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3d-coat applink request.. add your voice

MiloMilo Posts: 511
edited December 1969 in Carrara Discussion

It is in as a feature Request https://bugs.daz3d.com/view.php?id=47504

Add your voice and see if we can get Daz to do this as well. It would make a nice connection in the workflow.

Comments

  • SimonWMSimonWM Posts: 924
    edited September 2012

    I'd really like it for DAZ Studio since i don't use Carrara much

    Post edited by SimonWM on
  • MiloMilo Posts: 511
    edited December 1969

    I can understand that. I am the opposite. I don't use DS much I just grew to like the Carrara way of doing things too much. But either way the core of the functions should be about the same as ZBrush. What to do with the pieces that come back would require some tweeking but most of it all would already be in place for both products ala GoZ. Make that a note when you update / add to the request

  • cyborgty_074ff6c243cyborgty_074ff6c243 Posts: 132
    edited December 1969

    I would love to see a 3D-Coat applink.

  • 1MoreThreadDeleted1MoreThreadDeleted Posts: 56
    edited December 1969

    From the bug/feature request tracker.

    bfurner (manager)
    The SDK is available for Carrara and if the developer of 3D-Coat wants to build a plugin it's available for them to do. The sdk will be available from this area of the doc center.

    The creator of 3d coat has been asked several times for a Carrara applink and he has always stated that he would be glade for someone else to develop it. I think he offered to give some financial incentive. I am not sure if that would be in real money or free software I don't know. But he is not going to make the applink.

    So who would be so inclined to make it?

    I don't see many plugin developers for Carrara anymore. I have not seen Fenric in a while, but he has stated that he is not making another import/export plugin that he does not use. I cant remember him ever saying he had 3D-Coat. Even if he did, the request for the applink has been made before and if he was going too I bet he would have said so. It truly is not fair to him though to rest all of our hopes for plugins on him.

    If Daz does not make it, I doubt it will ever happened.

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    3dsMax
    LightWave
    Maya
    Modo
    Cinema 4D
    Blender
    ZBrush
    Unity 3D
    Mudbox
    XSI
    Houdini
    Messiah
    Cheetah 3D
    Fusion
    VoidWorld

    Carrara - "figure it out for yourselves"

  • MiloMilo Posts: 511
    edited December 1969

    holly wetcircuit said:
    3dsMax
    LightWave
    Maya
    Modo
    Cinema 4D
    Blender
    ZBrush
    Unity 3D
    Mudbox
    XSI
    Houdini
    Messiah
    Cheetah 3D
    Fusion
    VoidWorld

    Carrara - "figure it out for yourselves"

    Yup pretty much Holly!

  • thecatsmiththecatsmith Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    This is a topic I am also interested in. I may be able to write the plugin myself, but I cannot find a download-able version of the carrara SDK. I am not familiar enough with carrara plugins to know if the lastest beta SDK is required or if an older version of the SDK could still be used. I believe that the 3D coat app link actually uses file exchanges between applications, so perhaps the latest isn't required.

    The link to the carrara 7 SDK ... doesn't work.

    I believe that someone has written a a carrara plugin to allow python programming, which might be a way to get this working. Anyone familiar with this plugin - and python?

  • 1MoreThreadDeleted1MoreThreadDeleted Posts: 56
    edited December 1969

    I found c8 and c7 sdk on a backup and have uploaded them to my dropbox. Once C8.5/9 is release then Daz will hopefully issue a new sdk.

    here are the links.

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3367962/C8_SDK_8.0.0.215.zip

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3367962/CarraraProSDK_7.0.zip

  • FenricFenric Posts: 351
    edited December 1969

    I have looked into this before, and my opinion is...

    Getting an applink for just painting any mapped vertex-based object (rigged, unrigged, native, poser, whatever) would not be too hard.

    Getting an applink to do anything to a not vertex-based object (plant, spline, metaball) is pretty much impossible.

    Getting an applink to morph/retopo/uv a generic vertex object would be ok (understanding that the result of retopo would be to import the new object and delete your old one)

    Getting an applink to morph or uv a native rigged vertex object would be possible (you simply can't retopo a rigged item).

    Getting an applink to do anything other than paint on a Poser object will be quite challenging. Morphs might be possible with a lot of effort - remember, DAZ had access to the Carrara source code when making the GoZ plugin: I wouldn't have that resource. I have yet to make the SDK functions that change UV mapping work with Poser figures (not saying it's impossible, but I've not been able to)


    Unfortunately, I have a pretty strong suspicion which of those operations above is the one most people are hoping to do.

