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Nothing.
ah the curse of the rhetorical question :)
Here's something from Waiting for Godot ;)
― Samuel Beckett,
― Samuel Beckett,
Best post in this thread yet!
On the subject of waiting though -- we can take some small measure of solace that Carrara isn't being developed by the POV-Ray crew. Version 3.7 has been beta for I-lost-count-of-how-many years. You want to talk about "artist-hostile" then look no further!
That said, if you like writing computer code, POV-Ray is also immensely powerful (I should probably try playing with it again now that I've learned so much more general 3D knowledge).
POV-Ray is where I got started, too. I re-wrote the main tracing code to use fixed-point arithmetic instead of floating point, swapped fixed-size buffers out for dynamic allocations, tweaked a bit of the code with assembly, and got the sample "Ionic 5" to render to 1024x768 at high quality in just over a week on my 66Mhz 486. :)
I should clarify things here. ;) As I learn more about LW Modeler, there are ways to work that are simply faster than Carrara. Sure, with effort, much of the same results can be had. There is an uphill climb at first but once you start to get it you can fly. Yes, the same applies to Carrara. But there is more to LW. Depending on your needs/wants that is where one must decide if the price difference is worth it.
I still like Carrara's camera movement keys better than LW.
Nice! I wish I had the time to play with all the different tools and renderers out there.
:gulp:
I remain in awe of your coding skills. I never got that deep...though it might be fun to grab the POV source code and explore. I might even learn something! :ahhh:
Going to be trying out Curvy, as well as a couple of fun-based, lower priced, model-by-drawing style modelers along with Genetica 3 Basic along with my purchase of Project Dogwaffle Pro: Howler and a bazillion filters and plugins for that.
Just some fun toys. Birthday present from Rosie. I've been a very good boy around the house, here... and I don't really need anything... but I really think, after watching a few episodes of: "The Daily Dose", excellent tutorials for Dogwaffle made by the actual developers of the software, that Dogwaffle, any of the software choices, even the $5 ones, would make for the perfect Carrara post work tool. Especially if the plan is to get a little less real (or a LOT) and more towards the artsy or painted style of look. But they also excel at enhancements for realistic work, or whatever style you feel within. This is largely due to the vast number of plugins already included and/or available for it. I'll be including Any FX for Dogwaffle, which is a pile of animation enhancements, transitions, rain and snow, animatable motion blur - and they use your graphics card for power - pretty neat stuff. PD Pro: Howler does a lot for animation work, hence my choice there. That has a robust particles system built into a paint brush.
Oooops... babbling again! Sorry. :red:
Fenric, you frickin' Rock!!!
Nice! I wish I had the time to play with all the different tools and renderers out there.Yeah, I don't have extra time either. But Curvy is like a clay sculpt thingy... and it can bridge to Dogwaffle, I think. I want to try it. I've played a bit with Sculptris and almost got addicted. I had to slap myself hard in the face to snap out of it. Genetica, I think, will be more of a time Saver than a time expense... as with Dogwaffle. I'm getting other stuff too, like my symphonic orchestra writer and other such necessities... going digital, ya know.
Didn't say Shade was cheap, I said it was missing. He missed Cinema 4D, too, for that matter. And that list had some really heavy hitters on it: Poser Pro is $499, Lightwave is $999, C4D Studio is $3495 (Carrara still counts as a "sidegrade"), 3DStudio Max and Maya are $3500, and Houdini is $4495
It's REALLY hard to beat Carrara's price-point. Even if you add in every existing plugin from every vendor, you're only going to be up to Poser Pro's price.
So I dl'd the demo version of Shade. I must say it is *very* nice and I rather like some of its NPR presets (technical drawing color, for example). Unfortunately, in addition to being time limited the demo has other significant restrictions that prevent me from seeing just how good or bad it is for some things.
One thing I immediately miss is there does not appear to be *any* indicator for direction of spotlights, much less angle. I can't believe it doesn't have it or aiming them would be truly obnoxious, but with Carrara it is *right* there. OTOH, I think Carrara could take some interface/interaction pointers from it. The UV editor is, at least at a basic level, much more usable thanks to domain highlighting and some other features.
No genesis support (of course) and content is a *major* draw for me to Carrara. But I must say it is rather appealing, even at the price point, to have as an alternative. (I'm not rich, but I have more money than sense...) Now, back to seeing if I can get Carrara to achieve some of the render effects (or at least a clear process for post). Err. Dynamic hair is still simulating. Back to shader to see how *its* dynamic hair works. Wonder if it has issues with volumetrics and tails...
