Bye

For the last time, perhaps, I have feelings about Carrara 3D.

Program very gifted at the origin and the philosophy of use which democratized a visual creation technique reserved for "heavy" software of use and intended for a public of graphic designers for many years.

We could imagine a promising future for him with confidence. But the wait and the opportunism of its owner to squarely scuttled its many and promising capacities,

Carrara is seen overtaken by the evolution of its competitors.

What a pity and what a mess :-( Although still convinced by the philosophy of use of the software, I can hardly keep it in my workflow anymore because its competitors have largely evolved over time and the proposed evolutions are much more efficient in terms of speed, flexibility and visual quality ...

It was therefore with some difficulty that I made the decision to no longer try to use Carrara 3D.

A bit like one can be sad to put a car, which one appreciates to use daily, to the scrapyard.

Thank you Carrara for the services rendered.

Thank you, the Carrara user community. Good luck to you all.

I continue my 3D path with other alternatives

bye

createo, french User

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Comments

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,193

    Bon champs, @createo.

    Hope you found your time with Carrara enjoyable and fulfilling.  Perhaps you can post in the forum and update us on your projects from time to time.  

    I know that I am slowly substituting other programs for Carrara, but not always.  For example, I have a program with more UVMapping tools, and another with better modeling tools, but if I am creating a simple shape, I still use Carrara's modeling and UVMapping tools. The ability to model in the assemble room is very convenient.  But eventually, I am preparing myself for the day that an operating system update or similar issue makes my Carrara program too difficult to use.

    Until then....

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 10,013
    edited July 2021

    Sad to see you go.

    Artists make art. Blaming a brush for being old and well used (and therefore apparently less  capable) says more about the artist than the brush.

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • mschackmschack Posts: 337

    Ironically my "brush" works better now than the day i bought it 8ish years ago.

  • Steve KSteve K Posts: 3,249

    Headwax said:

    Sad to see you go.

    Artists make art. Blaming a brush for being old and well used (and therefore apparently less  capable) says more about the artist than the brush.

    Yup.  As an amateur animator and not a modeler, I feel I have everything I need in Carrara, in particular compatibility with my large collection of content (Poser mostly, plus Carrara and OBJ).  But I can understand others may need some newer features not available in Carrara.  To each his own.

  • mindsongmindsong Posts: 1,702

    Yet it is with great respect that I think these friends choose to come to let us know how valuable the tools and community were to them as they move forward.

    I stand wistful, a bit jealous, and appreciative of their intentions.

    I wish I could do both - stay and yet go along with them.

    For now, I will happily 'stay' a bit longer, wishing them well on their journeys, and hoping they will stop in to say hello and share a pint and their stories when in the neighborhood - fully knowing it is unlikely.

    --ms

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 10,013

    Headwax said:

    Sad to see you go.

    Artists make art. Blaming a brush for being old and well used (and therefore apparently less  capable) says more about the artist than the brush.

    apologies for  being a bit harsh

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,133

    will miss your posts crying

  • UnifiedBrainUnifiedBrain Posts: 3,588

    Headwax said:

    Sad to see you go.

    Artists make art. Blaming a brush for being old and well used (and therefore apparently less  capable) says more about the artist than the brush.

    +1

  • UnifiedBrainUnifiedBrain Posts: 3,588

    Stezza said:

    will miss your posts crying

    Yup, all 10 of them.

  • createocreateo Posts: 15

    I thought about this a lot ... and still do it to me ;-)

    I love old brushes, prefers them especially to those built "in China" which lose their hair by handfuls :-)

    By personal creations they still work perfectly, but if you put on your painter's coat to make a wall, you are not going to take an old brush.

    Your client would not understand, it may take more time and paint, and the result will not be in any way rewarding compared to the society we live in :-(

    I admit that for each step of creation in 3D, I always have the question of using carrara (except for rendering). He is still capable of many actions. but the bridges that must be created between the initial software and the final software are for me a brake. When a customer goes back on an idea, or changes direction, it can be complicated ... or long.

    Frankly, the rendering stage is for me the most disabling. I don't want to invest in an "octane" which is too expensive, but why can't "native bridges" be created with cycles, EEvEE, Malt / Beer, AppleSeed, ...?

    or even a slightly paid one: a 3D brighter, a twilight render, ....

    It remains luxrender well, but since it has become luxcorerender, I don't know if it remains compatible !?

    I admit that your messages comfort me and push me to reconsider once again my decision which I thought to be final ...

    It also serves a community !

