Thinking of Purchasing, a few questions?

Lotharen

I'm looking to purchase programs to widen my 3D art toolset and was wondering if Carrara would make a good edition?

I've been reading the forums and I see that it does not support Gen 3 (yet). This isn't a deal breaker for me because I'm so new.

What rendering engine does Carrara 8.5 use? With Daz Studio you have iray which can make some pretty detailed renders - is Carrara's as powerful as iray?

What does Carrara have that Daz Studio doesn't?  I assume you can pose Gen 1+2 figures in Studio and port them over to Carrara?

These are just a few of the questions I have. I'm sure more will come up. Just want to make sure It will be worth it to invest in the program and trying to find all the info I can on it.

I'm looking to make art with a realistic or CG rendered quality and plan on modeling my own sets/clothing in Silo 2 to expand my arsonal even more!

Thanks in advance for any replies and help, its greatly appreciated.

MarkIsSleepy

I'm sure others will be along with more detailed answers, but just to answer your questions quickly, in order:

1. Carrara uses its own render engine.  I get the impression that at one point it was pretty far ahead of the curve in the entry level/hobbyist market but is now showing some signs of age.  I personally think it is still pretty awesome, but it is not an unbiased renderer like Iray.  There are however plugins available to use other renderers like LuxRender (see http://www.daz3d.com/luxus-for-carrara), LuxCore (see http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/50130/luxuscore-carrara/p1) and Octane (see http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45564/octane-render-for-carrara-or4c-public-beta-now-released/p1) all of which are similar to Iray
2. What does Carrara have that DS doesn't?  Alot.  It is an all-in-one modeling/animating/rendering program that includes built in terrain and sky/atmosphere generators, a plant modeler, a far more robust replicator system than Studio (I've done large landscape renders with 500,000+ complex trees in them with no issue), physics (this is not fully implemented but works well for basic stuff), particles, dynamic hair (see @jonstark's excellent videos on this feature ) and several other basic built-in modelers.  I don't do any animating but my understanding is that it is better for animating than Studio is as well. For me the major thing is the ability to directly model, tweak and adjust characters, clothing and props directly in your Carrara scene without having to go to another program (although for more complex things if you are more comfortable in another, more full featured modeler such as Silo you can obviously import and export from Carrara as well).
3. Can you pose and port over Gen 1 and 2 Genesis figures?  Yes, in fact they can be used natively in Carrara as well, although people have varying degrees of success with that; for me it works fine with just the occasional bit of auto-fitting problems due to the fact that Carrara doesn't have the same smoothing setup. This isn't much of a problem though since with Carrara's modelers you can tweak clothing, figures and props directly in your Carrara scene to fix issues like that. Carrara also uses most DAZ content and almost all Poser content natively (meaning it can be loaded and used directly in Carrara with no need to go through Studio or Poser first) although shaders will need to be adjusted in Carrara.

 

Lotharen

Thank you for your reply! It does give me more to think about.

I think just having it for terrain and sky/atmosphere alone would be well worth it - but only if I can get my figures into the scene the way I want. I like the idea of being about to do that 3D without needed to digitally paint an entire background.

I was looking at LuxCore last night - that seems to be a good option. I have Reality 4.1 for Daz Studio so Luxrender is already on my machine and I'm a little familiar with it. Is LuxCore comparable in quality to Reality?

I also like the idea of dynamic hair, is it possible to import your figure bald then add the hair?

I wish I could afford Octane - that render engine has some power. But alas I cannot. At least not now.

I'm also looking at Bryce for landscapes but from what I can tell you would need to render the landscape and then postwork a figure into the scene. Would Bryce have a place along sice Carrara and Studio?

Thanks again and I hope to hear from other users. I have looked at the 'poser your renders' post and have been blown away by what I've seen.

PhilW

Luxus is the current bridge from Carrara to Luxrender.  LuxCore is still in development and doesn't have a GUI front end yet (as far as I am aware) but promises new functionality including much faster rendering.