[Shade dynamic hair appears to be guide-based auto-created transmapped poly hair. While kinda cool and far faster to work with it has nowhere near the capabilities of Carrara's dynamic hair.]
With my experiments in Carrara's dynamic hair, so far, I've found (in v.8.1) that I always need to change the physics settings to "Standard" rather than Bullet. 3D Lust gave me some great pointers in this post. But it looks like you may have seen that already. Oh well.. some great tips to refer back to, anyways. The test movie clip he provides is fantastic. My Jitter demonstration illustrates the volumetric issues as well as the jitters. Lighting effects and glow pass straight through without regard of the hair's existence. I was thinking of using a mask, or some such, to block that stuff - but I'm actually going to try an entirely different solution - keeping them completely separate - which should turn out faster results anyways. I'll be posting my findings in the Carrara Information Thread.
I still think that Dogwaffle is going to be a key element. Adding a less than $100USD pre-production post work studio, like this to Carrara should bring this whole world of 3d animation to a whole new realm, and I'm eager to illustrate the results by posting my discoveries in that. I'm wondering if there would be any possibility of a Carrara > PD Pro bridge. They have their plugin code stuff Right Here just in the case that Fenric wants to have a look. If it works, I'd be willing to cough up more than the anticipated asking price, just to assist in its development - even at the alpha/beta levels. I can pay with PayPal. Just sayin'
PD Pro: Howler 8.2 just came out sporting all new GPU support. The landscape maker actually uses a 3d mesh and you set the height and shape very similar to Carrara, except with Dogwaffles amazing additional tools. Since you can animate the terrain height map (well, as well as the map), it can produce running water, whirlpools, etc., wherever your painting skills can take you. It just seems to me that these two tools should be melded into one... or bridged together. Until then, I'll not have a problem passing information back and fourth in my own, inventive ways. ;)
I'll check that out, thanks!
That's great if you're on Windows. Not so much for OS X. I toyed around with it when I still had a Windows box and, for my purposes, it wasn't a good fit. Some really neat capabilities and I certainly *want* to like it though.
I have 8.5b172 going as well, but I've switched my hair test to 8.1, and they appear to behave the same way... just an FYI - at least on Windows.
As I haven't observed any issues with using bullet, I'm curious what issues you were having? My sim isn't for animation, just a way to apply forces to the hair, so things like flickering etc aren't an issue for me.
I'll have to play with it some more. ;)
I'm still waiting for the announcement that Blender Foundation has purchased Carrara and will release Carrender in Q1 2014!
:ahhh: :ahhh: :ahhh:
The list wasn't meant to be comprehensive, just an example of how affordable Carrara is compared to others. If you use content a lot (and I use it a LOT) your choices are extremely limited, really, short of getting PPro 2012 and using plugins to move things to higher-end apps like C4D and LW. :-S
Meh. anyway.
Carrara has problems - I can easily crash it with some particle systems stuff I've tried, and posing figures is annoying, and the content browser is in dire need of search and better management... BUT..
*every* package I've tired or bought has issues. LW has the annoying dual-mode interface, Max is a resource hog and the built-in renderer is a pain to get looking good, Maya has a massive learning curve and is expensive and can STILL crash, etc. etc. etc. - in this case there's no such thing as a bug-free 3D application, period! Hell I crashed Houdini Apprentice a couple of times! :gulp:
For me, Carrara is the biggest bang-for-buck solution. My only other option would be Vue + PPro 2012 to get the content handling AND the landscape/environment creation and that would cost 2x more than Carrara itself (easily). :bug:
Sure I have a wishlist as long as my arm for Carrara, mostly involving fluid sims/smoke simulations and other VFX goodies.. but.. for what I need, at this moment in time, it's Good Enough(tm) and I don't have to fork over a grand for something else. FWIW, Carrara gives me less "cringies" (that sick sinking feeling you get when you open an app you know is going to frustrate you to death) than any other 3D app I've owned.
Perfect? No. Good? Sure. :)
pssst Blender does fluid simulations
Yeah, that is an option. But unless your prepared to move your work into blender you need a way to get it out. I don't remember anything specific, but when I was looking into fluid sims last year, blenders offering didn't look that appealing. Realflow is pricy, but is what I started looking at.
