Wishlist for Carrara PlugIn Developers
Rashad Carter
Posts: 1,799
Hello fellow Carrara users. After some time it appears as if any updates to Carrara need to be handled by third party deveopers. It's not my favorite solution, but far better than the nothing we have going on for Bryce development at the moment. Anyhow, with the advent of fabric and fluid similations as well as many other community driven tech additions to Carrara, maybe we can manage a few more. So here's my wishlist for any developer who is willing to take a moment to read it.
1. Active Morphs Listing- This is the ONLY feature from Daz Studio that I feel Carrara needs to adopt. It would be nice if there was a script or some manner of reading the active morphs on a character and listing them separately from the other inactive morphs. Would this be possible to do as a plug-in or even a third party product? As it stands currently I have to search the Parameters for each letter of the alphabet in hopes of finding all of the active morphs. Don't like this one bit.
2. We need the ability to create morphs within Carrara. Maybe this already exists, but I feel that if it does exist the process probably isnt very clean. Maybe someone could point me to the best tutorial for this purpose? I'd be greatly appreciative.
3. A way to load new morphs onto existing Characters. A third party standalone application would be just fine. As it stands now with no active morph listing I have no feasible means to re-create characters that will include the new morphs when loading in a new Genesis character.
I'm sure there are more things that I want that I can't think of just now. Anyhow, thanks for your time.
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wishlist, i'd like to undock the library tray and undock the storyboard tab to side monitor
I want to kill the storyboard with fire
I did look if there was a user facing file for it but sadly no
Me too!
My wish is just that those who are creating plug-ins for Carrara would create both Windows and Macintosh versions.
I would like to add some things.
A possibilitie to use morphs on any model, so Genesis, Genesis 2 or Genesis 3 morphs and poses useable on V4 or V4 on G1,2 and 3 and so on, those are based on polygons if i'm right and if the base figure is changes, all morphs and poses doesn't work but a way to still use or add the morphs or areas on another figure that you can use them would be great.
My second wishlist would be something that normally can be used in the model room, adding some kind of background for front and side that can be used for modeling and morphing in the assemble room, for example if you want to make a portrait from an existing person that you can morph the areas in position by the picture or be able to blend the picture in and out with the mesh from the model, something like this would be interesting.
And at least, if possible, i would like a bit more/better control with dynamic hair, sometimes it's just fine, sometimes it's just a mess to create nice hair, so some plugin to better the workflow would be nice.
As a Mac user, ^^ This ^^
What he said!
Hey Rashad,
I may be misunderstanding you, but creating morphs and morph targets in Carrara is pretty easy. I also think that it is pretty clean. PhilW covers it in detail in his basic course. The tools for it are in the modeling room.
I'm willing to write out a brief tutorial - unless someone else wants to do it - but I want to make sure I am addressing your request correctly. Are you looking to create morphs and morph sliders which work in Carrara? Please let me know.
I just found this thread again. Thanks Unified! I still haven't had the time to try this out yet but I will.
My reason for resurrecting this thread is because I still find myself in need of my request #1. If I was a programmer I'd do it myself but alas I have no clue. Is there anyone in the community capable of writing a simple script that will analyze morph slider states so that any that have values other than 0 are displayed separately as Active Morphs? DS already has a display active morphs capacity as it makes editing morphs so much easier. Can this be done at all within Carrara?
This matters a huge ton to me because I use Genesis 1 primarily and after all the years I have the complete morph sets for about 5 different figures including V3, M3, V4, M4, V5, M5, V6, M6, V7, M7...all converted into Genesis morphs thanks to GenX. Like hundreds upon hundreds of morphs... the list is looooonnnngggg. If I find that I need to recreate a character there's simply no way for me to analyze every single slider to see if it is active.
I would gladly pay money for this utility, if someone will write it. I look forward to feedback from anyone willing to contribute. Thanks and all the best!
Please...
pretty please....
I can't help with the list of active parameters. I am no programmer. I would also like this function.
Yes, I can help with the morph issue, as it applies to Genesis 1,2,3,8. You will have to open Studio and do 2 or 3 things, but the results are active in Carrara. The morph method for V4 in PhilW's tutorials is a different matter.
- Load your genesis figure in Carrara. (If G3 or G8, load Misty's G3 or G8 from 'rosity)
- Shape your genesis figure. You can do dial spins of parameters. Or, you can enter the modeling room and ignore the protected topology and use the displacement brush and magnet.
- Export your figure as an obj, making sure that you choose the obj preset for Daz Studio Morph. Also choose to include morphs and skinning. Can uncheck texture maps if you want. They are not needed.
- Open Studio and load the base figure for your morph.
- Use morph loader pro to load your morph. You can change its name and location in the herarchy if you wish.
- Use the joint editor to align the skeleton to your morph. Especially important if change limb proportions.
- Use ERC freeze to allow use in future scenes.
- I save as a morph asset and then as a scene subset.
- Aside - you can now model clothing, etc. in Carrara to fit your custom morph, and then rig in Studio using reverse shape. So, if your hero has a muscular sixpack torso, and you model a simple loose tshirt, then the tshirt won't have the sixpack when conformed to your figure's shape.
Will follow up with more specifics in a link to a walk-through that I have. Need to find it.
EDIT: Starts here - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2394546/#Comment_2394546
Here is another example, although just a face so does not show important things for joints. - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2818296/#Comment_2818296
For your own custom figures (modeled yourself, not morphs of genesis, etc) - here is help https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/107081/creating-a-custom-carrara-character-and-morphing-in-posed-position
i love the active morphs idea,
an ignore geograft group
an ignore rigid groups
a quick convenient save hand poses
a quick convenient save face poses
a script to quick untick uwrap on all the channe;s of a shader domain
the diffuse, the bump, etc
The SDK makes Carrara almost open source and gives us access to most of what you can see and change on screen. There is a big documentation with a list of objects we can work with and functions to call. The SDK comes with a large set of samples that date back to version 4. Although some plugin types are broken the fundamentals haven't changed. What we lack is source code examples and the inside knowledge of the developers, possibly all of who have gone. The original SDK overview documentation has gaps and only zot knows the answer - particularly with how to set up the UI widgets. However a little knowledge is dangerous so it's possible to figure out how to get things done.
I've tried and failed to figure out how to add new tools and icons. Rooms can't be added or removed but floating windows can be raised. There is a limited list of base plugin types so if you are thinking of a plugin requrest consider the range of existing plugins first for an idea of what is actually possible - but you never know.
Instead of scripts scene commands can be pretty quick to write and let us get into all sorts of places. These can work on the current scene selection or search through the whole scene. More complex commands can get down deeper into the vertex modeler and look through the morph lists or search through the timeline data in the sequencer.
For example I knocked up a simple one just last week on request for evilkoolade. This just had to run through the current selection looking for a search name and then change it or add an index. I left out the undo and redo options to get it done quickly but I've put those in and can upload the update soon. Doing the Mac builds can take more time than writing the actual plugin code.
Rashad's original request of finding the active morphs would not be difficult but changing the display of them would be. A plugin that could find the morphs on one figure and then look for and set a matching one another should be possible.
Mistara: Saving poses can be done.
Saving face morphs could also be done but involve more work. Not sure what you mean about the other script for shaders.
Great to see you working on new stuff Sparrohawke, thanks!!
I think a good idea would be to package your plugins in small parcels and sell them that way.
My wish list is small:
A handy plugin would be like Fenrick's key shortcut that goes steps through the instances list, except the new plugin would step through the contents list, one by one.
I've already been told it cant be done but no harm in asking :)
For the untick unwrap are these what you are referring to Misty ?
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1751791/#Comment_1751791
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/102206/batch-untick-uv-plugin-please
The most wanted plugin for me is something that would remove all of the unwanted morphs in a Genesis (including 2,3, & 8) as my Genesis figures have heaps of morphs. Can get errors saving a file with 3 or 4 Genesis figures.
Sorry I missed that request from years ago. If someone had asked me directly I could have done something sooner.
I did a plugin to jump any object in the scene to the selected vertex last year. If I add one line in that code (Polymesh->SetUVWraparound(false,false);) that now seems to successfully untick the u and v wrap around box for all the polymeshes in the vertex object. So if I understand the need for this is for when you have lots of objects brought into the scene with lots of props (rather than one figure) and need to save the time of going into the vertex modeler for each and manually unticking them.
Making a new plugin based on a template, or existing one in this case, takes a bit longer than a few lines of code. I'll see if I can squeeze in the time and knock this one up later if I understand the requirements correctly.
Headwax, you'll need to explain a bit more about what you are after. Giving me the sequence of manual operations to carry out would clear it up.
Had enough time to do a Windows build of a new command to change the uv wrap setting for Carrara 8. I tested it with some DUF content with a dozen bits in it. Drag it into the scene and then select the top parent group of the props or whatever then choose Edit > Sparrowhawke3D > UV Unwrap from the menu.
You can get the download in the Laboratory section of my website. I'll do a Macintosh build later on if I can.
thanks
but
nothing happens.... is there supposed to be something that happens?
If you bring in some DUF content go into the vertex modeler for one of the pieces and then into the UV Editing Mode. The Polymesh Wrap U values is always checked. If I read the request right this is what people don't want if it messes up the seams and textures. The plugin command will uncheck that option for the selection. That's all it does.
It's not an issue with older content just a problem when you bring in a big Stonemason scene or something like that with lots of props and parts.
10-4
gotcha... working fine now that I get it lol
really?!!?
thank yoo so much
Yes. please.
Poser hair to Carrara hair
I can export obj from Poser but it's all single vertices and won't show in the assembly room
hairconverter can create a mesh but if Carrara could create dynamic hair it would be better
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3948081/#Comment_3948081
And if we could convert all of that DAZ Studio hair as well as all of the Poser hair to Dynamic hair it would be awesome !!!
The most needed for me is something like "copy on support" feature in Hexagon. I wonder if it's possible to extend Carrara's surface replication function for more precise results, like columns in a row. It would be great to have advanced array functions in this program.
One more useful feature, something like "quick pipes", would be the function which could place tube geometry along selected edge loops, providing the ability for quick creation of wires and/or lattices.
And of course, Carrara is lacking of "relax geometry" feature, so called "average" in some programs, wich is great when modeling organic objects.
The most needed for me is something like "copy on support" feature in Hexagon. I wonder if it's possible to extend Carrara's surface replication function for more precise results, like columns in a row. It would be great to have advanced array functions in this program.
One more useful feature, something like "quick pipes", would be the function which could place tube geometry along selected edge loops, providing the ability for quick creation of wires and/or lattices.
And of course, Carrara is lacking of "relax geometry" feature, so called "average" in some programs, wich is great when modeling organic objects.
with LAMH you can at least use the density maps but yeah the styling etc from AM's lovely creatures would be lovely to copy, my Carrara fur babies end up looking mangey or like plush toys.
the3Digit & Bunyip02: The Carrara SDK does not have access to the hair primitive type - not that I'm aware of or can find. It doesn't give access to most of the primitive types only for plugins that can work in them such as the terrain filters. With the release of Eric's source code for Anything Grows a hair convertor might be possible but I'd say a pretty big job.
Vyusur: A copy on support feature is certainly do-able. It would have to create real instances to be done simply but could use a valid selection or all vertices or facet centres, edges to place each duplicate. The surface replicator is random and the other replicator too ordered so I can see a need for that when laying out more orderly duplicates.
The SDK allows access to the Vertex Modeler and many of its operations and to experiment with changing and adding things but creating new tools is an unknown. Commands can be made though and scene commands can do things with the vertex modeler and the current selection.