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10-4 on that! Me too!
It's also so much easier for me to just babble my way through things - but the concensus has been that I babble too long... so I'm trying to come up with a better option ;)
It's also been difficult for me to find 'quiet time' to record videos.
I'll see what I can get done... thanks for the encouragement! ;)
"There is no Part 2". I already asked this of Dart.
You may be the "Babblemaster" but I always get very good info when you do.
LOL! Thanks!
I've just finished a video tutorial for Genesis Shaders. Waiting for it to finish redering in Vegas - then upload to YouTube - then I'll embed in here ;)
Patiently awaiting [drumming fingers] for Vegas to finish rendering. Hey why not name this one "Carrara Walk Through: Shaders - Pt2 - Genesis" or something similar. :)
Here goes... um.. sumpthin'?
(click to watch video)
It can also be fun to learn by simply trying new models and scenes, seeing how they're set up, how they're shaded, perhaps tweak some shaders, light them up, add some stuff, etc., it's amazing how much we can learn simply through the experience of using the tools.
The image was created using a beautiful freebie by Yofiel, whom has also a most interesting website. This model was not yet as complete as it is now when I created this image, turning about a dozen of Predatron's Low Rez folks into several hundred.
Thanks Yofiel! You freaking Rock!!!
Entering those monthly Carrara Challenges are also a very fun way to learn. Sometime we'll get some really great feedback, other times it's just seeing other folk's work that inspires us to push harder, or it may be a twist in the rules or even the theme....
This image didn't make it in time, but was still a lot of fun to make - and a bit of a learning exercise as well. The explosion is created using volumetric clouds, the text is Carrara text stretched really deep through the scene... it was a lot of fun!
Wow! Pardon this wide-eyed Carrara newbie, but you are the one who rocks.
Looking forward to doing starting your tutorial tomorrow!
LOL!!!
Thanks UB!!! ;)
Dart, I watched your new video on Genesis 1 2 Shaders. Immediatly afterwards I went looking for My Presets for a file I'd saved to add to a .zip file. Problem is I very seldomly use Windoze Exploder... err Explorer... instead I use Directory Opus... so I did a few searches for the filename I'd saved, without luck at first but finally found it in "C:\Users\"my username went here"\Documents\DAZ 3D\Carrara 8.5\My Presets"... cool I now have a new tab in a lister to be able to find it easily. Now things got worse... I was using PowerArchiver to create the .zip... problem is that it couldn't even see/find the Daz 3D folder... good grief I must have browsed with PowerArchiver wrong so tried again...still no luck. Well back to Directory Opus I go and copy the file to a temp location and zip it from there. Why I didn't just use Directory Opus to zip the drive in the first place is beyond me.. wasn't thinking. Come to think of it PowerArchiver should have found the path so I problably looked in the wrong place. I'm using Windose 7 home premium.
Oh... nice job on the video.
I don't really have a clue what you've just said... LOL
My Documents is inside the main Documnets, from Windows 7 on. At least in Win7, we can see both My Documents and Public Documents in the Documents directory. Not so in Win 10. I've even told 10 to let me see Public in Documents, but it doesn't listen to me.
That's why in the video, you'll see two DAZ 3D folders in my "Documents" area - I'm not in My Documents because the DS Library "My Daz 3d Library" is in the Public Documents folder, and I'm using Win 7 in the video.
I thought that Directory Opus died with Amigas, LOL. After googling, I was shocked to see it still going strong. I had it on an Amiga 4000 back in the day when men were men, and toasters were toasters. (you had to be there, not worth explaining)
Dart, I did your video yesterday. I don't feel comfortable commenting until I do it again today. But in general, it was VERY helpful. More later.
Go ahead... be brutal! I'm ready! LOL
Need help figuring out how to work with images in your forum posts?
Check this thread - ask in that thread for further assistance! ;)
These are comments and questions regarding Dartanbecks latest shader tutorial on You Tube, which has been linked previously in this thread.
Dart, you sound a lot like Bruce Boxleitner, who played the captain on Babylon 5 - one of my all-time favorite shows. So, I find your voice very easy on the ears.
The following covers the first 18 minutes only - where you mostly fixed the eye shaders on Genesis. The rest will have to wait for another day.
Following your tutorial the first time, I got bogged down trying to exactly copy you, while also seeing if I could do things a different way. The second time (today) was much faster. My experience is that I can't judge things after the first time.
1. A great side benefit to watching, was that I finally figured out how to set up my render window so that I didn't have to keep adjusting it. I unticked the boxes in file>preferences>render room, picked a good size (around 1300x800), and now save from the menu rather than from that annoying popup that keeps coming up. Love it now. You didn't explain how to do it, but I knew it was possible from watching. Between the lines stuff.
