Buy Something That Doesn't Work in Carrara? Post your Questions and Workarounds here. (please)

DAZ_Spooky

With the 3DUniverse Poser products that have similar issues, the issue is usually that the Parameters are set with Limits on but the starting value is outside the limits. In DS and Poser this doesn't matter, but to Carrara it does. Can you look at it in either DS or Poser and make sure that isn't the case here?

Stezza

DAZ_Spooky said:

With the 3DUniverse Poser products that have similar issues, the issue is usually that the Parameters are set with Limits on but the starting value is outside the limits. In DS and Poser this doesn't matter, but to Carrara it does. Can you look at it in either DS or Poser and make sure that isn't the case here?

thanks spooky
here is a screen shot of the settings in DS

the default settings are the same for all the poses

Stezza

no go on the Curiosity Rover...

next item that is causing me grief: ( Genesis toon duck )

My toon duckie is not getting his gear on!

These items come with the duck but wont conform to the shape..

all other Genesis clothing doesn't conform either... he is one nekkid duck!

Any workaround ideas?

note: doesn't work if saved as a duf from DS either.. tried it.

Stezza

extra note: the items works as it should in DS and also Poser Pro 2012 with the importer plugin..

Disappointing that Carrara 8.5 pro can't handle it after paying so much for the upgrade ... yet poser can

Stezza

ok...

I said to myself..

self... let's uninstall Carrara 8.5pro from the PC via Control Panel Remove programs and also via DIM uninstall and then re-install the program again via DIM to see what happens..

well...... bugger me!

paulg625

Having trouble with Time Traveler Suit. It loads fine into Carrara but none of the shaders will load at all. I am use to having to adjust shaders, but this is strange nothing is coming over color wise. I even tried saving the suit in Daz with the material settings I wanted and opened it this way. I can set all the shaders myself as a work around , it is just a strange problem.

Dartanbeck

paulg625 said:

Having trouble with Time Traveler Suit. It loads fine into Carrara but none of the shaders will load at all. I am use to having to adjust shaders, but this is strange nothing is coming over color wise. I even tried saving the suit in Daz with the material settings I wanted and opened it this way. I can set all the shaders myself as a work around , it is just a strange problem.

I wonder if it's using the multi-layer shader options offered in Studio? That would certainly show up as something quite incorrect in Carrara. I sure am glad that you know how to build your own shaders - but it's a bummer, nonetheless, right? I'll be in the same boat, one day. Because I really like that suit and will be buying it.

Salem2007

I don't have the TimeTraveler suit, but I have had a few things that behave like what you describe. Sometimes the material files come in a MC6 format (that's the file extension) and I've had to convert them to a pz2 format to get them to work in Carrara.

MC6 to PZ2

Having it work in DS, though, is odd. I don't recall having something I could load and save in DS that wouldn't load up in Carrara (shader-wise, anyway).

paulg625

Dartanbeck said:

paulg625 said:

Having trouble with Time Traveler Suit. It loads fine into Carrara but none of the shaders will load at all. I am use to having to adjust shaders, but this is strange nothing is coming over color wise. I even tried saving the suit in Daz with the material settings I wanted and opened it this way. I can set all the shaders myself as a work around , it is just a strange problem.

I wonder if it's using the multi-layer shader options offered in Studio? That would certainly show up as something quite incorrect in Carrara. I sure am glad that you know how to build your own shaders - but it's a bummer, nonetheless, right? I'll be in the same boat, one day. Because I really like that suit and will be buying it.

Well I know the basics on creating shaders, so it is good experience. I like the way the original shaders looked. They have a bit more in the layering department (still learning on that one) . I can make the glow effect that I want.

paulg625

Salem2007 said:

I don't have the TimeTraveler suit, but I have had a few things that behave like what you describe. Sometimes the material files come in a MC6 format (that's the file extension) and I've had to convert them to a pz2 format to get them to work in Carrara.

MC6 to PZ2

Having it work in DS, though, is odd. I don't recall having something I could load and save in DS that wouldn't load up in Carrara (shader-wise, anyway).

Interesting, I will have to look, I also reloaded it and noticed there was a Poser loader thought that would correct the problem and it caused Carrara to lock up. ( i'm using mac 64 bit version.)

