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Thanks everyone for chiming in. Yeah I know it's just a case of me learning to use the program. I came to DAZ with absolutely no knowledge of 3D art at all and was producing some good pics within a few weeks. I'm just a bit concerned that Carrara isn't loading my DAZ scenes which, of course, is the whole reason I wanted it .. so I could load up my DAZ scenes and do a better job of animating, lighting extra. But a least the app seems to be behaving itself. I'm still awaiting DAZ tech support to figure out why Carrara isn't locating files or loading my DAZ scenes.
And again thanks for all the useful links. I actually went out to look for a Dummies guide to Carrara .. and there is one .. just not available in the big bookstore here in Vancouver BC. And it's for version 1 :P .. but apparently it does cover the basics. Though I've heard the terms I still have no idea what a mesh is .. and why it's important. Or what the hell shader baking is all about. Or why scripting is good ... sounds great but what's it for and why's it better than not having it. These are all questions I hope a dummies guide will answer. And I'll be bumping my UV maps in no time .... or whatever the hell they're for :P
I know, total noob :D But I have an awesome animated film project I want to make and I'm incredibly interested to learn all about Carrara to make it happen. I'm already a composer and film editor and I'm just to ally in love with the idea of finally being able to make my fantasy film project all by myself.
For sure I'll be pursuing those youtube vid links and I'm very glad everyone here is so welcoming and helpful. I got a lot of great help on the DAZ discussion when I first started out with that (I suspect there's a few of you here from there too eh!). And I'm all about the learning journey. Hell I learned every professional program I own (Pro-Tools, Logic Pro, Final Cut, Photoshop) by just playing around with it and enjoying the fun of learning. And I've become surpassingly proficient at DAZ .. wouldn't say expert yet, but certainly able to make some very worthy imagery.
Anyways, I'm gonna have another play with Carrara tonight and see what else I can learn. I still have no idea how one attaches gens, hair, horns, wings etc. And how one textures them all. In DAZ this was easy as selecting the character and double clicking on the appropriate content or material. All very important stuff to learn .. sure hope its covered in a vid somewhere ... i guess it must be!
@Dartanbeck .. yeah man .. I watched your first look vid, very informative .. but I need to watch it again and to look through the rest of your stuff. Thanks man!
My pleasure ;)
As for your DAZ Studio scenes, you'll soon learn what can and will work in Carrara and what will not. If you're trying to open a DS scene using Carrara and it's drawing up an error, it might be a case of it not being saved as a DUF file, or that it contains something in it that Carrara simply cannot open the way it is currently saved.
Luckily, you'll also find that it can be very quick and easy to simply load in all of the things that you wish to use in your scene directly into Carrara, rather than from a previously saved DS file. A few reasons why are as follows:
First of all, Carrara has it's own wonderful render engine, which requires different materials than DAZ Studio. So it can be less confusing and more conducive to actually work with each element of a scene individually, and optimize them one at a time as you build the scene, instead of having to go through the elements of a full scene.
While Carrara and DAZ Studio are both sold by DAZ 3D, they are both quite different. In my opinion, Carrara offers a LOT more flexibility for animations than DS, but that may simply be that Carrara lends more to my liking.
With your new Carrara Browser, it is a great practice to load in individual elements and save Carrara-optimized versions. This makes it easier to use those elements in future scenes.
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But take your time. Like you said, it takes a bit to get used to a new piece of software, and Carrara allows you to do an enormous amount of things. While it will save you loads of time once you get used to using them, it does take some practice getting used to the things you use most.
So my advice, when your first starting out, is to practice the things that you already know how to do in DS. You'll soon find the similarities and learn how to cope with the differences. Later on you can start trying out more and more things.
You'll really notice a difference when it come to setting up lights and cameras. In Carrara it seems more like using real lights and cameras in a virtual scene than in Poser or DS. I love that!
Have some fun and ask some questions in this forum when you get stuck. We've all been there, and there are many folks here, as you've noticed, that can help with anything you might need to learn to do... it's better than an emergency hotline!
RE: books ang guides
I have picked up some used guides on Amazon. Cheap. For version 1, some of the guides go for a dollar or two. We are on version 8, so be aware that the interface has changed, and new features have been added. I would recommend the handbooks for version 5, or even version 3.
If the book prices have risen significantly, then I would recommend the video tutorials by PhilW. Or even if the book prices have not changed, I would recommend PhilW.
I would have been lost without Phil's Infinite Skills tuts. All is presented in proper order and you can just watch them for a start.These are professional quality! Or you can "play along" which is what I did. He had me vertex modelling right away, even if a simple lesson, it showed how it works as do all his lessons and you can apply the concepts to bigger projects. I still go back and revisit them. And there's an update for 8.5.
A good investment! But I wish since Carrara Pro 8.5 was just on sale. and more new people have bought it. that DAZ would put those vids on sale.
