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Now go back to the Texture Room and go to the domain that you wish to apply your new shader to and select the new copy from the drop down on the right. Now open that shader and change it any way you like ;)
Hope it helps some. ;)
Good question and great answer. Thanks Dart! Wish I had thought of that.
That's strange, I though Carrara could do morph targets on DAZ figures; there's a whole section in the Carrara 7 manual I read not long ago specificaly about creating, editing, and exporting morph targets on DAZ/Poser figures. On the other hand, I only read about it, didn't try it yet, and maybe I'm misunderstanding what's being asked.
This might be a naive question, but what exactly is Carrara lacking in modeling capabilities? So far by my count there's the Spline Modeler room with all of its tools, the Vertex Modeler room with its tools, the Metaball room with its tools, not to mention landscape/terrain modeling, plant modeling, Architools (if you get the plugin) and probably some that I'm forgetting. At a glance, to someone like me who isn't familiar with all the modeling techniques that are out there, it seems at first blush I could model any damn shape/thing I want (provided I gain mastery of the tools). What is it exactly that Carrara can't do? Again forgive the naivete of the question, and I'm not unreasonably cheerleading Carrara here, just honestly curious.
Dart,
I believe that I will be obliged to interest me a little in Studio and Hexagon…
I'm working on a project since three years, it is a film which will be called “Genesis” (it had already its title before knowing this one from DAZ!).
There is a whole sequence of “end of the world” which is very difficult to realize and all your explanations certainly well will help me!
Jonstark, can you publish this article?
Bye!
Jonstark,
To model a terrain, it is enough to convert it into polygons…
You can do that to get certain features like undercuts on cliff faces and such, but most of the time there is no need.
And I also thought there was a way to add morphs to DAZ/Poser style figures within Carrara (M4/V4 and earlier.) 3Dage used to post about it.
I was going to try to copy and paste, but it won't let me copy all the words, and it comes out in a confusing jumble. Here's the link to the manual though:
http://docs.daz3d.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/artzone/pub/software/carrara/carrara7_user_guide.pdf
once the manual loads you can just use the find function (or the table of contents at the begininning) and go to the section titled: "Using Morph Targets on DAZ Studio/Poser Figures"
There are separate sections on Creating, Editing, Exporting, and Importing morph targets on DAZ/Poser figures, with pictures to help :)
JonStark
When I have observed these conversations, it seems to me that people are almost always talking about specific tools that would be used within the vertex modeling room - and usually completely ignoring the meteball modeler and the spline modeler (or the plant modeler, hair modeler, and terrain modeler for that matter). Although Carrara has a vertex modeler, and that modeler has a lot of tools (especially if you get the pro version), it does not have ALL of the same tools that Hexagon has for vertex modeling.
For myself, I have not yet encountered a situation in which I imagined an object in my head, but I couldn't approximate it within Carrara. On the other hand, I have not been actively using 3D for very long, even though I've had the programs for quite a while. Furthermore, 3D is not my profession, so I don't have the same attitude about time that someone trying to earn a living with this would have.
I can certainly understand people who want Carrara to have even more tools that would speed up their work flow. Sign me up for that, also. But let’s try to keep this thread one in which people like Gareth share modeling techniques that do work, because there are already several threads about additional tools that we would like to have.
I think Carrara gets a bad rap for the VM because it either is lacking some tools that Hex has or they're slightly different. The UV editor also gets a bit of grief and I can see that as anything but the most simple shape confounds the heck out of me. Then again, I've only used it a couple times and without looking at any tutorials, video or otherwise.
Oh, I may have misunderstood the problem then, it isn't the creation of morph targets, it's the creation of a morph area for the targets to go into. All of this is theoretical, as I haven't tried it, but earlier today I was reading that section in the manual. There was another section a bit earlier in the manual about defining/creating morph areas on an object, but that wasn't specific to DAZ/poser figures, and I just assumed it would work on anything, but apparently there is some problem with Carrara not being able to paint morph zones on the daz/poser people? Sorry if I took anybody off track, like I said I just barely read this section today and have no practical knowledge on this.
Clarification - I have not had a problem creating morphs for standard Daz figures like V4, etc. They already have at least one morph. The problem I described came up for me in some obscure situation - so obscure that I can't remember the details. But I do remember getting frustrated that it wouldn't let me proceed until I had a zone, but it wouldn't let me create the first zone.
