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i think one issue that just makes me shake my head with Daz's way of doing things ------ --- look at Daz studio then look at Carrara ---- do they look like they are made or sold by the same company? (understandably DAZ3d did not make Carrara but they have owned both for years now) . So its not unreasonable to expect folks not to use both of them often. Its like learning 2 different applications.
And with so much duplication of tool set ----where is the force to drive you to even try to use both.
Its just puzzling ---but hey---we are going to have a 9 so Daz3d is ok by me right now. I think though if they would be more open and vocal about their grand plan -----it would hugely affect sales in a positive way. I just do not know why they do not see great value in that. They do not have to promise anything but just giving out a little high level thoughts on what they plan or hope to do ----would be so so beneficial.
rich
But at the same time, people who already use one of the applications most likely prefer the interface it currently has. Look at how many people complained about the change to the DS interface from 3 to 4. Imagine what you'd hear if DAZ 3D decided to redo Carrara or Bryce with a DS-style interface.
While it would certainly be fantastic if users of DS, Carrara, and Bryce could have all 3 of those interface styles to choose from in all 3 applications, do I really want DAZ 3D to devote the huge amount of development resources it would require to do so? I don't think there's any way that would be feasible.
Speaking solely for myself, Kai Krause interfaces and I don't get along, so I would love to have Carrara and Bryce interfaces that were more intuitive for me. But I bet the vast majority of Carrara and Bryce users would hate it.
The problem with the interface for any program the size of DS, Carrara, Bryce (Avid's Pro Tools) is they are too large to be intuitive for everyone. The best you can hope for is that they don't change once you learn them. So yes, I would hate a major change to any of the interfaces. New and improved are two words that rarely, in my experience, belong together.
the good news --we do not usually need to worry about DAZ changing things very quickly at least --so everyone should be happy for a bit anyhows. Enjoying their Fav application. Most of this discourse as always is and was extremely hypothetical. Smiles.
rich
Hi Roygee,
I thought better to not reply on thread to your question, as mods would probably remove conversation of 3rd party application where DAZ are not making money.
So PM you. But as PM system does not show PM sent, not sure if you received it or not.
But still a need to actually first download and install the DIM.
I thought the forced installation of the CMS(Content Management Service) was supposed to, well, manage the content. Why have a service constantly running, when all it now appears (to me) to be doing, is picking up content after it as been installed in the correct location?
I did install DS 4.6 and attempted to manually add the Genesis content, but must of done the latter wrong, as nothing showed in the DS smart content panes(Do not know what is "Smart" about it). So after attempting to load the "DSON" files and getting error for not finding [file name here] and DS not giving me an option the search for such a file, I gave up after about 15 minutes and removed it all.
Needing a "download install manager" and a constant running "content management service", hell, its like having nanny bloatware applications wanting to control the OS. (Or maybe just DAZ wanting to know (and log) what content you have installed?).
Exactly!
But still a need to actually first download and install the DIM.
I thought the forced installation of the CMS(Content Management Service) was supposed to, well, manage the content. Why have a service constantly running, when all it now appears (to me) to be doing, is picking up content after it as been installed in the correct location?
I did install DS 4.6 and attempted to manually add the Genesis content, but must of done the latter wrong, as nothing showed in the DS smart content panes(Do not know what is "Smart" about it). So after attempting to load the "DSON" files and getting error for not finding [file name here] and DS not giving me an option the search for such a file, I gave up after about 15 minutes and removed it all.
Needing a "download install manager" and a constant running "content management service", hell, its like having nanny bloatware applications wanting to control the OS. (Or maybe just DAZ wanting to know (and log) what content you have installed?).
CMS - provides information on the content to host applications, so that (depending on the application using the CMS) content can be filtered by compatibility or by type or both, or so that settings can be made automatically (for things like AutoFit), or so that content can be organised into categories (by DAZ, or by the user overriding the DAZ choices) without needing to move or make multiple copies of the actual files. The CMS is a purely local service that is always on.
DIM - downloads and installs, or your choice of one of the two, content. Keeps a file signature that can optionally be used to flag up updates if you run it and allow it to connect to DAZ. Enters details of the content into the CMS. DIM runs only when the user explicitly launches it, it needs remote access to download or provide update notifications but not to install content and add it to the CMS database.
DIM also never sends DAZ any information on what content you have. It sends login details and DAZ sends back a file with the current version IDs of everything in your Product Library. The comparison with what you have installed or downloaded with DIM is all done locally.
DIM can't be used offline without first connecting to DAZ at least once?
That's disappointing and ought to be reported.
It will not function unless it can connect to DAZ.
When I start DIM, it asks for an e-mail and password for my account(I should not need that to work offline). But if I cancel that, the DIM exits. So I enter the info, but it then wants to connect to DAZ (As I mentioned in my earlier post, I do not have my workstations connected to the Internet). The option to "Work offline" is greyed out, cannot enable it.