2. Good info on highlights-shininess-plastic-wetness. A highlight to shininess ratio of 100 to 40 is nice for wetness.
3. In the Instances tab, for the newbie, knowing which name to select in order to load or apply something is often a matter of trial and error. Top Genesis? 2nd Genesis? Actor? I still haven't heard anyone explain this clearly. It's certainly more confusing than using Studio, sorry to say.
4. A bit off-topic, by why are M5 elite materials called Phillip? Shouldn't they be called "Michael 5 elite"? As far as I know, there is no Phillip character for M5.
5. Your render engine has little tiny rendering squares. My 4 rendering zones are much bigger. Why?
6. Good to know that I need to consolidate shaders after loading most material presets and content. Still, let me return to point 3. When consolidating shaders after loading Genesis, I had to select 2nd Genesis in the instances tab. When consolidating shaders with the elite materials preset, I had to select "actor." To me it is like rolling dice in Vegas, LOL
7. Thanks for showing how to get the default shader out of the way (put it in the bottom of the screen) after selecting actor and hitting the edit button. However, my default shader had a different name, so that slowed me down quite a while while I figured it out.
8. It was a bit tricky following you when you were editing the sclera shader. There were two similar but separate actions where you dragged source 1 up into a higher parent. You were doing undo and redo here, so it got a bit confusing. I could ultimately follow what you did, but knowing exactly where to drag stuff up into a higher branch is not clear. For example, you once skipped a branch, and went up two branches.
9. During the eye part, I kept going back and doing renders to see if I could see any difference as you progressed. At around 14 minutes, the whites of the eyes became visible. It might be helpful to do more renders during the process, to show the dramatic changes. It's fun to see.
10. It was very interesting to hear about the limits of photoshop-like baked-in shaders, and to see how there is a better way in Carrara. It seems so logical to put a clear glass shader on the cornea, treating it more like a window. as you have explained.
11. At 17:42, you finished the eyes, and said, "That's more than I came here to tell you about." Actually, that would have been a great place to stop! It was very concise up to that point. Do the rest on another video. 15 minutes is a good length for these kind of things. Your original shader video is a perfect example.
Overall, for this part, I give you an A. It was very satisfying to fix those eyes, and to follow along while you used the Carrara interface. And further, it astounds me that you can just stop everything and crank this video out extemporaneously. That takes a bit of knowledge and a lot of courage. Very much appreciated!
Some before and after of the eyes attached.
Final edit - added point 10, and hopefully fixed most of the typos.
RE: #3 - top genesis, genesis, and actor.
See the attached pic from my "first steps" tutorial. When I load Michael 5 into a Carrara scene, it appears in the instances tray (lower right) as "Michael 5." It has a subgroup called "Genesis." Genesis has two subgroups, which are named "actor" and "Hip." Hip is a hierarchy where the figure's bones can be selected and posed. Actor is the model itself, which can be edited in the modeling room, new shaders applied, etc.
If I were to load a genesis base figure, it would appear as Genesis replacing "Michael 5" as described above. Then there would be a top Genesis and a 2nd Genesis.
Diomede, the point I am making is that you have to know which level needs to be selected to do a particular task. And that is confusing, compared to Studio (which of course is my entire frame of reference).
In your tutorial - I wish you had numbered each post, so it would be easy to refer to specific parts - you said, "I prefer to load clothing to the "Michael 5" level which I call the supergroup. As a result, the clothing items should be on the same level as the "genesis" group, not a subgroup of it." And yet, my experience is that I have sometimes had to select the subgroup to load clothing. At this point, it doesn't make sense. I suspect that over time the frequent Carrara user gets a feel for the right thing to do.
BTW - I hated your tutorial the first time through, and loved it the second time.
Some very small fixes would have made the first time a lot easier. Still, I learned a lot, and I will soon post a modest render showing what I learned from you and Dart, and from just fooling around with Carrara.
At the bottom of the default panel that opens in the render room has a tile size slider. I always slide my down to the lowest number: 16 (4x4 pixel buckets)
Incorrect. Here, let me correct it for you:
6. Good to know that I need to consolidate shaders after loading most ANY & ALL material presets and content.
Incorrect.
For Consolidating Duplicate Shaders, nothing needs to be selected - it works for Everything in the Scene! :)
Sorry. It's hard to word that exactly right. That's why I kept saying it over.
Here's what it is:
Where you see that the channel is set to "Multiply", that slot is where you drag the one set to "Texture Map" to.
So you grab Texture Map (by holding the Left mouse button) and drop it onto Multiply.
Well, there's another new user, Modern Wizard (?) whom was asking about his custom shaders for Genesis 2, so I really wanted to show how we could use the Carrara-optimized shaders that come with Carrara to help make our own prests to save to the browser, that are truly Optimized, rather than just 'fixed to a point'.
