OK, DAZ, seriously, what's going on?
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That is because a 32-bit application is limited to a virtual address space of 2 GB. On a 64-bit system, a process can address up to 8 TB (8192 GB). So the more RAM you have, the more a process' VAS can stay in memory and not get swapped to your paging file.
That was Greek right? ;)
I thought a 32 bit program could address more than that. I have a PPC G5 which is 64 bit, but run C7 Pro which is 32 bit. My system has 4.5 GB RAM installed and I know I have used over 3 GB of physical RAM a couple times according to my Activity Monitor. Gets pretty sluggish admittedly.
It can, but it needs to be Large Address Aware. Some 32 bit applications have the necessary code for Large Address Aware. (I believe Carrara7 has it) For those that don't, there is a free utility LAA http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556 to add this into the code of almost any application. I have come across a few applications where the application would not start after using LAA, so make a copy of the executable before you try it.
There are instructions at the LAA link above, and it requires the /3Gb switch to be activated. Using the /3Gb switch can be problematic for some software, so if you start to notice problems you never had before, it is likely the /3Gb switch.
NOTE: LAA and the /3Gb switch are for 32 bit Windows, like XP.
Use the 4Gb Patch http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php for 64 bit Windows to allow 32 bit applications to access more than 2Gb. Again, this does not work with some applications. The 4Gb Patch utility makes a backup copy of your application.
It can, but it needs to be Large Address Aware. Some 32 bit applications have the necessary code for Large Address Aware. (I believe Carrara7 has it) For those that don't, there is a free utility LAA http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556 to add this into the code of almost any application. I have come across a few applications where the application would not start after using LAA, so make a copy of the executable before you try it.
There are instructions at the LAA link above, and it requires the /3Gb switch to be activated. Using the /3Gb switch can be problematic for some software, so if you start to notice problems you never had before, it is likely the /3Gb switch.
That's what I thought. I had almost forgotten it, but now I remember there used to be a stickied thread that dealt with that script and how to use it. Despite the Mac bugs, that was one thing we didn't need to worry about. At least with the newer hardware. and OS X.
Mocap and game development is what rocks 3d world now. People interest shifted over the years. I don't know any of the sale figures but imagine the carrara sales are far below being even with the cost of development.
When carrara started people were amazed by 3d rendering of shiny spheres on chessboard. Carrara interface was like out of this world. But that was many years ago.
I certainly don't see how daz can support two similar applications for selling daz content. The daz studio does it perfectly and with every version it comes close to what carrara was supposed to be for daz and the reason they bought it - a way to combine and sell dolls.
Don't get me wrong, we all here in the c. forum at some point loved carrara for whatever reason (mostly the easy start in 3d and reasonable price would be my guess) but it would be good to certainly move on and not having some unrealistic expectations what carrara is or is not. It is a hobbyist tool, one of the best and easiest one for the money, but that is it. It will never became maya or c4d. It certainly wanted to be one when carrara was version 5 or earlier. but not any more. that ship sailed.
Another idea is that they have recently acquired a new developer who is either German, or is totally literate in the language, and was put to the task of adding the German language to their software - which is also very cool.
I really love the way Carrara works with the oldest forms of Poser figures as well as the new. I have also noticed, the last few times that I've simply opened the new DS, that I really like what they're doing with it in terms of interface and ease-of-use... however, I've not actually gone productive in it, so I can't really report on the functionality of it. But the last time I used the DS4 > Hexagon bridge, I was pleased. I also couldn't help but notice how responsive Daz figures are in the interface while perusing aniMate aniBlocks.
I think that Daz3d is definitely on an upward climb, rather than becoming ignorant. Joe makes a great point about reporting bad news, and that also goes (in my opinion) for incomplete or (even worse) controversial news - which would just force them to leave someone on Forum Duty to help to quell the madness that ensues.
And, of course, as Holly so eloquently points out, in the mean time, we all have a great piece of software to work with!
True, to a point.
It would be great to have more access to those game hak plugin creator gurus in the Carrara market. But I think that someone more inclined to try their hand at making hak assets for games would actually be better off with Blender, of course being a guess - due to seeing that some of these plugin gurus do exist in the Blender community.
With a "Content" vision like that you describe regarding Daz, Carrara is truly a much better fit. MUCH better.