So I cannot use DIM on my workstations to install downloaded content. Well I suppose I could, if I:- Allowed a [probably insecure] DIM to connect to the Internet, which in turn connects internally to a [probably insecure] system service.
The DIM will only install anything that you have downloaded through DIM., so it needs to be installed on the machine that you use to download your content.
To use DIM to install on a machine which is not connected to the internet:
1) download the product zips on your online machine (either using DIM or from the Product Library)
2) install DIM on the offline machine. The first time it asks for your login, if it won't let you just tick "work Offline", give your info (or fake info, if you prefer). It will try to connect, fail, and switch to offline. Exit DIM
3) copy the zips you downloaded on the other machine to the DIM downloads folder (the default location is C:\Users\Public\Documents\DAZ 3D\InstallManager\Downloads, but you can change it if you wish)
4) restart DIM, tick "work offline", and press start.
Now it will show you the downloads it finds in the downloads folder.
You have to set up an account first, even if it's not your real info, before the "Work Offline" option is enabled. Since that machine never connects to the internet, the info doesn't have to be correct.
See my post above -- you CAN install on an offline machine with DIM, and you don't have to install DS or Carrara to use DIM. You can uninstall CMS if you wish -- Smart Content won't work, and there may be other Carrara features that depend on it.
But it does not switch to offline, it simple gives popup "Unable to login", so have to press OK on that popup, which then takes me back to the Account "Start" popup as shown above, with the "Work offline" greyed out.
I did attempt that several times.
The only way to get it to work offline is to first allow it to connect to DAZ.
That's one poorly designed UI. Well, either that or they are intentionally misleading the user into thinking that being online is a requirement.
But it does not switch to offline, it simple gives popup "Unable to login", so have to press OK on that popup, which then takes me back to the Account "Start" popup as shown above, with the "Work offline" greyed out.
I did attempt that several times.
The only way to get it to work offline is to first allow it to connect to DAZ.
That's puzzling, as I know people who have done so. Let me see if I can find someone who has to look into it.
Just to add.
When I entered my login details and it failed to connect, the "Work offline" was still greyed out. On exit DIM and restart, there is a need to enter login details again. It looks as if the login details need to be confirmed before DIM stores them.
It is possibly a problem with the new version of DIM?
Just to add.
When I entered my login details and it failed to connect, the "Work offline" was still greyed out. On exit DIM and restart, there is a need to enter login details again. It looks as if the login details need to be confirmed before DIM stores them.
It is possibly a problem with the new version of DIM?
Looks like it. I hadn't updated my off-line system to the latest and greatest, so I did a clean uninstall, installed the new version, and - bang. Can't get the userid to take, and work offline is not selectable. I've filed a problem report.
I also came up with a tacky work-around that I can't confirm because it looks like 1.0.1.86 stores some things in the Windows registry or somewhere else I can't seem to find so I'm kind of reluctant to post it. Which is to say the work-around worked but now I can't clean out my userid to start over and validate the steps.
On win7 64, user ID is stored in an ini (config) file, stored at:-
\Users \ {user name} \ AppData \ Roaming \ DAZ 3D \ InstallManager \ UserAccounts
update:
Found a workaround.
Create a dummy (empty) file, I named it "offline.ini" [ <- without the quotes] (it does not matter what it is called, as long as it as the file extension "ini" and placed in the DIM "UserAccounts" directory. On win7 64 that location is shown above. For XP pro 32, the location is "Documents and Settings \ <em>{user name} \ Application Data \ DAZ 3D \ InstallManager \ UserAccounts
A problem I did find when attempting to remove the CMS service from "win XP pro 32", is when attempting to use the CMS uninstaller, I get error message that it is not a valid 32 bit application (see attached image):-
(I do not have time to look at that more at the moment, I will simply restore from HD offline backups to remove it)
My apologies for taking thread off topic with this.
On win7 64, user ID is stored in an ini (config) file, stored at:-
\Users \ {user name} \ AppData \ Roaming \ DAZ 3D \ InstallManager \ UserAccounts
update:
Found a workaround.
Create a dummy (empty) file, I named it "offline.ini" [ <- without the quotes] (it does not matter what it is called, as long as it as the file extension "ini" and placed in the DIM "UserAccounts" directory. On win7 64 that location is shown above. For XP pro 32, the location is "Documents and Settings \ <em>{user name} \ Application Data \ DAZ 3D \ InstallManager \ UserAccounts
Yup. That's the tacky work-around I came up with - and then lost my breadcrumb trail. IIRC, I had to create the 'UserAccounts' directory - but once there's a {userid}.ini file present you can work off-line.
According to the change log it's been fixed in the private beta: http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/install_manager/change_log
Thanks for alerting us to it.
Tacky work-arounds with DAZ software is common practice, certainly with Bryce and Hexagon, which don't get the development time to fix issues.
