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You don't have to buy DForce-compatible content to use DForce. You can model your own, or you can use old content. The problem with old content is that DForce explodes if (insert list of typical cloth issues). However, DForce is a useful tool to put in the toolbox if you use Studio.
Here I used DForce on a simple shirt that I made for the Daz gorilla.
..
Here is a DForce failure with exploding cloth, G8M peasant outfit.
big advantage of vwd over dforce is that it has attach be verticies neighbourhood - meaning buttons and different parts of a mesh dont fall off or tear (once you have read the directions)
I dont think dforce has that at the moment (?) which means dforce garments need to be designed with that in mind- mind you it does good explosions judging by the thread about it
Agreed, I prefer VWD. I also prefer VWD in Carrara to VWD in Studio, because in Carrara one can do additional editing after the cloth simulation. For example, you can attach the VWD result t the figure skeleton for further playing around, or you can use the vertex modeler to move stuff around. To be fair, though, I have not spent a lot of time testing DForce's limits.
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dforce has all necessary features to protect all those buttons etc.
Great. Hope to delve in deeper soon.
I think the version dForce comes with is the 4.10.
Hi folks
Some of you may already know me . I am a long time Daz user and have be come very proficient with Daz Studio over the years. and have a great many animations I have created just using daz studio. So anyway long story short. I recently I picked up Carrara for $29 about month ago for 81% off , on one of them sale if i bought this shiny thing i could get carrara cheaper. so over the last month I've been playing with Carrara , and to be honest as outside new person that has only ever used daz. I find carrara's UI very hard to navigate. Perhaps its mostly because I'm not familiar with carrara as you all are.. one big thing that has been really driving me nuts is how unstable carrara runs on my system. I'll spend a hour or so & have this great scene all set, and before i go to render it, I try to to save the scene first and Poof. Carrara will crash. on me. if i render it with out saving its sometimes crashes on me. GRRRRs!!! So I learned I have to kind build my scenes in piece meal and save them as I go on regularly bases because of that issue. I also come to relies I need to pick up a few more plugins and stuff, while I try some how to figure out the carrara UI . I guess I'm just a "Daz Old School user" . Thanks god I found Mr Dartanbeck Carrara Information Manual ... Its been a real treat reading it , and extremely helpful life saver so thank you Dartanbeck.
I may not comment much here but believe me I am lurking and reading trying to figure it out...lol
Welcome, Ivy. Have always enjoyed your animations. Sorry about your instability issues. If you have questions about Carrara, happy to try to help. I do have a thread that has random information related to whichever function I happen to be working at any given time. My next series of posts in it will be rigging custom Carrara figures.
General introduction - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/119181/no-one-asked-me-diomede-posts-screenshots-on-whatever/p1 .
Saving Carrara-optimized skin shaders from Studio character products - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1701046/#Comment_1701046 .
Custom hair cap and Carrara dynamic hair - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1732396/#Comment_1732396
UVMapping using unwrap in Carrara example - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1798806/#Comment_1798806
Plant editor settings for Christmas tree - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1891341/#Comment_1891341
Using terrain editor to model musical stanzas - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2127301/#Comment_2127301 ;
Terrain with road shaders and roadside line of replicated trees - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2367546/#Comment_2367546
Using Carrara to make FBMs for Studio (and can reload back in Carrara) - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2373941/#Comment_2373941
Another experiment with the plant editor - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2413676/#Comment_2413676
Modeling and rigging a poseable book for Studio (and Carrara) - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2572071/#Comment_2572071
Modeling a flexible flyer red wagon for Studio (and Carrara) - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2869321/#Comment_2869321
I imagine you are using the triax (and dual quarternian figures if using Mistylaraprincess’s presets)
as everyone does
may I suggest trying V4, M4, A4, H4 and even V3, M3, A3, H3 etc and see if you still have those issues?
if you don’t then try loading a presaved in DAZ studio duf dressed (with clothes NOT PARENTED) for your genesis etc characters each time and not saving them in the scene.
