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Yep... that's it. I often like to build my shaders from scratch... problem is I'm Shader Impaired... this is where the presets come in handy to show me how shaders are put together.
That movie clip is a Classic! I Love It!
Poor Bonnie didn't know... but poor evilproducer... that had to hurt!
Yeah... watching Mike Moir build a shader from the ground up is what got me going into doing that myself. Now I do it in my sleep, though I also still use the presets for dissection.
Hey... have you ever opened one of the DCG Enhance C sample presets? Wow! I get lost... quickly!
I want to continue to look at them and figure out how to make these new enhancements tick.
Out of the box, we cannot use texture maps to control SubSurface Scattering.
Using ShaderOps (1 or 2... one of them) Light Mangler, we can go through a process which might allow us to use a map in SSS, but I'm still not sure how this can be done in animations - or even if it can be done. It uses the result of a render to work its magic, so it doesn't seem likely.
So I started thinking about SSS and what it really is and started experimenting using SSS maps to control transparency aspects. But this was a long time ago, when evilproducer and I were really into the idea.
Ooops. Off on a tangent again! LOL
Thankful am I for your tangents. :) I'd completely forgotten about the DCG presets.
Nor anisotropy or a bunch of other things. One more reason we must remember to go back and set up those shader domains at the end of the modelling process!
I was often curious how fun it might be to get the anatomy bundle and conforming the skeleton and guts to M4 or V4 (or whichever figure we got the anatomy stuff for) and setting their shaders correctly, then using transparency with absorption and scattering to create SSS, with real substance to interact with.
EDIT:
...and translucency too.
Then perhaps even SSS... but I've left that out of my original thought simply because I have a hunch that it wouldn't be nearly as accurate.
Once we use SSS, tranlucency channel is overridden by the sss channel :(
Okay. Genesis is loading into Carrara with a weird ridge down the middle of his head. I don't know where morphs are in Carrara. He looks like an alien any thought?
Parameters Tab holds the morph dials for figures. I say it like that because on prop objects with morphs, the morph dials are still in the General tab.
For Genesis, select Actor for shaping morphs and Genesis (or Genesis 2) for the posing morphs
Out of curiosity, which Genesis did you load?
Sorry for recycling images. This one is using a Generation 4 (M4) figure. But at least it allowed me to show a screen grab of the Parameters Tab ;)
Thank you! All of them are loading with the cranial ridge morph dial at 100%. And its also happening in Studio so I believe the problem is originating in Studio. I have a question out. I know how where to go to fix it in Studio but its not sticking. Its happening every time I load a genesis figure. I also think its something to do with the update as everything worked as it should until I upgraded the new Iray stuff in 4.9
In that case, I would suggest using DIM to uninstall Genesis Starter Essentials (Installed Tab), then go back to the Download tab and reinstall it.
If it's not Genesis 1 you're talking about, do the same thing with whichever version is having the issues. Starter Essentials contains the actual base figure(s)
Hmmm... I haven't updated that stuff yet. I figured it could wait since I almost never use DS - especially when I have very little computer time, like now.
I may have to. But I'm not happy about it lol.
Running into another issue. I have a Genesis 2 Female figure in my scene. She is posed kneeling on the ground with her hands out. But when I render her , she renders in the T pose
Huh, never mind apparently its compiling things separately?
Haven't advanced along the timeline and posed her in some spot beyond frame 0?
I have no idea wha that even means lol. If I did i don't know how I would have done it.
I found it. Apparently I did do something with the timeline. I think i got it fixed though.
Don't forget to double check your render settings before re-rendering if you accidentally added keyframes or moved the timeline. Sometimes Carrara takes that as a sign that you want to render an animation and adjusts to render a whole set of frames rather than a still image. Take a look at the Render room on the Output tab under File Format and make sure you are still set to render the current frame. It may have switched the file type to something more animation friendly as well, so check that also. Happens to me all the time.
Thank you I will go check that.
Running into another issue. When I added my second terrain (which is exactly the same as the first, I just rotated it and moved it a bit. It seems to have lost the textures. However if I go to the texture tab, the textures are all there and show correctly. Please please tell me I struggled this much learning studio lol!
Looks like you have the ground plane enabled. In the instances pane, select your scene, then the Effects tab at the top of the screne. Look at the atmosphere (without opening the editor.) You should see an option to enter horizon altitude, etc. There is also a checkbox to enable the ground. I usually deselect the ground option.
You can also lower the horizon (or raise it) by entering a value in the field. Be aware that for some reason the unit of measure is in inches (unless you set the preferences to display metric.) To adjust the altitude height using feet, type in the number of feet, followed by "ft" without the quotes. Carrara will convert the feet into the correct inches. So, to lower the horizon 200 feet, type in -200ft.
thanks Kevin, I nevere knew that !
Just updated 4.9 last night... had me worried so I checked a bunch of G1 m/f and some G2 m/f and don't see a problem in Carrara... see pic.
Background is a DCG Enhance C: Organic 2/Cellular shader on a color gradient plane.
