What are the benefits of genesis in Carrara?
Realtime
Posts: 95
I just reformatted my mac and will soon be re-installing Carrara.
I am a bit torn when it comes to Daz Studio. While I am all for new functionality in Carrara, I am really obsessive about installing software that I don't use. I understand that one must have DS 4.5 RC3 installed in order to take advantage of smart content tab and Genesis stuff.
At the end of the day what are the advantages of this type of install vs standard installation of Carrara Pro?
I don't want to be missing the big picture here or be stick in the mud. It would be nice to have an itemized benefit list.
I'd love for many of the "Carrara veterans" to weigh in on this.
To the Daz folks -
Ive been a Carrara user since 2005. Admittedly, I have been way busy with life for the past two years, and may not be seeing the whole picture here. that being said, IMO - it would be cool to have a road map of the development as it relates to Carrara (not just new features in Carrara as it serves the the purpose of daz studio). As a long standing customer and fan, I don't like the feeling that Carrara's developmental future seems to be primarily determined by how it benefits Daz Studio. I have tried Daz studio several times, as of yet, I have not wrapped my hands (or heart) around it. I want to continue to support Carrara - but would like reassurance that Carrara has a vision and destiny of it's own that's not dependent or determined by Daz Studio development.
thanks in advance for input.
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It's pretty simple really - if you want to use Genesis content in Carrara, you have to use the 8.5 Beta and DS 4.5 like they say. Genesis is the future as far as Daz is concerned - most new content you see on their store is based on the Genesis figures. Pretty much the opposite is true with all the other markets (Rendo, RDNA, etc.). On the other stores, a small percentage supports Genesis, and usually then just as an extra, e.g. you see some characters now for V4 and Genesis. I don't see that changing soon if ever - I can't see why any other vendors would want to completely buy into Daz's proprietary platform. So I think Gen4 support will be around for quite some time.
There is that DSON importer thing for Poser - that might be useable to get some Genesis content into Carrara in a round about way, if you just need it occasionally. Actually, I have no idea if that would work - I haven't had the time to look into it. I'm just getting back into Carrara after a long hiatus due to work, so I'm still catching up on all this new stuff.
If you are happy with just using Gen4 content and/or don't use Poser content at all, I wouldn't bother with installing DS 4.5. Actually, Carrara 8.1 was always pretty stable for me on Windows, but I just got my first Mac ever and found out quickly that 8.5 is the way to go for Macs. I haven't had time to try out the Genesis stuff at all, even though I do have DS installed just to play around with.
As for your last question - I've only been using Carrara for a couple of years, and that's when I started CGI as a hobby, so it's very likely I don't know what the heck I'm talking about. But I'll give my opinion anyway :D. I really don't see Carrara having much of a future with Daz. I think the most we can hope for is incremental updates to fix a few bugs and to keep up the DS compatibility, which is what we've seen over the last year with the 8.5 Beta. I can't really blame Daz for that - they have limited resources, development is expensive as heck, and it's obvious that Daz Studio is where they are putting their focus as a vehicle for selling content, so that's where most of the resources are going to be spent.
That being said, I don't know if it's such a bad thing. We've all seen what happens to programs when the developer keeps stuffing in every feature they can think of, just to justify charging for an upgrade every year. They become bloated unusable pieces of crap. Carrara strikes a nice balance of power and usability, and so far isn't TOO far behind on features. I think it fulfills an important niche, for pros who don't need the complexity (and associated cost) of the higher end programs, and serious hobbyist/control-freaks like me who want more power (and we like our amps to go to 11 too!)
My fear is that Carrara's niche is shrinking, especially as DS gets more powerful, and at some point Daz will decide it's no longer worth supporting. If it comes to that, instead of Carrara going the way of Hexagon, I hope Daz would consider open sourcing it, so that maybe those of us in the community could take it over and keep it going (that's how Blender started, and it's got a huge following now).
Great observations here. Thanks for your take on the matter.
I think you may have a great unbiased perspective since you have come in late in the game.
The writing may very well be on the wall and some of us are in a bit of denial.
I agree that Carrara has taken a back seat. To me that's a shame. Had it been the focus, it could easily have the support and following comparable to blender. I have tried blender. And althought it has come along away. I still prefer carrara's interface - hands down over blender and just about every other offering. Modo is close and I have Modo 501. But my first love in 3d is Carrara.