Yes, you can style your own hair (or fur) on any object or character and because it is strand based, I think it is generally better than mapped hairs, but then I have been using it for years, so I can create new styles just for an individual image fairly easily. I also have Octane Render for Carrara and that supports the conversion of Carrara's hair, which is awesome!

If you have Carrara, I don't think you need Bryce, Carrara has terrains, a flexible shader system and surface replicators that can add fields of grass or forests of trees. I have a couple of landscape type sets available and the undisputed master is HowieFarkes, take a look at his sets to see what is possible.

I have a few images in my DAZ gallery, plus more over at Renderosity if you are interested.

Lotharen

@PhilW  Thanks for that. I wish I could get Octane - I love the renders I see using that program.

I'm assuming Luxus is decent at porting a Carrara scene into Luxrender? I'm curious, will it accuratly port volumetric effects like fog? Or are you better off using Carrara's render engine?

Thanks again for the information - I have been entertained all morning reading posts on the forum and looking at what everyone has come up with.

Steve K

Lotharen said:

I'm looking to purchase programs to widen my 3D art toolset and was wondering if Carrara would make a good edition?  ...

I'm looking to make art with a realistic or CG rendered quality  ...

I have been using hobbyist level 3D programs for many years (Poser, Bryce, even Lightwave which is more pro level) and have decided that Carrara is the best all around tool for me.  My main goal is short, fairly realistic animations using purchased 3D elements (characters, props, scenes, etc.), since I have no interest in modelling.  I settled on Carrara years ago when I realized that it handles Poser format content seamlessly, and offers much better handling of larger scenes for animation than Poser itself.  I have a very large collection of purchased 3D elements, the great majority in Poser format.  I primarily use Gen4 characters (M4, V4, K4 and variations) and have lots of clothes, hair, poses, etc. to support those figures.  I also like the render speed (I typically get 5 to 10 seconds per frame), since I enter the 48 Hour Film Contest which requires a 5 minute animation in two days.

Here is a one minute animation that some people liked:

At the price, I think you cannot go wrong with Carrara.

 

Jonstark

Lotharen said:

Thank you for your reply! It does give me more to think about.

I think just having it for terrain and sky/atmosphere alone would be well worth it - but only if I can get my figures into the scene the way I want. I like the idea of being about to do that 3D without needed to digitally paint an entire background.

I was looking at LuxCore last night - that seems to be a good option. I have Reality 4.1 for Daz Studio so Luxrender is already on my machine and I'm a little familiar with it. Is LuxCore comparable in quality to Reality?

I also like the idea of dynamic hair, is it possible to import your figure bald then add the hair?

I wish I could afford Octane - that render engine has some power. But alas I cannot. At least not now.

I'm also looking at Bryce for landscapes but from what I can tell you would need to render the landscape and then postwork a figure into the scene. Would Bryce have a place along sice Carrara and Studio?

Thanks again and I hope to hear from other users. I have looked at the 'poser your renders' post and have been blown away by what I've seen.

You can do everything in Carrara, this is not to knock other programs or say you can't use them in conjunction, but once you have Carrara you really don't need anything else.  It isn't so much an issue of importing your characters in from Studio, since you can make and pose your characters right in Studio (except for Genesis3, which isn't supported yet, but you already mentioned that wasn't a big deal, and certainly isn't for me as I see no real advantages for that figure anyway).  You can certainly add dynamic hair to your bald character and style it as you like, and dynamic strand hair is unbelievably realistic looking (frankly it makes prop/character hair look pretty bad in comparison), check out some of the promo pics for some Carrara hairs in PhilW's store to see what I mean:  http://www.daz3d.com/philw   Also Carrara dynamic hair animates really well imo, the physics sim for the hair is quick and realistic, and even if you're not into animations and only want to do still renders, Carrara dynamic strand hair is (imo) the most superior solution available out there. 

One thing though is that Luxus won't 'see' the carrara hair, so if you're using that as a rendering solution, you'll have some renders of bald people, but the great thing about Carrara is that in the pro version you can render multi-pass (meaning you can do a straight Carrara render which has the option of doing a separate render pass of any of the scene elements, so you could do a render which only had the hair and the hair's shadows and simply composite it on top of your Luxus render and it would look just as good.  