Dartanbeck

Does the suit come with any texture maps?
I have a feeling that the answer is "no". If that's the case, then the product is relying on DS materials. I'm surprised that a Poser loader format would lock up Carrara. Hmmmm...
If it does come with texture maps, are any of them in place when you load the suit into Carrara in any of its shaders?

paulg625

Dartanbeck said:

Does the suit come with any texture maps?
I have a feeling that the answer is "no". If that's the case, then the product is relying on DS materials. I'm surprised that a Poser loader format would lock up Carrara. Hmmmm...
If it does come with texture maps, are any of them in place when you load the suit into Carrara in any of its shaders?

Sorry for the slow response, Nothing loads into the shaders at all. All the shaders are there but no real settings or texture maps are loaded. They are present in Daz though.

Dartanbeck

I'll look at the suit today
If I recall, it doesn't actually use any texture maps - unless you apply them yourself. I'm fairly sure that it uses special settings with DS materials and many shading domains. I've never tried it yet. I remember it being really cool though, so I think I have almost the whole set for it - or at least a bunch of it. I'll see if I can get something working for Carrara. If not, I'll ask around and see what I can find out.

paulg625

Dartanbeck said:

I'll look at the suit today
If I recall, it doesn't actually use any texture maps - unless you apply them yourself. I'm fairly sure that it uses special settings with DS materials and many shading domains. I've never tried it yet. I remember it being really cool though, so I think I have almost the whole set for it - or at least a bunch of it. I'll see if I can get something working for Carrara. If not, I'll ask around and see what I can find out.

Thanks Dartanbeck I appreciate the help.

Dartanbeck

Okay,
Supersuit does work in Carrara!
It does require some help from the user, however. Since this is a complete subject matter all its own, I'll start a new thread entitled: "Supersuit for Genesis in Carrara"

paulg625

Dartanbeck said:

Okay,
Supersuit does work in Carrara!
It does require some help from the user, however. Since this is a complete subject matter all its own, I'll start a new thread entitled: "Supersuit for Genesis in Carrara"

That is good to know, I almost bought that today. it's on sale, already spent to much this week, but still thinking about it.

paulg625

Dartanbeck said:

Does the suit come with any texture maps?
I have a feeling that the answer is "no". If that's the case, then the product is relying on DS materials. I'm surprised that a Poser loader format would lock up Carrara. Hmmmm...
If it does come with texture maps, are any of them in place when you load the suit into Carrara in any of its shaders?

OK I had to educate myself on some of the things you asked about. Yes it is using multi-layer. I was able to create a nice looking setup for my base suit just working with the Carrara shaders. The first image is the standard Material in a Daz render. The second is the render with the settings i created in Carrara. The third is the shader I used for the black and golden glow of the suit.

The forth is a question isn't this a texture map for Daz is using for the time suit? and the final is showing that Daz is using multi layer shading.

Dartanbeck

Aha... different suit. I may have gotten confused as to which suit was in question, as I was answering to a question regarding the super suit. I still have yet to purchase time traveler... cool suit!

As for the layering process in DAZ Studio, I really doubt that those types of things come over as anything useable within Carrara, when you save it as a DUF. However, once you know the locations of the maps, and how they are layered in DS, you should be able to layer them nicely within Carrara's Texture room. It will take practice to determine the best way to layer them, however. Multiply, Add, Overlay, Mix, etc., but then I also know that Fenric has a plugin that allows for layers much like you get from Photoshop. It's a plugin I currently don't have, surprisingly, as for one, I love Fenric's plugins and, for another, I enjoy working in layers. Which brings up another idea:

I've been having great success with the 3d paint process in Carrara lately on a product I've been slaving over for some time now. In reading about the 3d paint process in the manual, I've learned that you could possibly use it to create layered texture maps on a figure. You would create a new PSD as the main texture, and then, rather than painting, just load in the textures and order them as they are in the DS material. This might not work, but it just might.

paulg625

Dartanbeck said:

Aha... different suit. I may have gotten confused as to which suit was in question, as I was answering to a question regarding the super suit. I still have yet to purchase time traveler... cool suit!

