Newest of Newbies
tring01
Posts: 305
I'm strictly a hobbyist. Was working on sets in Daz and got frustrated with the very limited tools for kitbashing. Took the plunge and learned basic modeling in Hexagon only to find out that UV mapping is almost impossible. At least for me. Was suggested I pick up Carrara as it's a much better modeler. Did so. Have been watching introductory vids and I must say, I really like the ease and quality of building atmospheric exterior scenes. I'm a photo realistic guy - so it seem working with characters is out (unless there's some way to render them in a PBR that I don't know about). The modeling looks promising.
Time to dive in. Will be asking quite a few questions I suppose. Just introducing myself.
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Welcome tring01. There are lots of friendly knowledgeable people here - great community. Carrara is very addicitive. Enjoy!
Welcome!
It sounds like you are on your way already, For further improvement, I recommend Phil Wilkes video tutorials.
I'm not sure what you mean by avoiding characters in a PBR. You probably know that Carrara has compatibility with both Lux and Octane. Exterior scenes can be very realistic, but so can characters if done properly.
Welcome!
Just remember, there are no stupid questions, so ask away . . .
PBR - There is an Octante plugin for Carrara - there is also a beta version of LuxusCore, here in these forums. It's been a while since we've seen an update to the LuxusCore plugin, but it allows us to get our hands dirty with more PBR-like shaders and such.
For the shaders that I'm used to working with, like those found in the Carrara browser, we can achieve very similar results using a Gamma Correction of 2.2 in the render room toward the top of the panel. Try that with the atmosphere of our Realistic Sky and we can get some pretty photo-realistic results.
I really love using Carrara - as you may learn from within this forum, even though I'm fairly absent these days... busy life (good thing) pulling me away from the internet (my computers, actually). Here are some fun links that might help you get started...
..and Welcome Aboard!!!
► Learning CARRARA and need some help?
► Comprehensive List of Video Tutorials on Carrara - by FractalDemensia
The purpose of this thread is to collect, consolidate, and make available a comprehensive list of all video tutorials available on Carrara.
► First Steps - Setting up a sample scene in Carrara with plant, terrain, sky and hair
Diomede's wonderful "Starter Thread" for those new to Carrara! "Where do we go now, what do we do next?" Find answers here!
► Building Carrara Terrains Intro
► Forum Help Links
Have fun and never forget to ask questions! ;)
►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄
I don't really do photo-realistic myself, but I think it might be fairly easy to achieve
See My Carrara Sketchpad for more of my renders, if you like
I really need to get a new one finished, but here is an old video I made with some of my first experiments in Carrara. To test out Sony Vegas Movie HD software, I used a bunch of junk test rendered animation to put this together... now I really like it! LOL But it's all just test clips - testing ocean waves, older lighting methods, animation timing and experiments, just getting my feet wet in Carrara.
carrara modeller has splines, a variety of modelling techniqu options, metaballs, even booleans, lol
Yeah... Misty's right. Carrara has a lot of various modelers. Text, Terrain, Formula, Vertex, Spline, Primitive, Metaball... cool primitive effects too, like fire, fog, ocean waves, clouds.... and it also has some nice modifiers.
Carrara has been endless to me so far - but I've only owned it since 2010. I bought PhilW's training via Infinite Skills, here at Daz3d, which really helps to show some of the things I've been ignoring, and I still haven't gotten around to playing with a lot of those features.
So I just started with what I bought it for, and expand logically from there according to my needs and interests. Having that training has helped direct where to go next - even for just some fun learning interludes.
This forum is another huge source of inspiration of what to try next, which is part of why I've created the Forum Help Links shown above. I have a LOT of catching up to do with adding to and consolidating the lists, but it still offers a nice set of lists of interest to help push ever forward into new ways to grow.
Lately we've been seeing a lot of volumetric lighting from me, which all came from me checking out
► GK Dantas' Video Manual Index
Carrara Cafe's Die-Hard Instructor - now with an easy-to-use index of links
and watching this one
simple cone effect, but with a map in the Gel area of the spot light, and then carefully adjusting the cone effect itself
using the "Invert" function in the 3D Shadows portion of the Cone Light effect makes this sort of work easy (and possible)
Whereas lighting like this came from my own experiments with the Realistic Sky's Atmosphere and using large volumetric clouds as fog by making the clouds envelop the whole scene and adjusting its parameters to taste
and this one uses a volumetric cloud scaled down as a more direct effect in addition to the same effects used above
When you see my images like this, I prefer to do my motion blur and depth of field blur in post, after the initial render. Carrara's blurs work beautifully, they really do. But since we can only 'see' their effect(s) after the render is complete (and then Carrara applies the effect), it's a lot more time-consuming to adjust where, when done in post (like PhotoShop or I use Project Dogwaffle Howler) it's a LOT more fluid, since we get realtime feedback of the effect
And here is an example of how I'll "borrow" the particle emitter from PhilW's Advanced Carrara Techniques course to quickly add cool particle effects
Wow! Thanks for all the responses. Lots to learn here. Looking forward to it!!
I didn't even blink at "PBR", I just nodded and thought, "Yeah, Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good accessory when using Carrara." But I'm not a modeller, preferring to do animations in Carrara, a great hobby. Here's a short one done for a Carrarators (http://bond3d.wixsite.com/carrarators) challenge (I think):