That is great to know... I'd tried both together and thought I was going mad.
I ran into this a while back as well and after some research, I think it is actually the expected result. From what I found, "translucency" is a cheap way of faking some of what SSS does and is a holdover from before most programs could really do subsurface scattering. It sticks around because even though it is much less realistic, it's cheaper from a time-to-render perspective and useful for a lot of situations... it's just one of those things that isn't remotely physically accurate.
I ended up deleting the morph from the data folder. Its working fine now.
Oh right. I wasn't mentioning this as if something was 'wrong' with the behavior. The SSS channel has its own Tranlucency setting which, by design, overrides the main Translucency channel.
I was acting bummed about that because I was hoping to have a loophole into using SSS maps with Carrara's SSS.
The thing is, we kind of can. We can use those maps in the tranlucency channel without using sss at all, letting the sss map control where translucency occurs, and then use transparency with those maps as well, carefully adjusting scattering and absorption to produce an actual SSS directly without using the sss channel at all.
In any of these channels, black = 0, which also equals no result.
So if we create a special sss map from an existing sss map, and make everywhere which shouldn't have any effect black, fading into what the effect should be, where it should be, we can then control that as a transparency via its brightness slider on the map. Setting up absorption and scattering properly should actually create subsurface scattering appearance, but on the actual surface instead of the subsurface.
I usually don't care to get too into these sorts of things except for fun experiments. But if I wanted SSS in a particular shot, I'd likely do as they show in the Carrara 6 demo stuff on the disc - which is just using the SSS channel as they intended. Indigone's wondeful shaders and lights kit uses sss in her shaders, so I just use that setting since I like it so much. Then, as in the example on the C6 disc, place a bulb light really close to the mesh, where I want the effect to occur, from behind - which causes the SSS to run through it's paces.
When we see fantastic SSS in Hollywood productions, rest assurred that these effects are not just happening in an Auto mode. They have artists directing the effect, very much like the way I've just mentioned above. We're in CG - we just do what we must to pull off the intended effect.
Did you try reinstalling it?
I have a feeling that the base mesh got saved somehow with that dial wide open. That's all. Uninstalling/installing with DIM is super fast and easy - and brings everything back to default ;)
I considered it, but I have everything in custom categories (no files moved, kind of like in the Carrara browser, where you can make your own files as well). If I uninstall and re install it doesn't always put them back into the categories I created, then I have to track them down and re add them. Which, since they got rid of the lovely blue, new content bars, takes forever to find and I don't want to waste half a day tracking stuff down again. I don't ever use that morph and its not the first time its happened, always with the same morph so I am perfectly okay with it being gone lol.
Okay so this is where I am at with the Carrara challeng piece. I modelled the spears and replicated them and textured them. I also modelled the ball and the magic shaft. My question is, how do I get the magic shaft and the ball to glow more and fuzz out the outline a bit so that it doesn't looks so fake? I need something more whispy flame type.
Oh and don't mind the spears sinking into the ground, this is still very much a work in progress
I find that magical wisps and most other lighting effects of those sorts are much better handled in post, like Howler or HitFilm or Fusion, but it can be done in Carrara - just a bit more 'guesswork' involved, whereas those other programs offer more real-time visual updates to what we're doing. Anyways, here are some effects to try:
Glowing Aura - Select the object and go to the panels on the right. Open the Effects tab and enable Aura. Then open the Aura and place a check mark in the check box in the upper right of the dialog. Now render and have a look - adjust the effect to taste. Glare might also help you to achieve an effect you like.
Lighting Effects - Add a light to the scene, align it to the object (select object first, Shift select the light > Ctrl K) and in the light's effects tab, try out the many effects types to choose from. Lens Flare is one, but there are many others, like the Stars effect, nebula, glowing sphere, etc.,
Particle Emitters - By and large the best option for magical effects in Carrara, or most other programs are particles. So easy to control - both in appearance and behavior, but does require time and patience to learn.
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On the subject of your Genesis issues, I have some personal opinions about your issues - especially as to why you haven't tried uninstall/reinstall:
Genesis and all of it's newer counterparts are a specific technology - like a software all its own. There have been many updates to it since its original release and these have all been very important changes - most of them incredibly important for Carrara users.
That said, I have been suggesting all along that users whom don't want to experience future headaches to keep Genesis installations at their default. Of course, we don't have to - just know that when we don't, we have to go through more hoops when updating. Custom set-ups are fine - but one truly must suffer the consequences.
Daz3d has been answering a lot of issues regarding all of the Genesis figures and updating fairly regularly. We need to be able to uninstall it for some of those changes. Folks whom couldn't (or didn't) uninstall the original Genesis figure came to this forum with many complaints about how it didn't work right. Without the uninstall taking place, files that truly needed to disappear were left in the directory - gumming up the whole works.
Okay... didn't mean to lecture. It just takes a lot of energy to try and solve problems. When things are occurring due to improper setups/maintenance, it gets frustrating ;)