could be an interesting forkflow jointly with DS/Carrara for animation purpose

  • Geminii23Geminii23 Posts: 1,327
    Dartanbeck said:

    I know this stuff can be a LOT to soak in.

    Please be patient and read it all, watch it all, and expect that practice makes for better results. Here's the thing: you're coming in with a specific need/want, and the software has a LOT more to it than that narrow vision. So this specific task is fairly specialized. Is it something basic that Carrara can handle in conjunction with Daz Studio? Yes. Absolutely. Carrara and Daz Studio's CCTs (Content Creation Tools) can work together to amazing affect. But getting used to the new interface and features of a new software can temporarily mess with your head while immediately jumping into such a specific, specialized task... but it will become immensely easy for you as time goes on and you get experience doing it!

    So if the modeling tools bring up questions... ask. This forum community (Carrara Discussion Forum) has several modelers who are almost always ready to help. It's all very standard, but then also has a lot of extra features. For what we're doing here, we just want to keep it simple with the basic vertex mesh manipulators. Soft selection with very specific selections along with symmetry should help to make this fairly straight-forward... but you'll see that practice will alway reveal better results in the end - but even some good basic tweaks in the beginning (before getting in much practice) can at least get the experience going to a point where the process itself becomes second-nature to you. Then you'll be jamming!

    The boots will be a simple tweak. Symmetry may or may not work. But even if each boot is a separate figure, Carrara allows us to use that wrench icon and do our modeling directly in the workspace, so we can always have our other figures in the scene for reference - which just ROCKS!

    Take your time, go through the whole process, expect the first time as a trial run - just to make it through the whole process. Don't worry yourself about turning out a masterpiece the first time - just do something small and simple to get your first morph made and installed onto the figure for future use - so it's there when the figure is loadd in from the library!!! You'll see... it's cool! It's Fun!

    Also know that Daz3d has some nice tutorials available:

    Daz Studio 4 CCTs

    3D Figure Setup Tools

    ...and they also host this sweet video reel for Carrara

    Thanks for all your input and advice.  I will definitely be going through this stuff and trying to learn the ins and outs.  Alas, life happens and now I having to get up at 4AM to work, so all my free time just dropped to 0 this week.  Drat.  I will check back in the coming days/weeks and keep you all informed on my progress (once I can make some.  LOL)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,551

    Very cool! Looking forward to watching your project(s) progress! yes

    Alas, life happens and now I having to get up at 4AM to work, so all my free time just dropped to 0 this week.  Drat.

    Yeah... story of my life. It's been like that since I got Carrara - so learning has been a hit/miss, here-and-there sort of thing. Eventually, however, Carrara's interface just starts teaching us SO MUCH about its own facilities, that everything starts to easily snap into place.

    Then, we want more. We come in here and mention or complaint about it, and someone comes in and straightens us out! It's magic!

  • karmaspice2000_2c77e33c86karmaspice2000_2c77e33c86 Posts: 19
    edited November 2017

    Carrara was an excellent alternative 6 years ago but Blender has improved since then and DAZ has long quit supporting and updating Carrara.

    Post edited by karmaspice2000_2c77e33c86 on
  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    karmaspice2000_2c77e33c86 said:

    Carrara was an excellent alternative 6 years ago but Blender has improved since then and DAZ has long quit supporting and updating Carrara.

    It is still much easier to use most DAZ content (with the exception of the last two generations of Genesis) in Carrara than it is in Blender, so Carrara still makes a good mid-point, I think. I do most of my modeling in Blender now, but if I want to use DAZ content or human figures in a render, Carrara is still my first choice and it's still a bit easier to create landscape images in Carrara than Blender, although with Blender add-ons that's not as much of a gap as it once was.

  • PerpetualRevisionPerpetualRevision Posts: 6
    Geminii23 said:
    th3Digit said:

    I haven't used Hexagon, and I don't think it is compatible with MacOS (sierra+).

    I bought Carrara a few years ago, but it's no longer usable on my Mac (running macOS High Sierra).

    I do all my modeling and UV mapping in Cheetah3D, which is a Mac-only modeler. It's also capable of modifying meshes for use in DAZ and Poser in the ways you describe and is MUCH easier to use than Blender. In fact, I love using Cheetah I love Cheetah so much I wish I could do EVERYTHING in it! (Actually, the only thing I CAN'T do in it is adjust poses and expressions on my Poser figures, as it has a very nice render engine and animation setup.)

     

  • BrianP21361BrianP21361 Posts: 808
    PerpetualRevision said:

    I bought Carrara a few years ago, but it's no longer usable on my Mac (running macOS High Sierra).

    I run Carrara 8.5 on a Mac under High Sierra all the time. Despite a couple of bugs, it works fine. Why isn't it usuable for you?

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050

    Same question!

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    Same here - carrara 8.5 Pro runs fine under High Sierra (2012 i5 iMac)

    Worth asking: are you trying to run Pro or Standard?

  • Retro LadRetro Lad Posts: 471

    Is Carrara a good alternative to Blender?

    Take a look at the downloadable pdf re-vised Blender Manual on this webpage https://www.bforartists.de/ and you can judge for yourself.

    Having skimmed through the Blender Manual myself I choose Carrara over Blender, except for a few options, like bone joints, pivoting, and some modeling options. Also, for me, doing animation in Carrara is fun, and weight painting is easy enough, etc. Blender is free, but for me it has an icy, chilly, feel to it whereas Carrara has a warm feel to it, although it can be a bit odd and clunky at times. Kind of like a friendly stray dog that wandered into your yard and is worth keeping  Left handed compliment? Well, I always do that. Lol

     

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    It all depends on your purposes. I always use Blender for serious modeling, for serious texture painting, for serious UV mapping etc. But never use Blender for rigging, because I found it frustrating, especially compared to Carrara, for example. And I also feel friendly towards Carrara, and I adore its render engine and volumetric effects etc.

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