But you do get TWELVE 12 HOURS in 129 LESSONS of instruction which is a LOT!
http://www.daz3d.com/infinite-skills-inc- or
http://www.infiniteskills.com/files/search.html
01. Basics And Getting Around
0101 Introduction
0102 Loading A Preset Scene
0103 The Carrara Rooms
0104 The Screen Layout
0105 Moving Around In 3D Space
0106 Window Views And Layouts
0107 2D Vs. 3D Views
02. Working With Objects
0201 Loading An Object
0202 Loading A Primitive
0203 Moving, Scaling And Rotating
0204 Collision Detection
0205 Parenting And Grouping
0206 Duplicating
0207 Moving The Hot Point
0208 Adding A Shader
0209 Saving An Object
0210 Modifiers
0211 Numerics And Constraints
03. Working With Poser/Daz Content
0301 Adding A Runtime
0302 Loading A Figure
0303 Adding Clothes And Poses
0304 Posing The Figure
0305 Using Point At
04. Cameras, Lighting And Scene Effects
0401 Adding A Camera
0402 Pointing Cameras
0403 Saving A Camera Position
0404 Types Of Lighting Part 1
0405 Types Of Lighting Part 2
0406 Types Of Lights
0407 Anything Glows
0408 Light Effects
0409 Global Illumination
0410 God Rays and Sun Beams
0411 Skies And Atmospheres
0412 Backgrounds
0413 Black Eyes Syndrome
0414 Backdrops
0415 Indoor Indirect Lighting
0416 New Lighting Option
05. Rendering
0501 Types Of Rendering
0502 Render Options Part 1
0503 Render Options Part 2
0504 Render Size
0505 Multipass Rendering
0506 Batch Rendering
0507 Depth of Field
06. Primitives
0601 Basic Primitives
0602 Terrains
0603 Plants
0604 Multi-leaf Objects
0605 Edit Tree Shape
0606 Clouds
0607 Fire, Fountains And Fog
0608 Ocean
0609 Text
07. Shaders
0701 Shader Channels
0702 Shader Texture Types
0703 Shader Layers
0704 Terrain Shaders
0705 Displacement
0706 Shaders For Daz & Poser Figures
0707 Shaders For Indirect Lighting
0708 Shadow Catchers
0709 Using Normal Maps
08. Hair
0801 Hair Basics
0802 Hair Tools
0803 Hair Shaders
0804 Human Hair Part 1
0805 Human Hair Part 2
0806 Human Hair Part 3
0807 Strays For Added Realism In Hair
09. Replicators
0901 Grid Replicator Part 1
0902 Grid Replicator Part 2
0903 Surface Replicators
0904 Greebles
0905 Cityscape Scene
0906 Using Distribution Maps - Path Through A Forest
10. Animating
1001 Types Of Animation
1002 Keyframe Animation
1003 Tweeners
1004 Physics Animation
1005 Figure Animation And Bones
1006 Figure Animation - Extra
1007 Non-Linear Animation
1008 Converting An Existing Animation Into A Clip
1009 Animating Shaders And Other Properties
11. Puppeteer
1101 Puppeteer Basics
1102 Using Puppeteer For Character Animation
1103 Optimizing Puppeteer
12. Bullet Physics & Soft Body
1201 Bullet Physics Basics
1202 Bullet Physics - Knocking Down Blocks
1203 Physics Motion With Constraints
1204 Soft Body And Cloth Basics
1205 Soft Body Attach - Animating A Flag
13. Particles
1301 Creating A Particle System
1302 Editing A Particle System
14. 3D Painting
1401 3D Painting Basics
1402 3D Paint Projects
1403 Displacement Painting
15. Modeling
1501 Spline Modeler
1502 Vertex Modeler
1503 Extruding
1504 Booleans And Cuts
1505 Surface Tools
1506 Edge Tools
1507 Metaball Modeling
1508 Organic Modeling
1509 Creating Your Own Morphs
1510 Vertex Editing In A Posed Position
16. Postworking The Final Image
1601 Levels And Fixing Artifacts
1602 Liquify Filter
1603 Filters
1604 Thumbnails
17. Putting It All Together To Create Great Images
1701 Landscape Scene
1702 Fantasy Scene
1703 Modeling Spaceship
1704 Animation Scene
1705 About The Author
18. Updates For Carrara 8.5
1801 The Genesis Figure And DUF Files
1802 Using Genesis Character Presets
1803 Using The Parameter Panel
1804 Subdivision Levels
1805 AutoFit And Fit To
1806 Genesis Skeleton Visibility
1807 Smart Content And The Content Management System - CMS
1808 Memorize, Restore And Zero Figures
1809 New Light Icons
1810 Multi-Layer Elements In Shaders
1811 Improvements To The Sequencer, Keyframing And Animation Tools
And there's an update with the new features and about Genesis:
01. Carrara 8.5 - New Features
0101 The Genesis Figure And .DUF Files
0102 Using Genesis Character Presets
0103 Using The Parameter Panel
0104 Subdivision Levels
0105 AutoFit And Fit To
0106 Genesis Skeleton Visibility
0107 Smart Content And The Content Management System - CMS
0108 Memorize, Restore And Zero Figures
0109 New Light Icons
0110 Multi-Layer Elements In Shaders
0111 Improvements To The Sequencer, Keyframing And Animation Tools
0112 About The Author
There's also an advanced techniques set, but I'm definitely not "there" yet...although I just like listening to his lovely northern English accent!