  • MiloMilo Posts: 511
    edited December 1969

    Thank you Fenric. That sums it up very nicely. There I believe 9 things that applink supports, but that last part is the nail on the head.

    Fenric said:
    I have looked into this before, and my opinion is...

    Getting an applink for just painting any mapped vertex-based object (rigged, unrigged, native, poser, whatever) would not be too hard.

    Getting an applink to do anything to a not vertex-based object (plant, spline, metaball) is pretty much impossible.

    Getting an applink to morph/retopo/uv a generic vertex object would be ok (understanding that the result of retopo would be to import the new object and delete your old one)

    Getting an applink to morph or uv a native rigged vertex object would be possible (you simply can't retopo a rigged item).

    Getting an applink to do anything other than paint on a Poser object will be quite challenging. Morphs might be possible with a lot of effort - remember, DAZ had access to the Carrara source code when making the GoZ plugin: I wouldn't have that resource. I have yet to make the SDK functions that change UV mapping work with Poser figures (not saying it's impossible, but I've not been able to)


    Unfortunately, I have a pretty strong suspicion which of those operations above is the one most people are hoping to do.

  • thecatsmiththecatsmith Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for the links to the SDKs Muphasa, that is much appreciated.

    And I also think Fenric is spot on about the scope of such an undertaking. I never would have even considered attempting some of those operations. So, I may be underestimating peoples expectations, at least from a part timer liker me. Transfering non vertex objects, or rigged objects back and forth, would be a recipe for frustrated exhaustion, surely. And, being able to handle/create morphs, that would be cool, but currently beyond my skill set. No, I was really only thinkling of the simpeler operations. Textures and UVs for the most part.

    Fenric said:
    I have looked into this before, and my opinion is...

    Getting an applink for just painting any mapped vertex-based object (rigged, unrigged, native, poser, whatever) would not be too hard.

    Getting an applink to do anything to a not vertex-based object (plant, spline, metaball) is pretty much impossible.

    Getting an applink to morph/retopo/uv a generic vertex object would be ok (understanding that the result of retopo would be to import the new object and delete your old one)

    Getting an applink to morph or uv a native rigged vertex object would be possible (you simply can't retopo a rigged item).

    Getting an applink to do anything other than paint on a Poser object will be quite challenging. Morphs might be possible with a lot of effort - remember, DAZ had access to the Carrara source code when making the GoZ plugin: I wouldn't have that resource. I have yet to make the SDK functions that change UV mapping work with Poser figures (not saying it's impossible, but I've not been able to)


    Unfortunately, I have a pretty strong suspicion which of those operations above is the one most people are hoping to do.

  • 1MoreThreadDeleted1MoreThreadDeleted Posts: 56
    edited September 2012

    Hi Fenric great to hear from ya.Thank for the break down in what is achievable atm.


    Yea I think most people would wish for the ability to do morphs on poser/genesis products.

    What can Daz do to help this project? What things about the SDK need to be changed or explained?

    And thecatsmith you are welcome. My pleasure to help.

    Post edited by 1MoreThreadDeleted on
  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    I was just hoping for the external modeler/painter and the retopo... I assumed the rigging wouldn't pass back and forth..., but why can't you send a rigged figure's model, retopo, send it back and then transfer the skeleton the same way Wendy does when she puts a boned rig into a chair or whatever...?

    And I'm extra whiny today but must Carrara ALWAYS be held back by Poser4 compatibility???

  • FenricFenric Posts: 351
    edited December 1969

    Muphasa said:
    Hi Fenric great to hear from ya.Thank for the break down in what is achievable atm.


    Yea I think most people would wish for the ability to do morphs on poser/genesis products.

    What can Daz do to help this project? What things about the SDK need to be changed or explained?

    And thecatsmith you are welcome. My pleasure to help.


    In Carrara, morphs are handled by a two-layer system of "Morph Area" and "Morph Target". For native figures, it is pretty straightforward - you usually only bother with one area.

    For poser figures, there is one morph area for each rigging group, and then targets under that. The first trouble is splitting the newly imported morph up into the groups: getting the loop to work properly, handling name collisions, handling welded vs. unwelded groups, and dodging around alternate geometry all get fun.

