PC+ Revisited
Dartanbeck
Posts: 21,567
It's been a long time (at least it feels that way) since I've disappeared. Things settling down on the home front now, so I'm slowly but surely getting back into things. I've been using Carrara in my free time all along, but I haven't been able to access the internet where I was, so I only got very limited strolls in and out during that whole period.
Anyway, during that whole time I've let my PC+ membership lapse - but I think I did so even a little earlier than that.
I was amazed at the difference the PC+ makes. Check Out what Platinum Club + can do for You! As a person who would rather spend more time assembling scenes to render and/or animate, I value the ability to beef up my content libraries by purchasing more than creating from scratch. It just gives me the opportunity (and stamina) to then create original assets when I want, how I want. Most importantly, I can still assemble, animate, and render without being hard-pressed to complete my assets first.
I mentioned all of this to Rosie, my reason for living, treasure of my heart, mother to my children, and she got me back onto the yearly PC+ plan, just like that. Again, Amazed at the price difference and the sheer amounts of stuff a person can collect with the coupons combined with the savings - savings that are still there after using the coupons.
Although I started back up toward the end of January, I didn't have to wait another thirty days for more coupons - they just get awarded at the beginning of each month. Makes sense - keeps things simple. Well after just spending my February coupons, I've already saved enough to pay for my PC+ membership twice over!
Why am I saying all of this? Well... because I consider you all to be my friends/family and, just in case there are others like myself whom might feel the need to collect a large library in a hurry by some of the industry's finest artists, I wanted to share the facts.
PC+ items are NOT lower quality products on clearance. Quite the opposite. PC+ is loaded with truly amazing products across all genres in the store by some truly talented people, too many to name without my accidentally excluding someone, so I won't. But the product images I'm showing here are all content additions I've just added with two month's worth of coupons without spending more than a minimal amount to use the coupons - and I'm on a very (Very) tight budget right now as I need to build a new computer in order to use any of it - or I'd be showing renders instead of product page images. I didn't incude images of everything I got, and none of the content I got as Free PC+ items, which have also been pretty cool too.
I know it's valuable to learn the skills to build one's own content. It's just a healthy thing to know how to do. But in my case, I'm one guy trying to make a series of movies, all in 3DCG. Studios that do this stuff have many people, each making parts of one thing - most only responsible for one aspect: Conceptual Design or Modeling or UV Mapping or Texturing or Rigging or Animating or.... you get the idea, right? Well I've said this years ago: I consider DAZ 3D artists to be my studio of teammates doing their parts to get my assets ready for me to do my part - and my part is already taking on a LOT more than any one person in an animation house.
Besides, the more we buy - even at these insanely low price-points, the more we contribute to this whole marketplace cycle of life. I'm more than happy to help feed this amazingly talented artists! Truly!
Check Out what Platinum Club + can do for You!
Something that I've also said a while back which no longer rings true with me: I used to look closely at each item before buying to see of it's DUF-Only. I never bought that stuff thinking that I'd have to jump through hoops to work with it in Carrara. Well, we have a "Buy Something that Doesn't Work in Carrara" thread, so it's obvious that not all content does work - and it's virtually impossible to know for sure unless we recognize it from such a thread. But since I've made those comments I've purchased quite a few DUF-Only products that work just fine in Carrara, and since I treat them the same as Poser items (Load them in, optimize them for Carrara, save to my Carrara Browser), I usually only have to load them as a DUF once. For products that don't work as expected in Carrara, and I don't have a convenient work-around for it, I can easily trade it back to DAZ 3D for a refund and just get something else. More than fair.
Platinum Club (back then there was no +) was one of my first purchases from DAZ 3D. I started the yearly membership since I knew I needed to build a content library to get going. I used the membership's savings to buy Carrara and a huge pile of goodies to get me started - again, thanks to my beautiful, sweet and wonderful Rosie, and I've been a member all the way up until that dark and silent time of recent. It's really neat to go back through my Product Library in my DAZ 3D account and look at the purchases I've made from being a total newbie, and still using Millenium Environment to flesh out my scenes, to becoming more inquisitive about certain aspects of Carrara by making specific purchases to learn from, and then growing from there. Purchase habits have changed quite a bit over the years and, all the while I've built an incredible library of assets to animate and render!