Carrara saves them as a standalone file with all their morph parameters and it can be massive and once it gets over 4GB the scene file can be very unstable.
At the very least group the character and their clothes and export that animated etc group as a carrara file like a DS scene subset, it will be smaller and easier to just import into your scene later.
Welcome Ivy, contrary to title of this thread, if you let it, Carrara will blow your mind; not eat it. Regarding your crashes, I have found that Carrara is so incredibly flexible, within the context of it's feature set, that there are literally hundreds of things that can be tried. For example, you can turn a mesh object into a softbody (dynamic cloth) and then replicate (clone) that to cover a different mesh object and then run the cloth simulation. It will let you do it but if the meshes are too complex it will crash. My point is that Carrara lets you do almost whatever you want but it imposes its limits by crashing rather than restricting. Believe it or not, this is an incredible creative environment because you soon learn what not to do but you're free to try all kinds of crazy things; met with the occasional crash. Eventually you learn where all the little corners are where the boogiemen hide and you go for weeks without crashing. If you stick with Carrara and get to that point, you'll probably be here posting replies like this to the newcomers.
Yup. I completely shifted into Carrara about year ago, migrating over from Daz Studio. At that time, I made a comment similar to yours, that Carrara seemed more difficult to navigate. What I discovered from responses was that, for some long-time Carrara users, DS is really confusing! And these guys were heavyweight artists, I took that to heart, and kept learning.
Here I am, a year later, and fully accustomed to the Carrara workflow (it took about 4 months to start getting comfortable). I had to open Studio to find something about 2 weeks ago, and had a heck of a time figuring out how to use it again.
I can tell you, this is not normal. I would be curious to know what you were trying to load. Do you have at least 8 gigs of memory? And exactly what do you mean by "crashing?"
Yes, Carrara has a lot of features, and it is easy to get confused in the beginning. What saved me is that I bought PhilW's Learning Carrara 8.5 course. It used to be sold here in the Infinite Skills Daz store, but they shut it down recently. To get the course now, your best bet is Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Carrara-8-5-Online-Code/dp/B00TKOTQQG/ref=sr_1_3?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1511471846&sr=1-3&keywords=learning+carrara+8.5
Hope mods allow that link! It is only $50, and regarding Carrara, this course is the best $50 you will ever spend, if you prefer vidio tutorials.
BTW - I watched your last animation. Very creative!
Nope, I'm not Richard Tuttle LOL. I apologize if I offended anywone with my Zombie remark.. but I wasn't trying to be negative. My Carrara Pro install works as well today, as it did when I first purchased it, just apparently it is off of life support, hence un-dead LOL. I was a late-commer to Carrara, as I first tried DAZ Studio almost just over 11 years ago, and switched to Carrara as I wasn't to fond of the Studio workflow. I still think Carrar has a better workflow than Studio, and I like the renderer better too. I am just saddend that no new DAZ contentn will work in it, without tons of extra work. They really should cast a 'Raise Dead' spell on it, and give it the care it deserves. Thanks!
Rich S.
Wow! Thanks Ivy!
'Twas a work of love, that! I actually still have many plans for updating that thread and some of the others it links to. I just have to get some time.
I love Carrara!
Sweet! In fact, that's how I read it and wasn't offended. I might always defend Carrara from talk of being 'dead', but undead... Hmmmm!!!
Thank you guys for the encouragement. My biggest issue i am having right now is trying to find everything in the user interface and how best to navigate it. I also learned to reduce and remove duplicate textures maps, which seems to help resolve my crash issues. so I am getting there. I also would like to pick you'alls brains . First what do you all recommend as must have plugins, what are the best carrara shaders, and where can I find them? what are the best animation tools I should have to help me in animating with carrara? or anything else i may be missing that you found important to use, or have in your arsenal with your own experience with carrara.