Oh, I may have misunderstood the problem then, it isn't the creation of morph targets, it's the creation of a morph area for the targets to go into. All of this is theoretical, as I haven't tried it, but earlier today I was reading that section in the manual. There was another section a bit earlier in the manual about defining/creating morph areas on an object, but that wasn't specific to DAZ/poser figures, and I just assumed it would work on anything, but apparently there is some problem with Carrara not being able to paint morph zones on the daz/poser people? Sorry if I took anybody off track, like I said I just barely read this section today and have no practical knowledge on this.
There is a way to do it I believe. From what I've read you can select the model in the figure's hierarchy in the Assembly room and go to Edit--> Smooth and that unlocks the figure (M4/V4 and earlier). You can even detach the rig (which I have done). If I recall, this opens the mesh up to more editing options.
And if I remember correctly, I used Carrara's ability to model directly on the figure mesh, so it wasn't a catastrophic situation.
As usual, Cripeman has a free tutorial on Carrara morphs in general. see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDiY2K-Higg All hail to Cripeman.
Diomede and Evil (in regards to what Carrara can do),
Ah ok, it sounds like maybe Carrara can do most things, and its just a matter of the 'how' as some who come from other modeling apps and backgrounds are used to having different tool types and workflows. I think I might have got a microcosm of that effect already, as I started with learning the tools to the Vertex room, and now that I'm trying to learn the Spline room I keep thinking 'no, why would anyone do it that way, I can think of an easier way in the Vertex room to accomplish that'. I bet if I had learned Spline first, I would have had the same reaction when I started learning the Vertex tools :)
I also recall seeing the opinion that whatever application you learn to model in, it shapes/imprints on you and you tend to find that the way you first learned to do something is the better/more natural way, and other applications may feel 'wrong' or counterintuitive. If that's true, I'm glad I decided to (finally) learn to model using Carrara, as it's the program I do pretty much everything else in (if I can help it, with the exception I sometimes render in Thea to get unbiased rendering). Plus I had the bad experience with Hex way back when, but again that's my subjective view, and it seems tons of people love Hex and find it easy to use/stable/quick/intuitive even though that wasn't my personal experience.
Sorry if I dragged anything off topic though; I agree this thread isn't the place to voice complaints about existing features or tools, but rather to share modeling techniques and tips. I'm just amazed by what some of you guys can do! :)
Agreed! Cripeman is awesome, I've learned tons from his tutorials already.
I have to admit I watched that morph target tutorial that was the official DAZ produced one talking about making morphs on a posed figure (to fix poke through on clothes). I watched it when it first came out, 2 years ago, and several times thereafter, but because Bruce (the narrator, long may his name live in infamy :) ) just assumes the viewer knows all about the modeling room he never bothers to describe all the steps he takes, and I could never replicate what he was doing, so I just eventually gave up and used magnets to fix clothing pokethrough (thank you JonnyBravo for the magnet tutorial :) )
Now after devoting some time to actually learned the Vertex room, I tried to follow that clothing-fix tutorial one more time... and this time I'm happy to report, I now know how to successfully create morphs in clothing, and honestly this is a faster and more precise method then dragging magnets around. I was grinning like a loon at finally being able to do this. :) Such an absurdly small thing, that most everyone here already could do in their sleep, but it seemed out of reach for so long to me, so I feel a ridiculous sense of accomplishment, lol.
Here is stage 1 of my new project to model a pet dog. I used the millenium dog as a general reference in the assembly room. I applied vertex modeling in the assembly room, and used the millenium dog for the basic proportions. I used box-extrude to get the general shape, and then used smooth-convert once. So far, it has 1020 vertices. By Comparison, the millenium dog has over 30,000.
Now I've deleted the millenium dog and will be completing the project in the vertex modeling room. I suspect I'll be using smooth-convert at least twice more. And of course, I've rounded up plenty of pics of cute mutts to use a general reference. Applying fur and texturing should be an interesting challenge.
Suggestions welcome
Firstly, Diomede, I'm liking the style of your mesh creation style. It's the 'loops' edges that will likely be your greatest help in UV Map/Texturing this hair little fella. You see the nice looping edge around the snout area? That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. Being able to select from that loop all the way forward, then subtracting the nose tip would be my very first step in material zone allocation - aclling it: "snout" then catch the nose tip and name that: "nose". Now you can select both ears being careful to look for those edge loops where the ears end and the head starts. Starting from easier to select areas like this and working inwards will help greatly in UV Mapping, texturing and everything else, like morphs. Then, to finish of the reset of the naming of the head, you pick a good loop wherethe head and neck meet, and select from there toward the nose and deselect using the selection command > Deselect by material zone > nose, snout, ears, eyes, etc., and name it: "head". Toenails, paws, tail... everything you would want to separate out should have it's own material zone. Thenin the UV Mapping section you may more easily assign these, individual areas to a full image map - rather than trying to get the whole thing stretched all horribly across the single square.