:) Silene
I'm with Silene on this one. Phil's Carrara courses are invaluable to me still, even though it has all soaked in well after the third time through (LOL), I still go back and watch episodes.
The thing is that he covers SO MUCH stuff within one course. There always seems to be a topic similar to what I'm working on.
As for earlier books on Carrara, I still haven't taken the plunge, though I really want to get "The Carrara 5 Handbook" and perhaps another. But do keep in mind that Carrara 5's ability to use DAZ 3D and Poser content was a lot different than the way they've set it up for Carrara 6, and no versions prior to Carrara 8.5 could utilize the new DAZ Studio library. So just keep in mind that you won't be finding any 'direct' help towards content use in most of the printed material you find.
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As for DAZ Studio <> Carrara 8.5
DAZ Studio has now changed into making DUF files instead of its preceding DSF files. I'm not sure if it still makes DSF or not, but Carrara cannot read DSF files, but it can read DUF files. So some of the earlier Genesis stuff might have started in DSF rather than DUF and, say if you picked up some Genesis stuff from places other than DAZ 3D, it may have never been updated to the new DUF.
Bad News? Not really. While some of the professional content creators might have some sort of batch-conversion tool, you certainly don't need anything more than the latest version of DAZ Studio. DS can read Poser files and all of the DS files. So if you have legacy DS files, you can still open them in DS, and then save them to the new DUF format.
Carrara has many creation tools. It can make anything you can imagine. Much of this requires Carrara to use. I believe it is that reason why they didn't put in "Save As" or "Export to" DUF in Carrara 8.5 as it would have been a possible problematic nightmare between customer and customer support. Some things that Carrara creates easily on the fly are actual 3d mesh models that can be exported as an OBJ file. Many others are more of a volumetric effect or some other Carrara-specific feature.
That being said, while Carrara cannot actually export DUF (as of this writing), it does export OBJ, and DAZ Studio can convert OBJ files into DUF files that can then be loaded from within the DAZ Studio library. This all might be more advanced for you right now (not really - not if you want to do it), but it does help to illustrate that not everything that we put together in DAZ Studio will be truly readable in Carrara, and the opposite is even more true. I just wanted to shed a little light on a bit of the "why" of things not opening or working properly.
So if you have a DS saved scene, and it's not opening in Carrara as a DUF file, first check to make certain that it is a DUF and not a DSF (or other) format. If it IS a DUF, then open it in DAZ Studio and look at everything in the scene. What is in there that might only be DAZ Studio specific? Is the scene requiring a special plugin that you've bought for DAZ Studio, like "Look At My Hair" (for example)?
Using the power of DAZ Studio, we can keep a whole saved scene and then also break it down and only save individual elements without breaking the original file. All it takes is a new, unique name. DS also allows us to save as various considerations of library item, like Character Preset vs Scene, etc.,
Knowing that we can open the saved scene and, say, delete everything except for the main character and his or her hair, clothing and props, and save that as a DUF scene file. Open the main scene again and delete everything except for something else, and save that as a DUF scene file.
While I'm still not very savvy towards which types of asset (scene DUF or Preset DUF) to use - when, I do know that this is how we convert our DAZ Studio assets to work properly in Carrara 8.5
Lights, Cameras, Material Presets, and anything requiring a plugin designed specifically for DAZ Studio are not things that we would want to attempt to bring over. However, dressing up a character, applying the morphs you want, an even loading the materials set that you want to use for each of those assets, can be done within DS and saved as a DUF and then brought into Carrara.
I just bought Phil's tut DVD on Amazon UK for £39 post free. I am well pleased with that.
I did buy a month subscription to InfiniteSkills a few months ago when I got Carrara 8.5, because I didn't want to pay $99, so now I will have it to refer to, which is much better for me (and my memory)
They have a half price sale on until August 31 so I also picked up Phil's intro DVD. I'll have to forgo 12 hours of Netflix next month to see if any of it sinks in.
So ... Carrara is still refusing to load any of my DAZ made scenes (no leggy stuff .. and it's all DUF). And the app is running like a pig .. is there a performance setting like in DAZ?
Should I be asking for my money back?
I REALLY wanted this program to be amazing .. a better version of DAZ (Which I've learned do use pretty well). Someone please just tell me this actually is an amazing program. If all it requires is some patience and learning then I'll do it .. but man alive I'm bummed out by my initial experiences.
