New to Carrara from D|S and would love some advice

CypherFOX

Greetings,
Okay, so I finally gave in and picked up Carrara 8 Pro; the MM price is amazing. I'm downloading the 8.5 beta now (I plan to use Genesis with it). I've been using DAZ Studio for about a year now. My question is this:

Programming has 'Hello, World!'. Drawing has that damn turtle. Writing has the 'last man on earth' story. DAZ Studio/Poser has NVIATWAS. ;)

What's a quintessential Carrara scene I should put together? Something that provides a straightforward win, and yet introduces me to the basics of the tool?

Thanks for your feedback!

-- Morgan

p.s. I also picked up a Howie Farkes scene (Country Lane 2) simply because I HAD to see if it is really all 3D components, and not backdrops, or some other kind of cheat (in a good way!) to get that kind of image. Can I really put a pair of kids playing at the edge of the water, and a mom and dad sitting on that field next to the stream? It seems inconceivable, the promos are just...TOO perfect. O_o?

WendyLuvsCatz

on the right track already grabbing a Howie scene lol!
be warned though, lots of rendertime needed.
as for Genesis
well I just had a long convo on Skype to friend new to Carrara and STRONGLY. advised her to start with Poser runtime content and leave Genesis well alone until she got more competent at Carrara.
Some might disagree BUT it IS a beta and unless you really know your way about and how to use all the tools, smart content in general is only going to open a huge can of worms with errors and random crashes you need not be dealing with just yet.
By all means try Genesis after a few safe M4/V4 scenes but be prepared it may not work as well as in studio, it is a beta and crashes and freeze ups do happen for most now and then.

3DAGE

Hi Cypherfox

Welcome :)

When you download Carrara, you should also install the "Carrara Native Content" installer,. which has all the example scenes, shaders, and scene wizards.
The carrara native content should be installed into your Carrara 8 program folder.

The beta is only supplied as the main program,. but,.. some people have also installed the Carrara Native Content, into the beta version folder,

One of the first thing's you'll notice about Carrara,. is that there are different scene sizes,. (see pic) Small, Medium, and Large.
Medium scale scenes are an ideal start for working with figures,.
Large is for Big terrains / Oceans etc..
Small is for "product shot" type of scenes.

Carrara also has Scene Wizards,. which can simplify the process of making your first scenes, by selecting options.
Or,.. you can just start with a new empty medium scale scene, and load in your figures.

Carrara comes with a bunch of example scenes, as well as models, shaders, skies, landscapes, etc..
so there isn't really a quintessential Carrara scene,.it's more flexible, so it's open to your own creativity.

Carrara is also a modeller with Spline, Vertex, and Meta-ball modellers, so you can create and animate your own models too.

Some basic starting help....
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7907045/Carrara_first_steps.zip

Hope it helps :)