Sorry about all the questions.
Keep the questions coming!
Animators are likely to have different priorities from a person like me who mostly does stills. Some of the more prominent plugin sources are Philemo, Fenric, Sparrowhawke, Digital Carvers Guild (DCG), and Inogoni. Apologies to folks I left out. Some are free, so get all those! Here is a thread sparked by a comment by Jonstark.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/196641/what-are-your-top-5-most-used-favorite-carrara-plugins#latest
.
Wow that is awesome information .. thank you for pointing that thread out.
Hi Ivy :)
I'd honestly recommend that you don't fill carrara with plugins right away,.
Concentrate on learning how to use Carrara,. rather than confusing yourself with plugins which add more features / more menu options.
Carrara has a lot of features,. if you learn how to use those, you'll be happy.
Carrara has many more animation tools than DS, with the ability to easily edit and move keyframes, change tweener types, and save keyframe animations as NLA clips (non linear animation) .. which you can save in your carrara "My Clips" area of the browser,. and reuse in other scenes.
Once you've learned the main program,. then you'll know what plugins want to buy.
Hope it helps :)
Love answering questions! :) When I can, that is ;)
For plugins, don't forget to check out Jay Nola's FAQ on Carrara plugins. There are more now, and the new free lugins by Philemo and Albert are fantastic!
► Carrara Plugins FAQ & Information - By Jay_NOLA
Jay compilled and organized a great measure of info regarding Plugins specific to our
beloved Carrara. FAQ, Information and Links to help you determine which are right for you. Thank You Jay_NOLA!
In answering smeone else's questions about Fenric's plugins, I did a small write-up of the ones that I own:
► Fenric's Tools
A brief overview of Fenric's amazing Carrara plugins
As for animation, I love to animate in Carrara - moreso than anything else I've tried. I love the various tweeners, like oscillate and noise for generating repeating actions that shoudn't really require a huge amount of laborious keyframing, and I love how Linear tweener also includes "ease in" and "ease out" for better blending without the often undesireable affect that a Bezier tweener might add to, say, expression animations and such. But I also love using Bezier when I need it.
I really love GoFigure's collections of aniBlocks for use in getting complex actions quickly mapped onto a figure - often not using all of any one aniBlock to complete the action. Here's an article I wrote waaaaay back when, and did some small editing to update it to changes I've done to my workflow, but even that was written quite some time ago. I do still use the same approach, but have also added in use of the incredible graph editor - something I used to be affraid of back when I originally wrote that article.
► AniMating in Carrara
► Some Miscellaneous Tips & Tricks
► Working with Content
With Carrara 8.5 beta, this software is getting much closer to true compatibility
with Daz Studio. This article attempts to illustrate what can and cannot be taken back and fourth.
It also covers some of the basic techniques required to get the most out of any Poser/DS content
within Carrara.
► Your Carrara Browser
Making great stuff isn't as cool if you can't remember where you put it. Let's get some good habits going right from the start
► Navigating in Carrara
some good tips on how to get around the work space, go to where you want to be at specific times, and how to send stuff to specific locations within your scene
► Building Carrara Terrains Intro
► Dartanbeck Video Tutorials
Some of my Babble-Session Tutorials ;)
► Some Articles I've written for the Carrara Cafe
► Learning CARRARA and need some help?
It's truly amazing how many features Carrara has that can become easily overlooked when looking at other features that plugins can offer. I came to Carrara from Poser and the BVH/PZ2 Export plugin by Fenric was a real lifesaver to my initial workflow as a Carrara newbie. But it did set me back on learning how to properly use certain NLA features and functions that already exist in Carrara's immense set of handy animation tools.
