Carrara Parameters

johranshadi

I am learning the basics in Carrara. While most of it is straightforward and easy to figure out, I am stuck at few things. Like the parameters in Michael 5. Some body parts would show parameters but most wouldn't when you click at them. Does Carrara have the same advanced parameters settings like in Daz3d or even Power Pose? If not,  how do people move and animated characters in Carrara? I've seen some very impressive animations on Youtube so there must be a way. 

Another issue I am having is animating fire. While I can insert a fire in a scene, I can't get it to animate realistically. The particle emitter was a dead end as all I got was flames in a cube shape spinning on spot, nothing like real fire simulation. I didn't use anything else in that scene. I tried to play with the settings more but it only made it worse. Is there a trick for that? 

Finally, the built in ocean can't seem to have animated waves either. 

As there are almost no useful tutorials on YouTube I came accross, I am hoping that someone here could help. Thanks in advance! 

Diomede

I focus on the first question and leave rest to others.

Morphs are usually found in one of three places.   

- For genesis, most morphs are found by selecting the "actor" level of the figure.    

- Some morphs are also found by selecting the group level (genesis in this case).  For genesis, most of these are automatc correction morphs, such as joint controls.  

- A third place is found by selecting individual bones with the figure skeleton, such as the head.

When you create your own morphs for Genesis in Daz Studio, you can use morphloader pro to pick where the morph wil be found on the figure.

Generally, for genesis and later (V5, V6,...), look for the morphs by selecting the "actor."  In contrast, for Victoria 4 and earlier, look or morphs by selecting the figure nameor the body parts.  Having said that, remember there are exceptions for genesis, espcially if you created the morphs yourself.

johranshadi

Diomede_Carrara said:

I focus on the first question and leave rest to others.

Morphs are usually found in one of three places.   

- For genesis, most morphs are found by selecting the "actor" level of the figure.    

- Some morphs are also found by selecting the group level (genesis in this case).  For genesis, most of these are automatc correction morphs, such as joint controls.  

- A third place is found by selecting individual bones with the figure skeleton, such as the head.

When you create your own morphs for Genesis in Daz Studio, you can use morphloader pro to pick where the morph wil be found on the figure.

Generally, for genesis and later (V5, V6,...), look for the morphs by selecting the "actor."  In contrast, for Victoria 4 and earlier, look or morphs by selecting the figure nameor the body parts.  Having said that, remember there are exceptions for genesis, espcially if you created the morphs yourself.

Thanks for taking time to answer! What about parameters for simple moving limbs and body parts? Like if I want to animate my character performing specific moves, where do I find the tools for that? In Daz3d I use the Power Pose and parameters tab. Parameters in Carrara I found to be missing for most body parts (at least for M5) as they only show unclickable "root" with no other settings. Thanks again! 

johranshadi

I figured out the fire part. The key is in the general tab when selecting fire. I played with the sliders until I got the real fire simulation. 

Diomede

You will find a lot of useful links and resources in a thread put together by Dartanbeck.  It has a list of tutorials.  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15970/carrara-information-manual/p1

 

There are several ways to animate your characters, using the sequencer tray at bottom of Assemble Room to advance the timeline.  It is a large subject that I can't hope to cover in one post.  However, here are some basics.

1)  The absolute basics

- select bone and use rotation tool in upper left of interface

- select bone and use the numerical rotation settings in the properties tray under the motion tab.

2) A little more involved

- use an inverse kinematics chain, select the end joint (such as a hand) and move/translate to desired location.  The IK chain will pose the forearm, shoulder, collar, etc. so hand goes to location.

- apply a pose preset fom the Daz Studio content library for your figure.

- select the figure level (animaiton group) of genesis and create an NLA clip. Save the NLA clip to your instances tray for multiple use within same project.  Separately, save to browser for use in future projects.

- select the figure level (animation group) of genesis and apply a saved NLA clip

- apply an aniblocks/animate product.