Anyways, you'll try going in and making your new morph in the chest area won't jive with the one you make in the abdomen, etc., unless you are incredibly god like, or just want subtle changes in each. Creating a new target area that allows section of any polygon on the entire model - what I call a figure level target area, allows you to add a single morph that crosses over rig allocation areas. This has worked to my benefit for working Rosie's robe, or what's left of it ;) and her hair.
It is often made a point that, modeling techniques and tutorials for one, particular software will often transfer over to nearly any modeler. Following certain tutorials designed for Hexagon or other models that share those methods, we might run into a bump in the road by missing the ability to perform the next step easily. Like a spring or threads of a bolt tutorial, for example.
These features are not, so far, missing or a disappointment to me. Like you say, having the spline modeler givesus, actually, even more power than what often those features can provide, should you learn it's basic use and then the ability to convert those mesh to vertex. We truly can do anything!
hi Jonstark:
it lacks a knife tool in the modelling room and this makes it a PITA to do simple things like add an edge loop by eye etc.
A knife tool means you drga the cursor through the edges of a polygon - and where you cut an edge yuou get a verticie, and if you cut through the poly from one edge to another those vertices are jpoined by a new edge
so you can cut a slice through eg a cube and get a new edge loop all the way round.
at the momengt it's easy to do this with a cube with carrara's tools
but you have to select a series of edged firts then select another tool then drag - this is a probloem because the select by loop or ring or between often gives crap results
so cutting something through a complicates mesh that should be seimple with a knife tool becomes a series of click add vertice click add vertice, rotate mesh click add vertice cliocki add vertice blah blah :)
sorry about the typos , I have my finger stuck in the tapb
you've done a great job
will you give it a tongue ?- tongue's are really handy for adding character to canines :)
Any application that can string together 3 verts to make a poly is a modelling app and you can make any shape your skill and patience will allow with that. Now, I'm not knocking Carrara's modelling ability - many folk make many really good models using Carrara and I've used it to model as well. It has many tools that are the same as Hex's, it has some that Hex doesn't have and Hex has some that Carrara doesn't.
It's not so much about the lack of tools in Carrara that keeps me in Hex - some time ago we discussed this and I had a list of something like 50 functions - not tools - that make Hex so much easier and faster, for me, to model in than Carrara. I'm not going to repeat that - just go over to the Hex forum and take a look at the difference between what folk are doing there compared to what you see here.
Just a very simple example - if I want to bend a mesh in Hex, it offers two methods - one is to simply draw a curve and one command to tell it to bend the mesh to the shape of the curve. Another is a function which makes a cage around the mesh and you manipulate to points of the cage to get the bend. In Carrara, you use the deform tool, enter parameters, see if you go it right, undo if not, try again.
Sorry, Dart, but Hex doesn't have a torus - but doesn't need one. Simply draw a circle and give it thickness :) That ability to add thickness to any polyline is one of Hex's most powerful functions. I could go on and on, but basically, for a modeller, Hex is way more sophisticated in many ways than Carrara.
Look at the hundreds of in-depth Hex tutorials on the net, compared to the handful of simple Carrara modelling tuts and it becomes obvious which the modelling community as a whole prefers.
What really makes us Hexonites mad is that Daz management seriously believes that Carrara is as good as Hex, so don't see any reason to develop it - they just won't acknowledge the absolute gem they have in their stable.
Roygee and Headwax, I hope you guys know I consider you both to be world-class modelers, as I have seen your work before, and I don't want to be misunderstood as arguing the point, because I'm not, but utter newbie to modeling that I am (as in, 'look mom, I made this deformed ashtray that kind of looks like a deflated balloon mixed with a melted Abe Lincoln' 1st-grader level of un-skill) I couldn't help but immediately start to think of ways to accomplish those tasks in Carrara, and since this thread is all about modeling in Carrara and refining techniques, I figured it wouldn't be off-topic to venture a couple of guesses (and anyone feel free to chime in and correct me if I'm way off base).
Regarding the Knife tool you mention, that does sound pretty sweet and simple. Unless I've totally misunderstood what the end objective was though, couldn't this also be accomplished with the Move Along tool? Select a couple of edges and make a loop somewhere that's straight, then drag it across to where I want my new dividing line and I've got a straight line in the right place with vertexes ready to go, and if I need it to be the new edge and cut off the rest of the model, just select the polygon on the far side of the line and loop it there, then delete? I've probably got this all wrong, but I can't help thinking that might work and not be too time intensive.
