Alpha has lost its cloaking device..watch out for Klingons
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This is very strange... When I bring in an image on an alpha channel into one scene it behaves as it should ..In that the alpha, the background is invisable both in the Assembly Room textured option and when it is swiped with the Test Render tool. However when I bring the same file into another scene with an Ocean applied, then it shows fine in the Assembly room with its alpha channel working fine, but when I swipe it with the Render Tool the alpha channel is black... What is going on here ? There is obviously a good alpha channel.. But it shows black in both the Render tool and when I Render out the scene to a movie.
Thanks for any input...
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Do you have Light Through Transparency checked in the render room?
What's the kind of output file, .png, .tga, .psd... ?
A realistic sky is never rendered when you select "Render alpha channel" and should be transparent, but sometime, if you check "use pemultiplied alpha", the sky is black and not transparent.
Are you by chance switching between 8.1 and 8.5?
I had this issue doing that switch and it was the Filtering box thingy in the texture map bit of shader tree. It somehow cleared itself and had to be clicked over to "Sampling" then saved again and the problem was solved.
That's worth looking at if "Light Through Transparency" turns out to not be the issue.
Thanks everybody...I think Tango Alpha has nailed it. I am still working on it,the colors are a little strange..but at least the alpha channel is working.
That C8.5 mipmap default drives me nuts too
IMO there should be an option in preferences along with a few others
believe Fenric made a plugin to fix it but don't have it or do but not installed it unsure
Light through transparency in the render room, perhaps?
Oooops! heh... missed that!
The fact that C8.5 defaults the texture maps to Fast Mip Map provides a never-ending source of consternation for me as well.
As soon as I discovered this change (from 8.1) I requested that it be put back to Sampling or at the very least have an option added to the preferences as you have stated.
The DAZ response was that they had done one of their super secret polls on this issue with the unknown corps of beta testers and that the beta testers overwhelmingly wanted the default to be Fast Mip Map, thus totally ignoring the issue of letting users have a choice by adding this to the preferences – typical DAZ ignorant and non-caring response.
Fenric’s plug-in – Advanced Shader Tweaker – does help with this somewhat. The plugin has issues with finding and changing the Filtering setting for the texture maps (and other settings as well) with any shader that has nesting in it. I had reported this to him when the plug-in first came out and he responded that he would work on fixing it, but apparently – as happens to all of us, life must have gotten in the way.
I still use and appreciate the plug-in despite the limitation.
I have just checked his website and the store is now closed, so it appears that he will not be doing any further plug-ins or work on his existing plug-ins. This is truly a shame as he is very gifted and has provided many indispensible tools for Carrara.
Me too ;) Hey kakman!!! :)
I don't think he's getting out entirely, is he? I hope not! I hope DAZ does something sweet, like releasing a shiny new version of Carrara that gives him (and others) new inspiration to develop new goodies - nice new SDK stuff.... I hope
I wouldn't count on it Dart. Furtner development of Carrara seems pretty unlikely at this point. We've been stuck on 8.5 for more than three years. I'd bet big money that we never see a version 9. The fact that this old code installs on our modern operating systems (much less still runs) is something of miracle really. And the inteface is starting to show its age, especially when viewed on an iMac with a Retina 5K display. Adobe (because they still contintue to develop their software to take advantage of current operating systems and the machines they run on) updated all their interface icons and on screen fonts so that they look pristine on the 5K screens. The Carrara interface by comparison looks like an old 8 bit video game. Really fuzzy and jaggy. Daz dropped the ball big time and don't seem to care. A shame really as there was much more potential to be tapped in Carrara. Such a missed opportunity. I guess we'll all just hang on to it for as long as we can.
