Sculpting alternatives in Carrara 8 Pro

bdproductions

I am hoping to add creases, tears and facial features to meshes I've been creating in Carrara. I've been familiarizing myself with Bender just in case, but I was wondering if anyone knew of any tricks, techniques etc that I could use in Carrara to achieve the effect of sculpting.?

Dartanbeck

Check out the displacement modeling. I haven't had a chance to really work with it yet. But you can add Smoothing levels to the model to achieve higher precision with the paint tolls for sculpting.

3DAGE

HI :)

Have you tried adjusting the setting for Bump in the shader.

Go to the TOP level (multichannel) and you'll see a controller (slider) to adjust the Bump value.
Carrara has a really powerful bump effect , which can look almost as good as displacement, but without the overhead of subdivision, although bump is only a lighting effect, ..rather than a mesh distortion.

The reason I ask if you're adjusting the bump is that I've recently noticed that some people are adjusting the Bump "Texture map values", instead of the actual bump amplitude.

this is wrong.

As Dartanbeck suggests,. the displacement painting is also very powerful, and can actually be used for sculpting, although the draawback is that you need to have enough subdivision in your model, to allow the displacement to work.

bdproductions

Thanks for responding 3DAGE,

I frequently use the bump channel to achieve what you've suggested. However, you've pointed out there is a difference between Texture map values and amplitude. I imagine that I would have to add the details to the actual bump map itself. I'm going to give this a try. I really want to sculpt the mesh itself (wrinkles in the face and clothing). The method that you have suggested will definitely decrease the processing load.

Thanks again!

3DAGE said:

HI :)

Have you tried adjusting the setting for Bump in the shader.

Go to the TOP level (multichannel) and you'll see a controller (slider) to adjust the Bump value.
Carrara has a really powerful bump effect , which can look almost as good as displacement, but without the overhead of subdivision, although bump is only a lighting effect, ..rather than a mesh distortion.

The reason I ask if you're adjusting the bump is that I've recently noticed that some people are adjusting the Bump "Texture map values", instead of the actual bump amplitude.

this is wrong.

As Dartanbeck suggests,. the displacement painting is also very powerful, and can actually be used for sculpting, although the draawback is that you need to have enough subdivision in your model, to allow the displacement to work.

bdproductions

Nice to hear from you again Dartanbeck...

Are there any tutorials that you know of that I can use as a reference and study aid? Displacement modeling definitely sounds like what I'm after.

Thanks again!

Dartanbeck said:

Check out the displacement modeling. I haven't had a chance to really work with it yet. But you can add Smoothing levels to the model to achieve higher precision with the paint tolls for sculpting.

3DAGE

Quick tut:

Insert a vertex object,.
In the Vertex Modelling room,. insert a Vertex Grid,.. or another object.

Add a few levels of smoothing from the right hand "Smooth" options.

Click on the Displacement painting tool on the top tool-bar.

On the right hand panel, you should see options to Displace or Smooth, and to change the brush (alpha mask)
Click on the little brush preview to open the brush browser.

you can also create your own brushes using any B/W (png) image

Brush on the object,. see the effect.

Note: the higher your objects resolution, or Sub-division,. the more detail you'll see.
so, the drawback for this case would be that you want fine lines, and that's going to need more sub-division smoothing.

Note 2 : Displacement is better used to create larger scale features, rather than intricate and low level details such as veins and wrinkles.

hope it helps :)

Dartanbeck

I cannot think of one off hand. But here's a quick primer that should have you up and sculpting ASAP:
Just glance through the images below for a fairly decent explanation of what you'll need.

A - Find the Displacement Painting tool in the modeling tools section

B - Select the Alpha Mask for the brush, which gives the tool texture

C - Check that you have smoothing turned on, unless you already have a high resolution of polygons
- Higher Smoothing (SubD) levels allow for higher levels of detail to be modeled via displacement
- Test the tool and set the Size, Strength, and Hardness of the brush

- Start Displacement sculpting!

D - The tool can be set to Smooth to flatten details that might have become too sharp

...and above all else, Have a lot of fun doing it!
Don't forget to save every once in a while. This stuff, while fun, does have the ability to make a mess of things in a hurry! Thank goodness for Undo, eh?!!! :ahhh:

Okay, let's see what you come up with ;)

Dartanbeck

Andy! Sorry to run into you like this :red:
Oh well, where one tutorial is nice, two is... well... better, perhaps?

I'll go read what you've written now... see if I can learn something new ;)

DUDU

Q. can we add more brushes and can we create brushes ourself ?

Dartanbeck

A: Yes. PNG format into the Carrara > Data > Displacement Maps > Brushes folder

EDIT:
After looking again, I'm not certain if just adding a png image into that folder will do the trick, but it might.
The 'infos' file in that folder shows that the png files are the icons in the tool selector, and many of them refer to another brush image.
So it might just be that we have to go into the 3d Paint tool, create new brushes from there, and set them up for use in displacement painting.