3DXTRACT E-Zine has an abundance of articles and tutorials that help us acknowledge some of the things we might never have used otherwise. Go ahead and download the collection and check out the first issue's article on Smoke and Fire. I particularly love this article as a fan of the Carrara Fire primitive. So many people offer negative reports about this amazing thing, which is unfortunate when someone reads that garbage and decides never to ever try it in the first place.
wow guys thank you for the great information, I did pick up a couple of shader pack when daz had the thanksgiving giveaways offers .
@3DAGE I believe thats good advice. I am still trying to learn the User interface. which has been a challenge because I am so use to daz having everything all in one window, and switching from build room to texture room and animation room in Carrara has been hard to get use to. I seem to be resolving some the instability issues I was having with removing duplicate texture maps and loading things and saving them as I go. I seem to have better luck with the 64byte beta version than the 32byte version of carrara . I bought the pro bundle. because the price was so good . But I already owned most of the content in it.
@Dartanbeck Dude you rock. Thank you for all those great links that was just what I need to point me in the right directions. I am still concentrating on just trying to get an acceptable still render. before i leap into the animation part of it. though I really need to get the aniblock importer when it goes on sale right now I am pretty tapped after thanks giving sales..lol . I like that demo. great example :)
I know what you mean! LOL
64 bit beta? If you bought Carrara Pro, you should have 64 bit Pro, not just the beta.
32 bit clamps us at a 4GB RAM limit. Any 32 bit, not just Carrara. So for things like Carrara and DS, etc., definitely go for the 64 bit version.
Check your Product Library by searching "Carrara" and you should find your 64 bit Pro.
In DIM, if you don't see it, try checking your filters or hidden list.
And yes. It is quite different from DS. I still have a hard time figuring out what to do in DS! LOL
For textures (Shaders) in Carrara, I always find out where the texture maps for the content items are. The names of the folders, so I can find them.
Color Channel - usual color texture map
Alpha Channel * - for invisibility masks, like in hair content *
Highlight Channel - black (or a value of zero) = no highlight. This is where we can put spec maps included with many products. Some older products used really bright Spec maps, so we can lower the Brightness slider below the map to regulate too much highlight.
Shininess Channel - controls the spreading effect of the Highlight channel onto the surface, so higher values produce more of a shiny look by limiting the highlight closer to the edges of the surface, whereas lower values will spread the highlight farther along the face, usually requiring a lower highlight value. This is also where we can use Metalness maps from the more current content made for PBR like Iray - often suffixed with "_m". I never let Shininess get over 50 for maximum shine. So if I use a Map_m, I change the Brightness slider below the map down to 50.
Bump Channel - Can be texture map or Normal map (or other procedural settings). If a normal map is used, do remember to set the Bump Channel to Normal Map instead of Texture Map, and then set the Bump intensity to 100 (can only set Bump Intensity from Top Shader view)
Reflection Channel - Be careful with this one. Many of my friends ave used this as an attempt to make things look shiny because of how we think of reflective surfaces. Try to think of it more as reflecting what else is in the scene instead. I say this because Reflective surfaces can really slow down a render. That's fine if we really need reflections. But more times than not, I can get away with a very speedy render using just a good set of values and/or maps in Highlight and Shininess Channels.
For the cornea of an eye, I started using the Clear Glass shader preset that comes with Carrara. In doing so, I've noticed that, as reflective as that can be at times, it only has a reflection value of 4.00! That's awesome!
* Alpha - it is common to get products with Glass materials to be using a value or a map in the Alpha channel. For Glass and other materials that should be transparent but still seen in the camera, Carrara has a much better option: Transparency.
At the basic level, turn on Tranparency channel in the drop down for the Transparency Channel, which will give you three new fields along with many other options. We're just doing some basic (but powerful) magic here, so we're only interested in the top one: Intensity.
If the material has a value between 1-100 in the Alpha Channel, simply drag that into the Intensity channel of Transparency. However, since a value of 100 in Alpha = fully opaque, and 100 in Transparency Intensity = fully transparent, we need the opposite value. So if the vale in Alpha was 20, for example, we'd change that value to 80.
