Still waiting
ManStan
Posts: 0
Is it just me or has DAZ gone all mum on carrara? I don't recall reading anything new about it. Been quite a few months since the last update. In fact I don't think we ever got the last one they were touting as coming out in a few days.
So what is up? Did the devs hit a wall? Decide to hold off on further C8.5 updates/development till they finish with studio? Or as I believe, is there no devs actually working on carrara?
Post edited by ManStan on
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Well, I guess maybe they have finally listened to us that we want them to take their time and get it right.
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Well, I guess maybe they have finally listened to us that we want them to take their time and get it right.
Posted on Jul 27, 2012 "Close to a new Carrara 8.5 beta update"
"This build will be out in a few days."
http://carraracafe.com/?p=2112
As far as I know that update never came out. I haven't heard a peep about carrara since, that's 5 months. It's one thing to take their time, quite another to appear to have stopped development.
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Wow, that was July?!
Okay. I see your point.
It's not just you.
Either DAZ management really hates to talk to their customers, or they just have really poor communication skills.
It does seem like information regarding Carrara has halted; to wit:
* When the Carrara beta recently went from $0 to $199.95 in the DAZ store, there was no explanation for days. I even sent a PM to DAZ_bfurner but got no reply.
* A few days later the entire page for the beta download was removed. Again, with no explanation.
* Some people have mentioned that resetting their Carrara downloads have produced a link for the beta. However, in each case it has been for version 8.5.0.132, not the current beta 8.5.0.172.
These things combined makes one wonder.
As the December 1st serial number expiration date is approaching, we don't have long to wait to see whether or not we've been completely abandoned.
"When the Carrara beta recently went from $0 to $199.95 "
That is worrisome, DAZ is well know for letting the cat out of the bag too early. That may very well be DAZ's "nominal" fee for C8.5.
But DAZ being close mouthed is nothing new. Which is good for DAZ as they had been well know for putting their foot in their mouth every time they opened it.
But correct me if I'm wrong, hasn't C8.5 been in beta for close to 18 months? That is an awful long time for a .5 beta. Yes I want things fixed and working right, but it would be nice to know just what the L is going on.
The one good sign recently was their special deal on Carrara for buyers of Howie's new scene. And we know they got at least a few sales just from posts that have been popping up here and in the Commons. I'm guessing after the first of the year we'll hear some news. IIRC, they were going to try to get as much fixed as possible, get Genesis working in Poser and Carrara and get documentation of some kind going. That's a lot of work for a small company with practically the whole staff working on the website and store upgrade besides Genesis, fixing DAZ Studio and getting documentation for DAZ Studio. I'm amazed they've managed to get much else done. 8.5 would still have had to wait on Genesis as that was the main new thing for 8.5 so that was the ultimate jam up and probably why we haven't seen anything recently. Hey, people were thinking messiah was dead as pmG hadn't said anything in months and all of sudden there's a special pre-sale offer for v6 and news that it will be released first quarter of next year - but they won't say what the about 60 improvements are. Talk about a company that has no communication and that's pmG. Fori doesn't like to tell anybody anything! Makes DAZ look like a bunch of chatterboxes! Of course you have all the usual indignant types posting on setuptab.com but a whole bunch of loyal users who've never been burned and are ready to spend for an upgrade with little to no information - of course the pre-sale upgrade is a steal at $65 (normal upgrade $249-$299).
"8.5 would still have had to wait on Genesis as that was the main new thing for 8.5 so that was the ultimate jam up and probably why we haven’t seen anything recently." Kevin Sanderson
That I can't argue with.
Oh how I wish that I could believe that!
The total radio silence from Daz is disturbing. It would be nice if there was a dev on the forum who was willing to talk a bit about Carrara.
.172 was a step backwards from the 132 build. Broke a lot of Genesis morphs and broke my spot render tool.
Oh how I wish that I could believe that!
The total radio silence from Daz is disturbing. It would be nice if there was a dev on the forum who was willing to talk a bit about Carrara.
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I agree.
I didn't realise how long the radio silence had been until Stan told me.
Last update I found:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/4700/P135
DAZ_bfurner Posted: 13 September 2012 09:14 AM [ Ignore ] [ # 144 ]
Active Member
Total Posts: 433 Joined 2007-10-08
akulla3D - 13 September 2012 08:08 AM
Apparently silence is golden. Would be nice to know what is going on, as summer is now over so everyone should be back from Vacation at this point.
We are working on the final bugs to have the 8.5 build ready to release. We have one major bug that needs to be fixed, tested then we should be ready to roll out. Not sure the time frame, but it is looking good.
Well that is a bit closer, just 3 months ago.
Indeed. Many companies - regardless of size - have taken to letting the developers blog and discuss current projects (within reason). That's one big reason why I have become so disillusioned with Daz over this. I don't expect second-by-second updates covering ever line of code written...but a dev popping in here once a week or so would be reassuring.
"Yep, we're still working on it. Found a handle leak with our new rendering code that took us a while to figure out. Back on track now."