Yeah, that is an option. But unless your prepared to move your work into blender you need a way to get it out. I don't remember anything specific, but when I was looking into fluid sims last year, blenders offering didn't look that appealing. Realflow is pricy, but is what I started looking at.
for animation you're probably right, but I seem to recall you could export the fluid Object from a frame and use it as a still prop in something else. I didn't run this at high resolution as it was a test, but still, its not bad..
I can absolutely see your points, though - especially with particles. I knew I was going to be rendering a lot of scenes that I have already optimized for speed and efficiency, and I still build an 8 core system with over 3GHz per core, and 16GB RAM in a very cooled case - not water cooled... but highly efficient ventilation. I built my machine around my work style while keeping Carrara's needs in mind. If I were to have a craving for particles, however, I'd have gone for a different system. My motherboard maxes out at 32 GB RAM. 16 is more than what any of my renders ask for. My cores run wide open - but memory usually maxes between 6 and 8 GB. I bet those crash-causing particles you've mentioned were sucking the life out of paging as well as physical. I'm guessing, but I have a feeling that it's RAM that feeds particles.
The manual already warns us not to go too crazy with particles or we'll suffer consequences... But we do have particles that work decent, I think. I haven't messed with them much but the fire/smoke system that ExtruD was building for me was gorgeous in its alpha stage - and it even emitted its own light.
Also, yeah... again, I don't want to sit here and defend Carrara - because I can make it drop to its knees too! :) In my experiences I've been swearing at me more than at Carrara though! lol
My favorite software in the world has its issues for sure. I'm lucky enough where; what I want Carrara for, Carrara pulls off beautifully. Not without the occasional hiccup, crash, or user frustration - but I am far happier with it than I am any other emotion.
Yeah, that is an option. But unless your prepared to move your work into blender you need a way to get it out. I don't remember anything specific, but when I was looking into fluid sims last year, blenders offering didn't look that appealing. Realflow is pricy, but is what I started looking at.
Yeah, I agree. Compared to Carrara's transparent globules, Blender's fluid sim is a joke.
Hey, someone once told me about this thing called "compositing". I wonder if you could use that to integrate an external fluid sim into a Carrara render.
Naw, too much work. Never mind.
Yeah, I agree. Compared to Carrara's transparent globules, Blender's fluid sim is a joke.
Hey, someone once told me about this thing called "compositing". I wonder if you could use that to integrate an external fluid sim into a Carrara render.
Naw, too much work. Never mind. LOL!!!
It's hard to breathe when you do that - but i love it! lol
for animation you're probably right, but I seem to recall you could export the fluid Object from a frame and use it as a still prop in something else. I didn't run this at high resolution as it was a test, but still, its not bad..
Use this for importing a sequence of OBJ files.into Carrara. One of the examples showing what it can do is a blender fluid sim.
http://www.digitalcarversguild.com/plugin.php?ProductId=21
http://www.digitalcarversguild.com/gallerypopup.php?GalleryID=220&ProductId=21&Page=1
Compositing is another really good option.
Thanks for the pointers, but as I'm not working on an animation I don't need that. All I need is something better than I've managed in carrara using other methods. Currently, neither blender nor realflow like the models I'm working with which means I'll need to create proxies. Off to do that (when I get the time, currently its lights out).
Yeah, I agree. Compared to Carrara's transparent globules, Blender's fluid sim is a joke.
Hey, someone once told me about this thing called "compositing". I wonder if you could use that to integrate an external fluid sim into a Carrara render.
Naw, too much work. Never mind. LOL!!!
It's hard to breathe when you do that - but i love it! lol
my web browser needs a sarcasm highlight plugin.
New code today. woop. :long:
I see they are clearing out the bug track. I got a notice about my gripe about unsorted parameters from, get this, 16 months ago. Love the solution "works as intended". Took them 16 months to come to this conclusion? And typical for DAZ "works as intended" means poorly.
And for those dancing a jig because they see movement in the bug tracker, please remember DAZ clears out he bug tracker periodically, doesn't mean anything is being done with carrara.
When I open Blender, my whole body shakes violently and I feel sick to my stomach and dizzy. :ahhh:
The UI makes me want to run out the door screaming, absolutely no part of it is intuitive, and the learning curve is like climbing the Alps. :bug:
That said, it's pretty powerful, but honestly if I really want it that bad, I'll pay the $99 for Houdini Apprentice HD and be done with it. :-S
I've tried Blender over and over and over and we just do NOT get along at all.
you got news then - now for the big announcement !!!!!!!!!!
coming today :roll: