Is there any new Carrara Content?
Chris Fox Art
Posts: 380
As the maket always concentrate to the new models, i am wondering if it is still worth to produce Carrara products for older Models like dynamic hair for V4, Genesis and Genesis 2.
I am questioning this because i am thinking about sharing my dynamic hair i am making for V4, G1 and G2 but am not sure if it's worth doing this as Carrara isn't really supported from Daz3D anymore and most users are more looking for the newer models.
What do you guys think about it?
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I always think it's worth it. Daz3d might have a different opinion... they might not. But I think that Carrara can remain a formidable tool in the 3d world for years to come, regardless of how things go with the industry - and the same goes for the legacy figures. But that's 'my' opinion, mind you ;)
You can also now convert your carrara hair into actual mesh using Philemo's cool plugin (I think he gave it for free included with the VWD plugin, but my memory is a little fuzzy), so in theory there's very little stopping you not just from making a Carrara-specific product but converting it into standard prop hair to be used in other applications like Studio and Poser. My personal recommendation is to build the hair not on the mesh of the V4/G1/G2 figure itself when creating the hair, but rather build it on a low poly proxy 'haircap' that can be made invisible and then the hair could be conformed to any figure, which would probably mean simply building the hairstyle once, but it could be used on multiple (or any) figures you want rather than being locked to just one specific figure's mesh.
I am trying to understand what you are asking.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "worth it."
If you are loking to make a good amount of money by marketing a Carrara-only product, then no. At the present time, the herd is moving in the "new is better" direction. To broaden your market, a good strategy is to make versions for both DS and Carrara (as Jon outlined above). PhilW and TangoAlpha are examples of PA's who do this.
However, if you are just looking to become a Daz PA, then Carrara hair products may provide you an access path. Heck, Daz just released a new Hexagon product yesterday, and it hasn't been updated in centuries.
If you don't care if it makes money, put it on sharecg. I still mostly use the older characters, and would certainly be interested.
Thanks for the information :)
That's what i was thinking that most people always goes for the new stuff, new models and leave the old behind, so i think that most artists who likes to sell their stuff always have to go with the flow when they want to make money with it.
I was just thinking about generel interests in the old models or hairstyles for the older models as i know even if they are old doesnt mean that they are bad, i've still got some pretty nice detailed textures for V4 i've never used while some of the G2 or G3 textures aren't that natura (not all)
So if there is only a few people interested into carrara hair i would say i don't need to put it on here but on my own website for free than and post a link to the forum.
Btw thats my newest character and the hair i've made for her, even have a bit shorter one too but for her this length is good.
Nice hair! I put a free Carrara dynamic hair style (Egyptian headpiece) on sharecg. It was downloaded 77 times. Not sure if that information is helpful to you in estimating interest. Your hair is much better than my freebie.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/87373/browse/5/3D-Model/Egypt-Dynamic-Hair-for-Carrara
One way to get around that, that I've seen some artists doing, is to make it for G3, G2, G1, and V4, for example. Not a lot of extra work involved - sometimes - for some things
That thing is really awesome. I've experimented a little, but want to take it a LOT further.
By the way, all of Philemo's Free plugins are available via the sig in his posts: CTS projet and they are all quite worthy to own, as with his awesome VWD bridge to Carrara!
It is an amazing hair!
I do not know how many people use Carrara, but in the last 2 years I got everything I can afford. (Octane plugin, some dynamic hair, GoZ for Carrara, Fenric Shader Tools) I'm currently hyped by the new fluids plugin.
I can speak just for me, i would love many more dynamic hair styles for V4!
@Chris Fox Art, if you need a hair base please feel free to use the ones I uploaded to charecg. The hair is added to a low poly conforming mesh that covers the head, chest and shoulders and can be used to dramatically reduce simulation times during animation by turning off hair collision for the main figure (thanks Jonstark for coming up with the original idea). While these were made for V4 and M4 they can be easily auto-fitted to Genesis 1 and 2. One note, when auto-fitting, drag the hair node out of the hair collider tree before applying auto fit. Then drag it back to where it was. Use the Unsupported and headware options in the auto-fit pulldowns.
These are unrestricted use so if you do decide to sell your hair as a product then go for it.
https://www.sharecg.com/v/87207/browse/5/3D-Model/Carrara-LowPoly-Conforming-Dynamic-Hair-ColliderV4
https://www.sharecg.com/v/87291/browse/5/3D-Model/Carrara-LowPoly-Conforming-Dynamic-Hair-ColliderM4
following the thread with great interest
I don't make characters, but I definitely make & sell new Carrara content! (although tbh, the market for it is tiny compared to that for DS)
Thanks a lot for every input and informations, i will give the plugin a try and also the hair collider.
It would be very interesting to make the dynamic hair more useful also for other programs like Daz Studio
Don't forget, as Stringtheory said...you can put your hairstyles (looking forward to them, yes please!!) onto a head proxy with a hair-cap. Then they will work across all generations and genders/sizes. PhilW's Adrea Hair works on every character for me... I just adjust the hair-cap, especially as I use odd shaped heads.
Jonstark started us on using head/face proxies for animation purposes, and has posted videos etc. But the process is perfect for having uniform hairstyles. I cannot seem to search the forum very well any longer. Hopefully he will see this and point you to them, or someone else will. I would be lost without doing dynamic hair this way.
Thank you very much for the information.
To be honest, i have never worked with hair caps before, i've got a few on DS and Carrara but didn't found out how to use them correctly lol but haven't really invest much time into them right now. Maybe it's time to take a closer look on them :)
Absolutely. You'll see... very nice to use!
Chris - it's a great looking hair and I am sure that many people here would love to have it. I am not sure that there is a large market for new V4 Carrara hairs, you would expand the appeal by using a hair cap that can be used with multiple generations of figures, and if you can also convert to modelled hair for Daz Studion users using Philemo's plugin, that would massively increase the market potential, but that is also getting further away from your original proposition.
Thanks everybody for your informations, it all helped me to make a decision.
I will try to make the hair available for every figure with a hair cap + testing out the plugin to make it also available for Daz and Poser users too.
Just testing out a few things i also thinking about.
Dynamic lashes
Dynamic eyebrows
Dynamic bodyhair.
In this image i have tested out about the lashes (just upper side for the moment) but thinking about naturality and realism rendering, every human have naturally grown bodyhair all over the body, female and male both.
The question is always how strong the hair grows, what color the hair have, how fine or thick the hair is and the length of the hair.
So i think there will be a few options available for body hair at all like light body hair, medium body hair and strong body hair.
I'll play a bit around with the dynamic hair now and see where it gets me :)
HI Chris :)
You could expand your potential market to include support for other figures sold by other content retailers,.
since carrara has a relatively small number of users , compared to Poser and Daz studio combined,.
creating a mesh based hair, on a hair cap which fits as many figures as possible makes commercial sense.
:)
For body hair I would use maps to control the density and thickness of the hairs, so you can get a mix of sparse fine hair for some areas and denser thicker hair for others. That would be more natural. Length can also be controlled that way.
Thanks a lot for the advise! :)
Here are the dynamic eyelashes and eyebrows, the eyebrow i have made fast just to test them out how they will look like.
Fits for all V4.2 and i will offer those for free soon :)
I use totally separate hair applications and do NOT just add groups. Otherwise, if you change the length, etc... it affects all of the regions in the groups. Meaning I drag the hair icon down for each part of the body I want to do. Eyebrows, eyelashes, chest, arms, legs, hands and feet. Even if they are the same hair, I can control densities and thickness this way. This is part of a homo erectus I did for my course a while back. I also make a lot of haired clothing for later hominins I am looking forward to your hair projects/products!
Silene
Thank you Silene for this tip, there is a long time I wonder why that does'nt work for each region...
Nice work! (no need to get a leave, he's not so "erectus" like that...)
Hahahaha.... I tried to be discrete, but didn't want to violate the TOS! I found out this problem when I was doing hair, sideburns and beards first.
Here's some V4 eyebrows and upper and lower lashes I did back in 2014 for a book cover so the facial features would look strong, especially the eyes. I think Chris's brows and lashes look much more refined. The lash vertex area is very long on V4 which is helpful. I am hoping Chris will make them for Genesis, too! (Brows are in... Game of Thrones!)
Silene
I wish I could take your class!
I couple years ago I made dynamic hair eyebrows for V4 and V3 to go along with some procedural skin shaders that I made. They are available on ShareCG if you care to look:
https://www.sharecg.com/v/82693/gallery/7/Material-and-Shader/Carrara-A3-V3-Procedural-Skin-Shaders
https://www.sharecg.com/v/77436/gallery/7/Material-and-Shader/Carrara-V4-Procedural-Skin-Shader-and-hair
...and for a play that he Directed, he put dynamic armpit hair on a pinup poster girl! Laughed my darned arse off from here to kingdom come!
That's scary.... three years ago? I had fun with that procedural shader for V4. Armpit hair? Hey, why not... was it animated?
Silene
Chris Fox was kind enough to send me a copy of his hair(s) to test, they work great - here are a couple of images, I just applied them to an existing figure/scene that I had so it's a bit quick and rough, applied one of my Hair Shaders for Octane and rendered in Octane. I don't feel I have truly done them justice, I love the styles.
Oooooo... very nice.
I'd PAY for these! Please do more, Chris! 
Silene
Those renders looks great with the hairstyle! Thanks a lot for these! :)
Right now i am working on a few different projects at the same time, dynamic hair, eyelashes, eyebrows, bodyhair, a character from a real existing person (from youtube) and right now also a dress for my newest character and i often don't know where to start as i have lots of ideas in mind i want to realise.
Anyway, here are a few images from the progress of the dress i've made.
As this dress was directly designed on the figure i'm afraid this won't be available for any other figure right now but i am still trying to find out the best way to use it.
Carrara physics doesn't work as i wanted right now while exporting it to daz studio to make it as poser cr2 file also didn't worked for me right now.
I just made a square in the model room and fitted the fully dress around the character in the assemble room.