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Let me restate that - "My experience is that getting opinions in this forum about Carrara's render engine is like pulling teeth - EXCEPT FOR DART." I have asked for comments before, and you were basically one of the very few who responded.
This is always a problem with internet forums. You can't hear my tone of voice, nor see my face. And for the exact same reason, I am stunned by your comment. Can you give me an example of a "nasty remark?" I have not made a remark on this forum in anger, or to knowingly hurt someone, ever. If you can give me an example, I will be as dispassionate as possible in responding.
I'm starting a thread next week to ask many basic, specific questions, as I mentioned to 3DAGE in the last post.
Again, you surprise me with the accusation that I have insulted people. Please give me an example where someone has asked me for more information, and I have insulted them. There are plenty of comments back and forth where one party gives an opinion, and the other responds with a different opinion, but no way is that an insult, not is it intended as such.
3DAGE - have I insulted you? Please let me know.
PhilW - Have I insulted you? Please let me know.
Diomede - Have I insulted you? Please let me know.
TangoAlpha, have I insulted you? Please let me know.
Dart and anyone else, if you have felt insulted by me, then I sincerely apologize. I am not joking, or being sarcastic, or anything else. I am being sincere.
In the enthusiastic desire to help, there is also a lot of unsolicited advice given here. If I resist that advice, for whatever reason, please don't take it as an insult. In my case, I am often not ready for the information (as I have stated multiple times). And no one else but me can make that determination.
Further, if I point out something that appears lacking in Carrara, stop please stop interpreting it as an attack on God and country.
In making sense out of Carrara, I have to look at both sides closely. It's how I learn. If I mildly debate an issue, its to gain more perspective, and NEVER to insult.
The truth is, I'm rooting for Carrara to be the program that I hope will best fill my needs. My approach to gaining knowledge may seem odd to you, but I'm on your side, believe it or not.
No insult here, and for my part, I can't even recall seeing anything that could be interpreted that way.
Finally, someone agreed! Not only that, but you summed it up nicely. Thank you, Phil.
I'm buying your Carrara 8.5 tutorial TODAY, btw. The wife gave her OK.
It is great to hear that perspective, Phil. It's still early in my apples to apples evaluation, but at this point I suspect that you are exactly correct, that it is more abut being unfamiliar with the Carrara interface, and less about it actually being difficult. However, it is still difficult for me, so I am just offering a theory, while you are speaking from actual experience.
Nice job on the render, and wonderful context on the render engine. For some reason, you seem to understand where I am coming from. Grateful for that.
UnifiedBrain said: Diomede - Have I insulted you? Please let me know.
I strongly encourage you to keep asking questions and providing feedback and venting frustration. We all experience frustration (believe me, I think I am more frustrated with the frickin "panes" in Studio than new folks are with the "actor" level vs Genesis level in Carrara). In other threads, I will continue to try to provide information that I think people in general might benefit from, recognizing that I will fall short of perfect clarity. In this thread, I will continue to try to answer any questions that people post that I think I can answer, including and especially yours as the original poster.
Everyone, take a deep breath, hold it, and exhale slowly. It is all good. People have questions and other people are trying to provide answers. I often learn from the answers, so I hope the conversation continues.
Sorry UB, "Insulting" wasn't the right word. It was just a few things said to 3DAGE while he was being very kind that through my tired brain for a loop is all... like you've said - all just a misunderstanding. You've never said anything 'bad' to me... not at all.
Like I said in another thread. Hauling (by hand), Laying (by hand) and chiseling stone puts me in terrible pain, which causes me to become grumpy. I should learn to stay away from the forums during such times.
Sorry man.
I think its just your flippant way of stating stuff, prob meant to be tongue in cheek but possibly loses something in text as you admit.
I upset others too online with Australian coloquialisms often they do not get.
I do see your point on the rocks, Bryce and Vue have rocks I think, a terrain creating software usually has rocks as well as trees and water etc but think rather than missing the trees for the forest its a case of missing the rocks for the terrain.
there are a few "rocky" terrains that if scaled with a zero edge filter and surface replicated with their hotpoints set to the middle would make perfectly viable rocks on another terrain.
Its a matter more of playing with filters and parameters in the terrain room, scaling, less zeros in terrain texture layers etc.
Thanks to Stezza and Dart for commenting favorably on my cartoon render. It was my very first render ever posted. I conceived it yesterday morning, worked on it in the afternoon, and posted in the evening - very fast for me, but probably as slow as molasses to the pros here. The background was purposely kept black, and the terrain an eerie green to further enhance the surreal aspect of the cartoon. Aside from trying to have a bit of fun, it was a great Carrara learning experience, as I had to review almost all the on-board Carrara content to choose items for the scene. Carrara has a bunch of stuff!