- save applied poses in the puppeteer menu (controller tab).  Create motions by advancing timeline and moving puppeteer points.

 

If you are going to be doing a lot of animation in Carrara, then I suggest PhilW's course available in the Daz store.

https://www.daz3d.com/animation-in-carrara-video-tutorials

 

 

Diomede

some screenshots

 

johranshadi

Thanks a million for the links and the attached. Sounds like just what I needed to start. I prefer the animation methods in Daz though as i find it very annoying to rotate the camera each time in order to click exactly on the part I want to animate. I will check out the NLA and consider the course you suggested if I come up against a brick wall. 

Hermit Crab

I'd like also to thank Diomede for his very helpful explanations, which is typical for him (and which is true of many others here, I need to add).

@johranshadi, it may help to know that poses, once attained or loaded can be saved, as can other figure attributes (go to the Animate menu and look under 'Memorize'.  There is a corresponding 'Restore' option.

You can Right-click on anything in a scene and a list of everything in that region will appear for you to make a selection.  If the character's left shoulder is facing you and the right is out of sight, you can still select it by right-clicking.  No need to rotate the camera in such a case.

The ocean primitive should animate as you scrub along the timeline.  There are settings for it on the right-hand panel.

You can also go to the Director's Camera to move all around the scene and leave your Camera 1 view intact for rendering.

One of the problems I find using DAZ figures in Carrara is their complexity and the sheer number of parts to select from in the Scene panel.  This number grows so much when hair, upper / lower clothing is added as well as shoes, etc.  Carrara is still, in my view, a suberb program for anyone who builds their own sets and even their own simpler figures to animate but this is done only rarely and I haven't done it either beyond a few experiments.

Something I experimented with was exporting my animated figures as .fbx files and then re-importing them.  This overcame the problem of trying to render animation and physics simulations and Aniblocks which began the motion at some kind of point zero in the scene.  Once re-imported as .fbx the characters could be duplicated, scaled differently and placed anywhere.   

Here is an animation of only a few seconds showing this.  The figure is V4 as a child and it was brought in from Poser where the cloth simulation and ani-block motion was applied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t9m2WsCq74

Edited for typo and extra sentence.

 

 

johranshadi

Marcus Severus said:

I'd like also to thank Diomede for his very helpful explanations, which is typical for him (and which is true of many others here, I need to add).

@johranshadi, it may help to know that poses, once attained or loaded can be saved, as can other figure attributes (go to the Animate menu and look under 'Memorize'.  There is a corresponding 'Restore' option.

You can Right-click on anything in a scene and a list of everything in that region will appear for you to make a selection.  If the character's left shoulder is facing you and the right is out of sight, you can still select it by right-clicking.  No need to rotate the camera in such a case.

The ocean primitive should animate as you scrub along the timeline.  There are settings for it on the right-hand panel.

You can also go to the Director's Camera to move all around the scene and leave your Camera 1 view intact for rendering.

One of the problems I find using DAZ figures in Carrara is their complexity and the sheer number of parts to select from in the Scene panel.  This number grows so much when hair, upper / lower clothing is added as well as shoes, etc.  Carrara is still, in my view, a suberb program for anyone who builds their own sets and even their own simpler figures to animate but this is done only rarely and I haven't done it either beyond a few experiments.

Something I experimented with was exporting my animated figures as .fbx files and then re-importing them.  This overcame the problem of trying to render animation and physics simulations and Aniblocks which began the motion at some kind of point zero in the scene.  Once re-imported as .fbx the characters could be duplicated, scaled differently and placed anywhere.   

Here is an animation of only a few seconds showing this.  The figure is V4 as a child and it was brought in from Poser where the cloth simulation and ani-block motion was applied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t9m2WsCq74

Edited for typo and extra sentence.

 

 

Thanks Marcus! That's a useful tip. I still find Daz to be much smoother in selections, posing and animation. I will just do animations in Daz then and send them to Carrara as presets. That seems the best solution.