(hopefully it is obvious to everyone that that quote was entirely imagined in my own fevered brain and shouldn't used elsewhere... :) )
I started investing in Genesis about a year ago. I studied all aspects of Genesis . I wanted to make a little movie with Carrara 8.5 and Genesis. I was hoping for a reasonably near release of the production version, because I cannot afford to go ahead with my little movie without it. Too many things are not finished with beta 172. Now that has been going on for some time. But I've been patient. Patience is a virtue, I've been told. In the meantime, depressed as I was waiting for the production version, I've started drinking. Heavily. The question is: will I have to become a full-fledged, irreversible alcoholic before the production version of Carrara 8.5 is released? Is there any hope for me? :-S
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You might be able to get into a 12 step program and complete it by the time the new software comes out.
I am an alcoholic, and a violent drunk, very, very bad combo. I quit drinking a bit over 25 years ago. Not a good place to be, but I understand you.
I'm just getting back in to carrara, using 8.5 exclusively and genesis a lot, but just running carrara through it's paces. For me the soft cloth, soft body physics is far more exciting then genesis. I mean the I have far more fun with bullet physics then genesis. ;)
I'm not so much wanting 8.5 now as some update on what is going on.
Here is my latest soft cloth test with genesis. For some reason with genesis I really have to hunt for lower poly dresses then what I use for other figures. For Antonia I used a high poly floor length skirt.
{ no you can't see her ugly feet lol shoes didn't do well ;) }
Testify brother! Just a quick message from somebody telling us what's up...not too much to ask in my opinion.
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Have you been doing many animations lately?
How is the cloth performing in 8.5?
I remember someone saying they were having difficulties with the cloth and the Dynamic hair.
Aren't you the same guy considering Lightwave?
Um...you ain't seen nothin' yet. :)
LW 11.5 does look like it will be great. Wish it cost less but you get the research and development with higher prices the hobbyist folks will never go for here. Also, you have Autodesk selling 90-day licenses now for 3ds Max and Maya for $199. It sure is getting interesting in the CG world.
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Have you been doing many animations lately?
How is the cloth performing in 8.5?
I remember someone saying they were having difficulties with the cloth and the Dynamic hair.
It behaves oddly. The cloth doesn't seem to respond to the models movement. But I've done direction force testing, moving the force in a circle. The cloth clings to the model and drapes away from it like I would expect. So I'm not sure why it doesn't respond to model movement. But it does work quite well; your mileage may vary, for still shots. The simpler the clothes the better it works, but you can "pin" collars and cuffs if need be.
I was hoping 3dage would have this figured out by now :lol:
Here's another one, but I have the clothe set too stretchy, you can see the pattern in the skirt. The skirt has a fine checked pattern ment to show up in stretched polies.
I was looking at several other options since Carrara whet my appetite for playing with 3D. I do consider myself a hobbyist but I want a tool that is more capable than Carrara. I'm not abandoning Carrara by any stretch; just wanting to grow in a direction that I currently cannot with Carrara alone.
I had no idea about the 90 day licenses. That's cool, but its also not enough time for me. My full-time job keeps me away from Carrara enough as it is (oh, for a lottery win...). LW appears to fit in budget-wise between Carrara and Maya -- there was no chance I could justify $5000 on this hobby (yet).
Those 90-day licenses are a limited time deal, but if they sell a bunch, maybe they'll expand it.
I still remember a guy telling me years ago that Carrara was the poor man's Lightwave and compared the renderer favorably to LW's. That's what pushed me into getting it.
Cloth in 8.5 is working pretty nicely, though it still doesn't work with moving collision objects. Hasn't worked with moving figures for a while now. Apparently they disconnected that last year (?). So animations are out, unless you go some other route. But the draping is very nice. And it's a lot less finicky and doesn't tend to blow up like it used to.
BTW, I noticed that in ver. 11.5 Lightwave has one of those newfangled "shadow catcher" thingies...cool. :)
Now did LW ever get a UV mapping feature? I seem to recall that, for a long time, until surprisingly recently, you had to use a (free) plugin to do UV mapping. Unless my brain is confused again.
And for those with LW, I'm curious: have they implemented a dynamic cloth feature using Bullet, or are you still using that ridiculous, half baked, impossible to understand, whatchamacallit cloth feature?
One of the reasons I jumped ship with LW. Seems like just about anything you wanted to do you needed a plugin for. And plugin developers came and went, and often you were left hanging. Like with that hair plugin...
I cannot comment on the history of the product since I am still playing with the 30 day trial for v11. The Dreamlight Model Master training series does cover UV mapping in LW though so I guess the answer to your first question is, "Yes."
Considering that I am just barely getting to understand UV mapping in Carrara, I'm not keen on re-learning how to do it in LW.
I don't own LW but according to their page for all the v11.5 goodness, soft body and cloth comes to their use of Bullet. Bullet hard body dynamics are in v11.
High priced plugins kept me away from LW and 3ds Max way back when I could've bought them.
That is another point of concern for me...my investment in various props and models from Daz. I'm sure that I can still use Carrara to put together a scene and then export the whole thing as an OBJ file...
The standard advice I give here that makes everyone real upset:
Don't tie your learning to a software application. Learn 3D from a general book on 3D, where you learn the concepts, as opposed to what the dials and buttons do in a particular application. Once you learn the basic concepts, you'll go into any new application knowing what to expect, so it becomes just a matter of "where's the button for this", rather than "hmm, what the heck does this do?"
Makes life a lot easier.
If, of course, that's what you want....