    Another trouble is that your new morph won't show up in the tree view. The sliders there are not directly tied to the "real" morph targets, but the linkage is not documented or exposed to the API - this would need to be fixed.

    A third problem is that Carrara only adds the morph area if the item's CR2 file actually had morphs. If you load a shirt, for instance, that has no morphs, it will have no morph areas. If there are no areas, you can't create a target. I don't know what magic is required to get CreateMorphArea to do its thing, but I can't get it to work on a poser figure. I think it might tie in to the previous issue as well - there is some behind-the-scenes magic going on that just isn't in the SDK.

    And I already mentioned that the UV functions in the SDK do not work on Poser figures as far as I can tell.

  • FenricFenric Posts: 351
    edited December 1969

    holly wetcircuit said:
    I was just hoping for the external modeler/painter and the retopo... I assumed the rigging wouldn't pass back and forth..., but why can't you send a rigged figure's model, retopo, send it back and then transfer the skeleton the same way Wendy does when she puts a boned rig into a chair or whatever...?

    You can... and the results will be about as good: chunky bends, bad stretching, and tears in the mesh. That will get people to file bug reports against the plugin, and I'll have to spend time and effort explaining why you can't just change the mesh and hope for the same quality you started with. In the past, those sort of conversations frequently resulted in a return showing up in my sales report.

    And I'm extra whiny today but must Carrara ALWAYS be held back by Poser4 compatibility???

    Because there are many irritable and unforgiving people who shop at DAZ, use Poser 4 compatible figures exclusively, and who will expect everything to work seamlessly and flawlessly. They will not read the documentation, and will not accept limitations or work-arounds. If I try to explain the limitations, they get angry. While it's amusing on some levels to have people assume that I am a DAZ employee and threaten to get DAZ to fire me, it is still stressful to have to deal with. And I simply do not make enough money from these plugins to be willing to put up with much of that at all. (Supporting the freebies is even worse, surprisingly enough. I've never had so many aggressive and impolite emails as I got because of my port the Ivy Generator.)

  • 1MoreThreadDeleted1MoreThreadDeleted Posts: 56
    edited December 1969

    All I can say is Yikes! No wonder no one has made the 3d coat applink.

    And since Daz most likely will not address the shortcomings of the SDK in functionality and documentation this is a futile wish.

    Thanks for taking the time to explain.
    -M


    Fenric said:

    In Carrara, morphs are handled by a two-layer system of "Morph Area" and "Morph Target". For native figures, it is pretty straightforward - you usually only bother with one area.

    For poser figures, there is one morph area for each rigging group, and then targets under that. The first trouble is splitting the newly imported morph up into the groups: getting the loop to work properly, handling name collisions, handling welded vs. unwelded groups, and dodging around alternate geometry all get fun.

    Another trouble is that your new morph won't show up in the tree view. The sliders there are not directly tied to the "real" morph targets, but the linkage is not documented or exposed to the API - this would need to be fixed.

    A third problem is that Carrara only adds the morph area if the item's CR2 file actually had morphs. If you load a shirt, for instance, that has no morphs, it will have no morph areas. If there are no areas, you can't create a target. I don't know what magic is required to get CreateMorphArea to do its thing, but I can't get it to work on a poser figure. I think it might tie in to the previous issue as well - there is some behind-the-scenes magic going on that just isn't in the SDK.

    And I already mentioned that the UV functions in the SDK do not work on Poser figures as far as I can tell.

  • 1MoreThreadDeleted1MoreThreadDeleted Posts: 56
    edited December 1969

    Fenric said:

    Supporting the freebies is even worse, surprisingly enough. I've never had so many aggressive and impolite emails as I got because of my port the Ivy Generator.

    I am god-smacked that anyone would do that. Morons. Your plugins are the only things that have kept my interest in Carrara. I have purchased all of them. I definitely would have moved onto another software package without them because Carrara V8 has been a disappointment to me. C8.5 is a lot better and somewhat stable but I still get the occasional crash on something simple like particles and move back to C7 and it works fine. Enough of my complaining. I am off my little girl just woke up. Going to go hold her and feel better.


    Oh she is one week and 4 days old. She is beautiful to watch.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/8xqos0u7hocwz8h/0006.jpg

    Again sorry to hear that people would be so rude.

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    More people should be fun loving and experimental like Wendy...