I would not get too down and out...Carrara if nothing else is, can still turnout some incredible work. I can't think of another 3d generating program that has such a library of superb figures to select from. I am still using Adobe CS2 on one computer, and CS 5.5 on another.......They both totally fulfill my needs without any further upgrades...No desire to go Cloud. The only thing to watch out for is when Apple or Microsoft, upgrade their Os...You may lose some or even the use of the whole application...If you upgrade. For example, the eyedropper tool is no longer usable in After Effects using El Capitan...Everything else works . So cheer up, Carrara as it is now is probably far better than almost all the people who are using it...I know it is far better than I am and will be for a long time to come.
I agree. So imagine what it could do if they kept it current with it's competitors. The particle system hasn't changed since it was part of Infini-D in the 90s. The metaball modeler hasn't changed since version 1. An updated rendering engine would be most welcome. Sure it's nice that we have the option to use Luxrender or Octane (well not on Mac) but that's no excuse for no updates. Especially when you see what competing software (that is still in development) can do out of the box without the need for third party engines.
Be that as it may (and I guess it's nice if you want to use them) I have pretty much zero use for premade figures.
That's fine if you do this as a hobby. If you are a professional (I am) using software that is 11 years out if date isn't exactly ideal. Nor does it look really good on a resumé. You need to stay currnet. Hard to do if the software developers decide not to keep up. I agree with you on the cloud. Not only do I have no desire to do it, I outright refuse to pay monthly for software. Especially after being a loyal user for years who paid for every Photoshop update between version 3.0 and CS4. I don't do as much work at home as I used to (When you're at it eight hours a day you generally don't want to come home and do it some more) so I don't feel the need to keep my home stuff as updated as my work stuff. But I do still want/need to be able to use my Adobe stuff at home. However when I installed my licenced and paid for copy of CS4 on my new iMac (the 5K one I mentioned earlier) not only did it give me licensing issues but it looked terrible. Super low res (kinda 8 bit and jaggy like I said Carrara looks earlier) So I had to obtain the latest version of CC by.... other methods.
Which eventually is exactly what is going to happen to Carrara. I'm a big proponet of "if it's not broken, don't fix it". I don't upgrage to the newest OS just becasue it's out. My last Mac was running Mountain Lion (the OS that shipped on it) and everything was great. I skipped Mavericks and Yosemite (I'm not tempted by the fact that they are free). My new Mac has El Capitan preinstalled. Which is fine as it's a machine that is designed to handle it. Everything runs great on it. The Adobe stuff is flawless. Amazingly, Carrara still runs. But at some point that is going to stop unless the Carrara developers (if they exist) do something about it. One day we'll click that installer and it'll tell us sorry, this isn't compatible with your OS.
That's not really a great metric. Carrara doesn't need to be better than the people who use it. It needs to be as good as (I'm not even asking for better) but as good as it's closest competitors. There was a time that it was close but that time has past and it has fallen behind. There are applicaions that are available for free that have more updated features. But with new apps come new learning curves and I don't really have that kind of time. Believe me, I like Carrara. I've been using it since version one (heck, I've been using it since it was Infini-D). I've been through Specular, MetaTools/MetaCreations, Eovia and now Daz. Sadly this great software is always beeing sold off an treated like a second class citizen. I don't want to see it die. If Daz aren't going to do any more with it, which seems the case, maybe they could sell it to someone who will.
The sad part of the Metacreations sell off was that Infini D was their best asset by far....I still use it. It is as solid as a battleship..In all the years I think I could count the crashes on one hand. At the time I talked to one of the developers... He was heartbroken over the fact that Infini D had not been developed. If they had used the effort to create Carrara to improve Infini D the outcome would have been far better.. Instead they took the front of the horse and combined it with the rear of a giraffe and it has taken years to get the bugs out of that .. But that episode has come and gone. As I said, I still keep a Mac running 10.4.11 so that I can use Infini..It is a quick way to make models, which I then import into Carrara. But now my Carrara Skills have improved so that much of my modelmaking is being done in Carrara.
The above more or less reinforces my view that you can use most of these poducts for years and years ......Most limitations are our own imaginations.
