Carrara Lighting Tutorial
MarkBremmer
Posts: 190
Hi All,
Long time, no talkie. I was cleaning my disk and found a little gem. Awhile back, 3D World magazine commissioned me to do a tutorial on lighting Carrara. This tutorial doesn't use some of the cool negative lighting effects that Carrara is capable of but is a good look at considerations when building mood for a scene.
The following images show the scene untextured, untextured with lighting and then with full textured lighting effects.
Here is is the 40 min. video tutorial: http://youtu.be/-S8xSrtNnOo
And, here's a link to the textured scene with embedded textures: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o2jpzj8vwvyavma/CryoTextured.car
Use them in good health and post back some images if you re-light the scene. It would be fun to see!
Let me know if you have any questions.
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Comments
And here is the full render:
Ha! I see I'm listed as New Member. WTF? My join date is correct but it looks like all my earlier posts are gone. Doncha' love technology? All those pearls of wisdom...sunk back into the ocean. :D
Mark, the Carrara users are at the bottom of the ocean still looking for the user manual for 8.5 since thats sunk as well.
Mark,
Thanks for the tutorial. Daz reset our post numbers when they upgraded their website. You probably haven't posted since then so it shows you as a new user.
Loved your 7.2 tutorials back then very much! Thank you for this new one!!
Hey Mark, join the club, I saw the same thing, what the hell 0 post. Then I let go.
I didn't ask why, it pop in my head with the new website.
Anyway, always good to see tutorial from you.
Thank you
Thanks Mark! It will come in handy!
P.S. I have more posts! ;-P
Long time indeed. Great to see you here. I have a question...
Are you ever going to do another Carrara Dark Arts tutorial? On anything? Those were awesome and they are missed!!
Pleasantly, I've been very busy. My list of to-do tutorials is about 30 items long. Any suggestions?
Thank you very much :-)
Hi Mark - glad to see you back; I've really enjoyed your tuts and looking forward to more :)
Requests? How about the most neglected subject - terrains !
Off the top of my head, how about something in depth on UV mapping? Especially the unfold option. All that stuff with the seams still mystifies me.
Mark, Thank you!
And all your older posts are not lost... posts before May 16, 2012 are on the old server at forumarchive.daz3d.com
I use Google site search to find things there more quickly since the old server is so very, very slow. It takes forever to load a page. Also, the images are all there, but you have to grab what's left of the link and put forumarchive.daz3d.com in front to see the images.
I've heard rumblings that DAZ may dump this current forum software, too, so keep stuff backed up!
Hi All,
I just posted a link to the completed scene file at the top of the thread. Have fun!
Mark
Ah yes but they are hoping to be able to migrate this whole forum over, and maybe even reconnect us to the old forum archive as well, but that part is not so certain.
Good to hear, Chohole!
Well, welcome, new member Mark to Carrara!! ;)
I need to "get the light" when it comes to my renders! So thank you very much for posting this!
I can't wait to have the time to look at this tutorial.
FD
Mark-- welcome back to forum and thank you for posting this. Very Nice indeed. And thanks for all your work with Carrara you have helped countless folks.
Rich
Wow. Really nice presentation. I like tutorials - especially video tutorials. I even enjoy looking into things that I think that I already know - especially when it comes to Carrara, since it has the tendency to have multiple ways to achieve similar results.
Anyways, I liked this enough to convince me to look into purchasing some of your VTC training. Looks great. The only reason I haven't already is that neither VTC nor Amazon take PayPal. I like your teaching style though... really thorough and well spoken.
I noticed above that you were asking for suggestions. I have a few that I've yet to see well portrayed in training:
Techniques in Animation:
Utilizing Target Helpers and IK for animation assistance
Editing ease in and out of tweeners
Dissection of NLA abilities
Graph Editor
Modeling
Getting involved in actually creating different types of objects using the MetaBall modeler - as well as a really in-depth look at some of the different possibilities of the other modelers as well. Replication and modifiers within the Vertex modeler and such... the Bridge tool... Magnets...
What's New in Carrara 8.5?
What was new in Carrara 8?
It looks like a lot of that was mentioned in your previous courses, so I'm looking forward to checking that out. I see many other topics of interest in there as well. I am less interested in which version is which, when it comes to some of this stuff, So I'm also considering getting some of the earlier lessons you've sold as well. That's 'my' kind of T.V. :)
Hi Dart,
Check out Mark's website, specifically the Carrara Dark Arts section. The multi-legged walk cycle tutorial might touch out IK and helpers.
http://www.markbremmer.com/3Bpages/darkarts.html
I've finally acquired enough time (while everyone else was asleep! ;) ) to catch the entire tutorial - start to finish. Very cool, Mark! I have a very cool tip for you, for future use:
Duplicating and radii
First of all (this will make more sense as you read further) if I am going to be adding things around a rather symmetrical object, like that main object in this scene, I will insert a target helper object and group everything that is not the target helper object. Select the target helper first, then shift/select the group. Now Edit > Align (Ctrl + k) an select both x and y axis', but not z. This will center the group over the central region where Carrara inserts things as well as loading items from the browser - very handy!
Now let's use your SpotHalogen for an example and put it in place as shown in your wonderful tutorial - I really love it!
Now, with the SpotHalogen selected, turn on CapsLock and move the hotpoint to the center - where the Target Helper Object is located.
This time, when you duplicate the light, you can simply rotate the new instance into place, rather than moving. Further duplication will now place the rest of the lights where you need them to be! Sweet!
Still limited on time - as normal this time of year for me, I intend to collect all things Mark Bremmer that I can find. Very impressed!