    Maybe see you very soon !

    teo

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 10,013

    @createo said  I love old brushes, prefers them especially to those built "in China" which lose their hair by handfuls :-)

     

    ha ha so true, it's always fun digging them out of the paint - patina and texture they give, like an old man's face

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,027
    The old beta of LuxusCore for Carrara is free but not not developed further or stable for production use. There are some cool renders anyways: https://carraracafe.com/luxuscore-for-carrara-plugin-unofficial-manual-2015-02-15/
  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,027
    If you missed them, Philemos plugins upgrade the native renderer to near PBR quality and speed: https://sourceforge.net/projects/carrara-time-savers/files/ The LightX plugin also helps...
  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,317

    I understand to an extent and myself use Octane 4 and it's Carrara plugin but it was rather costly.

    I still love the Native render engine too and often can in fact render faster in it if PBR is not needed.

    DAZ Studio's iray is abysmally slow in comparison to both but much better than 3Delight at least, (maybe if I had a better graphics card with lots of CUDA cores it would be better)

    What I do use a lot is Unreal Engine 4 and that can be very fast, realtime in fact.

    Blender indeed is free and does everything but a fair bit of work setting stuff up and I find Carrara much easier to model in

    my point is I use lots of tools (Twinmotion and iClone too) but Carrara still has it's place in my tool box,

    as nice as a multiwrench like Blender is you sometimes want that one spanner that fits perfectly.

    If you must discard it completely that is your choice but I hang on to all my programs and dig them out occassionally, even Bryce and sometimes Hexagon wink.

     

     

  • createocreateo Posts: 15

    ;-)

  • TorquinoxTorquinox Posts: 3,411
    edited July 2021

    Headwax said:

    Sad to see you go.

    Artists make art. Blaming a brush for being old and well used (and therefore apparently less  capable) says more about the artist than the brush.

    Sort of a silly comparison. Brushes are consumables. If you actually use them to paint, you'll use them up soon enough. While some people are thrilled to go all Monet on their paintings, stabbing away with pitiful, paint-covered bristle stumps, others actually want the benefit of a newer brush.

    Post edited by Torquinox on
  • UnifiedBrainUnifiedBrain Posts: 3,588

    It was an analogy.

    People who are literal-minded tend to be uncomfortable with analogies.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626
    edited July 2021

    I haven't really started writing in earnest on it yet, but my new workflow has been alleviating the compatibility issues for me, and it's been working really well so far!

    I will be reporting these methods on my site, Dartanbeck.com as I get them in order. 

     

    In order to write on the process, I'm first putting together a nice little 'First Episode' of CG movies - then the demonstrations, behind-the-scenes looks, and workflow tutorials (both video and written articles) will begin in earnest!

     

    The basics of the new flow are as follows:

    Carrara

    • I use Carrara for pretty much everything, as I always have. Scenery, animated people, animals and creatures, vehicles, effects, etc., often making several animated renders for the same scene, which must be 'layered' together in VFX software, like HitFilm and/or Fusion (I say and/or because I use both)

    Daz Studio

    • I use Daz Studio and the free OctaneRender for Daz Studio for characters that I want to use that are too new of a generation to be used effectively (efficiently) in Carrara. 
    • I use Iray in Daz Studio for certain environments that are made for Iray, which lend to the story
    • I've always used Daz Studio's many Content Creation Tools to assist me in making content conversions and presets, etc., that work well within Carrara
    • I also use aniMate 2 (paid version) in Daz Studio to build combined motions, tweak them in DS's timeline, and then bake them back into a new aniBlock, which I can then import back into Carrara

     

    There's actually a lot more to it than that, but not in difficulty - only in practicality. 

    It took lengthy discussions with mindsong before I could take off the blinders I've been wearing regarding Daz Studio for so many years - blinders that I really didn't quite realize I was wearing, since I've always supported it  - not over Carrara, but as an alternative to Poser, which I no longer use at all. 

     

    I've come a long way since this fairly recent video, which already feels 'dated' to me. This was the beginnings (very beginning!) of this new workflow, and barely uses it, so it's not the best thing to show, except that it kind of explains "Why", in a way. 

    To me, Carrara works better than any other 3D app I've ever used. The only difficulty I've been having with it is the lack of compatibility for more modern human shaders, character choices and clothing, etc.,   I prefer not to try and 'make things work in Carrara', if it feels like a fairly hopeless cause. Rendering to Alpha, however... now that's something I can work with!

    And this one shows the basic workflow, but when I was doing all of this only in Carrara. It''s basically the same idea, but adding Daz Studio and Octane wherever necessary

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    The funny thing is:

    I originally came to Carrara to alleviate compatibility issues and create for myself a more efficient workflow.

     

    I am all by myself in this, so while I do enjoy making models and other parts of this field, what I really want to do is combine things and put them in motion.