Go on ahead and buy Maya or 3DS Max, and then tell all of your new friends that you spent all of that money because you want to have all of that power for your Daz content. I'm here to tell you that people will plaster copies of your words all over the place with sarcastic intent. My Maya friends are VERY good modelers and animators. They are also very opinionated - especially when it comes to mentioning the word: "Poser" or anything that might be related. Sure, you may find that there are many people who use these big softies for making content for Daz/Poser - which is an entirely different animal than using it to load Daz/Poser content.
Carrara (and its community) truly invites its users to use Daz/Poser content - to the degree of being developed around the idea of doing so. This is a HUGE difference (and advantage) that Daz3d holds in their hands when they can claim ownership of Carrara, Bryce and Daz Studio. Each of which are quite different. There have been Carrara-like Plugins made for DS, but DS simply can never be Carrara - and it would be a crime to try to replace Carrara with a DS filled with plugins. I doubt that Daz would do that without major implementation of a lot more of Carrara's true functionality. Being as different as they are, I bet that Daz will opt to keep them both up and selling.
Edit to add:
Mocap -
Carnegie (?) has taken the huge endeavor of converting many college-made BVH files into Carrara NLA clips and offer them up for free. They're also working on optimizing them for V4 and M4 and (I haven't checked for quite some time) might even have Genesis in their sites.
GoFigure aniMate products work Very Well in Carrara if you use the aniBlock importer, and unlike many other software offerings, Carrara can read your animated Poser pose files! This is something you might really miss from your selection of simple abilities right after coughing up $x,000.00 (USD) on another software choice.
I haven't tried the exciting new GoFigure plugins for DS animation functionality, but many seem to find it to work really well. But Carrara animates really, really well in my opinion. Add to the super easy to read sequencer all of the tweener options (especially if you also collect the Carrara plugins from Fenric, DCG and others, which are really inexpensive for what you end up getting - and Sparrowhawke's are FREE!!!) and the fact that you really hold a lot of power towards animating so many aspects from shaders to all of the different parameters of all of those built-in primitives, like fire, water, clouds, terrain, etc., and you'll begin to realize that Carrara gives you an abundance of power and functionality exactly where a "Content" collector needs it!
Carrara truly is the Big Boy for the Daz/Poser Content Collector. That's why so many of us came to it and will never leave ;)
Dartanbeck - Carrara Fanatic
That's what I thought. I had almost forgotten it, but now I remember there used to be a stickied thread that dealt with that script and how to use it. Despite the Mac bugs, that was one thing we didn't need to worry about. At least with the newer hardware. and OS X.
I do tend to simplify this discussion and leave 32-bitness at a VAS of 2GB only. cdordoni is correct, Large Address Aware is an option. This is actually a compiler switch that is set when the source code is transformed into the executable application. The "necessary code" for the application is really just good programming practice and it involves checking the value of your handles and pointers...since LAA can now return you a value that is above 2 GB, your code might "freak out" if it doesn't expect it.
Enabling /3GB is also system-wide; so it has far-reaching consequences beyond just Carrara (or whatever app is using it). In 32-bits, you app gets 2 GB of VAS normally...but so does Windows itself. The /3GB switch "steals" 1 GB of VAS away from Windows. So there is increased internal resource pressures.
Honestly, it is getting harder and harder to find 32-bit architecture these days. Your computer would have to be quite old indeed. 32-bit apps running on 64-bit hardware have a few more VAS wrinkles just to keep things confusing. ;)
In short...if your app wants to be a whale swimming in your backyard pool with memory...make sure that both the app and computer is 64-bit and then feed both as much RAM as you can possibly afford. I used to weep quietly at my desk at Microsoft when I found customers running 64-bit SQL Servers on a machine with just 4-8 GB of RAM (rare but not entirely unheard of).
"But 64-bit means it is twice as fast as 32-bit! The guy at Best Buy told me so!" ::weapons-grade facepalm::
I think it was RichardChaos who suggested merging the disparate programs into one solid package. I support the idea completely; but I'm fully aware of the potential hiccups that could make this tough or even impossible. First and foremost; you'd need a solid dev team and that seems to be where DAZ has really skimped (bald-faced assumption on my part).
I think you've gone far beyond fanaticism buddy! :lol: Right now, I'm expecting you to sport the Carrara logo as a tattoo. :)
This shows a complete lack of understanding of how commercial retail and manufacturing works.