As for the layering process in DAZ Studio, I really doubt that those types of things come over as anything useable within Carrara, when you save it as a DUF. However, once you know the locations of the maps, and how they are layered in DS, you should be able to layer them nicely within Carrara's Texture room. It will take practice to determine the best way to layer them, however. Multiply, Add, Overlay, Mix, etc., but then I also know that Fenric has a plugin that allows for layers much like you get from Photoshop. It's a plugin I currently don't have, surprisingly, as for one, I love Fenric's plugins and, for another, I enjoy working in layers. Which brings up another idea:

I've been having great success with the 3d paint process in Carrara lately on a product I've been slaving over for some time now. In reading about the 3d paint process in the manual, I've learned that you could possibly use it to create layered texture maps on a figure. You would create a new PSD as the main texture, and then, rather than painting, just load in the textures and order them as they are in the DS material. This might not work, but it just might.

You are correct even saving as a DUF, as you did with the Super Suit, brings any part of the shaders in. It still loads as a blank. I will have to work on loading the texture maps as I move forward. As to the Multiply, Add, Overlay, I am still learning need a book decitacated to Just the shaders for Carrara. I just recently picked up a Fenric Plug in package just learning how to use it. The Skin shader is great. It has changed my world. The one that corrects multiply shaders still learning to use. I will look into the multi-layer one ( I think i have it) didn't realize it would do that.

Dartanbeck

Here is a super easy way to get going immediately with shaders for such things as figures that are giving you a hard time - and you know that they use texture maps:

The Wearing Figure First
Since you're loading this suit onto a figure, load in that figure and get your shaders the way you want them. Here is what I mean by that:

If you're applying a character shader, do that first. For Genesis, I strongly recommend beginning with either those that come with Carrara in the Shaders > Skin tab of the browser, or one of Ringo Monforts, just as an example. This will get you some nice, optimized shaders to start with. If you're using a previous generation, you may apply them from the Content Runtime as you would in DS or Poser (double click the MAT while the character is selected). In that case, the shaders will be far from optimized, unless you use specific Carrara shaders, like the ones for V5 and M5. I t5hink Ringo has some Gen 4 shaders, and I know that GKDantas does. There are others but I'm trying to be at least somewhat brief. I can help you optimize in another thread for more specifics on this. Either way, get some shaders onto your figure.

Now we want to get rid of extraneous files that we don't want to keep from slowing down everything - including rendering:
Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Remove Unused Objects
then
Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Consolidate Duplicate Shaders
then
Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Remove Unused Shaders

Now we have our figure in an efficient state.

Load in the suit - this can be nearly any clothing that has been giving you shader issues.

Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Consolidate Duplicate Shaders

This will consolidate the shader domains of the suit that share identical shaders.

Select the 'model' line just below the main suit heading in the instances tray(right screen), and head to the Texture room.

Double-click on the first shader for the suit in the list to the right.

Go to the shaders tab below, and double click any of the textures for the wearing figure to open it.

While the Top Level of the shader is selected, right click in the top main portion of that shader and copy it.

Now go to the shader you've opened for the suit and right-click in that same spot and paste.

Now go to each channel that contains a texture map and replace the map with one that should go to that part of the suit. You might have a map for Highlight, but otherwise usually at least Color and Bump have textures maps. When you load in those textures, look for maps in the folder sharing the same name, but with "S" or "Sp" as a suffix, like "Body_S", for example. If the folder has these maps, these are meant for the Highlight channel. Depending upon the design of the map, you might need to lower the brightness slider on that map if the map makes it too glossy looking.

Now go back to the assembly room, select "model" (or "Actor") for the suit, and go back into the shader room.

Look and see how many domains have been fixed by making that new shader. If you need more, for now just open the new shader you've made (if it's not still open) and copy it like before. Open the existing shaders that are still blank and paste this one into it. If it displays the word "None", just click the drop down by where a shader should reside and select "New Master Shader" and paste into that.

Now go through and load in the appropriate maps for that part.

Note that some clothing items will use the same maps for all parts, but some parts might need to be shiny, while others should not be - or perhaps some should glow where others do not. If you ever want to alter the appearance of any particular domain, just make a new shader and tweak it how you like.

Here are some common tweaks that can help you on your way:

I don't want this thing shiny, or looking like plastic!
Set Highlight channel to pure black and shininess to 0 (zero)

I really want this thing to be shiny, like really shiny!
Try this for starters, and tweak from there: Highlight above 50 (100 for super shine), shininess to around 15 - 25

I want soft and smooth
Set highlight fairly dark. Really close to black. In this setting, black is the only setting that shuts of highlight. Barely off of black in any direction will provide plenty of highlight.
Set the Shininess between 0 and 6

This thing is supposed to glow
Try holding down Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) and dragging the color channel from the left of the shader window down into the glow channel. If this glows too bright, you might lower the brightness of whatever is now in the glow channel, or you can go to the drop down of the glow channel and select Operators > Multiply, which will put what you've just put there in source 1, and an empty Source 2. In Source 2 go to the drop down and select Value 1-100, which will give you a slider to use for excellent control without messing with the original source 1. This can be really handy sometimes.
If you need it to glow brighter, instead of Value 1-100 in source 2, use 1-1000

Be mindful of the setting in the Bump channel, which you'll only see while the Top Shader is selected. This can be very touchy, depending on the map or whatever it uses - so you may need to actually type in a number and try it.

