Carrara is a Zombie?
LinkRS
Posts: 168
Howdy Folks,
It has been a little while since I posted, but I thougtht I would share this update. I had two support ticketrs filed against Carrara 8.5 Pro, one with regards to the installer missing some of included resources (which were provided to me in a zip file, and saying they would fix), and another against Genesis 3 (Victoria 7) not loading in Carrara. Both of these were 2 years ago or so, and a new person had been assigned 'on-hold' tickets. The support person (name of Jamie, not sure of gender) indicated that Carrara was no longer under development as they are focusing on Studio, and closed both of my tickets. So it looks like Carrra is un-dead, it is a zombie....
Rich S.
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Hi Rich, yes we heard similar news a month or two ago. Thanks for verifying.
But frankly, the dark words that people sometimes use to describe the current state of Carrara offend me.
A zombie? Hardly. For it's regular users, Carrara is very much alive. New plugins are regularly developed for Carrara, which keep it moving forward.
As a gauge of current enthusiasm, check out the recent Carrara Challenge which had 32 incredible entries.
Carrara has been counted out many times in its history. I wouldn't bet against it just yet.
Hey is that Ranting Rich? Long time no hear.
Don't worry, they just send that message when they can't figure out how to fix your problem.
UB you took the words right out of my mouth. :)
The other point is that daz may not have the talent available to develop Carrara any more but that's not stopping Carrara users developing it -
Well, "focusing on studio" makes me very sad. I think any person that work first on carrara, can't go easily to DazStudio. Carrara have everything except updates! Enviroments, oceans, modeling room, texturing, uv edition, particles, fire, smoke, volumetric clouds, rigging options and amazing plugins. Don't matter how many updates DazStudio get, simply doesn't feels the same.
I really hope someday Daz guys return to Carrara, adding all new DazStudio and Hexagon features. "Carrara Studio"
Daz and Carrara works about the same way, the only differences are the "special" functions like the ones you named, Namtar3d!
But there is the strong chance that soon DAZ will get everything Carrara already has got. Recently we "DAZzers" got a brand new cloth physical engine based on NVidia PhisX. Still at its beginninig but already stunning in its simplicity to use and visual results... And it seems that soon other kinds of physics will be added...
So, I guess soon Carrarists and Dazzers will breathe the same air!
You care to make a wager on that?
Assuming that Daz attempts this (which I believe is merely a fantasy, though shared by many) the various functions of Carrara would take several years to replicate in Studio. There is nothing "soon" about it.
Daz might want to start by upgrading comparable functions. For example, animation. How many more years until Studio can animate like Carrara? Both programs can animate, but I've never heard anyone ever say that DS is even close to Carrara's functionality and ease of use.
No, Daz has another plan. I don't claim to know what it is. I just look at their current actions, and draw conclusions.
This is not a knock on Studio. Most of what it does, it does very well. It's just not Carrara. In my opinion, that will not change for a long time to come - if ever.
at least in Carrara you can make an undead monkey
if you want to
DAZ studio is a nice tool I use a lot like a Philips head screwdriver but Carrara is more of a Swiss army knife I use a lot more, I have other tools I use too.
Yes, but most of the time it's only for PC, not for Mac Users :(
Indeed!
This bums me out too.
sadly the Mac users that can code seem to be absent from the Carrara forum
I have often considered getting a Mac book pro as there is some awesome Mac only software especially for music which I would want a laptop for but the many Windows only programs has discouraged me, just how it is the more popular platform has more users and subsequently developers.
OP seems to have vanished - :)
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1935076/#Comment_1935076
nah he wandered over to the dark side
and no way is that Richard Tuttle, Chaos, etc he would never use premade DAZ content, that he may have gone back to 3DSMax where he came from
Carrara gets sabotaged by JazzPudio as they want it dead because it doesn't bring the money they hoped to get, so i wouldn't count on any news, work or updates for Carrara.
But the Carrara Community won't be dead as there are still some people who are working with it.
From my point of view, Carrara is one of the best 3D softwares on market as it's a bargain compared to other 3D modeler on market where you have to buy monthly or per year to be able to work with it.
Amen!
To be precise, Carrara users are developping plugins and other products for Carrara, but not Carrara itself. That would require the source code, and AFAIK only daz has it (and apparently is doing nothing with it).
It may seems like I'm nitpicking, but the difference is important. It means that the main program cannot evolve (unless daz wants to), and as time passes it will become increasingly difficult to compensate with plugins.
Once upon a time,... someone developed a "word processor" program, and for a few years there was competition as developers created different suites of software which essentially did the same thing,. let you type text . that was the basis of what it still is today.