Well, you all know how big a Carrara fan I am. If it never gets another update, it'll still likely be my tool of choice - and then I'd just eventually run out of content to buy and just make whatever I need from there on out. My workstation is Window 7 64 bit, and I love that a lot more than this Win10 laptop. And Carrara quite simply Rocks on that machine!
Still. I know that there are issues with the SDK that our plugin developers have been wanting fixed/changed and I'd love to see something happen in that direction. Our plugin makers make some incredible additions to this amazing piece of 3D fun!
By this I take it you mean that you keep a Mac running 10.4.11 so that you have acces to OS 9 through "classic environment" as Infini-D won't intsall on a machine running any verision of OSX or any Intel based Mac. I still have the install CD for the final version of Infini-D 4.5 (from 1998) and when placed in a CD drive the installer has the "ghostbusters" circle with the slash symbol over it. The installer isn't even recognized in OSX. So you have to be running it in OS9 Classic, right?
Sure, you can run stuff for years if you want to keep a musem of old Macs around to do it and run the outdated software on an outdated OS on super slow machines. As I said, that might be fine for a hobby but it does't really fly for professional work. Also you won't need to do it if the developers continue updating the software. Again I will use the example of Adobe. Because they continue to develop their software, I don't need to hang on to a Mac Performa from 1994 just so I can continue running Photoshop 3.0 on OS 7. They have new versions for new machines. As much as I liked Infini-D in the 90s, Carrara is a way better program now than ID ever was. Because it evolved. It introduced new and better features that took advantage of the power and speed of newer machines. I would like to see Carrara continue to evolve instead of becoming a footnote like Infini-D did.
Mine too. I've used it personally and professionally for years, which is why I want to see it evolve and survive. The only thing that will stop me from using it is when it stops being able to be installed (like I described above with Infini-D). I have no doubt that day is coming. I just hope it's still a while off. That said, I'd prefer that Daz continue to work on it and release a new version but maybe they don't see any money in it. Carrara has a pretty small user base. Loyal but small. Perhaps Daz doesn't see any point in sinking money and resources into further developing software that only a handfull of people use. If that's true, they've left thier loyal users riding a dinosaur. And it makes me quesiton why they even bothered to acquire it in the first place.
Metacreations, oh yeah, my first love
DO you have a Ray Dream Studio CD there?
Nope, never, I was a Bryce (4) kind of guy, went from POV Ray straight to it, never looked back, lol
I have KPT plugins too somewhere, hehe
Ah, when I upgraded to Bryce 3 I got a bargain bundle, Bryce 3 Poser 3 and some version of Ray dream, but for some reason I seem to have lost the Ray Dream disc.
Lol, no, I started with 4, I just went to CompUSA (long time ago, when they still had physical stores) and paid full price for Bryce 4 and Poser 4, there was no bundle deal at the time, fun, fun & more fun
TGS808..Your right I use OS 10.4.11 for its classic OS9..which is the last OS that Infini would run on. Actually the old Mac is not that slow.. Dual 2.7 Ghz. I have a KVM switch so I can go back to the old Mac to use Infini D or my old version of Dreamweaver 8 which still works fine also. Incidentially..Infini D is deadly fast for creating basic objects and for applying texture maps..for example the icon on the left of a fourth rate warship was created in Infini D. Once the objecty is created it can be brought into Yosemite..and imported either to Carrara or After Effects/Photoshop.
As far as Amateur/ Profession..to me it is meaningless. I have been in the arts for years..I have seen the work of amateurs that far outshines the work of most professionals. And I have seen the work of many professionals that is embarassingly 3rd rate. Just because you recieve financial consideration does not automatically elevate the work you do....though it should. Many consider Carrara as "amateur or hobby" application. This is nonsense..It is an excellent tool that is caperable of turning out first class content. You design for its strengths and avoid its weaknesses. This is true of all 3D appllications...Carrara may not be the best, most expensive typewriter or word processor on the desk... but you sure can bang out a terrific story on it. I am approaching the intermediate level in Carrara..still have lots to learn and in need of frequent guidence from the forum. Soon, I suspect that I will be doing all my modeling on Carrara, but until that time...I have my trusty friend Infini D handy.