Heh, I remember when I bought "Advanced Carrara Techniques", a video learning course through Infinite Skills by PhilW. I had the audacity to actually believe that I was even too advanced for that course! I had learned a lot by then, and could only by one of the video courses, so I skipped the Basic one. I actually bought the Advanced course as enjoyable entertainment. I wanted a sort of Carrara TV. Well, I still refer to that course when I want to pick up on doing something that I don't ordinarily do - and that course taught me an awful lot! Did I still use it as "Educucational Entertainment", "Carrara TV"? Yes I did! Still do! But I also use it as a way to go in and learn amazing new things about Carrara - it's such a vast software. So I went back later and bought the Basic Learning course - and learned a LOT from that as well. Then he came out with more, so I bought those too. I love PhilW TV!
Mmoir, GKDantas, MAT Creator, Dimension Theory, Howie Farkes, 3DLust, 3dage, Magaremoto, Ringo Monfort, Tim Payne, Phillip Drawbridge, Larsen, (I'm sure I'm missing some) - I've learned a LOT from buying products from these folks who have made Carrara-specific products and included wonderful ReadMe files and/or tutorials. It's a shame to see that many of them have been culled (no longer have a store) from DAZ 3D, but being a culled PA myself, I completely understand and agree with the process. Just that I feel sorry for all of the Carrara users who will never have the opportunity to purchase these wonderful products anymore. They were great products in their own right, but also fun and valuable to take apart, bit by bit, and learn from how they were put together, etc.,
But the amazing magic of Carrara includes the fact that it can work with files specific to Poser and Daz Studio. Most other 3d suites cannot do that - especially as well as Carrara can!
So my PC+ membership continues to grow my collection of DS and Poser products along with new Carrara material.
TangoAlpha - I remember when he first came to the forum asking for opinions on the start he had for a 3D project he was planning on submitting to DAZ 3D. Now DAZ 3D has purchased some of his items and made them PC+! Bravo! He has an amazing store filled with content that works in both Daz Studio and Carrara! Boon to all, I say!
I remember when Vyusur first stopped into the forum. Amazing renders! Amazing! Little did I know she was such an amazing, talented modeler/photographer. Now she has a store here at DAZ 3D with amazing realistic content! Bravo!
Some of the Carrara-specific content creators are still with us making things for Daz Studio, some for both Daz Studio and Carrara. Some artists have always made content for Poser and other software, but still made a thing or two for Carrara as well. Keep an eye open... you may find Carrara products that you haven't seen before - or even Poser or daz Studio products that include Carrara-specific files, like Stonemason's first Greeble City Blocks product, which includes Carrara shaders.
So I tend to babble off the main topic a bit... I always have and likely always will. I think I was born this way. But the point is, I just want people to know that, even though Carrara is a formidable modeling software, we don't have to feel obligated to use it as one. Carrara is also an amazing content using facility, and there's nothing wrong with using the wonderful store to gain amazing content.
I'm so glad to see threads regarding building models in Carrara. When I first started, the vertex modeler in Carrara was really quite shunned by many. I bought Carrara in the first place because I wanted to be able to tweak the mesh of content that I bought. I did that right from the start and never had issues doing it. But somehow I let the negativity get into my head and never really used it as a start-from-scratch modeler. It wasn't until I posted a thread asking what modeler I should get (which was answered with many suggestions from Blender to Modo, and beyond) when 3dage came in with the wonderful advice of just trying Carrara, since I already own it!
I love modeling from scratch in Carrara! It rocks! Its plethora of tools, modifiers and operations makes it pretty darned easy for me to realize my needs directly in my favorite tool.
So I shop with confidence. Back in the Victoria/Michael 3 days, poke through, especially for animators, was commonplace. It became second nature for me to enter modeling mode and tweak clothing to fit. Nowadays, with the advent of Genesis and the legacy shape clone products, I'll buy generation 3, 4, 5 (Genesis 1) and 6 (Genesis 2) products knowing that I can make them work. GenX made that even better for me.
PC+ is going to help me even more with that now. I am so glad to be back to PC+, and I'm so glad to be back home... here in the Carrara Discussion Forum!
Cheers all!
Check Out what Platinum Club + can do for You!
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Comments
Some cool Daz Originals I bought using the Daz Originals coupon
This one was on sale for just under the $6 coupon, so I was able to grab it up for free, which worked well since I wasn't allowed to spend any more at the time. It's really cool! The studio and its sound boards, recorder, etc., is amazing enough (especially for the price, even if I didn't get it for free), but it also comes with a High-End Studio Mics, Guitars, Amps, and a nice Drum kit to boot!
Sound Studio - by Fugazi1968
This thing is really neat!