Imaging a world where there was only one candy bar,. or any other product.
Not very exiting,...huh.
Retailers, and Manufacturers of any product, want to have as many customers as possible, and in order to do so, they create a "range" of products.,. so that different customers with different needs or likes can CHOOSE which product suit's their purpose.
That's why a store will have a choice of candy bar's, with different flavours or fillings,. more CHOICE, means that more customers are likely to find something which appeals to them. ....and make a purchase.
Some people only want a Modeller,... that's Hexagon.
some people don't want to model, ..but want to make landscapes,. That's Bryce.
Some people want to be able to use premade models and clothing to create images,.. that's Daz Studio
Some people want to model their own creations and also make landscapes and environments and be able to animate the whole thing and export the results as a film,. ..that's Carrara
Further wrinkles are that some of those products are free and some (one!) costs money. Still; I pigeon-holed the 3D market far too quickly.
My focus and personal opinion was what would be best for DAZ. Since they seem to have a very tiny dev team, they cannot do justice to supporting 4+ disparate applications. So, combining everything into a single app could give some coherence to their coding efforts. Alternate answer, triple the number of code jockies working for them.
If I recall correctly, aniMate uses the LOD versions of V4 and M4 to animate. That's why it seems faster on sluggo systems. I used to see a little slower response of Carrara trying to move thousands of polygons on my older computer with a much older ATI card. The system I'm using now for Carrara has a little faster processor but a Nvidia GTX 470 video card instead and the Open GL works like a dream on it. V4 moves very well and responds very well in Carrara with that card now installed. Like I said in another thread, I wish I would've waited to buy that card just to save money -- they are now going for around $150. But it sure was worth the purchase to see the speed and performance gains.
Carrara still has a few more easy to understand animation features, even if you pay for the plugins from GoFigure to use in DAZ Studio and learn how to animate the GoFigure way, and Carrara already comes with what you need.
I keep on picking up little tid bits here and there about how to do certain things in Carrara and often it proves the folks who say a particular thing can't be done in Carrara are wrong or sometimes half-wrong. So keep digging and learning!
That's what I love about you Andy. You'll boldly and arrogantly state things that are, at best, totally irrelevant, and often totally incorrect.
What you are missing is what's called "Target Markets". And we've had many previous discussions about similar subjects, and for some reason you can't seem to comprehend the concept.
Companies selling products don't automatically provide a range of products. They don't. That would be dumb. Why? Because companies selling products provide what they think their customers want. And IF that's a wide range of products, then they try to provide that, IF they can make money, if they have the resources, and a whole bunch of other considerations.
HOWEVER, if their customers, (ie, their "TARGET MARKET"), only wants one type of product, then that's what they sell.
So if DAZ's target market, which is mainly hobbyists, generally tends to prefer a one-stop solution, like Carrara, then that's what DAZ provides. If they can, and if it will make them a profit.
Now unless you know some market research about hobbyists that I don't, I think it's pretty clear that many or most hobbyists like having everything in one app. And as others have said, that's good for DAZ, because it means they don't need to have a huge staff of developers who are versed in multiple apps. And it means lower marketing costs. And lower overheads. And on and on. Which means more profit.
I think there is a very good case to be made to combine some features from all the apps together into one app and jettison the rest. It makes a lot of sense, for many reasons. Especially if DAZ is changing direction, and going full steam ahead as a content-only company. Of course there are the logistical issues of doing that from a development standpoint, but aside from that it makes a lot more sense to combine them together.
Although if your market research shows that most hobbyists who buy DAZ content would rather have separate applications, then I'm all ears....... :)
That's my big love for Carrara that some find odd. I really enjoy animating in Carrara - best experience ever in that field!
That was just a statement towards something that I found interesting during one of my incredibly brief visits within DS.
However, to save time, I also like to import aniBlocks and, instead of converting it to NLA right away, I'll tear it apart and re-animate parts of it - often large parts - but I'll save gobs of time by not having to focus on the hip, legs and feet - because I've matched my idea with the selected aniBlock. Works well, saves time, and can be most entertaining to boot. But nowhere near as satisfying as those I've keyframed myself!
It's actually really easy to merge ALL these amazing programs.... It's called Photoshop.