    Yes, unbelievable rudeness for free things is the Poser way....

  • booksbydavidbooksbydavid Posts: 429
    edited December 1969

    I like Fenric...a lot. I thought he was god until he told me he wasn't. I think he just said it to stop me from stalking him.:-)

    Seriously, people writing hate mail to the creator of a freebie is just...sad.

  • MiloMilo Posts: 511
    edited December 1969

    Fenric said:

    Because there are many irritable and unforgiving people who shop at DAZ, use Poser 4 compatible figures exclusively, and who will expect everything to work seamlessly and flawlessly. They will not read the documentation, and will not accept limitations or work-arounds. If I try to explain the limitations, they get angry. While it's amusing on some levels to have people assume that I am a DAZ employee and threaten to get DAZ to fire me, it is still stressful to have to deal with. And I simply do not make enough money from these plugins to be willing to put up with much of that at all. (Supporting the freebies is even worse, surprisingly enough. I've never had so many aggressive and impolite emails as I got because of my port the Ivy Generator.)

    Ouch :/ unfortunately that mentality is out there. I appreciate the additional functionality you have added to Carrara both in what I have purchased and what you have graciously donated. So Thank you!

    I am going to point this thread in the bug and see what they have to say.

  • Kevin SandersonKevin Sanderson Posts: 1,643
    edited December 1969

    It's not the first time I've heard of this behavior. Unfortunately, it's the entitlement/customer is always right mentality that has run rampant here with some DAZ users and over at Renderosity with some Poser users. They just don't get it. Sometimes I want to think it's people who are immature but I've been shocked in the past by retirees who do it, too. You can get the drift by just reading the forums and not even be a PA/merchant. It's very sad. But it's also something that is a problem almost anywhere when you deal with the public... I've had it happen working at radio station promotion events - free concerts for gosh sakes! And my younger brother went through it for years working at a couple different public libraries and at Borders. He doesn't get that treatment in his current non-retail line of work - he doesn't have to see the public. Sometimes I think it's worse on the Internet because people think they can hide behind screen names.

    It was also sad seeing DAZ and Poser users whining over at the messiah forums when they were practically giving away their software. But the longtime messiah users swatted them away like flies or flat out ignored them.

  • Design AcrobatDesign Acrobat Posts: 459
    edited December 1969

    Haven't been on this forum awhile, but this topic caught my attention.

    I have 3DCoat and Zbrush 4R4.

    There is an applink for Zbrush from 3DCoat and back.

    Not that would be helpful to anyone, but thought I might mention it.

    BTW, the 3DCoat version now is using the beta tools for the upcoming 4.0 tools and it's really, very very nice.

    3DC_1.jpg
    800 x 429 - 68K
  • MiloMilo Posts: 511
    edited December 1969

    Muphasa said:
    Hi Fenric great to hear from ya.Thank for the break down in what is achievable atm.


    Yea I think most people would wish for the ability to do morphs on poser/genesis products.

    What can Daz do to help this project? What things about the SDK need to be changed or explained?

    And thecatsmith you are welcome. My pleasure to help.

    Make sure you go to https://bugs.daz3d.com/view.php?id=47504 and add your voice, not sure what good or not it will do. But it can't hurt anything to make sure everyone adds it.

  • MiloMilo Posts: 511
    edited December 1969

    Fenric said:
    I have looked into this before, and my opinion is...

    Getting an applink for just painting any mapped vertex-based object (rigged, unrigged, native, poser, whatever) would not be too hard.

    Getting an applink to do anything to a not vertex-based object (plant, spline, metaball) is pretty much impossible.

    Getting an applink to morph/retopo/uv a generic vertex object would be ok (understanding that the result of retopo would be to import the new object and delete your old one)

    Getting an applink to morph or uv a native rigged vertex object would be possible (you simply can't retopo a rigged item).

    Getting an applink to do anything other than paint on a Poser object will be quite challenging. Morphs might be possible with a lot of effort - remember, DAZ had access to the Carrara source code when making the GoZ plugin: I wouldn't have that resource. I have yet to make the SDK functions that change UV mapping work with Poser figures (not saying it's impossible, but I've not been able to)


    Unfortunately, I have a pretty strong suspicion which of those operations above is the one most people are hoping to do.

    I was thinking about this, I wonder if we could do a bug report to request the missing SDK API's perhaps? I am not sure all what is needed unfortunately.

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