     

    Carrara is still the only modeler that I know of that has a Poser Runtime/Daz Content Library manager built into it, which allows for figure rigging and morph retention, conforming cloth and hair use, pose application... while we still have to rework the shaders (as we would with any external render engine anyway) the rest of it works pretty well, and we can tweak the various mesh in many ways, right on the fly as we work!

     

    That all still holds true today for me - and I'm glad!

     

    I also love having all of you folks around! Where would we be if we didn't all share our ideas on how to make all of this stuff work?!!!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    These newer little Daz Originals diorama scenes open very nicely in Carrara and, while we'd light this much differently if we were wanting to actually look at, and highlight the room itself, this quick little method makes for fast work in putting together a nice, dramatic backdrop for our characters

  • 0oseven0oseven Posts: 626

    Carrara still IMHO has the best interface. Very easy to work with because it is consistent. I hate Daz Studio and have same trouble with Iclone which has similar interface - never ending scrolling and opening closing panels. I mainly appreciate C8 when I come back to it and see how easy it is.

    Still if its not doing what you need for a project then not much to be done - I would love it if someone could come up with a "shatter / break plugin. 

    Dont have a problem with Carrara not having real time render as spot rendering.  Cant afford Otoy Octane renderer which has gone subscription now anyway  but I always have asked my self is it really necessary  ? Carraras results always seem very good.to me . 

    But maybe there is a future with Nvideas new Omniverse. I'll start a seperate topic on that.

  • 0oseven0oseven Posts: 626

    Oh I see there is a fair bit being said about Omniverse in Daz forum and what I forgot to say before is that i believe we all too often get bogged down with technicality brought on by forever evolving developments.

    I was just about to upgrade my 7 year old laptop but now am waiting having read Intel will have a new generation processor soon and Windows 11 is around the corner. Someone save me from this madness !!  Ha ha

       

  • TorquinoxTorquinox Posts: 3,411

    UnifiedBrain said:

    It was an analogy.

    People who are literal-minded tend to be uncomfortable with analogies.

    I know full well what that was.

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 10,013
    edited July 2021

    UnifiedBrain said:

    It was an analogy.

    People who are literal-minded tend to be uncomfortable with analogies.

    Heh, I had a laugh at that. 

    I love an old brush.

    It adds the essence of the artist to the mark making.

    For the literal minded: there are those that are purely scientists and those that are purely artists.

    And then there are those who are both.

     

    I pity the first and am envious of the second.

    But happily associate with the last group.

    Mind you, we can't paint everyone with the same brush.

    Carrara is capable of everything I want it to do - and that's saying something.

    It's a matter of knowing how to use it - and that is true for everything - tongues, paintbrushes, credit cards, wings and  walking sticks.

    If I couldn't make an eloquent sentence I wouldn't blame my tongue.

     

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 10,013

    0oseven said:

    Oh I see there is a fair bit being said about Omniverse in Daz forum and what I forgot to say before is that i believe we all too often get bogged down with technicality brought on by forever evolving developments.

    I was just about to upgrade my 7 year old laptop but now am waiting having read Intel will have a new generation processor soon and Windows 11 is around the corner. Someone save me from this madness !!  Ha ha

       

    looking forward to your thread on the omniverse

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 10,013

    dart said

    I haven't really started writing in earnest on it yet, but my new workflow has been alleviating the compatibility issues for me, and it's been working really well so far!

    I will be reporting these methods on my site, Dartanbeck.com as I get them in order. 

     

    as always thanks for sharing your knowledge

     

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 10,013

    3drendero said:

    If you missed them, Philemos plugins upgrade the native renderer to near PBR quality and speed: https://sourceforge.net/projects/carrara-time-savers/files/ The LightX plugin also helps...

    thanks :)

  • therixxtherixx Posts: 127
    edited July 2021

    An interesting alternative to Octane and other renderers could be the
    Realism In Carrara
    tutorial by our @PhilW, which uses gamma correction and other tips to get remarkable results in the native Carrara Render.

    Post edited by therixx on
  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    the pain of converting content to carrara.  takes a long time and a lot of effort to troubleshoot sometimes.

    wish i could whip up a whacky model everytime i needed it  lol  think my brain just doesnt have the nueropathways to look at a cube and shape it into a B17 aircraft.

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,133

    Mystiara said:

    the pain of converting content to carrara.  takes a long time and a lot of effort to troubleshoot sometimes.

    wish i could whip up a whacky model everytime i needed it  lol  think my brain just doesnt have the nueropathways to look at a cube and shape it into a B17 aircraft.

    you'll never know if you don't give it a go...

    would make a good side challenge laugh 

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