Merging is a bad idea.
There are always two considerations, features/tools and interface. Once you get a group of applications which all share the similar tools, then the interface really is what makes all the difference. What makes Bryce stand out is the interface. If you merge DS to Bryce but do so with a DS interface then you will lose every single member of the Bryce community which ranges into the millions. And to merge them into a Bryce interface will lose all the DS base, again, ranging in the millions. Not an option.
Bryce, if it were fully developed, would look exactly like Carrara. Therefore it is obvious to Bryce users that Bryce will never reach its full potential for as long as Daz3d owns both softwares. If Bryce is developed too much it will cut into Carrara sales and revenue. Cant allow that! Not to say the Carrara users are whiners but to be honest we havent had ANY movement with Bryce in over 2 years. We are the only full application offered at Daz that's still 32 bit. Come on. WE matter too.
Now I know that Carrara users dont give a rats ass about Bryce development, because many might feel that Bryce is an inferior product to begin with and that any time spent developing it is time and money wasted. But to someone who knows the application well, all we see is lost potential on the part of Daz3d in their decision to do nothing. I read the same thoughts in the Carrara forum. Indeed, we are all in similar boats!!
I said all this to point out that to the average DS user, Carrara is another example of an unnecessary piece of bloat in the Daz arsenal, as useless as Bryce but many times the cost. I mean, now that DS has dynamic hair that looks as good or better than that of Carrara, the relevance of Carrara has fallen even more. Howie Farkes does more to sell copies of Carrara than Daz does, and this is because he knows the application better than Daz does. I dont see anyone else able to produce the type of stuff Howie produces, meaning that much of the power of this application goes without being displayed. That is a shame!!!!!! Carrara rocks, Howie should not be the only one who showcases that.
What we need to do as a community is to somehow send a message to Daz. The message is....dont sell software that you have no plans on developing. If you're done with Bryce, then sell it to someone who wants it. Same with Carrara. Use it, or lose it. Carrara deserves its own dedicated programming team full time as does Bryce if either of these applications have any chance for survival. Daz wants to be a content company. We should tell them that what we need is a software developer as well. It cant all be about content, they at least have to "pretend" that they care about the applications themselves.
Look around you, its clear what's happening to the other applications at Daz3d, why does it surprise people when Carrara is placed on the back seat? Apparently, we are all in the back seat when compared to DS development. Go figure!
I dont mean to imply that DS is the enemy, it isnt. I LOVE DS personally, I just hate the way Daz ignores everyone else for years at a time. That's just not fair. But a business cant be concerned with fairness, only with profits. So no matter how feature rich Carrara may be, it is still a step child so dont be shocked the next time it is placed on the back burner for a while.
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Can you point me to DAZ Studio dynamic hair? I don't mean to be argumentative or quibble Rashad, but a quick search of DAZ's store turned up nothing for D/S. There are also many features that Carrara does that D/S can't. Bryce can also do many things D/S can't do either.
For what it's worth, I do agree with you that merging all the software into one would be a bad idea, for many of the reasons you listed. Additionally, there's no way they could give out free version if they were to do it. That would really kill their content.
Can you point me to DAZ Studio dynamic hair? I don't mean to be argumentative or quibble Rashad, but a quick search of DAZ's store turned up nothing for D/S. There are also many features that Carrara does that D/S can't. Bryce can also do many things D/S can't do either.
For what it's worth, I do agree with you that merging all the software into one would be a bad idea, for many of the reasons you listed. Additionally, there's no way they could give out free version if they were to do it. That would really kill their content.
I may indeed stand corrected. I am not certain that the hair is dynamic, but it is hair at least:
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/look-at-my-hair
Word on the street is that the 3D Light engine is capable of magnificent things, so long as the features are enabled in some way. So I'm confident that the hair will only improve over time as users gain more sophistication with the tools. I'm also betting that making this hair dynamic is an ability already embedded in the current 3D Light toolset likely waiting only to be unlocked by someone's clever plug-in released in six months from now. DS has a bright future ahead of it. Obviously.
True. Forgive me; like my initial, simplistic explanation, I left off these details. I am running Carrara on my server box (Windows Server 2008 R2) so it doesn't have limits like these (there I am being simplistic again...yes, Server has RAM limits too...)