Steampunk Time Machine - By David Brinnen and Forbidden Whispers
Thanks for such a positive post. I wound up getting this Steampunk Time Machine for free. Timeless anyone? Anyone? Bueler?
Thank you Dartanbeck for the kind remarks. I'm a big fan of early Sci-fi, the time machine and also, The First Men in the Moon, and it was Cavor's spaceship which was the inspriation for this vessle. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058100/
My pleasure! Yeah, I;m using that as a means to cross multiple genres as well as to travel time! ;)
(Love the movie reference! LOL)
Wow! Cool source of inspiration! Sweet!
Still Bryce much? I'm still so engrossed in (still) learning Carrara - seems this program never runs out of features/functions that I have yet to explore... and now with DCG plugins being Open Source along with our members making more and more plugins... I just never seem to catch up! LOL
One day... I mean it... one day I need to open up Bryce and see if I can figure things out. Such a cool software!
Anyway, your Daz Studio endeavors continue to put me in awe - and they lovingly slide right into Carrara without a hitch, so thanks for that!
Thank you Dartanbeck once again for the kind words. Well... since I've decided to make a go of doing the "art" for living, my Bryce time is well down, mostly now I only open the software to answer questions put to me on my youtube channel.
I open up Daz Studio even less. A few years ago I made a conserted effort to get to grips with the Studio but me and the software I soon learned were never going to be friends. So I gave a few things a try. Blender, Z-brush, Cinema... just whatever there was to try out and for free and in the end settled on Modo. I get along with Modo about as well as anything I've used. So that's now where I spend most of my time, teaching myself to hurd "spiders" off exposed edges and pondering the best way to fill an n-gon with quads.
I'm lucky to have co-opted Forbidden Whispers for these projects and as for the PC+, Jack's help was invaluable starting out in helping me get to grips with the UV mapping. For which I employ UVlayout. Where I spend about 1/4 to 1/3 of the rest of my time. With brief spel in Poser to set up the rigging and I'm also gradually trying to teach myself Substance Designer if I feel like a break from Modo. Substance Designer is very interesting, it's Bryce's DTE but on a grander scale and with better feedback.
Good to know the stuff we make will work with Carrara (which I have also dabbled with in the past - being very impressed with the render engine's capabilities). Now the most rendering I do tends to be in Octane for the purpose of testing "texel" density in UV templates - hardly thrilling I know!
I enjoy your UK themed models! Question... where did those green wellies come from in the Woodland Floors product? They are not the same as the rain boots by Dogz.
Silene
Thrilling!!! Truly! :)
That's cool that Jack Tomalin helped you out so much - and in such an arguably intense portion of the job. That can take a lot, just to get to grips with... but to do it so well takes a good deal of time and patience.
Jack always does seem to be very patient and generous, along with his neverending supply of great, new models. I've been buying Jack Tomalin content from the very start of my adventures into all of this - and I'm glad for it. Wonderful kits that are useful in so many ways - use the preloads or just any of the many parts to create something entirely different - even to kitbash with other things!
So far everything I've picked up from his selection has worked with ease in Carrara, and are always a pleasure to work with - newest and previous offerings alike.
As I continue on as a customer of great things DAZ 3D, I often don't mind so much if I get something that doesn't work so well in Carrara - holding on for the day when I go into Daz Studio. But in the process of building the library and testing things, we begin to notice trends - some artist's content tends to always, or at least most often work in Carrara. Some of the items that I don't tend to show off might be things that are compatible with products that I know don't work in Carrara - for others, it might be as simple as the fact that I haven't been able to try/buy them yet.
When I notice a track record of compatibility, however, especially in instance where I see that products are set up to work in both Poser and Daz Studio, I tend to make a habit of looking at the artist(s) that make that stuff on a more consistent schedule - like when I'm shopping for new wonders!
Yes, me too! I don't have practical knowledge or any ties to UK, so I'm sure it doesn't mean as much to me as it might to someone from there, but the style always seems to catch my eye! ;) It we have anything like this in the US, I certainly have never seen it!
I want to talk about how amazing Ravnheart's new Scifi Ship Building Blocks product is, but I have to play my drums for an Ice Hockey/Winter Festivities event, so I'll be back either later on this evening or tomorrow for that. I must say that I was utterly suprised at how quickly even the full prest ships load in! Cargo Ship 1 (duf) loads into Carrara missing the whole middle section. Haven't figured out why yet as my time has been limited. I did try it in DS and it loads fine. I think it will be an easy fix, however. Cargo 2 loads completely and almost immediately! Really cool!