As time passed,. you could change the text style to different font types,. have auto spelling, auto correction etc. ( adding bells and whistles).
I don't hear many people complaining that their word processor, spreadsheet or database tools are not being developed enough.
those programs currently have all the core tools you need to do write and publish.
ALL 3D programs had a similar development,. the basis of working in a 3D environment (a vitual sphere, where there is a "world zero" working area) hasn't changed.
some 3D progrms have different functions, auto this and that (bells and whistles added to the core program)
Photoshop was "fully developed" at version 3 or 4,. and each "new version" after that had only slight enhancements to that core functionallity. or additional auto this and that's added.
Carrara's main problem isn't it's continued core development,. since the core program can be enhanced by creating plugin modules to add bells and whistles, and thankfully there are a bunch of talented individuals who are wiling to take the time and effort to create those new features.
The main complaint about carrara, seems to be the lack of support for "The latest" DAZ3D figures,. and it's unfortunate that those who are complaining fail to realise the simple fact that those latest figures are only fully supported by ONE application,. Daz Studio.
no other 3D software supports those figures.
lastly,. the price of carrara is set by the retailer,. just like any other product,. So,.. if there's not enough revenue generated from the sales price of the product to fund it's continued development ,. there are several existing solutions to that, as Chris point's out above.
Since Studio is provided "Free" of initial charge, and funded by the sales of additional third party created content,.
Logic would point to the lack of carrara specific sales as a rather feeble excuse,.. rather than a fundamental reason.
As far as I'm aware,. Carrara is still available for sale, and at a price point well below that of all other full 3D suites.
:)
I missed that news. Could you please tell me what it was / were you heard it ?
I agree about the word 'zombie' ...
The regular users/developpers you're talking about are indeed doing a great job, really, and I agree Carrara is still alive thanks to them. Nevertheless, I know I'm being pessimistic, but as the main program doesn't evolve, I can't help seeing this as some sort of life support. Sorry.
But life support means we hope it will one day live fully again (it's better than 'zombie'
). So for the time being, I'll continue using it.
Even though I don't have a Mac myself, it saddens me as well, because I've seen so many mac users not having full use of, for example, various plugins for Carrara. In a recent thread about the Octane plugin someone asked if Mac was supported. I didn't know, so went to go check the Octane site, turns out Octane itself runs on Mac fine, but it looks like the Carrara plugin for it is for Windows only. Still the developer of that plugin is pretty awesome, and works on refining it all the time (his name's Sighman on the forums) so maybe at some point it will come. But there's a lot of little things like that that I've seen mac users talk about in similar threads.
BTW de3an, I totally ripped off your awesome NPR rendering style for one of my entries in the latest challenge. I mean, I switched the approach up a bit, but the core concept you developed I never would have thought of, so I wanted to say thanks for the tips you left in the NPR thread
Thanks Jon!
I checked out your image, it looks great! I think you used a toon plug-in that I don't have, your outlines are more refined than mine.
You're right. And that's why I'm mad at Daz. I have the impression that Carrara would only need the kind of slight enhancements you're mentionning, and yet they are not willing to make them.
The support for the latest daz3d figures would indeed be among these enhancements. It's not the core, but it's part of what I called the "main program" above, and would anyway require the source code, so only daz can to it.
I never complained about Carrara's price. In fact I've often been amazed by what it can do for the price I paid.
I did, but the effect would be nearly the same with your method of doing 2 renders and then multiplying the NPR by the PR, the one main advantage to using toon pro is that I can do it all in one render and that I can turn off the lines on certain items pretty easily (or make the lines smaller than the main lines) so for example I turned off the lines on the hair prop, so that the hair transparency can work fine (otherwise there would be lines around the hair material even where it was supposed to be transparent). I've been playing with this method and getting pretty solid results in a lot of different scene types, though it doesn't seem to work well for interior fully enclosed scenes (not that that's a huge limitation, for an interior scene, just putting up a wall behind the character works just as well). Also I'd always heard that ray traced shadows are superior and that's probably true for most photorealistic rendering, but for this style shadow buffers shows are far superior. :)
A few comments re above posts
Daz and Carrara will not work the same way - for me at least- because Studio has that terrible interface which I have tried to use over many years and find it just gets more confusing.If anything I am actually happier with DS3 !
DAZzers" got a brand new cloth - stunning in its simplicity to use and visual results. ?? I must see if there is a youtube example. As I dont use studio I'm not sure what this is ? Not the VWD plugin by any chance? That, we know, was developed for Poser then a Carrara plugin made available before the Daz plugin.
And it seems that soon, other kinds of physics will be added - so if you have some idea, could you explain or hint what they will be ? Very interested as Carrara users are waiting on some new physics plugins under development [ its a secret
]
Latest figures are only fully supported by ONE application, Daz Studio. To discourage people from moving to Carrara I wonder ?