I think it's an amazing program. I'm very sorry you are having such a bad first experience with Carrara. Provided you are able to access your content, of course, have you tried setting up a scene in Carrara rather than trying to import a DAZ studio one? If I recall correctly, importing DAZ scenes has a long history of causing trouble and frustration. Maybe if you could throw together a scene within Carrara, even if it consists of some primitives from the menu rather than DAZ content, then you could evaluate some of the other features such as the animation tools you mentioned drew you to it in the first place.
I purchased Carrara to have a renderer for stuff I made in hexagon. My first renders were so crappy, I was embarrassed having spent so much money on it especially since I got Hexagon for only $1.99. I'm glad I stuck with it and learned to set up lighting and adjust render settings. My major artistic interest is photography -- setups primarily. Carrara has pretty much become my photo studio.
Ultimately, though, if a program isn't doing what you want or in a way that fits into your way of working, no sense in suffering. Just don't wait too long to figure out what you want to do so you don't miss the 30 day return period.
Best of luck and hope to see some great animations from you regardless which program you end up with.
sukyL
I have to agree with Suky, Scott. Having read your previous post where you are setting up scenes in DAZ for animation, are you are importing complicated full sets with lots of characters, clothing, props backgrounds etc? Are these scenes huge duf files?
I do not animate, but have used DAZ to set up individual characters, creatures, props. Especially for Genesis characters. I then save each one separately and then bring them into a new fresh empty Carrara scene where I save them to my Content browser under OBJECTS so they are there for creatuing scenes so I do not have to keep individually re-importing them. Once you have your cast of characters, and their bits and bobs, you can easily create your scenes right in Carrara.
If you are not doing this... ignore me!! Maybe it's the way you are saving them. Morphs, etc. Am sure someone here will point out the things to avoid when exporting scenes to Carrara.
Don't give up...you just got it! Carrara is a much higher end programme because it gives the artist more leverage to create and model from start to finish, not just import DAZ and Poser content. It takes time to learn. It's not "intuitive" software. Good luck!
x ;) Silene
ETA: If I can learn it.... I know you can. Just take it one step at a time. It's not an event, it's a process. But you will get lots of help here.
Yes, very sorry for your frustration. If you have specific content needs that won't load in Carrara, then you have to think hard about whether to keep it.
On the other hand,
- Carrara can load V4 and similar "poser style" figures directly from the figures/daz people folder of the "my daz 3d library runtime" folder. See pic of V4 loaded attached.
- Carrara can load Genesis and Genesis 2 style figures directly from the people/genesis or people/genesis 2 female or people/genesis 2 male folders. See pic of genesis troll loaded attached.
- Carrara can load a genesis or genesis 2 figure saved from Daz Stuio using he "save as" / "scene" function in Studio. The scene is loaded from the "My Library" / presets / scene folder in the Carrara browser tray, or wherever you save the file. This includes hair, clothes and pose. See attached pic of Genesis 2 Aiko 6 with business clothes, long hair, posed in Daz Studio attached. Also see same aiko 6 scene loaded in Carrara attached.
Once in Carrara, V4, genesis troll, and aiko 6 can be further posed, further morphed, and set in a landscape with realistic sky for rendering or animating.
If you can do all of the above then I think you will be very happy with Carrara. If you can't do that much, then there is probably something wrong with your installation.
However, there may be a small amount of specific content that is not compatible. If you need that content, and it is what is causing your frustrations, then there is a bigger problem that I can't help you with.
Dio, I am taking a big guess from his first post about what he wants to do that perhaps he's set(ting) up scenes with characters and props and environments etc... just guessing... in DS and saving this filled up scene and importing it into Carrara to prepare lighting, cameras, etc for animating. If so, would that cause him problems with Carrara bogging down if there are too many elements in the scene and/or the nature of the content?
Scott, you need to perhaps do a screen shot of the scene in DS that you are trying to import. Not just the DS render, but the assemble/model scene as well so the Carrara Heads here can have a look.
:) Silene
It is amazing but many of us who find it so came to it when Daz studio was pretty Meh
That said, DS is just a Daz dolly drop in and render app whereas Carrara is a robust software suite doing terrains, modeling, physics etc.
creating stuff in Carrara is its own reward.
I set up single dressed genesis figures in DS to import and make certain conformed clothes not parented to the figure
any autofitted stuff I save as support asset prop/figure and reload it
I import those individually dressed from saved scenes
and sets I load from the Carrara content browser not duf files but the Poser Runtime
Scott, as Silene suggested, it would be very useful for you to provide some more specifics. When you say that Carrara will not load ANY of your Daz Studio scenes, do you literally mean that your Carrara will not load any duf file saved as a scene preset from Studio, or do you mean that Carrara will not load some specific scenes that you have been working on? If it is the first, there may be an installation problem or you may be loading from the wrong folder or some preferences or settings may need to be adjusted. If the second, then it would be helpful to know how big the files are as Silene suggests, what the content that isn't loading is, whether that content will load seperately from the larger file, and things of that nature.
In other words, to try to diagnose your problem, it is helpful to try to recreate it and break it in parts. A screenshot of the file or some measure of its size, or a list of some of the scene elements could provide some clues.