There aren't many motherboards out there that will support 192 GB of RAM. Have you priced how much $$$ that kind of RAM would cost? Not even Carrara could put a dent in it either... ;)
Holy cow !! Really?? Bryce community is in the MILLIONS?? I never would have guessed. Though I guess the devil is in the details. Such as the definition of Bryce community.
I'm sure there are probably millions of people who have downloaded it since it was free, but I have a real hard time believing that there are millions of active users. I would have guessed maybe 1-2 millions downloads for all the free software, and then actual active users of Bryce for more than, say, a month afterward would be more like a fraction of 1% of that. Maybe more like 10's of thousands. Or less.
Now I'm sure the number of active D|S users is a whole lot more than that, but I'd be astonished if it was anywhere close to millions. Maybe 100's of thousands. But millions? Wow.
But that's just my wild guess based on nothing more than a hunch. If you've got some real figures I'd be interested in hearing them. It would make me feel a bit better about DAZ's prospects as far as software is concerned.
In Joe's world, opinion is fact. The Bryce community is actually in the TRILLIONS! :P
Actually, as much as I hate to, I kinda have to agree with Joe on this one. I have a really hard time believing there are millions of Bryce users. I'd like to know where that figure comes from as well. I'm not going to sneer at it the way Joe did, but that number does seem very high to me. I'd be surprised if there are more than 2 million D|S users.
This shows a complete lack of understanding of how commercial retail and manufacturing works.
Imaging a world where there was only one candy bar,. or any other product.
Not very exiting,...huh.
Retailers, and Manufacturers of any product, want to have as many customers as possible, and in order to do so, they create a "range" of products.,. so that different customers with different needs or likes can CHOOSE which product suit's their purpose.
That's why a store will have a choice of candy bar's, with different flavours or fillings,. more CHOICE, means that more customers are likely to find something which appeals to them. ....and make a purchase.
Some people only want a Modeller,... that's Hexagon.
some people don't want to model, ..but want to make landscapes,. That's Bryce.
Some people want to be able to use premade models and clothing to create images,.. that's Daz Studio
Some people want to model their own creations and also make landscapes and environments and be able to animate the whole thing and export the results as a film,. ..that's Carrara
My idea of combining programs into one mighty CARRARA was to replace the WEAK areas carrara already has with more complex and more powerful areas/programs.
Its no news that carraras vertex modeler is just barley good enough and or complex enough to get by. Thats no news.. Tear it out and use a HEXAGON type modeler. Carrara already has a so called MACRO environmental scene modeler that is less than adequate. Tear it out and put BYRCE or a form of BRYCE in there.
This is NOT in my opinion wrapping up 3 progarm in one but IMPROVING areas carrara ALREADY HAS.
LOOK dont even call it "CARRAHEXABRYCE" Call it Carrara 9
Some people really dont take Bryce seriously. That is a mistake. Bryce has a rich history and it set many of the industry standards we take for granted today. There is a relevant lesson for Carrara users in the history of Bryce. I will explain.
When Daz bought Bryce from Corel, there was an already established user base, worldwide, and it really totals into the millions. Bryce used to be sold on the shelf at computer stores all over the world, and people purchased it and paid good money. Believe it or not I bought my first copy of Bryce 5 from from a Comp USA Store here in NYC and it cost me $325.00 and that was back in 2002 or something like that. Notice how 10 years later we are only on version 7!!!!!! Back during those early days, Bryce was taken much more seriously, it wasnt relegated to the "beginners" realm as it has been now, due to lack of development. Bryce back then was the first app with procedural models allowing Bryce to create scenes with more polygons than any other application, even Maya. But within a few more years the industry would catch up to and surpass Bryce in memory handling, and that has indeed happened. All Bryce needs now is to be 64 bit and then hats are off again. Bryce, like Octane, is built on the idea of procedurals, and it is a brilliant platform.
Anyhow, the problem was not attracting new users, the problem is and was retaining users in the face of lack of development and subsequent lack of features. Is Bryce losing users by the thousands every year?...yes. The userbase is shrinking, not growing. The free giveaway...online...isnt even scratching the surface of the userbase I'm talking about that grew from the days on the shelf as a boxed version. Bryce hasnt been updated once since Lion was released, so no Mac users with the new OS can even run the application, ironic, since Bryce was a Mac application only originally. Lack of Lion support is killing off the userbase at an alarming rate as well. But this is not Bryce's fault, it is Daz's fault. No updates in two years...unacceptable.