You touched at the heart of my concern -
I am hesitant to be vested in a program that may not have a future. Because it does appear that they have married a business model and have predefined the future of Carrara as secondary and supportive in their suite of programs.
Like you, I think that it would be interesting if the Carrara community controlled Carrara's future.
I would invest $$$.
At this point I don't think Carrara could go open source. I believe it has a lot of licensed code in it.
I do not use Genesis. Here is my advice: Do not invest money in it yet. When 8.5 is released you will be "given" a lot of Genesis content for "free". That's how I got V4 and M4 and a lot of their kits. I actually do not love those figures. They suit D|S. They are nice for illustrations but they are very large and somewhat complex... That is *my* opinion. I have everything I'd ever need for the Gen3 figures and they are not going anywhere. Daz will give me Genesis and V5/M5 whether I want it or not, so why would I rush to go through 3 programs to get something I don't need?
I animate, mostly motion graphics, but I'm animating figures more and more... I am not anti-Poser but I don't really render these loving still "portraits" like the D|S people do. I play with the dollies like everyone else, but I just like the older figures.... I also like low-poly figures and am trying to bridge to Unity through Reallusion's iClone.... For me, light-weight cool/quirky figures are better than the direction DAZ is going. But, I am not a hater... Genesis looks impressive, but it's all because they've finally built a figure for weight-painting so they can lose some of the poly bloat. But with each generation has come some technical issues with the morphs.... They keep getting more complicated under the hood....
Gen3 - a dozen(?) figures all based on the same "unimesh", compatible textures, somewhat compatible rigs, limit to how many morphs can be loaded. Each figure has it's own clothes so you need converter software, etc
Gen4 - Only 2 figures male/female, alternate figures are now morphs, dynamic morphs allow you to mix unlimited styles. UV maps are greatly improved. A lot of bugs with the dynamic morph loading thing for the first year...
Gen 5 - ONE lighter-poly weightpainted mesh, nearly all-purpose (well not the horse). Mix and match it all! Even add new body parts with "grafting". Backwards compatibility with Gen4 and Gen3!! APPLAUSE!
Really DAZ has done what they set out to do: They have built the ultimate DAZ figure. They unified their entire line (well, not the horse), and renewed all the old stuff as well. Recently they were giving away the DSON thing free for Poser users.... To be honest we will probably be sold Carrara9 in 2 or 3months, but we have been "given" the 8.5beta for free this whole time.... If people don't appreciate Genesis, it is honestly not DAZ's fault.
I'm just not jumping at the chance to buy an entirely new line of figures and accessories... There's still a lot of cute Aiko as Animal stuff I never got around to... and well... The other stores are still supporting the old figures, so I am in no hurry.
Thanks Holly, I was hoping that you would weigh in. I value your opinion and skills in Carrara.
Great advice.
As a hobbyist, I have tried my hands a several modeling projects. I have a t-rex that is 75% there. But I tend to lose my way in texturing.
From the forums, I gather that you have a handle on the art (or science) of texturing.
When creating textures for animal/people is it good practice to:
1. create texture map
2. apply bump map (and what size?)
2. apply color texture map (and what size?)
finally, is their any steps here that I am missing and what program(s) do you suggest for the process?
I used to oil paint and got much education for seeing different techniques and methods. I feel like some of my frustration comes from holes in my method.
sorry to bombard you with questions...
A really big advantage to using Studio together with Carrara that no-one ever seams to mention is that you can use Studio to Tr-Ax rig your own figures in Studio and they are perfectly compatible with Carrara. The rigging is way better than doing it in Carrara. You can even convert V4/M4 to tri-Ax in one click.
Now if only they would replace the dotted line rigging with solid bones ....:)
Thank you! I try all kinds of processes... not all at once, but you know. Whatever it takes. I'm not very skilled at painting, but I can easily paint "zones" and then I build shaders (and variations) for all the zones... If there's a good map I'll steal it, but also sometimes a really clean undetailed map can be good to build on.... I like the procedural shader tree, it's a bit like building fractals.... I play around a lot with abstract textures ("art") just to get ideas and to learn the shaders...
Check out my website (in my sig) I have a video tutorial on skin specularity that might be useful to you...