You can create terrain, skies, atmospheres, plants/trees, really everything, right in Carrara, and it has a number of different physics engines for natural movement in animation too.

Since you asked, I have Luxus and it works quite well/excellent.  I also have the Octane for Carrara plugin, so I use that option a lot more, but the Carrara native renderer (with the right settings) comes closer to matching up with the unbiased render engines than any other biased render engine I've seen.

To demonstrate what I mean by 'compositing' using both an unbiased and a biased render together, here's a pic where the whole render was done in Octane, then I did a multipass render (very quick) in Carrara only taking the 'fog' primitive out of the Carrara render and then superimposing it on the Octane render (there was no fog in the Octane render).  See attached pic below.

Also, I know Octane is expensive, and you have to have a computer with the muscle to run it, but it really is worth the expense in my opinion.  To give another demonstration of 'compositing', here's a link to a quick animation I did in Octane wherein I composited an animation of the Carrara hair 'on top', you can see it works really well (also there is Carrara dynamic cloth demonstrated on the skirt of the girl too, but that's a whole other thing).  Octane has been updated since then and supports rendering Carrara hair natively, so there's no longer any need to 'composite' the Carrara hair in, but it demonstrates the method and would work just as well in Luxus.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75PP_mI6SHE  (this also shows how naturally Carrara hair physics move in animation, even in extreme or jerky movements of the character)

evilproducer

What Jon was mentioning about hair, is that Carrara's hair, with the exception of the Octane plugin is limited to Carrara's renderer. The big, "however" with this though, is that Carrara has render passes in the Pro version that can export a pass with the hair in it for later compositing. What you can do, is render a scene using Carrara's native renderer and a volume primitive render pass (which captures the hair) and then render out an un-biased render using Luxus and composite the hair in to it.

I don't use Luxus or Octane, only the native renderer, and in some cases it helps to render the volume primitive pass for the hair.

Some other advantages with Carrara include a very robust shading system, true volumetric clouds, loads of deformers and modifiers, an ocean, fire, fog, etc. primitives that can be animated. In fact, almost everything can be animated in Carrara, including almost all the shader functions. In addition, there is the Vertex modeler as has already been mentioned, but there is also the Spline modeler, the Meta-ball modeler and the Terrain editor.

This compilation of Carrara Monthly Challenge WIP threads has some great examples of what can be done in Carrara using various functions and features:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45254/learning-tips-and-tricks-from-prior-carrara-challenge-wip-threads#latest

To show off the versatility of Carrara's shading system, the Ocean Primitive and the Replicator, I created this thread, which shows how to create animated foam on water using elevation functions, color gradients, etc. The animated ocean drives the foam. Scroll down a couple posts to see the animated gif of the effect.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/55137/the-ocean-and-easily-animated-foam/p1

Lotharen

Thanks Jonstark, evilproducer and Steve K! Those were some really detailed answers. I actually know how to composite since I've dabbled in photomanipulation. I did not know that Carrara could do render passes, that is a very interesting feacher.

I'm not sure what Spline and Meta-ball are honestly - those are some new terms for me. So I can't really understand the significance that having those make. I'll have to see about looking those up.

The native renderer seems to do a really good job, I've seen some amazing pieces of art. I'm really starting to get excite about getting the program - just have to wait for my refund to kick in from returning poser. Me and that program did NOT get along.

How is the shading system different from Studio? and can I really create nice fluffy clouds that look like cumulonimbus clouds? or Storm clouds?\

I'm not sure Ill do any animating but I can't lie and say I wont try it - one of my childhood dreams was to work for disney so the draw to make something my take hold of me lol.

One question I asked in the Bryce forums Ill bring up here. Would getting Bryce just to make HDRI's be worth the low price? Or Can Carrara do just fine without that? Just curious, because when I found out Bryce had that functionality I thought using my own made HDRI's could spice up my renders.

Thanks again to everyone that has posted. You all have been a big help and I'm getting really excited over this.