Modeled by Ravnheart, textured by ToxicAngel, I love this kit! Can't wait to get more playtime in with it!
we have one down the road... top deck converted into a coffee shop
Sweet!
The old AEC Routemasters are very much a relic (and icon) of the 1960s. They came in a number of liveries throughout the country, but the red London buses are probably the best known. There's a new Routemaster for the 21st century, still a double-decker, but very much more modern.
The newer ones look like this... and there are some electric ones being trialed on some routes. London is 'relatively' flat... I wonder how big electric buses would manage in hilly cities like Bristol?
London isn't that flat. One hill to the south East of London is called shooters hill and it goes down and then it goes up again the other side. When I was still living in Kent it was a regular habit of mine to get my speed up by putting my foot on the clutch on the down stretch to see if I could get up the other side without changing down a gear. (I drove old bangers at the time).. OK it's only 423 feet high, but it isna flat.
Way back when we had trolley buses, they could get up it OK.
Wow. Trolley buses? Crazy!
I'm sure most everyone here knows this already, but for those whom might not:
TangoAlpha has some AMAZING PC+ items - and his have Carrara Specific files as well as for Daz Studio!
Check this out
I believe that Hemlock Folly was his first product at DAZ 3D. It's an amazing piece. The tower, itself, is simply fantastic inside and out and the exterior is vastly detailed into very much a complete 3d landscape scene!
Be sure to check out the product page for more amazing shots of this incredible set! Bravo TangoAlpha!
They were fun Sometimes the arms would come of the wires and the conductor would have to get a long pole with a hook on it it put the things back on the wires. Before the trolleybuses we had trams, and then after trolley buses we had the routmasters, the famous London red buses.
Tangy Apple Orchard is another of his PC+ offerings - again, an awful lot of fully detailed entire 3d scene in one beautiful package!
Jackson's Field
...and Medieval Hall and Garden!
I've only picked a few of many great product views of these awesome PC+ items. Give the product pages a visit to see more of what these kits offer. They're all incredibly expansive!
These kits are wonderful at full price. PC+ price makes them a real steal!
Bravo TangoAlpha!
Be sure to check out his other sets as well. He's got an amazing store full of goodness!
Love your enthusiam Dart. And well deserved too! You almost have me rejoinng the pc club. I really need to sort what I have already bought and never used first. Lovely render examples too.
It's about time you became a PA again
Thanks Dart
, and those sets were all built in Carrara too!
(but if I remember, the Folly only came 2nd in the Carrara Challenge, lol)
You know, it never bothers me whether I use my PC+ purchases or not - not really. The thing is (and always was) that I want to have a large library of content so that, if I need something for a scene - and who knows what my imagination will conjure - I can look through my own library before looking to buy somethign specific. It's amazing how often I already know of things in my library to use for such things.
...and the other part is that it's actually very often when new PC+ items hit the store that I've just been (seemingly) waiting to own. So those things I load immediately, tweak out all of the shaders and save to my browser. Then I light the thing for one idea of use, and save that. Try another lighting scheme, save that. I don't always save these different lighting schemes as a separate CAR file - instead opting to just put all of the lights for each scheme into their own group, labeled accordingly, and just save the scene again as I add a new scheme group.
Then, when I'm actually working on a specific scene using a specific lighting scheme, I just delete the others, since these sorts of scene do get saved as a separate CAR
I couldn't agree more. I must first build my new computer ;)
Well... those challenges have some stiff competition, I think!
Yeah... I love that they were built in Carrara! It wouldn't matter to me if they weren't, but knowing that they are is just plain Sweet!!!
If anyone else has some favorites, I'd really love to hear from you. DAZ 3D has a HUGE library of wonderful goods to choose from, and some of them might not be well-represented by the promo pic. There's only so much time in a day! :)
For example, TheAntFarm has been one of my favorite vendors since I got here. I have a lot from the catalog, but there's still a LOT more to go!
Back to some PC+ Goodness, I have grabbed some great new items since my last post!
David Brinnen/Forbidden Whispers - Sci Fi Space Ship
A fun little kit, I'm still not sure which side this awesome craft is on... but is a wonderful and welcome addition to my collection!
Petipet's Flyer Eagle - Sci Fi Cargo Ship - Sci Fi UFO
The first two here being allies of my main heroes, the third is definitely part of the malicious Dominator force!