And anyway - I cant even get Genesis 3 to load ! G and G2 ok. I hate work arounds [ if there is one ] using studio first and export for carrara - too time consuning,{and I would have to know more about Studio - more time wasted learning.
Logic would point to the lack of carrara specific sales as a rather feeble excuse [ for development ]
Lack of sales may have something to do with the fact they don't EVEN TRY to sell it !! I have often advocated they could divorce C from DAZ3D and give it its own website,sales and support - and at least 'mention' Carrara in things like product compatability. Poser gets a bigger hoorah than Carrara. Nah ! I think now, they dont have the staff with the know how so its just a product on the shelf, in the shop which someone can buy if they want but beyond that, its dead stock as far as Daz is concerned.
At least so far its not like "Antics" who got people to upgrade to new version, took their money then vanished overnight.
!!!!!!!!
Daz Studio 4.10 was just released sproting its shiny new physics engine: dForce
I don't thing that they hate Carrara or even wish it harm. They just don't really know where to take it, whereas Daz Studio has a clear path that grows as they develop it. I know... still sucks that they don't appear to be working on it.
Funny thing is that lingering old post from a couple years ago stating that they've worked out getting the Quaternion Skinning into Carrara and working, but still had a long way to go before Carrara would be able to accept Genesis 3 Quaternion skinned figures - so the testers didn't feel they had enough to publish as an update for Carrara.
So who knows. They might just dust it off every once in a while and work on it a bit here and there. Perhaps it's where they send the developing staff who have been bad?
I'm not so worried about not getting the latest Daz3d (or any other) figure support as I am maintaining compatibility with the latest computer systems as time goes on. When 8.5 came out, I was buying all manner of Genesis character shapes, clothing, hair, etc., to build up a decent library of stuff for that shiny new figure set. It makes me wonder if my not buying any of the new figure's shows in the slightest in their statistics. Probably not.
I'm not the fired-up young 3d enthusiast who needs the latest everything, nor am I a gamer. If I have to kep using an older version of Windows (as time ticks by, I mean) in order to run Carrara, I'll be happy to do so. My main Carrara machine is still running Windows 7 and every time I get behind it to work in Carrara or my VFX software, I feel so much more at-ease than when I'm on my other Win10 machines. My Win7 machine is eager to do what "I" want to do on it, but Windows 10 seems to always have its own agenda, regardless of what I need to get done - and I feel it... I see it. Oh... and evey update on Windows 10 lately has been turning OneDrive cloud storage on, and when I check the properties, it's still set to not turn on - it's a bug they're trying to squash. I was going to try OneDrive at first, until I read the EULA. If you're doing professional work, read that license agrrement carefully. I could have read it wrong, but what I saw is that Microsoft gains the right to retain copies of anything put into it - to do with as they please. I just couldn't take that risk - and I have nothing against Microsoft.
Okay... rant end.
I'm an animator and I feel DAZ more easy to use than Carrara... Carrara got some good functionality, but I feel more confortable with DAZ!
Whatever works for you!
I really like being able to model, morph, and tweak in the same program that I plan to render in. Therefore, it has been a real struggle for me to migrate to Studio. It is likely that I will end up in Blender, but I am giving Studio a try.
.
Yes. Carrara is mentionned almost nowhere on their website. If you've never heard of it, it's very unlikely you discover its existence.
They say "Thousands of assets for Daz Studio, 3DS Max, Maya, & Poser".
Yeah. And these assets work better with Carrara than with 3DS Max, Maya or Poser. They own that software and not the others but they don't talk about it.
On their "What is Daz Studio?" page they have a software comparison chart. There's Poser, Lightwave3D, 3DS Max, Maya ... but again not Carrara.
Hard to be optimistic.
When the eyes are too big, they take the place of the brain!
The only obsession of the decision makers of DAZ is to make money, not to see the reality and even less to have feelings…
And Mister Imago didn't know anything about Carrara to speak like that, Studio is a toy for baby compared to Carrara!
Checked out the cloth sim for Daz Studio - found it is called DForce coming with a new version 4.9 of studio [ which not appearing in my DIM dowmloads,I knew nothing about this version] So I looked at some video on Dforce and I think I AM IMPRESSED.
Cant try it out though because i'm having all sorts of problems with getting 4.9 installed .[ wont go into that but let me mention DIM !!!] However it does seem you have to buy clothing that is designed for Dforce ? There are probably things about it I haven't seen yet but have to say with Studio getting more features like this it just seems to add to the conclusion Carrara will be left to die of natural causes !