Jonstark

While Carrara doesn't automatically output hdri, from what I understand there's away to output 3 or more renders of a scene at different gamma correction values and combine them to make an hdri, and apparently there's a tutorial for that somewhere (but it's not something I've ever done so I could be wrong).

As inexpensive as Bryce is, since I believe rendering out an hdri is one of the things Bryce can normally do, it might still be worth it to pick up Bryce.  I've got Bryce myself, but honestly I've never used it (though there are other Carrarists who I believe I've seen in other threads have created terrains in Bryce then exported/imported into Carrara).

Oso3D

I have yet to manage to make a good HDRI capable of lighting from Carrara. This is a source of constant frustration.

 

I mainly use Daz Studio, but I own Carrara and find it valuable as an easy modeler with a sensible UI (Blender and others can do way more, but the UIs are like trying to climb the White Cliffs of Dover...).

I used to use Carrara a lot many years ago, and it has a number of cool features that I constantly miss when using Daz Studio. Some of it has already been touched on, but Carrara has an AMAZING shader system, capable of all sorts of cool effects. Stuff based on elevation, on the curve of terrain, on various functions you can plug in or write, you name it. It also has a great projection shading system, which gets around a lot of touchy stuff with UV mapping. Basically, you can set shaders so they flow around an item in various ways. Like a spherical projection, where the shader 'projects' in from a sphere shape, and various other stuff.

MAN I wish Daz Studio had that.

Also particles. An advanced particle system, so you can make fire and water and ice and wind and dust and small birds or whatever.

Easy terrain/water/cloud generation. Well, relatively easy.

 

But the big thing for me is modeling. There are a number of modeling styles you can use. You can generate shapes as lathes (like, take a square and spin it THIS way), as joins or exclusions (take a cube and cut out a sphere from one end), various primitives, then vertex modeling, and metaballs (think 'sticking clay balls together' -- good way to start with an organic shape and tweak with vertex modeling).

I DO have complaints -- the file UI is terrible (but then I find the file UI of most non-mainstream applications terrible), I don't know why the stupid program won't save as HDR or EXR, and a number of functions clearly haven't been worked on in years.

But if you can get it on sale, I think it's eminently worth it.

 

chickenman

If you don't have platinum membership get the one month to get an eaven better deal.

It has been as low as $65 with platinum which is what I currently see it for.

 

Oso3D

One thing: I've had pretty much no luck trying to use Daz Studio content with Carrara. Whenever I try to open a .duf, it just hangs.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, maybe I'm using files that have something Carrara doesn't like, I don't know, but I wouldn't count on easily migrating content between the two unless you have no problem using obj files.

 

Lotharen

timmins.william said:

One thing: I've had pretty much no luck trying to use Daz Studio content with Carrara. Whenever I try to open a .duf, it just hangs.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, maybe I'm using files that have something Carrara doesn't like, I don't know, but I wouldn't count on easily migrating content between the two unless you have no problem using obj files.

 

Have you tried running it as administrator? I've found that when I programs don't work on certain things that usually does the trick.

Thanks Chickenman!! I was able to get Carrara Pro for &65 bucks thanks to you! Also got a bunch of other things to beef up my collection, much appreciated.

Now....to learn how to use it. Any good free tutorials out there?

Scarecrow

I spent about a year playing with Daz studio and it left me frustrated. I was always wishing for more functionality. Finally I realized it just can't do what I need it to (animation) and decided to try Carrara because I had invested a fair amount of money in Daz content and I didn't want to lose my investment. I love Carrara, it does every little thing I was wishing for in Daz studio and about a million other things I never thought of. So instead of wishing for more features I spend time discovering more of Carrara's features. I haven't been disappointed yet. The only downside I have seen, is that Daz puts all their development effort into studio and Carrara doesn't get much attention. I don't have much trouble using Daz content in Carrara. Most things work, some don't, some will work but need some adjustment...