I just skimmed thru some of the replies, but didn't see an answer to the title question, and I'm kinda wondering the same thing...
I've pretty much ignored Genesis, so I'm not in tune with its benefits.
From where I'm standing it's a single figure, where you buy morph sets to apply to that figure to get different characters. Not unlike having multiple figures where you buy morph sets to vary those characters. A single figure vs. multiple figures.
But bottom line, from a customers perspecitive, it seems to me that all Genesis means is an opportunity to spend money on a whole new set of morph sets and clothes. But practically, unless there's something about those new morph sets and clothes you really need for some reason, having one character with many possible morphs ain't all that different with having multiple characters with many possible morphs.
Yeah, the conforming clothing feature has been very much improved, but I'm not seeing a whole lot more difference.
What am I missing?
Hi Realtime :)
In a nutshell.
Currently you need to have DS4.5 installed in order to have the "Daz Content Management service" running, which supplies and updates the "Smart Content" Database in Carrara,.
This is a "Temporary situation",. and a method is being developed to allow Carrara to have access to the smart content without needing to have DS installed at all.
The advantages of using genesis as a Base figure are many.
It's a single figure which can be Male / Female / Adult / Child / Troll / Gorilla,. or any combination of the genesis morphs you have installed.
It has an (Auto-fit) technology, which allows you to use clothing items which were originally designed for older figures, like V4/M4 ,. and if you buy the "iconic shapes" for genesis,. you can extend that to include M3 V3, Freak, aiko etc,...
Which extends the use of those clothing items you've bought,. and ultimately saves you some money.
Auto fit , also adjusts to any changes you make to the Genesis figure,.
so, for example,. if you had a Genesis Child, dressed in a shirt and pants,. then animated the figure shape to change into a 7ft Troll, then the Shirt and pants would transform along with the figure.
Smart Content:
If you select a genesis figure in your scene,. then "smart content" will show you thumbnails for items which can be applied to that figure
If you select an item of clothing in the scene,. then "smart content" will show you the textures or material options which can be applied to that clothing item,.
The same applies to Hair
Genesis can also use different UV sets,. so you can use Textures from previous generations like M4/V4 and with the "iconic shapes" for genesis , this can be extended to include V3/M3 etc
The Genesis Rigging and weight mapping system is different, from previous figures,. and allows better, more realistic posing.
Genesis was originally part of Daz Studio 4,. (it's the new default figure) which was another reason that you needed to have DS installed to use genesis in Carrara.
This has now been changed with the separation of the main Daz Studio (Program) and the (Genesis Starter essentials) "DS content including genesis".
This will allow non DS users to download the "Genesis Starter essentials", and install it without requiring the Daz Studio Program.
So,. to recap, Currently you need DS installed to give you genesis and Smart content in the Carrara 8.5 beta.
Carrara 8.5 (when it's finished) will not require DS to be installed,. and will have another method of accessing genesis and the Smart content database.
Carrara is,. and will remain, a stand alone 3D application,. whether you choose to use genesis or not.
I Hope that's clear and makes sense.
These two statements are contradictory... 8-/ :sick:
Maybe in the FUTURE Carrara will handle Genesis on it's own, but for now if you choose Genesis you MUST also install D|S. No?
Realtime, let's start a new thread for these other questions, maybe with some screengrabs? We'll all help! :cheese:
HI Holly :)
Yes you're right,. it;s not clear.. my bad :(
If you want to use genesis in the 8.5 beta,... then you'll need to install DS 4.5 plus the (genesis starter essentials) to provide the genesis base figures, and the CMS.
You can still install the 8.5 beta, and use it, without installing DS ,.. but you won't have genesis or any smart content.
At some point in the 8.5 beta development,. or When 8.5 is finally released,. you won't need to have DS installed to use genesis and smart content in carrara,. you'll only need the genesis starter essentials.
Just a minor correction, Blender was never commercial software.
Edit... sorry, double checked. It's initial incarnation was as shareware. Not the same as commercial but not totally open source. The original owners did get $100k to release it under GNU license. This is interesting because I understood it was always open source and I've played w Blender off and on for a long time :)
Thank you all.
I think I was able to get a directive from the replies.
Holly - I am checking out your site. I love the cartoon book tutorial - brilliant!
I agree - that I need to post some screen shot of Rex and get the community to weigh in.