Dartanbeck

I looked in the manual, and couldn't find an answer to the creation of new brushes, though 3dage does mention that we can make and use them, so I'm sure there's a way. We can also access displacement painting using the 3d paint tool, which does allow for additional brushes to be added.

Furthermore, there's some good additional information regarding Displacement painting on models in the Carrara manual. The version I'm using, this begins on page 243, and has some information that I think you should become familiar with. We've already hit the basics, and there's not a lot more to it, besides saving your displacement maps, etc.,
It's not a long or difficult read... I recommend it ;)

3DAGE

HI Dart :)

No problem my friend,. the more tutorials we have the better.

You also got the Pics and everything. :)

Making Brushes or (alpha masks) as carrara calls them is a s easy as creating a grey-scale or Black and white PNG.

If you're on Windows,...Have a look in your...
Program files / Carrara / Data / Displacement Maps / Brushes

Not sure about mac but, it should be Application folder, followed by the same sort of folder hierarchy.

In these images, the vases have displacement sculpting.
I made my own brushes for this object, as an experiment.

Dartanbeck

Beautiful work. So all you have to do is to put the new images in the Data\Displacement Maps\Brushes folder, and they show up?
That's sweet! Do you recall what level of smoothing you used? Really turned out nicely.

I was always meaning to (if you recall a thread I started last year in search of a sculpting app, and decided to just use Carrara) work with this displacement as a method of modeling details, but just haven't yet. I got too involved with modeling instead. It's amazing what we can do in Carrara... I'm constantly becoming more and more impressed.

TangoAlpha

On the Mac: First find your Carrara.app file (Applications : Daz 3D : Carrara8.5 64-bit)

Right Click it then select Show Package Contents from the menu.

Then browse to: Contents : Mac OS : Data : Displacement Maps : Brushes

Gonna try this myself later... :)

DUDU

Thank you Dart and Andy, new possibilities open to us!

Dartanbeck

Just a tip:
You can even use Carrara to create the displacement brushes. Just set the render output to png at the needed resolution and place primitives or other objects in the scene, give them a white texture, perhaps add lighting, and render out custom brushes. So you can used text, terrain, Ocean waves, fire, volumetric clouds, anything you want. I even use special font characters in the text modeler to make various shapes. Fast, fun, and quite controllable.

3DAGE

HI Dart :)

So all you have to do is to put the new images in the Data\Displacement Maps\Brushes folder, and they show up?

Exactly,. but you can obviously make your own folders for brushes,. Unfortunately the Burshes panel always opens up with the default brushes, but you're sub- folder should also show up, and you can click to see the brushes.

Do you recall what level of smoothing you used?

I think I used 5 levels of smoothing on those, ...but they were pretty low poly to start with.

Dartanbeck

Yeah, that's cool that it always opens to default. I like those brushes. But I'm loving the fact that we can make our own, too. Dogwaffle has some excellent tools for making tile-able images. So does Genetica... wow, it's been too long since I've opened Genetica!

It's amazing how well Carrara can take low-poly models, and give us all manner of control using SubD smoothing and a bit of displacement. And it's fun, too!

DUDU

Hi,
I created a brush in PS (.png 256x256) and that functions well in Carrara except when I select “Displacement/Mode/smooth”, nothing happen and this, with all the brushes…
Which is the problem?

Dartanbeck

The mesh may be too low-poly. Go to Smoothing (must have at least part of the mesh selected) and try higher values. The sphere example I give on the previous page uses Smoothing of 3.
Now, some folks, for good reason, only apply smoothing on the Render level. While this is fine, it won't allow you to 'see' what you're doing at the model level. So you need to turn that up as well, so you can see what you're doing.

DUDU

Hello Dart,
here a screenshot, when I select “smooth”, it doesn't have there deformation.
My cube has ~ 9000 polygons.
For what is used the button “Convert”?
Another thing, it seems that we must have an reverses image to create the brush which one wants and moreover, this one is shifted of 90° compared to the basic plan.
Is it possible to make a rotation with the brush?
Thanks.

Dartanbeck

Not 'that' smooth... look at the same picture, down further, under Subdivision. That's the smoothing I was talking about. Notice that you're rendering at level 4, but modeling is only set to 3. So you can actually get more detail in the final render than what you see.
That can mess things up. When displacement modeling, keep both of these values the same. You may always change them later, when you're done.

Dartanbeck

I should also mention that, while displacement painting in this way, Left-Click builds up, while Right-Click carves down ;)

DUDU

Here some brushes to be added in your repertory: http://mhdproductions.be/Carrarators/Brushes.zip

Dartanbeck

DUDU_00001 said:

Here some brushes to be added in your repertory: http://mhdproductions.be/Carrarators/Brushes.zip

Thanks, DUDU! Very nice of you!