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No I totally understand what you are saying. Unfortunately, I remember this particular issue as it has happened once before when I updated studio. I went back through my original notes on the subject and it was as I thought, reinstalling did not fix the problem. And the issue was never resolved, no one could figure out how to fix it. the only thing that worked was removing the morph entirely. And interestingly enough, the morph does not show in Carrara so there was no way to dial it out.
FWIW, I don't sense 'lecturing' going on, but rather "please don't learn the hard way... the way I did" sort of wisdom, so thanks for helping save us from ourselves.
That said, in a bemused way, I sometimes wonder if it's possible to effectively 'save us from ourselves'. It might be that to 'get there' at all, we have to go through all of 'that' ourselves..., which is why the mosts lasting advice I keep seeing is to "just start doing it".
I read what you guys write voraciously, and remember just enough to know that 'Dart (or 3DAGE, or diomede, or EP, or Philw, or head wax, or JoeMama (heh), or rashad, or...) mentioned something about that shader once, let me go look for that thread!'
There's no doubt that time (life energy) is saved for that wisdom being recorded/discussed here. It's truly appreciated.
Ice Dragon Art - I like where your scene is going!
--ms
RE: wispiness
As Dart says, you can use postwork and that would be great.
Within Carrara, you have a number of options, including combining the following:
1 - shader tree - alpha channel
2 - shader tree - glow and transparency channels
3 - object properties - effects tab, blur
4 - object properties - effects tab, aura
.
Here, I've inserted a sphere as a test. I created a crude circular map in photoshop but I could have rendered out a similar from an image editor. I used the sphere's shader tree and its effects tab to create a mystic appearance.
- color channel - I used the tab to set it as a mixer. I picked two colors, red and blue. For the blender, I loaded the texture map. No tiling.
- alpha channel - I loaded the same texture map but increased the tiling so that it did not match the color channel (broke up the red and blue).
- glow channel - I copied the alpha channel map and tiling to the low channel.
I did a test render.
I then made two more tests with the effects tab in the sphere's property tray.
- blur - I checked the box to enable blur and then set it relatively low. This is a post-render effect so don't be alarmed if your scene does not seem to change. I also tested with a hiher blur setting.
- aura - I checked the box to enable aura. I played with the aura color and other settings. This is another post render effect.
All of those effects were done just with a primitive sphere and a grayscale map.
Very cool thank you! So this is where I am at with this. I added a texture and fiddled with the blur and glow settings a bit.
When going for magical effects, I really recommend playing around with that aura setting that everyone recommends, but another cool trick is to put a light bulb right in the middle of your object/effect. If you set the Alpha channel on the object to anything but full visibility, you can the use the wide range of effects available for the light bulb (these are all post-render effects so they may not show correctly in a preview) to add even more coolness to your Fx. Changing the alpha is key to this since the bulb effects only work if Carrara can see the light bulb (it does respect alpha, but not transparency for this purpose IIRC).
Some examples of stacking effects are attached:
Note that I did not use the Blur effect on the sphere at all but got a similar effect by stacking other effects, all of which are applied instantly post-render so my render time is not affected at all.
Check out my post in the current forum challenge (http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1981406/#Comment_1981406) to see how I used this to help sell a magical attack in that WIP.
Ooops... I forgot to mention also how much I liked the render - and now it's even better, with the effects on the magical effect objects! Very vice!
I also wanted to mention that I think it looks right with the spears ends dug into the ground. Makes 'em stick harder when the enemy runs into them!!! :) Ouch!
Yeah... very nice job there!
Mindsong and MDO, yes! Very nice effects advice! And you'll see how this never ends. Getting good effects is a never-ending, ongoing study for those whom need them. Truly.
Sonja, Very Good. As Mindsong and MDO suggests there are many ways to mix up dem FX. Upon seeing your post I immediatly thought of using an Alpha channel... right now it looks as if attacker is being stabbed by a strange glowing carrot. LoL I've a warped mind. :)
As long as it stops him lol.
I actually love postwork, its one of my favorite parts of doing this, however, when i am learning a new program, I try to do as much as I possibly can without doing postwork as its too easy for me to say oh, I'll just fix it in postwork. I need to learn to do as much as possible in the program, and then I will start using post work. Otherwise, I tend to make excuses lol. I didn't do postwork for my DAZ stuff for almost a year, until I felt I had a fairly good handle on the basics. Postwork should enhance, not replace the program.
And thank you!
I'm going to have to change the name of my thread soon.... lol.
Why? Pehaps you're learning Carrara too fast. :)
Lol well I feel like I'm still very new but not new new if you know what I mean lol.
So have a question. I just installed an external drive with quite a bit more space than my c drive. Can I just port all my Carrara stuff over there or do I need to re install it? I have Studio moved over with no problems, I left the main program on C drive and just copied my folders over. Can I just copy all of the folders over for Carrara as well?