3dage - I appreciate you putting it all down in one place for me to consider. At least now I see the power and potential of of the genesis models. My greatest concern is and has been for the future of Carrara. I think Daz would do well to communicate to the Carrara community that there is vision and commitment to Carrara beyond Daz Studio.
That being said, When will Carrara be able to use genesis independently of Daz Studio?
DAZ has officially stated that the plan with Genesis is 1st D|S, then Poser, then Carrara... The DSON thing for Poser is pretty recent, but it has been distributed.... The bug tracker has been dead since October or earlier (afaict), and we haven't been offered a new beta since...?
My guess is they are sitting on the release waiting for a "big spend" weekend like Xmas/New Years to launch it...
Some people are hoping that DAZ will release D\S5 and Carrara9 together, but it seems unlike DAZ to be completely silent about an upcoming release. Despite the poor communication, they do know how to drum up excitement about the next release...
Carrara has been on sale all month, which functionally would be what they would do before a release, but I would expect announcements. In my opinion DAZ chose to call the software updates x.5 because of Genesis. I don't expect anything underhanded or a sudden surprise switcharoo... Remember we will pay for the C8.5 update.
Hi Realtime :)
Either when the 8.5 beta is finished ,. or possibly at some point during the current beta development cycle,. then Carrara will be able to access genesis and the smart content,... without Daz Studio installed.
As to an exact date for that,... I can't say,..
:)
And how does that save you money? It only saves you money IF, as I said, for some reason you NEED something about the Genesis morphs that you don't have with existing figures, AND you're willing to pay for those morphs, AND you also need clothing from the old figures.
But if you can morph existing figures to what you want, you're REALLY saving money by not buying all the Genesis stuff.
It's hard to argue that you're saving money by, what, paying more money so that you can then save money???
Joe, do you use Genesis?
You're right ,. you're not saving any money,.. when you're spending it.
You'd only really benefit If you have an existing library of clothing and textures for previous generations of figures, then those can still be used on genesis, ...if you have the (Iconic shape morphs) which you'd need to buy. ( a small spend for a larger saving)
With all previous generation changes, the old figures, and all the clothing you had purchased, wouldn't work on the Next generations, and so you would have had to purchase new clothing, and textures, for the new figures. or continue using the older figures and clothing and choosing not to Spend more money on the new figures.
Genesis and auto-fit breaks that , and allows clothing and textures from older models (if you have them) to be used on genesis.
Unless you chose not to purchase anything, and just save all your money.
I prefer the term, "filthy lucre," to money. :-P It just sounds funnier.
would you rather have a folder full of different models, or a single model which could become all of the other model shapes. ?
Honestly, I don't see that it really makes much difference. Either you open the folder that has your V4, or you open the folder that has your Genesis. Maybe if it's quicker to find Genesis or something....
Not sure I'd buy whole new sets of morphs and just for the privilege though. I mean it's not like I've been getting frustrated at the time it takes to find that one character I want to load, and really wishing they'd do something about that.
have you bought any morphs for previous models , or do you just use the existing "base" morphs,.?
If you don't see any need to buy something,.. then that's you're choice, ,,nobody will make you buy anything you don't want
As for your point about finding stuff,. that's one of the big advantages of "Smart content"
for example,. If I load genesis into a scene,. then the smart content will show me items which can be applied to genesis, such as clothing , hair, and textures,.
If I select and load an item of clothing,. then select that item,, then the smart content will change to show me the materials which can be applied to that clothing,. and nothing else.
So,.. I don't need to load an item of clothing, then navigate to the Poses library, and search through the folders looking for the right materials for that item.
that makes the process simpler for new users, and experienced users alike,. and takes less time spent browsing through folders.
Ahh, another good point. For the longest time I've been hoping I could somehow add another arm to my V4. :)
Good to know. I was kinda worried that the DAZ police would be knocking at my door forcing me to buy stuff. So you're saying that probably won't happen? Whew...I feel better. Thanks. :)
I've stayed away from Carrara beta so i don't know what will apply in the new Carrara, but here's some things I like about Genesis:
The Genesis shapes (the actual geometries) are more defined than the gen 4 figures, eventhough genesis has a lot lower poly count.
You can mix different shapes which can give a very nice effect, either subtle or exaggerated.
The rigging morphs along with the morphs you apply.