In conclusion...I would love to see Carrara updated..and if DAZ is listening..I am willing to gladly pay for it. However if it is never touched again..I will be using it for many years to come..It is too good a tool to abandon due to a little rust and scratches.
For an amateur/hobbiest, it would be meaningless. This wasn't meant as a slight so hope you didn't take it as one. What I meant is, if you do this kind of work at home, for fun, staying current and using the latest software/hardware to do so is probably not as important as it is for someone who does the work professionally. It's not cool to sumbit a resumé in 2016 that lists Mac OS9 and Photoshop CS2 among your software skills since, in the professional world, in 2016, no one uses those anymore. You look out of date and unhireable.
If you said "some" I'd believe you but "most"? I find that doubtful.
Again, If you had said "some", I'd be with you as I've seen it myself but "many" seems like a bit of a stretch.
True.
Not entirely true. What is true is that any tool is only as good as the person who is using it and their knowledge of that tool. I have seen people turn out great work in Carrara and shabby work in "better" programs that cost far more. However I don't think you'll find any places that do professional 3D work as a main source of income that use Carrara. It's just not the case and never has been. Carrara could have had a shot at that many years ago (Infini-D was used in professional VFX houses for TV work) but it was too mismanaged. At this point it is hobby software. There's nothing wrong with that. A professional (individual) designer can certainlly use it to great results but professional ad agencies and VFX houses don't use it and never have. LightWave, Modo, Cinema 4D, Maya. Those (as I'm sure you know) are professional grade applications. Not Carrara. And with no more updates, never Carrara. Can it turn out first class content? At a time, maybe. But when put up against the others, it pales with each passing year. First class soon becomes, second, then third...
This is all I'm saying. I would love to see Carrara come up to date with the current times becasue it's the one I know best and use most often. And of course I'd pay for it. Just like I paid for every other version. However it seems like all development at Daz has stopped and it's even worse than I realized. The last signifcant update was v8.0 in 2010. Six years ago! For all intent and purpose this is dead software. Sure it has a (small) dedicated user base, for what that's worth (I still see people driving Pontiacs from time to time but they aren't going to be making anymore of those) but the app itself seems to have died at version 8.5. It would be nice if Daz would release an offical statement either way instead of remaining so "cloak and dagger" silent about it. And as time marches on, machines and operating systems are eventually going to outgrow it completely. Not entierly horrible if you just use it at home and can keep a bunch of old machines around to run it but that's not going to fly with an employer.
Right. But we are not the ones who abandoned it. Daz is.
TGS808
When I wrote that "I have been in the arts for years..I have seen the work of amateurs that far outshines the work of most professionals. And I have seen the work of many professionals that is embarassingly 3rd rate. Just because you recieve financial consideration does not automatically elevate the work you do....though it should." I was referring to the visual traditional arts. You are right I could have said some but when I used the term amateurs in the sentence I was using the term with "few" implied. I certainly do not believe that all amateurs turn out good work, but I have seen times when some amateurs did. . And I agree if you looking for employment in the CG field you had better be proficient in Lightwave/Maya/ Houdini., etc. The rest of the comments was referring to the actual work produced and not how it was produced. Of course if you work for a large animation house with a huge buget you had better turn out good work..However I have seen a lot of movie trailors lately about movies that I just do not want to see. They are loaded with 3D effects and looking very professional along with blasting sound...but no story that I had any interest in seeing. Which brings me back to Carrara...of course Carrara is not designed for the big screen....But it well can handly HD video and in skilled hands with a good story, I think it could turn out some very entertaining material.