I know this about the Bryce userbase size because I'm in contact with persons who submitted competing offers to purchase Bryce before Daz got the final bid. The userbase size was a highly relevant statistic to the sale of the rights to the software at the time. That's as far as I can share in public.
But this isnt a Bryce forum and I dont want to discuss Bryce too much, only to throw in some perspective. Carrara is not in all that different a situation than Bryce is in, insofar as the potential of these apps is not being realized mostly due to the lack of development of the applications at Daz.
Just like Bryce, I'm sure the Carrara user base used to be much larger than it is now. Every day. more Carrara users are being pushed toward other applications due to lack of features in Carrara. When I look at renderosity I rarely see new Carrara renders. When I do see an amazing landscape, it is almost always derived from one of Howie's scenes. I often look at the Bryce and Vue galleries and I find many times more renders being submitted than I do Carrara renders. Does this mean there are fewer Carrar users than Vue users or Bryce users?
As someone once said in a Renderosity forum; "With Vue, anyone can be Howie Farkes."
I've been thinking about this statement, and I have to admit that there is some truth to it. Yet, I also must admit I think Howie's scenes look more realistic than most of what I see from the Vue galleries. The difference with the Vue galleries is that lots of people are making Howie-esque type renders, they just dont look quite as good as Howie does it in Carrara. Carrara already has a better plant generator than Vue, by a long shot. But Carrara cannot generate atmospheres on par with Ozone, which is the procedural atmosphere generator Vue uses for Spectral Skies. Vue has excellent clouds and it has excellent global radiance (radiosity). To my mind, if Carrara had a more mature atmosphere generator and clouds, it could take a chunk out of Vue's niche.But integrating Bryce wont help. Because while Bryce has much better clouds than Carrara, it still has inferior clouds to Vue. And though Bryce has at atmosphere generator, it is very basic and not as accurate as Ozone. So to my mind Carrara gains little nothing except maybe a world class terrain generator...by being merged with Bryce. Carrara doesnt need Bryce at this stage. If anything, they should port the plant generator from Carrara into Bryce, that wopuld give Bryce a boost as the native tree modeler kind of sucks compared to Carrara.
Carrara is a more well rounded app than Vue, I know. Carrara can model, Vue cannot. Still, Vue holds its own and is in constant development. Carrara is usually in development as well, but for features related only to Daz Studio, not in keeping with the industry at large. Just my opinion.
I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Carter on this.
I've heard of Bryce long before Carrara, by people who don't even have any inclination towards working with 3d. They heard that I was interested, and pointed me in that direction. Who really cares if "millions" is correct - the number of users is huge. A LOT more than what you'll find registered in the forums. Some people just aren't interested in forums - same goes for a fairly large percentage of Carrara users.
A big reason for that latest fact: Look at the Carrara forums sometimes. The entire first page is sometimes filled with nothing but gripes and nothing all that useful to be gained. Who wants to read that when they could be rendering pixels? Really.
My opinion on merging:
Why?
I already have Hexagon and Daz Studio. This gives me a complete circle from Daz Studio to Hexagon, back to Daz Studio and into Carrara. In that loop, wouldn't everyone who pays money for Carrara want it to end with Carrara? Why try to use Carrara files anywhere else?
For gaming asset creation, why not just get someone to build the output files for Hexagon or even Daz Studio, for that matter, and then use the Gimp or Photoshop for the textures?
Carrara is (and kind of always has been designed to be) an all inclusive way to animate in a 3d atmosphere - its own atmosphere. Since Carrara 5, however, it became much more! It became a powerful version of what it was before, with the added bonus that one could easily import Poser figures and animate those for use in one's creations. And now you don't even need to import because Poser Libraries are treated as Carrara assets. With beta 8.5 the newest Daz3d libraries are being added as well.
Pretty much what the average Carrara user wants! Isn't it?
I think so. I have not used the 8.5 Beta much (at all?), waiting (and waiting, and ...) for the production release.
But does the DS only content, e.g. Genesis, etc., work the same in Carrara as the Poser content? I.e. links to external runtimes (or whatever DS calls them), direct load from the Carrara browser, etc.?
And is there any talk of a release date for the final Carrara 8.5?