Better bends. I haven't tried weight mapped gen4 figures though so i don't really know how well they work...
I haven't read the whole thing, so i probably repeated some things :)
Personally, I love the beta 8.5 of Carrara
Not yet sold on Genesis.
I'd like to go on - for a bit - and you can take what you like from the message.
Genesis and Carrara:
If I was to use Genesis, I'd prefer to use it in Carrara - as I'd never use it anywhere else since, Carrara is my softy of choice.
I love the concept, and they've really been pulling it off nicely. Supposedly, as you purchase more morph shapes and such, they become part of Genesis as it loads. This could be considered a BAD thing, if all of this information was to be saved into each Genesis instance used - but (supposedly) those shapes actually reside in the library structure and only get used (or saved) on an "As Needed" basis - which is SO Freakin' Cool! This means that you don't have to install a bazillion morph packages to find out, in the end, what you truly wish to use. Just load in Genesis and shape away! Nice!
To get the UV set that you need, you load in a Character preset. This only applies to the current version of the beta Carrara, as DS can swap UV's on the fly.
I've purchased every one of the "Generations" morphs (add V4, M4, V3, M3, D3, etc.,) for the main reason that it adds "Fit-To" functionality for conforming figures of that generation. I have a large collection of Gen 3 clothing, but Gen 4 clothes have the ability to follow your morphs as you apply them, rather than having to dial them up yourself - which got me to use Gen 3 less and less as I got used to Gen 4 bliss.
Fit To on Genesis is super awesome! Now I can make use of nearly everything I've ever bought and it all follows whatever you do with Genesis! And if that's not enough, try adding D3 costumes to a female! The possibilities just grew enormously - you could even purchase some of the really nice, but older, clothing and/or hair for use with Genesis in this way!
For some weird reason, I'm having a hard time liking the expressions available for Genesis - otherwise my main characters would probably all be Genesis-based. I'm also not finding the add-on products that I'd need for that yet. Like, the selection of available hair is tremendously limited. When I put my custom V4 hair on Genesis, the hair is effected when Genesis blinks her eyes - which doesn't work for me.
I have been finding that I love using Genesis for monsters! MS Lycan is superb! Troll for Genesis... awesome! The Gorilla!!!!
I loaded the troll for those UVs and messed around with a selection of Monster morphs, MS Lycan and troll... and even mixed in some of the human traits for individuality between different monsters of the same race - mine are orcs. Well, I call them Troll Orcs. They are 7 feet tall, super quick, enormously strong and very, very deadly... but more importantly to me... they look fantastic!
Animating Genesis is fun. aniBlock importer loads my aniBlock collection onto it, which then requires some tweaks. The added bones: Pelvis and Abdomen 2 add a new dimension to tweaking pre-made blocks. The feet need to be completely re-animated, which is (my opinion) no big deal at all.
Daz Studio 4.5 Pro
While Daz is being so kind to give away DS Pro, Hex and Bryce... I say: "Get them all!"
I don't really use any of these for what they were created for - and I haven't used Bryce at all.
But with DS and Hex, you have in your arsenal of software an incredibly powerful flow towards making stuff work better for Carrara - which may sound odd - but it's true!
Without even getting going on the fact that DS Pro can auto-rig any model you make, or that it contains the ability to get your stuff to work on or with Genesis, Daz Studio has a bridge to Hexagon, which has a bridge back to DS, that works incredibly well if you wish to customize clothes or hair, etc.,
When I would add clothes to V4 and attempt to create new morphs in Carrara, I could do it - but I'd have to set a morph in the Abdomen separately from the morph needed in the chest, etc., as a small example. I couldn't just make a morph that crosses those areas. Then I found out that I could load the clothing item (or whatever) into DS and send it to Hexagon. Within Hexagon, I'd just make a small tweak - I prefer Carrara for actually modeling the morphs (I know... I'm weird, huh?) - and then send it back to DS - at which point a pop-up window allows me to add a custom morph tag on the base of the figure! Export that new CR2 and bring it into Carrara, and now I can add a new morph in the new heading that I made in Hex/DS, which crosses all body parts. Very useful... more difficult to explain, so I hope you catch my meaning here! :)
Another thing that I sometimes use DS for is to make modifications to aniBlocks within the incredibly powerful aniMate 2 console, and save out new aniBlocks to import into Carrara.