As far as bending the mesh, when you mentioned that Roygee I immediately thought 'Spline Modeler' but of course that probably isn't a viable solution in most instances, because I think (and I could be wrong) that you can't take a vertex object into the spline room, you can only go the other way and convert a spline object so it goes in the vertex room, so how could you accomplish bending the mesh of an already-vertex object. My first thought was draw a curve, apply a path sweep to it, then put the new curved object intersecting the mesh you wanted to bend and do a Boolean function, but while I think that would work for some instances, since it's basically like taking a 'bite' out of the object you want to bend it might give the exact right shape, but I don't think it's really bending the mesh. But you mentioned using a deform tool in Carrara, and I wanted to ask what that was, as I don't recognize the description. Reference to magnet? Soft selection? I think a magnet would be unwieldy to get a precise bend, but soft selection might work in some instances, on the other hand there's a different tool I'm not bringing to mind... wait I just hunted through the menus and found there is a Deform function, either I missed that in the manual or it isn't there. Just playing with it for a few seconds makes me believe this function is so erratic and unpredictable it isn't really a viable tool for this purpose at all. Hmmm, how do you bend an existing mesh in Carrara to a specific curvature... ?
Diomede64, that is excellent! Mad skillz, as the kids today say :) Sorry I don't have any suggestions though, as I'm nowhere near that level, but encouragement and praise I can offer, as it looks very impressive to me!
Glad you found the deform function - now you get some idea of what I'm on about. You can get it to do a simple bend with practice and a mathematical brain. In Hex, you can use those functions to make very complex bends.
As far as the slice tool so beloved by head wax - no, extracting around, along etc. is not the same thing at all. With the knife tool in Anim8or you can make, for instance, jagged cuts, if you are so inclined. Hex doesn't have that either, but it does come close with its various slice options.
Apart from those, there are many other functions in Hex which make life a lot simpler - take a look at Geekatplay to see just what is possible in Hex :)
Hey Jonstark :) thank you for the wholly undserved compliment. I think that ROygee is leaps and bounds ahead of my me, maybe whole solar systems. I think the last completed organic thing I did was this little guy maybe? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTci18lH-h8
plenty of hanging vertices (see the hat) and the edge loops in the face are probably problematic :)
the Move Along too tool you describe in Carrara could be used with a lot of patience
but have a look at the gnome mesh in the video, at the belt that goes across the shoulder and goes down to the waist - from memory it is cut into the tunic - so is part of the same mesh.
I'm not sure you could do this simply in Carrara (sure you could click and add vertices down both sides of the "belt" where as the knife tool makes it a breeze - basically two strokes of the mouse.
When you are doing a lot of modelling the knife tool really speeds up your workflow. Without a knife tool you need to plan your mesh a lot better if you do box modelling.
And when you need to plan your mesh then it takes away a lot of the little wonderfull surprizes that you find when you are modelling - ie takes away some of the art.
Just my opinion that's all. Certainly not saying that it is the "correct" opinion and plenty of people make great meshes in Carrara.
McGuiver for example and Andy. and Gareth and Diomede :)
Roygee, you really obliges me to install Hexagon ! ;-)
Thank you.
Thanks, but I have a long way to go before I can be included in the same sentence with those folks!
Over the last couple of months I have been setting aside time to steadily go through some Hexagon tutorials. From what I've seen, I strongly agree with Roygee's posts. If objects are not made up of simple shapes, Hexagon has significant advantages for speed of workflow - and a few projects might not even be practicable to start in Carrara.
However, most objects ARE made up of simple shapes. For these objects, any advantage of Hexagon is minuscule, and is completely wiped out by the occasional frustration and hiccups that inevitably accompany inter-program export/import. For example, consider a project to have a boy throw a frizbee to a dog in the park. If you could model the frizbee in Carrara, where it can be modeled in the assembly room in scale/position to the boy's hand (and uvmapped and painted without sending to photoshop), just how much time could Hexagon's superior tools/functions save to make up for the inevitable import/export hiccups? How about the park benches? Light posts? If you want a hill and some trees, what about Bryce's environment versus Carrara's?
The point is, once you learn Carrara's modelers, I suspect it will be the rare exception, not the rule, that you would turn to Hexagon.
In fairness, in my example of a boy throwing a frizbee to a dog in the park, you could pose the boy and the dog for free in Studio, which has a program bridge to Hexagon (free) to model the frizbee, and to Bryce (free) for the environment.