I may indeed stand corrected. I am not certain that the hair is dynamic, but it is hair at least:
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/look-at-my-hair
Word on the street is that the 3D Light engine is capable of magnificent things, so long as the features are enabled in some way. So I'm confident that the hair will only improve over time as users gain more sophistication with the tools. I'm also betting that making this hair dynamic is an ability already embedded in the current 3D Light toolset likely waiting only to be unlocked by someone's clever plug-in released in six months from now. DS has a bright future ahead of it. Obviously.
I don't mean to quibble, and I agree up to a point with your opinion on DAZ and it's secondary software, but honestly, Carrara is still being developed, however slowly and D/S has a long way to go before it reaches feature parity, if ever. Not to say D/S doesn't have some nice features, but you either have to pay for the pro version or spend bucks on plugins. I don't mind paying for software that has the features I want, and there are D/S users that feel the same way, but D/S was originally designed as a give away, so people would by their figures and content. It still works much the same way. The plugins and the pro version are mainly for people hitting the limits of the free version.
Regarding the hair, it looks like it could be dynamic, but from reading the manual it also sounds as if once it's set up, you have to do some conversion just to use it in the D/S scene. Plus I didn't see any mention of it being able to be draped, or otherwise having physical forces effect it. It sounds as if it's kind of a quasi-dynamic hair. There are other severe limitations, for instance you can only use it on one figure in your scene at a time.
I'm not sure where you're coming from with the render engine. The renderer renders the hair in Carrara, but it doesn't create it. The same with D/S. Making the hair dynamic and responsive to movements in an animation, or physical forces like gravity has nothing whatsoever to do with the render engine. Calculating how light reacts and behaves with the hair, that's the render engines job. Carrara calculates the hairs movement and interactions for every frame based on the hair guides, and sends that position to the renderer where it calculates the light information and draws a picture based on that.
I agree.
The analogy for animations is the video editor, in my case Magix' "Movie Edit Pro MX", but virtually any Windows video editor will handle the normal animation sequences (*.avi, *.mov, etc.)
I use Carrara for ~90% of my animations, but I also use Vue Complete when the content requires it, and sometimes Poser if, e.g., a purchased scene has some nice Poser only lights or similar.
But Photoshop is essential, even for animations (which can make great use of still renders). On a new machine, I install PS first (after some system apps - virus, backup, etc.) Then the video editor, then Carrara, then Vue Complete, then Poser (typically V.7 to get the runtime available to Carrara, but also a later version, maybe). Later I get to Particle Illusion, After Effects, music, sound effects, etc.
But Photoshop first.
You are not alone, Rashad. When I show non-CG people (yet they have artistic bents and a good eye) anything from Vue they say it looks fake or more painterly. Howie's work always gets the "it's a photo" response.
Vue clouds are nice but Terragen's are better and Howie's use of clouds in his latest has shown me at least that Carrara's clouds aren't that bad - once again it's those nasty default settings. I go on about that, but I maintain that if better default setttings were in Carrara, people would sit up and take notice. There's a product not ready for the marketplace that Magaremoto teased recently that had very good looking sunlight, even improving on what they've released before. Some folks just have more time to tweak and figure out the way things look good. I wish I had the time.
You are not alone, Rashad. When I show non-CG people (yet they have artistic bents and a good eye) anything from Vue they say it looks fake or more painterly. Howie's work always gets the "it's a photo" response.
Vue clouds are nice but Terragen's are better and Howie's use of clouds in his latest has shown me at least that Carrara's clouds aren't that bad - once again it's those nasty default settings. I go on about that, but I maintain that if better default setttings were in Carrara, people would sit up and take notice. There's a product not ready for the marketplace that Magaremoto teased recently that had very good looking sunlight, even improving on what they've released before. Some folks just have more time to tweak and figure out the way things look good. I wish I had the time.
Indeed. preset are like wormholes that transport new users to hard to reach destinations easily, unlocking the power quickly, encouraging futher investigation. Vue has maximized on its limited presets. The problem for Vue may be that its current presets simply aren't on par with Howie's custom models. Most Vue users are using premade grasses, clouds and other elements whereas Howie is building everything from within Carrara, which is incredible, and something Vue cannot do on its own. You've got to love Carrara for it s features, but also for its superior looking renders.