Where I end at 17:42, there are only color maps.
Like I said when you said you don't like reading... I don't like doing videos because I can just never please anybody. Too long, too much sound... this stuff takes so much time - something I really don't have a lot of. I really should just get back to work on my projects, shouldn't I?
It's my pleasure... truly. I love helping people, and shaders are something that I've been tweaking with since day one - and I love it!
I don't particularly like doing it in other apps, but Carrara just speaks to me! ;)
Thanks for the kind words! I appreciate that! :)
Thanks! I tried it, but it actually seemed slower, so I changed it back.
Heh. Nice to know a universal rule.
Ok, I need to go back and run through it again. Are you saying that, irrespective of what is selected, that Carrara will automatically consolidate all shaders in the scene? I was under the impression that if a particular figure or object was selected, that Carrara would ONLY consolidate shaders in that particular object. Am I wrong? If so, please correct me again. Without correction, progress really slows down!
I'll do the tutorial again, and be more specific with my question - if I still have one!
I understand. I wasn't suggesting that you stop there, but rather to take a break and continue with part 2, assuming you had the time.
Yeah, you can't please everyone. I am not ungrateful, and I should have explained my point more clearly. Learning fairly intense new stuff is difficult for just about anyone. There is a basic psychology to it. I think that most people want to feel good about what they are learning, so they prefer learning (fairly intense) new stuff in smaller doses. If they see that they need to watch a 45 minute video, it creates a certain resistence from the get-go. Smaller chunks of instruction are not only more acceptable to the student, but they give the teacher a chance to take a break, and enter into the next part refreshed.
That's it.
I don't see others here stepping forward with videos, so I hope that you continue. But if it is too stressful, for whatever reason, then stop. Like I said, I don't know anyone who isn't already super busy with other projects - and with life in general. For you, diomede, and others to step forward like you do, simply to help others, is a wonderful thing.
Thanks UB!
Yes. I am saying that Carrara will automatically consolidate all shaders in the scene - regardless of what (if anything) is selected.
So even if nothing is selected, and we go Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Consolidate Duplicate Shaders, we'll get the exact same result as if we had Actor or Genesis 2 Male or (whatever) selected.
Well....good! That gives me one less time that I have to try several items on the tree in hopes of selecting the right one for the task.
Here's the thing:
The top level is a group which you may name whatever you like, even though it begins life with the name of the character you've bought in. So if you bring in a different character using the Genesis 2 Male base, then top line will say the name of that character, while the second (Animation Group) will be called Genesis 2 Male.
So if I drag in Michael 6, the top level (Character Group) will be called Michael 6. Next down is Genesis 2 Male, then Actor.
Top level has no Parameters Tab.
Animation Group's Parameters tab contains posing morphs.
Actor contains Shaping Morphs.
If that helps. Either way, you'll get used to everything soon enough ;)
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Tip: When I'm working with more than one figure in a scene, I'll often close the Hierarchy at the "Hip" level, so they don't take up so much space, leaving the "Actor" line visible for editing material zones.
When I'm done working with that character, I'll close it at the Top Level to reduce it to a single line in the instances tray ;)
In the earlier/mid nineties I've had Directory Opus on nearly all my different Amiga computers, the only one I don't still have is an Amiga 600. My Amiga computers are not dead but many are retired. I have 2 Amigas next two my Windoze machine. I use my Amiga 4060 tower often to create graficFX that PaintShop pro can't duplicate... haven't tried in PS but it would likely be a costly add on effect. Oh I use ImageFX for the Amiga and have written quite a few Arexx script programs... one is for drawing any size or number and colors can be set to same of random for 5 pointed stars... others create different borders around a pic and one is designed to re-create a PS effect that places a lattice overlay on an image... I further modified the program to do a lot of different type lattice overlays. I have a VideoToaster and Lightwave by Newtek on my Amiga 4000 desktop model... need to move it to a faster one which have faster accelerated processors.
See what you've done... now I'm babbling. :)
So cool! Numb-brain here never really knew what an Amiga was. So I take it that an Amiga has its own OS?
The dual Quad-Core (Hyper-Threaded to 8 Cores each) Xeon Workstation-Class cpus have got to be amazing with Carrara, and they all seem to come with some version of nVidia's Quadro workstation graphics card - another thing I've always wanted to see running Carrara's Assemble Room display.
It's my understanding that those Quadro's are built to really Rock OpenGL above and beyond anything else. They've picked up a bit of a bad name for their high-expense from Gamers because they really aren't meant for that. So a lot of folks will bypass the Quadro for their home workstation in favor of a GTX. Myself included. I just can't justify the price of a Quadro - using that cash for other parts that I know I do need.
But for the prices I've been seeing these Z600s going for (with the Quadro included) feels like I will be trying one some day! :)
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