As Wendy suggests with her tip about parenting and conforming elements within a duf file, there may be some best practices that people have discovered. I know that there are people who use the Studio export to Carrara as their workflow. We need to find out why you are having so much trouble.
And when I say that I may not be able to help you with some problems, I mean just me. There are some compatibility and utility functions that plugin creators like Fenric and asparrowhawke that solve some compatibility issues in some cases. They may be working on something for HD morphs if there is demand for that. But would need to know if that really is your problem for it to matter to you.
If you keep persisting, we'll keep trying to help.
I just did a test with more stuff. I loaded the genesis troll in daz studio, added biker helmet, some armor, a sword and shield, a loincloth, a car like chitty chitty bang bang and a lawnmower. It still exported from Daz Studio as a scene and loaded in Carrara.
However, the load in Carrara definitely took some extra time. I am using Windows 8.1 on a new laptop with a lot of memory. I believe you said you are using a Mac with a lot of memory. Could it be the scene sizes? As Silene suggests, could you load by smaller scene elements to compose the big scene within Carrara instead of loading the scene as a single file?
Scott,
I tried to send you a PM, but it didn't go through. I think this has to do with the short user name, but regardless, if you contact "chohole" or another moderator, I think they have the power to fix this.
Hey everyone,
The scenes I've tried to load are not big at all. Usually one or two characters .. a room set and some objects but not huge scenes. And I'm using Genesis with M5 so there's no problem for me with legacy models (as I don't have any :P). This should be all the stuff that Carrara can run.
I had a go at re-creating my main character again ... and for the most part I actually got him nearly right ... except for some reason the skin texture of the gens was all screwed up. Tried to apply the 'M5 Philip gens' shader and it came out looking all weird .. like it was trying to put a body texture (shader) on it instead of a gens one. It's just annoying to have stuff like that happen despite doing all the things that should make it right.
Anyways, at least it's progress over my previous attempts to use it.
It really is surprising that the DAZ company hasn't made these to programs work together. Lets face it as a beginner you're going to use DAZ and then when you want to move up the next logical step is Carrara .. bit of a shock to find it's sorta the same, but not :P
So, thanks to everyone for opinions and advice. I guess I'll keep the app and just work with it. Perhaps it's just one of those things that will initially suck donkey balls, but after a while will be just the best thing ever .. I sure hope so. And I suppose it was actually worth it to buy Carrara simply for all the content that came with.
I have DAZ running on two of my computers right now, both rendering scenes. Was looking at rendering a simple camera pan of my character .. at 4K size at 120 fps .. and because of his wings (Epic Wings) the render was going to take my Mac Pro 80 days to render ... yikes! :P Disabling the wings brings the render down to 1 week. The test render looked Fuggin' awesome!. And it would have been nice to be able to export this simple little scene to Carrara so I could use the multi-processing feature along with the CPU noding feature to render stuff ... but I've just had to resign myself to using DAZ for the meanwhile.
So, I'll keep Carrara and see what happens. If I an just get my character to load up and look right I'll actually be in business.
Hey does anyone know if the AOA Advanced Camera effects and Lights works in Carrara. I have them but can't see any way to add them as camera and lights in Carrara? I was using that to produce some nice atmosphere and god rays, but they seem to be a DAZ 3D thing only?
Gens and some other geografts are losing UV mapping in Carrara, a known bug
as I said not duf rigged human figures and sets and props best loaded in Poser format from your content browser runtime not as duf
at worst an obj import can be done if all else fails and just doing a static scene
I know it is tempting to hang on to Daz studio to set up everything as you find it familiar but I can assure you in time you would find carrara is far more flexible in that regard
esp props and the ability to edit them in vertex room.
Hmmm interesting. As I say, it's all genesis stuff I'm using. But perhaps I should look at trying to load the texture from the runtime library. Seems there's a fee bugs in Carrara they're going to have to work out before this really works for me. I am happy to create whole new scenes and characters in Carrara .. I just haven't had that much luck actually getting them to work yet.
Editing stuff would be cool .. definitely have several room or proper models I'd like to be able to easily enhance ... of course the operative word there is 'easily' .. will it be easy? I sure hope so.
The hair piece my character uses is the 'Sun hair' (Basically the bloodelf foxtail hair from WoW) but in trying to use it the shader (I assume I'm using the term shader correctly? ... I would call it colour or texture if I didn't know it was shader .. I think?!), .. it came out the wrong colour ... well mostly right but some strands at the back are coming out black. This stuff REALLY should work. I sure as hell wouldn't know how to apply a custom shader, or create my own. And there shouldn't be a need seeing as they're already made and there to use .. but not working. Grrr and such!
Don't you just hate it when you have to read the manual to do things :P. But I guess I'm gonna have to. But it does sound like Carrara has at least 3 bugs that are known about and hopefully they'll correct soon and I'll be able to use this as I need to.