I think at least 3 people were typing simultaneously. My post probably seems odd because it is out of order, but I hope the sentiment is still meaningful.
That's what I do for both rocks and grass.
I make a small (10'x10') terrain piece, use my Woodlands shaders (one is for grassy setting) which has grass and rocks and some leaves, and make it nice and bumpy.
Then I hide that under my main terrain, pulling it up just enough to expose some grass and rocks.
I take that piece and duplicate it, rotate, move, and duplicate again and again and again. Just adjust them how they work best. I very seldom actually add blades of grass to my scenes.
oh also I chop rock props in half in the vertex room if submeged in ground for less mesh, like the terrain idea.
the displacement on a terrain can simulate grass too with the spots natural function or noise.
Just in bump often enough if not close.
Yup. For me, by the time the camera is close, it's up by the character's face - not the grass ;)
So bump is fine for me
This one shows the general principle
Phil, Absolutely wonderful Rozanna. I'll bet even the background is simply a plane with a cool shader of your design applied.
Thanks! I'm a big fan, so I would be unhappy if you were ticked at me. There are many times I come on the forum, and you are posting in about 6 threads at the same time, pushing boundaries in each one. Don't know how you find the energy.
I did read in another thread where you complained about "stones," but I had no idea what you meant. I thought it was kidney stones. Very sorry to hear of your pain. If you need any help sorting out an approach to eliminate your physical pain, please send me a private message. I have been working in the alternative health area for over 25 years, and I know a few things.
Nice convenient list! Thanks for taking the time to make it. I visited every single link.
BTW - I think that you left off Matcreator.
And that reminds me, I am a fan of the Daz shader pack that comes with the genesis supersuit. Are there any Carrara shaders on the market that are functionally equal?
Something that will probably be forgotten by most seasoned Carrara users is that there are features of the program that seem to be very seldom used by anyone but which sit alongside the other tools looking just as important. An example is the Storyboard Room.
I know that Carrara has an interesting history of how it came to be. There was a thread on the subject describing how several previous programs were developed and merged and how ownership of the program changed a few times.
Setting the real history aside for a moment, Carrara always seems to me to be like a program where the creators, at a moment in time some years back, decided to make a general all-round 3d package and put into it all the features such a package could wish for in those days.
So we have a Spline modeller, a Vertex modeller, Metaballs, Landscapes, Vertex animation, Bones-based animation and so on.
Since that moment (which exists in my imagination), the world of 3d has developed and fashions have come and gone. Spline or Patch modelling seems to be largely a thing of the past. Vertex Modelling (box modelling) is still very much alive but Metaballs seem to have had their day. (Although they could merely be lacking a champion to show the rest of us what they can do. I reckon that a metaball figure could be further sculpted and re-topologised and such a model might be done very quickly).
What I'm getting at is that a stranger to Carrara might think that everything in the package has equal weight and that all of it needs to be learned. Whereas a long-term user will have forgotten that certain features even exist because they are simply never used any more.
I have gone just about as far as I want to with trying out new software - where does it end? So Carrara is just fine for me as the central home of my endeavors. I can get respectable results with Hexagon for modelling these days and can animate quickly in Iclone and I also like Poser. The final software item for my needs is 3dCoat which I haven't yet used nearly enough.
If I wanted to start saying that Carrara needs to develop further then I think it would be along the lines of today's sculpting packages. Dynamic tessalation, voxel sculpting, etc. Others might prefer more particles, liquids and so on. I don't know enough about game engines to even know whether these compete with software like Carrara except to say that the animations from games these days are breathtaking.
But to reiterate my main point: a newcomer to Carrara may not realize that some aspects are seldom needed by most users nowadays. Such newcomers might feel a little overwhelmed by what they find on opening it up.
Spelling edit
Good points, Marcus.
UB - there are Carrara shader packs available. Ringomonfort has some. There are others as well. (Holyforest?) http://www.daz3d.com/ringomonfort
Here is a link to Ringo's bundled shader packs.
http://www.daz3d.com/digitalpainters-shader-bundle
Flippant means "disrespectful or not serious." Not sure why you are interpreting me in that way, as my intent does not match those terms. But internet communication is a challenge, I agree.
I have some friends in the land of Oz. I understand.
Ha! Was that a pun? Hard to know for sure, but appreciated.