Diomede

Here is a thread with tips on using Genesis and Genesis 2 content in Carrara.  Hope it helps.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45361/best-practices-using-genesis-and-genesis-2-content-in-carrara/p1

 

Oso3D

Lotharen said:

Have you tried running it as administrator? I've found that when I programs don't work on certain things that usually does the trick.

Thanks Chickenman!! I was able to get Carrara Pro for &65 bucks thanks to you! Also got a bunch of other things to beef up my collection, much appreciated.

Now....to learn how to use it. Any good free tutorials out there?

The program loads. What happens is that I get to about 20% loadtime on a duf and then the application locks up.

I did, after checking diomede's article, manage to find one Content item (G2F, I think) to actually load. The skin was then all messed up. All the stuff under Runtime just failed to load at all.

 

So, yeah. For my experiences, Carrara is primarily useful to generate terrains (which you can export as obj), backdrops, and modeling new props with a comfortable UI. It'd be nice if I could easily do other stuff with it, but whatever, daz is free.

Jonstark

Weird.  Duf files open fine for me so far, for every one I have tried.  I'm a windows user though, if that matters.

Oso3D

So am I. I have no idea if I'm doing something wrong or just fantastically unlucky with what I'm trying to open.

 

Lotharen

I've installed mine and seem to be able to load things into it just fine. Took me a while to figure out just how. I placed Gen 2 female, with the Ranger hair and the Sci-fi Sirin outfit. Worked well and did a basic render. Not to shabby.

 

I really need to find a basic tutorial set. There is so much you can do.....I attempted to load in a snowy mountain to place Genesis in and when I loaded her she was a GIANT. Not sure what I did or if thats normal lol. I'm loving the program thus far, just going to take a LOT of time to get used to it.

DUDU

timmins.william said:

So am I. I have no idea if I'm doing something wrong or just fantastically unlucky with what I'm trying to open.

 

Hi,
When one doesn't like a program at the beginning, one makes no effort to learn it more deeply.
I erased Studio from my computer because I saw that it was a program to test what DAZ sells and not more.
I hate Poser, but I preciously keep it for his compatibility with Carrara.
If you want to evolve, don't keep a little programs like Studio, move to Carrara and then, you will see !

Oso3D

... I've tried. I used Carrara long before I used Daz.

I have yet to manage to open a Genesis figure or file in Carrara, except once, with scrambled materials.

It's hard to climb the ladder when there are no rungs for the first 15 feet and it's greased.

 

DUDU

If your ultimate goal is to use Genesis then, play with DS but there are so much other things to do with Carrara...

Rashad Carter

Buy Carrara NOW!!! Everything Genesis 1 and two works fine except geografting so unless everything you make is nude....Carrara will serve just fine. If you expect to use external renderers like Octane for Carrara... there's nothing I can say other than to DO it NOW!!!!

 

Now!!!

 

Now!!!

evilproducer

Lotharen said:

I've installed mine and seem to be able to load things into it just fine. Took me a while to figure out just how. I placed Gen 2 female, with the Ranger hair and the Sci-fi Sirin outfit. Worked well and did a basic render. Not to shabby.

 

I really need to find a basic tutorial set. There is so much you can do.....I attempted to load in a snowy mountain to place Genesis in and when I loaded her she was a GIANT. Not sure what I did or if thats normal lol. I'm loving the program thus far, just going to take a LOT of time to get used to it.

The giant figure probably has to do with the scene scale. It was probably created in a small scaled scene, where inches are the default value, so a six foot figure would look gigantic. Either that, or the terrain was set up as a 100ft terrain. You can scale it up if you want, by selecting the terrain, and clicking the wrench tool. This will open the terrain editor, and you can increase the terrain's size. You can also scale it up using the terrain's motion tab. Look near the bottom for the controls to scale the terrain.

Diomede

If you are thinking of purchasing and are worried about using genesis and genesis 2, remember that there is a return policy so try the following.  I am using G2M Michael 6, but you can use something else.  If you install correctly (and that might be an important "if"), this should work.

1. load an empty scene.