Hey Scott, sorry to hear about your problems. I'm not sure about this instance, but usually the more specific details you can give, the better. Screen caps can also help to determine if there's something that maybe you're not seeing or don't know that you're seeing as you're new to the software- if that makes sense, It made sense when I thought it, but typed out it looks awkward. ;-)
If you're trying to load a DUF scene into Carrara 8.5 and it won't load, there is something in there that is absolutely not Carrara compatible.
Something to learn about Carrara and DAZ Studio:
DAZ Studio is built specifically by DAZ 3D. It's their brain-child. They originally started developing it at a time when it looked like Poser was going to become obsolete - and DAZ 3D was a marketplace for Poser content. DAZ Studio was developed so that Poser content would always have an app to render it on.
DAZ has taken the development of DAZ Studio VERY seriously as a rendering studio and lately to also benefit content makers to make mesh objects into content that is compatible for use with their content.
Genesis was developed along with DAZ Studio 4.5, and DAZ Studio 4.5 was developed around Genesis. Working with Genesis (1 and/or 2) outside of DAZ Studio requires some work beyond the simplicity available in DS. This was not the original intent. DAZ 3D gave their child to Smith Micro, whom has agreed to make Poser compatible with Genesis - but they didn't. So DSON for Poser was born. A poll arose in the Carrara forum (the older, now defunct forum) asking Carrara users if we would like to see Genesis compatibility developed into Carrara. Many of us voted "Yes", even though we still had no idea what "Genesis" was - except that it was to be the next generation of DAZ figures.
Carrara was created by Eovia by further developing and combining 3d modeling, animating, and rendering software that was being discontinued by their respective companies. Shortly before DAZ 3D acquired the thing, it had been tweaked to the hilt to be of professional standards toward creating such rigged figures, but also gained a beautiful method of treating Poser-style figures and all of their accessories as if we were working in Poser... but with Carrara's tightened up interface. This is what caught my eye first... as I just want to take these magnificent models and animate them into movies. I love to model in 3D, and especially so in Carrara. But to actually get done what I want to, I enjoy considering DAZ 3D as my development team for movie assets. Since they do so for everybody, all at once... I only need to pay them for the stuff I intend to keep - a ginormous savings!
Anyway, it took some time to get 'the feel' of Carrara.
In a video I've made, EnvironKit - Woodlands - Getting Started, I talk a bit about getting into the feel of things and show many tips whether using the kit or not.
To actually use Genesis in Carrara - or any DAZ Studio DUF files, we have to understand that Carrara is not, never was, and doubtful ever will be, DAZ Studio, for which Genesis and all of its accessories are made. That being said, we don't want to take the approach: "Okay, I will design my scenes in DAZ Studio, and import them into Carrara", although you certainly can, once you become familiar with how the whole system works together.
What I mean, in that mess, is that it's easier to begin small, when it comes to using DUF in the new 8.5
Start with a blank scene and bring in Genesis from the DAZ Library. If you've saved your favorite characters, load those first. Start with what you want, but one thing at a time. So once the figure is in the scene, bring in the clothing and other elements. Again, one thing at a time. Now, if you get to something that just won't load, give up for now - right away. If it didn't come once, it won't come on a second try unless something has changed.
Carrara 8.5 - First Look: Part 1 is very annoying, with reverb on my voice and music... but it does touch on loading in an working with Genesis a little.
Oh... cool, scott...
That "First Look" video up there should help to answer the textures thing. I hope I can see him when you're done! :ahhh:
We'll get you into animating your Genesis Bad-Arse in Carrara in ways that will show you why you'll soon be a home resident of Carrara!
Hmmmm.... rising, swirling smoke with the blaze of animated flames!
Interesting, Wasn't aware of Carrara's history. I only picked up DAZ studio about 2 months ago and I'm so new to the whole 3D thing. I actually never imagined myself getting into 3D rendering but after viewing pics on Renderotica for quite some years and seeing adverts for sets, devices and props etc .. and an ad for DAZ (for free!!), I figured i'd give it a go. And I've very quickly grown to the idea of making my own graphic novel .. but then when I saw it could do animation as well the idea of doing a film really came into it's own. I'm already an orchestral composer .. and film editor .. so being able to create my own scenes and story is such a buzz I can't even begin to tel you how terrific tis is for me.
I really have only tried to load very small scenes with just the meanest amount of stuff in it. I guess there' some part of a set that doesn't gel well with Carrara .. which is weird because it's really only usually two walls and a floor. Perhaps it's the AoA lights and camera that are crapping it up. Which would be a shame as I rather like using them in DAZ. But it might explain why things aren't working in loading. I just have a very specific look to my character and it's a shame to have to rebuild him from scratch ... well .. as much as one has to with pre-made content .. I guess I mean I've got to get him looking the same.
I can't really show any screen caps because the things that aren't working right .. you're not allowed to post here :P. Just imagine gens with a crazy zebra looking texture pattern on them .. you'll get the idea. Basically .. not looking like what they should.