ImagineX - Alien Terror Drone
Speaking of the Dominator force, I think this thing is one of their allies...?
But we can try to hide from such threats in another offering by David Brinnen and Forbidden Whispers:
Forgotten Tunnel Entrance
A truly gorgeous scenery set - works great with my EnvironKit atmosphere setups!
A world of wonders could not be complete without the help of Mr. Jack Tomalin. While I have a rather fine collection of his work, one can never have too much, so I grabbed:
Trinity Atrium and the time-corroded version, Trinity Atrium Fallen
...and for just such places, I thought that Petipet's Ensk Station Props might be just the ticket for dressing up non-Sci-Fi sets to become more futuristic :)
Our pal, MA Journey, was talking about cars. Kinda sticks in my mind a bit.
I like to think that I have a cool collection of vehicles. I've already grabbed up a lot of the more ordinary-type cars and vehicles for more close-up shot street population, and then I also have a bunch of vehicles that I think are just down-right cool! One of the things that can ALWAYS seem to catch my eye while I'm shopping is a cool promo shot of a vehicle.
For the past fairly long time, Petipet, Ravenhart, Albert-Daniel-Russo, and DzFire have really caught my eye with vehicles, so I'll find myself just heading to their stores for a browse if I'm considering getting more vehicles... but there are a LOT more artists in the store who make some really nice vehicles, along with other things. Like the recent addition of Dreamscape-Creations, who seems to have pulled his city block movie sets from the Daz store, now offering only vehicles.
DAZ 3D seems to have gotten a lot more aggressive with their culling operations. At least some of the cool models were purchased before culling out the artist. So I also like to just use the major category filters at the top of the store to find new vehicles to add, Like
Places and Things > Vehicles
Here are some that I've just recently picked up for insanely low prices via PC+ Membership Most of the artists mentioned above I've found largely from my being a PC+ Member. When I first joined the club, I loved how low it dropped the price of Carrara, and back then, just by joining, they'd let us pick from a selection of massive starter bundles. They still offer those bundles for free once in a while, just not an immediate gift for joining, I don't think. But I was expecting the membership to get me low prices on some of the lesser-quality items. I was way wrong on that. It all seems to be really top-notch models and figures and add-ons. I didn't quite realize how amazing this membership is until I tried living without it! LOL I doubt I'll ever drop it again!
Of course, I've already mentioned my glee at getting this gem in another thread. It's not a PC+ item, but being a Daz Original class item, PC+ gets an extra 30% off
Arachnid Class Transport
As cool as the promo shots are of this vessel along with it's brethren, neither they nor the description prepare anybody for how cool this these ships are. Not only can our character figures walk around inside of these massive ships and operate the controls, but on this one, the entire cargo bay and bridge sections can each be loaded as individual props! Imagine the kit-bash potential of that! I mean, how many ships do you have in your collection that don't have visible, useable elements like this?!!!
Furthermore, for space fights this thing has amazing potential with its weaponry. Ammunition is included as whole, unused assets as well as individual parts after its fired. Muzzle flashes and shock waves are also included as well as an amazing set of possibilities for how the engines are lit - which are lit and what color do we want the flames... all can be animated. I'm absolutely ecstatic about this!
Yamaki Rapture Enforcer
I really wanted to build this bike. So freaking cool!
Of course, in order to do that, I needed the base bike, which is also incredibly cool:
Yamaki Rapture
Both bikes, by Ravenhart, are top-notch figures, as would be expected. Both wheel assemblies have suspension and the front has limited steering. Perfect for my animation needs!
I also grabbed a bunch of cool cars to add to my collection, all at the wonderfully, obscenely-low price of PC+ $1.99!
Spy Car V12 - by Dreamscape-Creations
Also know as 007's Aston Martin Vanquish!!!
SR8 Supercar - also by Dreamscape-Creations
FM555 Sportscar - also by Dreamscape-Creations
Beautiful little Ferrari!
1967 AM GT Sports Car - by Albert-Daniel-Russo
Sweet Ford Mustang!
1968 AM SuperSport Coupe - by Albert-Daniel-Russo
Delicious Chevy Camaro!
Nice pile of awesome horsepower to add to my "Vehicles" runtime! I love having a good selection of vehicles to choose from when I'm being creative with street scenes. Truly! One of my action scenes I have going on has this awesome thing parked half-way onto the curb with one of the doors and some of the hatches left open (I've had this one for quite a while already - this one was not $1.99):
Petipet's Plated Wolf