2. in CONTENT tab (not smart content), find character subfolder of genesis 2 male subfolder of people folder.  Select and drag Michael 6 character in to scene.  Note, you are likely to be dissatisfied with the way the default shader appears in Carrara, but that is easy to fix and save for future 1-click use.

3. I have a Carrara-dedicated shader in the shader tab of the browser.  If so, select and drag the shader to the top globe and it will apply Carrara skin to every M6 material zone.

4.  Under content tab, navigate to the clothes subfolder.  Select and drag each item to the Michael 6 level of the instaces tree (lower right).  Select each item (might need second level) and then use "fit to" in upper box to select "genesis 2 male."  The program will pause while it calculates morphs and projects the cloth items to Michae 6.  Repeat for each cloth item.

5.  Select a hair item and repeat as if it was a clothing item.  Drag to Michael 6 level and use "fit to" and select genesis 2 male.  Note, there are some hair items that are props, not figures, but ignore that for now.

In the next post, I will apply a different color preset to the hair item, pose Michael 6, and do a test render with the default shaders.

Diomede

6.  For this Micah hair, the color presets are under the folder with the hair object.  Select the hair item in the scene and double click the color preset you want.  I chose red to make it obvious.

7.  To apply a pose, I went to the "pose" subfolder in the content tab, selected genesis 2 male level, and then double clicked pose set (in this case #13). 

8.  Then I did a test render in the Render room.  I notice that I am dissatisfied with the default clothing textures.  They are too bumpy.  Fix this in the next post.

 

Diomede

9. Return to the Assemble Room.  Select the "actor" level a clothing item and see the shader tab.  The shaders for each material zone of the clothing item will be listed.

10.  Select and double click one of the material shaders and the TEXTURE room will open.  You will see a "shader tree."  Select the top level of the shader tree and there will be a setting for bump intensity.  This one is currently at 25% which is too high in this particular case. I will lower it t smethin like 5% or 8%.

11.  Second test render.  Entered the render room and did a second test render.  Clothes look much better, in my opinion.

12.  So I don't have to play with the same texture problems the next time I use these cloth items, I save the adjusted globalshader for each item to the shader folder. 

 

This is not to diminish the frustrations that others have reported, but I think most of those problems are usually due to installation or to using Studio-methods instead of Carrara-methods.  And, many folks o this forum are willing to try to help people who report problems and have questions.

Lotharen

Thanks Diomede! Very helpful tutorial. I need one to show how to place the sky and terrain in to the scene.

The few times I tried it ended - badly lol. I'm still learning but I can see this program has a LOT to offer.

I'm trying to do a Luxrender using Luxus and its not going so well either, some textures are not showing correctly or not showing at all.

I can see its going to take a bit to figure this all out lol, but I'm having fun and thats what matters. I look forward to start making clothing and props - thats going to be fun and a whole different adventure all on its own.

Diomede

I never opened Daz Studio.  I loaded everything directly in Carrara.  It works fine for me.  It took about 5-10 minutes. Now, I can add a realistic sky, a terrain with replicated plants, model a coffee mug in one of the hands, use a particle emitter to create a roman candle effect in the background, etc. 

Diomede

As Evilproducer mentioned, the WIP threads for the monthly challenges have some great tips.  The first 10 or so challenges typically had a specific Carrara function or other requirement.  The Great Race required people to either customize a terrain or customize a replicator.  As a result, there are some interesting tips along those lines.  Plus, you can see some of the other cool things people have done - and their workflow, not just the final result.

See here.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/38186/carrara-challenge-viii-the-great-race-or-don-t-fence-me-in-wip-thread-is-open/p1

 

 

 

Lotharen said:

Thanks Diomede! Very helpful tutorial. I need one to show how to place the sky and terrain in to the scene.

The few times I tried it ended - badly lol. I'm still learning but I can see this program has a LOT to offer.

I'm trying to do a Luxrender using Luxus and its not going so well either, some textures are not showing correctly or not showing at all.

I can see its going to take a bit to figure this all out lol, but I'm having fun and thats what matters. I look forward to start making clothing and props - thats going to be fun and a whole different adventure all on its own.