In the same way, if there is a Texture map in the Alpha channel, we simply drag that map into the Intensity channel of Transparency, then select that Texture Map sub-channel and check "Invert" so that the map now works in our favor.
====================================
I hope this spurs some questions. I love optimizing shaders for speedy animation renders. I'm no Shader expert. But I love the Texture Room in Carrara! I have bought almost all of Ringo Monfort and GKDantas' shaders for inspiration on how to set things up. Tim Payne used to come into the forum (way back when) and offer some excellent shader advice as with many others.
It really blows that Daz3d no longer sells PhilW's video tutorials through Infinite Skills (who have sold out or something, which is why they're no longer available), but I have seen them at Amazon. He has a lot of really wonderful courses that take us all through Carrara to learn shader tricks, modeling, physics, animation, UV Mapping, rigging, every darned little thing. I strongly recommend those to any Carrara enthusiast.
Also, I've found excellent examples of things from buying Carrara-specific products, like mmoir's Carrara's Mystic Gorge, for one example of many.
The Color channel also has a brightness slider, but turning it down doesn't make the channel darker, it makes it translucent. Turn the slider right down and it becomes transparent! Something to watch for if you aren't expecting it, but potentially quite useful too. :)
Yes the Carrara 64 byte full version beta is what I am running for daz.
Thanks for those pointers . hopefully I'll get some time to play with Carrara more soon. right now I have some killer holiday hours i have to work the next few weeks, so time has been limited.
Right. But the Beta is the old version. Use the official one instead! ;)
Wow, really? I have to try that sometime!
Absolutely. It looks kinda horrid in that example because it was done at such a low resolution to be turned into a GIF animation, but then had to be refined down even further to fit the allowable size for the forum.
I would say that it's just a couple of particle emitters, because mainly that's what it is. But I also found that I could bend the ship a bit using its own rigging, so that helps in the crash as well. The whole nose part of the ship is breaking away a bit, but still held together by a bunch of structural bits that make up the ship. At least that's how I saw it to be happening.
I was using it as an experiment to look into adding the flying dirt/debris from the crash in post, but I didn't know how yet. Now I do though! ;)
Funny thing too... I didn't really know how to set up particle emitters then either, so I used the one that PhilW includes in his Rocket Ship example in Advanced Carrara Techniques. The beginning of Chapter 11, I think it might be? But then to get it to render faster I cranked the particle size way up and emitted fewer of them per second.
It looks a LOT better if the number of particles is cranked back up as it should be, and now that I know how to alter the size of the particles over their life using the little graph included in the emitter, I can make the whole effect look a lot better. The simulation of this airplane catastophe looks really cool, but takes a long time to render. The particle grow dramatically as they turn to smoke, then disipate into the atmosphere.
Using Postwork to apply further particles can be a lot easier to get everything right than trying to get them all done in one take - but Carrara makes that easy too, if we want to. It just taxes the heck out of our machines in the process.
Some things we really need to capture in the original plate - the original animated render pass. In this case (below) the fallen down trees beneath the ship were standing proudly before getting leveled by the ship escaping from the under-mountain passageway. Animating them was a real treat! Beginning with the trees still standing tall, but increasing the wind as the ship got really close to then having them thrash quickly to the ground, further increasing the wind effect in their model room settings, and keeping them mostly attached to the ground via their roots, yet still pulling from the ground - then some of them snapping back up after the ship passes, others try to but make another plunge to the ground... it really looks cool and all happens very quickly - but the whole added effect of the trees being knocked around and down (and some back up) really helps to sell it - whereas the above plane crash, the actual crash takes place just off screen, with bits of the explosion coming back into frame, which is another cool effect to try.
But yeah... I'd love to do a tutorial on this stuff.
I think I might have used Phil's particle emitter as an initial starting point for this one too. Nowadays I start from scratch, but his tutorial combined with the emitter from the working files really gave me my start with particles.