I currently have 3 (of my 4) computers crunching out parts of a 30 second scene which is really just moving camera pans of my character. The scene is a teaser, romancing my characters body .. and at the end will reveal him in a head shot where we see .. he's a demon! And then the logo flies towards blackout. So far the frames that are coming out looks REALLY cool. at 4K size and 120 fps the film looks so slick and high art .. which actually is one of the goals of my little gothic horror project :P .. I'm really hell bent on producing something that's serious eye candy.
Anyways, DAZ will obviously not be able to help me create an entire movie like this because to render even a 5 second scene with the stuff I have in mind, it is measured in months. I actually bought a Mac Mini last night to help with the rendering .. put it straight to work crunching a scene ... It's certainly helping but Carrara will be the thing to do the main job, because of being able to farm out CPU tasks.
I'd be happy to show you what I'm working on Dartanbeck. Give me a month or so and I'll probably have my teaser ready. I have some stills done just bare in mind they are of an adult nature :P
At this point re-creating things is Carrara won't be too bad as I'm not married to any of the set work. But when you've got lighting, shadowing and everything just right it's a real pain in the arse to recreate it.
So, I think I just need to watch all the youtube vids about Carrara that I can, and to grab a dummies guide so I can understand the basics and fundamentals of using it. And for sure I've seen quite a few of your vids already Dartanbeck :D
Okay, thanks for sharing that much more info.
Yeah, I kind of figured that your scenes probably had things that simply don't work in Carrara, like specific DS lights, being one example.
Without having to rework your whole character in Carrara, open the scene in DAZ Studio and delete everything from the scene except for one character, leaving nothing else in the scene - not even lights or additional cameras. Nothing but the character. Now go into the File menu and save it as a Character Preset, I think. I''m not really savvy on DS, so please bear with me on that part. Anyways, we want to get "Just" the character into a DUF save in your DAZ Library, then load that into Carrara.
AoA does some amazing stuff. He has things for Carrara in his store, too. Perhaps he could help you to simulate the same lighting in Carrara as well. Otherwise, I'm sure that we here on the Carrara forum could help with that,too, so long as we know what they're doing.
Yeah, watch some of my longer babble-session videos for a while. Yeah... I know... I realize now that the added music and junk can become annoying, so I've stopped doing that. When I get the time, I'll fix the ones that I have up there. I truly had no idea it was that annoying! LOL
Thanks to those whom have come forth and told me so!
Anyways, some of my articles and videos should help you to get a better grasp on a good workflow that can help you get your graphic novel going.
I know that 4K is the new big hing in HD, but we can make some amazing looking stuff without having to get that friggin high, but that's your choice. I'm still down at 720p simply because of the render time difference to jump up to 1080p! 4K is going to make any 3d render appear sluggish.
I've built an 8 core (8 cpu cores) Windows 7 64 bit machine, and it renders really nicely! While not a trained composer, I am a percussionist and have made small cash playing rock drums in rock bands for the last 34 years straight. So I am also working on my own score, but I'm sure that my more rock roots will show through, but that's working very nicely for my animation vision!
As a small tip, instead of rendering a full 30 second clip at once, do it in smaller chunks. Imagine watching such a pan on a movie and you'll see how the camera point of view will switch every few seconds and when it's all stitched together in the end, even though the angles are switching back and forth, it becomes a complete, smooth rotation. This can greatly help, simply by freeing up your computer during your waking hours.
I'll set up (in Carrara) several cameras, each doing their own thing - their own piece of the animation. The scene might only be set for six seconds, but I'll get twenty-four seconds from the four cameras. To do so, I'll add the scene into the Batch Queue render four times and set each to use a different camera. If you need to, you can even limit the range of time for each specific camera! So if one camera is only need for two or three seconds, while the others need the full six, you can set that all up in the Batch Queue.
So then I set the Batch Queue to start rendering before I go to bed, and I check its progress after work the next day - so t had a lot of time to crunch. If it still has a long way to go for the scene it's currently on, I then decide if I want to cancel it and start there next time, or if I want to just wait, and let it finish. Most of the time I stop the render to be resumed after I'm done with Carrara for the night, and start it back up before bed, once again. Using this technique, I can get a lot of rendering done in time that I don't even notice.
One of our forum members was using me as a test subject for his render farm. I would FTP my files to him and he'd render them according to my specifications and FTP the back when they were done. It was his system that sparked my interest into building my new eight core, a couple years ago. Fun stuff. He was a blast to work with, and expedited my process immensely. However, all I was doing at that time were tests of things to come - nothing official.
Carrara's native render engine relies upon the number of cpu cores that you have for render speed and efficiency. A decent graphics card might help a bit with the working view, though most anything on the market today is likely good enough to make upgrades to more costly cards completely unnoticeable. But go from a quad core to a six core and you'll see huge differences. Likewise, as you've mentioned, using the render nodes to facilitate all of your computer network for rendering will get you some blazing results - but I am still networking illiterate.