I really enjoy Phil Wilkes training as well as the incredible offerings of the Cripeman. To me, there can never be enough video training for Carrara. Getting personal within the interface like that makes learning so much easier - even though very well written and illustrated docs are also welcome to my tastes.
What I was meaning by those suggestions above was in the event that Mark was planning a new VTC experience. If so, many of the things covered already (unfortunately since I haven't seen them yet, I can only make an educated guess) will still hold true in the latest version(s). So if he had an 8.5 expansion or a continuation of more methods in mind, there is a wide range of areas where many people could benefit from such an exact approach to using Carrara and its tools. Again - at a loss of not knowing the full contents,
Some more fun things to cover might be (please excuse me if you've already covered some of this - as I'm working quickly, and off the top of my head):
Toon and other non-photoreal rendering
Various Shader node options
(I see that you seem to cover volumetrics - I can't wait to check that out!)
Advanced Particles Setup
Anything else that you see that any user might find helpful to know in their use of Carrara.
It's so vast that I just feel that we can never cover enough of this stuff.
I doubt that DAZ 3D finds your offerings to be competition to their store - but rather an enhancement to the use of the software that they sell - much like off-site plugins. This the case, I'll really get loud about your various offerings of great training. I recall watching the free portions of your training some time ago - and I find your teaching style to be very effective. Fairly soon here, I'll be getting several of your products and delving deeply into learning more about Carrara!
Also, besides my thanks for offering this great lighting tutorial, where you've really helped me to come to terms with the use of tube and shape lights (wow - they really are THAT simple, eh?), I am also deeply thanking you for this really cool scene content! How incredibly cool!
Dartanbeck
You know, I was planning on doing some tutorials about some of the basic ways that we can use the Texture Room in Carrara.
Naturally my eye got caught on Weatherize Quickly in your list of Advanced Tutorials for Carrara by DAZ 3D. All I can say is: Wow! You really are fast at teaching concepts! I have recently acquired Enhance C, Shaper Ops 1 & 2 from DCG. I like your disclaimer! So unfortunately I didn't learn anything about my precious new Shader Ops! lol
Exploring these DCG plugins is going to be a true pleasure, I know. When seeing some of the new possibilities added to the Texture Room (via these plugins), it can be somewhat intimidating, I'd imagine, if you're not the explorer kind of user. So just seeing the quick examples that you advertise in yet another, very well made tutorial, should help to alleviate a lot of the fear in plugin functionality.
I also see that you have a spot in your "Thank You" portion where you allow people to make a Special request for an advanced tutorial or shader. Very cool!
Of course I won't be jamming on that button until I see what else you have in store for me in your VTC training. Now I'm just getting plain excited!
For others reading this, although the above link leads you to a 'Weatherize' tutorial, Mark has a wonderful way of just showing how easily you can work within the Texture room - and does so much the way I do it, too. In reviewing the table of contents to his Carrara 7 Pro training through VTC, I have a feeling that he can teach you exactly how to get any look that you want from nearly any situation within Carrara.
I went in there mainly to see what is offered for Shaders, while typing this note. Along the way, I see that most of what I've been asking for seems to be covered in there as well. Amazing! I can hardly wait to see what he does with all of those commands in the Vertex Modeler, what he says about Spline modeling and MetaBalls!!!
As many of you may know, I watch tutorials as my source of television. Besides my five seasons and one movie of the Clone Wars, from Cartoon Network, Carrara, Modeling, Dogwaffle, and Image/Video/Sound Editing video tutorials are my kind of enjoyment and entertainment. So I am happy to see here that he has lessons for Carrara's 5 and 6 as well. Even if some of the stuff repeats itself, I'll likely still enjoy watching. Like I said... that's my TV!
Yes Indeed --Mark has been a real zealot for Carrara for years now and hopefully we see more of him here.
Smiles.
Rich
Indeed.
Have you watched his VTC training? (just curious)
Mark,
I've watched a few of the free samples of your VTC for 7 Pro.
I like it. I do realize that much of the content will be stuff that I already know. No matter... I enjoy watching anyways. It's the positive reinforcement thing. Plus I feel that it's always good practice to take courses on things that I may already feel comfortable with, just to check my technique against the instructor. For example, being a landscape foreman for nearly thirty years doesn't stop me from taking classes when the time is available, on subjects I've already proven successful at - simply to catch another perspective.
That said,
I really like how you train. As mentioned in the beginning, this course is intended to take the user into Carrara up to some fairly advanced methods and features. Have you ever thought of getting even more advanced in just as broad of a course?
It seems to me, by your comfort and expertise - your "as a matter of fact" style - that you are most capable to proceed further into a very advanced methods type of series - or do you mostly handle that stuff on the side?
I realize that my questions are vastly premature, since I haven't yet seen the course through... but I would love it if you could consider such a thing. Again, not being certain whether you contact VTC with an idea, or if they are the ones whom contract you at their choosing, I know that these things can be difficult to cross... for lack of a better explanation.
Yeah... looks really good to me - and your generosity at your site is really cool.
Aside from all of that... I'm glad that you're really busy - but still hope that you find your way to come in, when you can, and post a render, a thought, whatever...
Pleased to finally meet you.
Great to see you here Mark.
I love your tutorials so am really looking forward to watching this one.
I'm expecting it presents with your usual clearly explained narrative.
Thankyou for making it available.
cheers and come back soon !
PS - to anyone who hasn't got Mark's C7pro tutorials - getem !
This does look like a great tutorial - I can hardly wait to dig deeper into it.
Thanks Mark!