Carrara 8.5 beta and "Smart(?) Content":
I'll try this out every time I have to upgrade DS to the latest version. Each time, I just can't seem to like it, but I can see its benefit - which can seem confusing.
First thing to know is this: Don't go into the "Smart Content" tab and expect to select folders on the left of the browser interface - that's not how it works.
What you do: Select Genesis or a part of Genesis, and "Smart Content" will display what you have installed that will work with whatever you have selected.
I don't like it, so I always end up using the "Content" tab and selecting "My Library" from there.
Hope this helps.
Seems to be many people whom don't try the beta - but they'll sure tell you about it. Try to only heed words from those whom actually use it. I just recently saw a guru here giving detailed reasons for another user's error messages - so I asked him a question about mine. His answer was that he doesn't actually use the beta - because it's just a beta - and should be treated as such. Actually, if the beta is for software that you want improvement on, the best option is to use it as often as you can - so you can help the developer help you! :)
Sorry for that last rant!
Dartanbeck
I forgot to mention this:
Even without messing with Genesis, I still prefer the latest beta over any other version of Carrara.
I'm on a Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit machine - so I cannot attest to how well it works on Mac OS
Also, Genesis is not as low-poly as everyone says it is. That low-poly mesh that you see is actually called a cage - but I don't know enough to tell you all about that - but the Daz Studio gurus know quite a lot!
Genesis has some truly gorgeous shapes - which is why I'm constantly trying my hand at making it into one of my main characters. The body accuracy is just amazing - no matter which shape you use. But when you acquire a huge collection (like me) of shapes to use, you have the ability to make Genesis look just about any way you want - and it is using some very advanced technology within the 3d CGI realm. There is a great collection of Genesis and Daz Studio - related video on the Daz3d channel at YouTube.
If you get some free time, I suggest that you have a look at some of those... and amaze at what Daz3d has done.
Besides Genesis, the new Daz Horse also uses their new rigging system - which will make creatures possibilities truly explode! Once some of these morph-creation experts (like Raw-Art, for example) get their heads wrapped around idea for this, we'll have all kinds of animals to play with - by just owning a single figure and a pile of add-ons - which is just cool!
V4 has 66000 poly's. Genesis it set to default on high res mesh giving it 75000 poly's, but you can switch it to low res where it has 18000 polys without too much loss of detail (but not enough for close ups, edit : close close ups :D)
low res v5:
Isn't she gorgeous, even at low-res? ;)
Hi Dartenbeck:)
I truly admire your enthusiasm and faith in Daz and fully agree with most of your observations.
Could you give more info on the statement that DS4.5 can autorig any model you make?
I have rigged many home-made figures in DS4.5 and there is nothing auto about it - it's a long, laborious, tedious process - but well worth the effort. Transferring rigging and morphs to very simple clothing is pretty easy, but any complex clothing takes time and a lot of effort.
I think Daz missed out on a great opportunity when designing Tri-Ax rigging. They really should have taken that opportunity to get away from the laborious Poser group system and done what every other application, including Carrara does, to simply draw in bones.
I've never tried it myself, but saw in a tutorial, somewhere, that made it sound extremely fast and easy - but then you may have to spend some additional time with the weight mapping. I currently trying my hand at my first Carrara character figure. I haven't spent hardly any time in DS as it gives me a headache. Sorry for the bad information. However, if I find the tutorial I mentioned, and it shines light on an easy auto-rig feature (thought for sure that's what it said) I'll PM you myself. There's all kinds of various functions that DS can perform fairly automatically via the main menu options, but they aren't always known to all. From what I understand, it even tries its hand at performing most of the weight mapping as well.
I'll look into that for ya.
I also bought (from the Daz store) Fugazi's "Genesis Starter Kit" which is a pretty cool "How to make clothes for Genesis" set of videos - and it shows how to perform some simple operations to rig your custom clothes creations for Genesis within DS. For further weight mapping and such, Blondie 9999 has some products available as well - but I haven't tried working in DS in that aspect yet - so I never bought those.
I've also seen where you can perform many automated steps towards getting clothing set up for gen 4 figures - and, if you have the morphs loaded into the gen 4 figure, it can even automatically add the morphs you select or have loaded. It's really slick. I was wishing that they could make such things plug-ins for Carrara users.