Also know that we often don't really need reflection. Sometimes all you really need is shine as I've explained above. Reflection actually adds mirroring to the shader, which can really slow your render, but are also sometimes just what we want. But when you don't need reflection, set this to none.

Of course, these are just some quick, general helpers and should not be confused with actual optimizations - but they do get you on your way to your own optimizing skills. The Carrara User Guide has some really decent info on Shaders. I buy Carrara-specific products from the store and use the shaders that these pros make, and learn from how they set them up. They're all excellent, and all have different styles. mmoir's Mystic Gorge, for example, is a scenic setting, not a shader pack. But his shaders are excellently made - and fun to learn from. Ringo's DP shaders, GKDantas, Dimension Theory, Fenric, and others all have some excellent shader packs that are great to learn from - or just use as they are! Howie Farkes scenes are excellent shader lessons, and Infinite Skills lessons by PhilW are really goos at showing you how to create them from the ground up - on a screen right in front of you. Really cool!

Salem2007

Has anyone been able to get the "Horned Barbarian" stuff to work in Carrara 8.5?

http://www.daz3d.com/horned-barbarian

I get an error when I try to use it. I think it occurs when the boots are loaded, but it's been a while since I tried. I put in a support ticket last August, but I haven't heard anything (other than confirmation that the error occurs).

Thanks in advance.

WendyLuvsCatz

the Loretta outfit used to give errors in earlier beta builds but works now.
Think Horned Barbarian might be fixed to, unsure but think I have used it.
Know I have in iClone so might have gone from there to Carrara.

will start PC soon and look as a character for a planned video uses it.

Salem2007

wendy♥catz said:

the Loretta outfit used to give errors in earlier beta builds but works now.
Think Horned Barbarian might be fixed to, unsure but think I have used it.
Know I have in iClone so might have gone from there to Carrara.

will start PC soon and look as a character for a planned video uses it.

Thanks, Wendy!

WendyLuvsCatz

yes it fails get that odd message with a folder of missing files
but
I reboned the loin cloth in Daz studio and saved it as a support asset and that one works!

Salem2007

wendy♥catz said:

yes it fails get that odd message with a folder of missing files
but
I reboned the loin cloth in Daz studio and saved it as a support asset and that one works!

How do you rebone something? (Ha!, that makes me giggle)...Seriously, though--would you explain how you did it--I'd like to try to see if it works for me as well.

WendyLuvsCatz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cV3VaC7eIs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k52wwyv234U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIIM1oAan7o
unlike Carrara you do not lose your work,
no need to detach skeleton
is growing on me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N56wo8iHM-Q

Salem2007

wendy♥catz said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cV3VaC7eIs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k52wwyv234U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIIM1oAan7o
unlike Carrara you do not lose your work,
no need to detach skeleton
is growing on me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N56wo8iHM-Q

Thanks! I'll try these tonight. It'll be nice to use the outfit in Carrara.....

Dartanbeck

I really like all of those DAZ Studio Content Tools tutorials. I, too, am becoming addicted to working with the tools in DS.
I started watching yours, Wendy, where you're rigging the deer. Very cool. When I get more time I have to watch the rest to see what all you've done - the thing goes on long after I had to call it a night :)
Bravo and thanks for posting the video! ;)

Salem2007

Thanks again for the tutorial links, Wendy. I went through them last night, but my first attempts to apply what I learned failed so I must have missed a few important steps. I'll try again tonight....

Stezza

Seems more & more products being released by Daz are created, rigged, morphed or whatever in Daz Studio and they don't work in Carrara

Last two items I have bought or grabbed for free that don't work are:

C.I.M.A.U. by: DAZ 3D JGreenlees

and the tied up 2 for G2 which I mentioned here http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47583/

Any workarounds for the CIMAU to get the poses/morphs working?