Man,
a landscape client I had, when I was still doing that professionally, is a New York Times Best Selling Author, and she makes some super-steamy Demon novels. She gave me some and we've touched on the idea of bringing them to video. My problem with that is that I don't really want to go even "R" rated, but beyond is kind of out of the question for me right now. It would just make me feel too uncomfortable, since I have a major passion for my beloved wife, and I'd never want her to get the wrong idea. I know... it's art. That's where I used to be, too. But now I'm going to keep my work more wholesome! LOL
I don't know... you've probably seen it already. But here's a film I've made for fun while testing the 'home' version of Sony Vegas.
Just For Fun was stitched together from a whole pile of test render animations as I was getting to grips as a new Carrara user. I have actually had Carrara for quite a while before making these. I've been getting much better, I think. But have been keeping everything under lock and key, for the most part. I don't want to accidentally screw up the future of my project. Now I am working on some stuff with the specific purpose of showing people.
I've just made What Is Carrara? very recently as the beginning of a series of simple videos illustrating some of the methods that I use in Carrara simply for my own enjoyment. "What Is Carrara?" doesn't get into that yet, but just offers a simplistic answer to that question.
I am hoping to use my heroes from "Just For Fun" and other characters and creatures along with some of my latest musical creations within the series to help show people some cool tips and tricks about Carrara. We'll see how that pans out.
Here's a little web page project that I've started quite a while ago, and have accidentally ignored for well longer than a year now. My internet time (and computer time, for that matter) has been greatly diminished lately. But I'll push my way through the walls and start producing again very soon! Dartanbeck @ Daz3d
Hehe .. Well I have a husband (Yes I'm a guy!) and I've made it pretty clear that my Demon fantasies either get expressed in some way or i go fucking insane. And he doesn't really mind as he know's if I'm making movies that I'm happy. And if I can make money out of it .. well then no one's going to argue with that eh! I'm man enough to admit I'm a deviant :P .. it's just recently I figured out I could actually use it and create stuff .. it's like having a super power :D. And the chance to make money out of it as graphic novels and movies .. well .. I gotta say my depression (many long years worth) has cleared up nicely thanks to being immensely creative right now.
My particularly demon story is definitely going to be XXX rated .. but I'd like to say that it's not meant to be just debautchery .. there's a very big story I'm telling and it's largely a gothic horror first ... but some some awesome skin scenes too :D It's a dark story to say the least
My Mac Pro has 6 cores (12 virtual), and twin AMD Fire Pro D500 graphics cards (3 Gig RAM each), so I've definitely got no hang ups with computing power. But in addition to my main machine I have 2 iMacs (and i7 and an i5 system) as well as a new Mac Mini (i5) which I have already divided the scenes between. each machine is rendering 4 seconds worth of film at 120fps. I know it's over kill .. and at 4K it's close to ludicrous ... but when you see the film assembled in Final Cut .. and the shots can be vary-sped because of the high frame rate so I can get real nice slo-motion passes it makes the months of rendering well worth it. Obviously I'm going to have to figure out the batch thing for rendering the movie 'cos it sure as hell can't take as long as it is to do a scene :D
Didn't really occur to me you could render the same scene in multi-camera mode .. obviously not in DAZ . that'd be a Carrara thing. But a good idea .. and certainly something I'd use.
I want two things out of this teaser .. a smoking hot demon guy .. and a lavish, awesome looking film that'll blow your mind .. without even having seen any of the naughty stuff yet :PI've worked with 4K RED files on some movies and it's just one of the most exciting film formats I've ever used. So, as much as it's a pain in the arse, i really want to have my master format in 4K.
Too, too cool!
See? We're getting somewhere now!
We just need to get you comfy,and let your mind spill into the pixels!
Hmmmm.... maybe I'll try upping my resolution and frame rates as well. Thanks for the advice!
Well I'm still using DAZ at the moment. Until I figure out how to use Carrara at the same level I'm using DAZ I'm stuck with it. But I'm learning quite a bit from the videos.
I'm just a sucker for slow-mo :P .. so I like to use it where possible. Obviously doing 120fps is adding 4 times the amount of render time, but the end result will look really great .. if the test renders are anything to go by. If my kickstarter fundraiser goes well (That's what I'm making this teaser for), then who knows .. perhaps I'll have enough to hire a guy to come and teach me how to use Carrara properly :D There's probably a few living here in Vancouver.
We shall see.
Instead of loading a scene, have you tried only using the character format? Load your demon in Daz studio with nothing else. Use Save as / character preset. Note the location that it is saved to. Open a new Carrara file. Navigate in the browser to the character presets. By default, they will be in the "my library" folder, not the "my daz3d..." Folders. It should load directly in Carrara.
Close it out.
Next, return to studio. Add whatever clothing, conforming creature creator parts, etc. that you are using. Save as a character preset again. Open a fresh Carrara file. Try to directly load the updated demon.
The idea is to figure out if your character works in carrara or if it something ancillary about your scenes that is causing the trouble.