I am notoriously unhelpful when it comes to installation issues. However, I do know that there are some types of files that are best to install with the Carrara application structure, wherever it is on your system. The files will often work elsewhere, but you may get missing file errors and a prompt to hunt down the files. This is most likely to happen to me with shaders for some reason, but not everyone reports the problem. If you really want to install elsewhere, then load them once and then resave to your browser with files pointed to your new location. Not sure if that made sense. However, my computer has multiple drives. I want much of my custom stuff on on F: drive, but my Studio and Carrara content installs to my D: drive. Sometimes, the first time I Ioad a product there is trouble finding the texture maps. I get an error and a prompt to find the missing files. I only have to find and load them once and resave. Then I can use them without any error going forward no matter which drive I save them to.
Hope that helped. Seemed like I was rambling.
That makes sense. I know I had to point certain things to the correct spot when I moved the content for studio. I basically copied the folders over and then deleted them off my C drive once I knew it was working.
Custom leaves, either with a set, such as Howie Farkes' scenes, or your own, need to be kept with the application. Some of the preset scenes may need to be as well, if they're part of the wizard. I could br wrong on that last one though. plugins also need to be with the application.
Might be easier to just leave it where it is then. Moving studio cleared about 80% so I have plenty of space on C Drive at the moment. Thanks for the help!
So, if I wanted to model a basic, square, one story house with windows and a door, would it be better to start with a box or with separate walls etc (where you draw it on a flat plane) Is it easier to to do the flat plane thing (can't remember what that is called for the life of me lol) and carve out the doors and windows all in one shot and then weld the walls together?
This is actually a vey good question and we have had entire threads devoted to it. Hope to track one down. There are several ways to do it. Most will work in either the spline or the vertex modeler. Here are 2. One is smple and the other is more complex.
1 - make each wall as a separate piece, and then arrange them to make rooms and hallways and buildings. Just insert a rectangular grid in the vertex modeler and cut out the doors and windows. This is probably the simplest. Will work for most situations. However, it could have issues if you need a walk through of corridors and rooms like an office building. For example, what if you wanted to animate a rat through a maze with decorated walls? You would have to model and uvmap each wall one by one. You couldn't just resize a single wall in the x or y direction because it would distort the uvs for the decorations on the walls. But, how often does that cme up?
2 - More complicated but good for mazes - very advanced - use the polyline tool in vertex modeler and draw the shapes of all of the walls. Also place a point at the corner of any doorway or window. Copy and paste the polyline and move th duplicate vertically up to the bottom or top of any doorway or window. Copy to top of wall. Use the loft tool to connect the polylines. You will now have a maze of walls with polygons at the doorway and the windows, ready to be cut out or duplicated for a perfect fit. In my rat maze exmple, the uvmaps can be made more consistent (perhaps) using this approach.
Note - there is also a plugin called architools that specializes in buildings and walls. Maybe someone else can describe that.
Will see about that link to the old thread and provide an update when I find it.
Great thank you! I am going for simple this time around lol. Basically a box with windows and doors. Or at least holes cut out to resemble windows and doors.
Here is a post that has the simple way, in a larger thread that includes more ways.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/435988/#Comment_435988
Thank you! I will check that out and see what I can come up with this weekend.
In the Architools plugin for Carrara, you basically draw out the plan of a floor, similar to how Diomede was describing in his second example, all the walls automatically have thickness, and you can create doors and windows interactively. It is very good, although I have had some issues when converting to a vertex model in order to add more detail, and the mesh went very strange.
There is a free program called Sweet Home 3D which has a similar approach and you can export from there and import into Carrara, so that is another possibility.
This thread is also cool for getting into modeling. If you don't see your question in there, ask, and plenty of folk will pop in ;)
Modeling Objects in Carrara - Q&A - Come One and All
I show the main steps of the simple method here. The simple method uses a grid.
"The more traditional method would be to insert a 14 by 11 grid and then delete the doors and windows. That is fine, but it results in more polygons. Not that big of a deal in this example but wanted to show the ruled surfaces tool. Here is the traditional grid method. Similar result."
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2047211/#Comment_2047211
A more complicated method is posted directly above it. The more complicated method uses ruled surfaces.
diomede, you freaking ROCK!!!
Awesome thank you everyone! I am working my way through the modelling objects in Carrara thread, a lot it is still way over my head but parts of it are starting to make sense.
You've found me out. :) This is the question that I started with in my modeling thread which Dartanbeck and diomede link to above... "Thanks guys for the shout out". To catch it from the beginning start on page 1... it continues on to at least page 3 and picks up again much later which diomede links to above. Pay close attention to all advice from everyone... which can be applied to other objects as well.
Sonja, The further you go the easier it gets. I find that it's better for me to try to duplicate or at least come close to each example that anybody shows. Often I will refer back to a suggestion/example that someone mentions that I've either neglected or forgotten how to do. Once you do something a few times and use later every once in a while it becomes a lot easier to remember how to do.