I'm not there yet - maybe a few more weeks - but good to know!
Yes, thanks for responding, and for the reminder to keep the focus on the goal of learning. I don't think that I am quite as frustrated as you think, but yeah, it does help to stop occasionally and do something else for a while.
As for your comment on shaders, I have looked at several packages. I guess that I am hoping to find more or less the exact same shaders in Carrara as are in the supersuit package. Not likely, but I needed to ask.
I would recommend taking a look at the functions available to affect a mixer in the shader tree. It is very simple to create patterns, Insert a primitive sphere and a primitive cube. Have them use the same texture and edit the master (edit both at same time). In the shader tree color channel, choose OPERATION : MIXER. You will be offered two colors. I chose white and blue. You then choose the blender. In the following,I experimented with PATTERN : CHECKERS, NATURAL : LUMBER YARD, and PATTERN : WIRES but played with the settings a little. You can nest operators within operators to make very detailed shaders. Save them for future use by dragging them to your shader browser.
HI UB,. :)
I''ve not found anything you've said insulting,. but as you mention, it's difficult to identify someones meaning and intent in a text based forum, so it's easy to grab hold of the wrong end of a stick.
there are aslo some sad folks who, for fun,. jump into forums like this,. and ask questions which will intentionally cause a ruckus,.
sometimes it's hard to tell the legitimately curious user,.. from the intentionally mischevious.
I'm Scottish,. so you'd need to try really hard to insult me,. we've been getting insulted proffesionally for more than a thousand years. :)
Keep asking questions,. keep exploring stuff ,.
Thanks, good to know!
I FULLY understand. I am a moderator on another forum which has about 30,000 members, but only a few thousand are fully active. Still, it's a handful at times.
Well, I have Irish blood, so our relationship is probably doomed from the start.
Dart mentioned earlier that you inspired him to take up Carrara. Thanks for your continuing mentorship!
Not that I'm aware of, but I'm pretty thick skinned and probably wouldn't notice (or I wasn't paying attention, which happens) As to why there are no rocks or grass, I suppose they had to stop somewhere. It was probably arbitary, but someone I expect said "we've got enough stuff" and that was it. otherwise they could go on adding props after props after props, and wherever they stopped someone would still say, "why didn't they add this or that?" There will always be something that someone wants that isn't included.
As it stands, I often find myself making grass props. Sometimes they're the simple 4-6-8-poly flat triangles, sometimes they're a bit more ornate. And rocks too, although I don't regularly cut the bottoms off (cos you can turn a rock over, and presto, it's a different rock!)
I've got English, Irish and Scottish blood and born and raised in Australia.....
Look Out!
Speaking of Matcreator, he has a really cool shader pack for Carrara. I haven't picked it up yet... but I really want to! :)
Here's the one I'm talking about: Carrara Pro Master Shaders
...and here's a 3D Paint Brushes pack he makes to go along with the above shaders set
(Carrara's 3D Paint feature can be really fun!)
Here's another Carrara Shaders pack he makes: MatCreators Massive Material Multi-Pack for Carrara
I love you Man!!!
Thanks diomede!!!
ironically I made this the other day in Carrara though Chohole informs us they grow everwhere but Scotland, they certainly grow in my yard in Australia, are noxious weeds.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/86428/gallery/5/3D-Model/Scottish-Thistle
I used the spike modifier to create mesh, those modifiers are often an under utilised feature too and yes I have used metaballs too for somebody who wanted a blobby figure in D|S
not rigged but animated with morphs!
http://www.sharecg.com/v/79204/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/blobby
Heh heh. Funny AND clever.
OK, thanks for answering. Sorry to ask so many of you directly, but I had to know. Surprised away that every single person responded, and took the time to add thoughtful comments. Amazing and classy members on this forum.
Thanks for the interesting perspective, Marcus. Great big-picture stuff, somewhat unique from other views I have read. My view is that there are at least two camps that want to see Carrara improved - those who would like more features (probably the majority of users) and those like myself who would like it to be made a bit more friendly for the new user. I don't think that one has to exclude the other. But I'm going to deal with what it is right now, and see if it becomes as friendly as Studio currently is for me.
Just yesterday, I opened Studio for the first time in a couple of weeks, and just fooling around I loaded a new item (Modern bed 1), applied new shaders to multiple surfaces, and rendered it multiple times, all in less than 2 minutes. Easy peasy. So, I thought, "how long would this take in Carrara?" Surprisingly, it only took about 5 minutes, and the resulting render looked even nicer than the Studio render. Getting there!