But it appears DAZ have already fixed the problem with the DIM, but then again, that is content related.
Hello.
I am a new to the Carrara world. Heck I'm new to the Daz studio world. I really like what Carrara has to offer. I have read many of the post. And worked with both softwares. I like and dislike things about both. Being so new I won't go into an inexperience rant about those pluses or minuses.
But what I do know is programming.
And even with the advent of OOP programs it is difficult and time consuming to work with someone else software. He'll it can be hard to work with your own. So it really boils down to expense and profit margin. Even though Carrara is a paid for program. It actually might cost more to develop. Because you have to spend extra time figuring out someone else's code. Non programmers understand there are languages like C or C+. But each programmer has many ways to go about creating a program.
So with Studio they made it built it from scratch. They know it inside and out. Lets say they give it 1/3 of their research budget and it has earned it. It drives sales it's what got me started. Something you know well like your house. You don't have to even be home to know its layout. You could do something without being there.
Now with Carrara lets give it the same1/3 plus the research bonus bases on its sales ( you have to account for expenses ) and it will take longer to bring things to light. Like buying something for someone else's house. You have only visited. It would take many trips there to figure it out
So even though it might not seem that they are doing things. I think they really are. And rightly so the first thing is to be a profitable company no one wants to run a business for free
We should be thankful that they are. And that they put dollars into all these programs.
Jonstark
Thanks for starting this thread. I agree with you. Funny thing is when I suggested something similar a few years back, I got attacked from all sides. It was brutal. It's good to see people not so heavy on the attack and actually discussing the issue calmly.
I have owned a version of Carrara going all the way back to the Ray Dreams era, but I never really got into it until Carrara 6.
Even then, I Still straddled the fence for a little while.
I kept coming into the forums saying "I wish Carrara did this" or "If Only Carrara did that" only to have someone run in and say "Carrara DOES do this AND that!" It kind of got to the point where I was shocked when someone didn't come running in(that's when I got scared). I came to realise that Carrara had the features I needed and D|S needed to catch up.
I'm going to join JonStark in thinking aloud.
I'd like to see Daz do the following with Carrara...
1. Give us real Dynamic Clothing. The Optitex stuff doesn't work natively in Carrara and getting it in requires a massive amount of work and a PhD in Computer Science. Can you make Optitex work natively or can you make it possible for Carrara to use Poser dynamic Cloth? Or here's a thought, give us our OWN cloth system.
2. Genesis seems to be very hit or miss in Carrara. That means either the task is just too hard or you haven't put enough people on it. Either put more people on it or take it out of the next build.
3. Poser has a Weight mapped Vicky. Why couldn't we have one just for Carrara? Why couldn't we have a Vicky 4.5? She would be able to take V4's wardrobe, but would have all the fixes (some of which are available for Poser only over at Rendo) and be weight mapped. A lot of us use Gen4 still and this would be a character for us
4. Why not upgrade the terrain generator and put more of the features from Bryce in it? I don't mean "code" (which you guys attacked me mercilessly on last time). I mean features. If that sounds too hard, could you please at least make it easy to put Bryce landscapes in Carrara? I don't mean one of the extremely complicated ways I read about in the forums. I mean easy.
5. Can we put more of the features from Hex into Carrara? If that's too hard, could you make it easier to use Hex items in Carrara?
This is my little wishlist. Please no attacks.
be nice if they had someone there who knew the Carrara code, as this is the worst version I have ever used, I can sneeze two miles away from the PC and Carrara will freeze, in fact in this version there isn't a lot that wont make it randomly lock up.
Move camera - lock up
try to save - lock up
leave it alone - lock up
tsarist--- I do not think anything you said should be attacked in any way. Seems like a very reasonable and needed feature requests.
rich
paulg625, thank your for the insight (and by the way, welcome to the Carrara community :) ).
I'm not a programmer, so I can't appreciate the difficulties of working in a code you didn't develop, though I'm sure that's true (it makes sense to me). I'm certain that what you speculate is probably true - it probably is easier to develop Studio further.
I just don't get the sense or 'plan' of *why* they are continuing to develop Studio, that's the part I'm struggling with. The only thing I can come up with is what you and some others in the threads have postulated: that DAZ believes that they have to continue developing Studio to keep users interested in buying content, a fear that if they stopped Studio development tomorrow that immediately their customer base would start to dry up and content sales would plummet.
It's possible they are right, but it doesn't seem likely to me at all. It seems more logical to me that as long as Studio is advanced enough to support the content they are selling, then a free app like that will still attract new users, and current users who prefer using Studio aren't likely to abandon it, if they haven't already. And it's not like Studio development would stop - it's a program in wide useage, and there are a lot of 3rd party vendors already making plugins to enhance what Studio does and selling them in the DAZ store, there is no reason to think that would stop, in fact it may increase the development of Studio. After all, right now if you're a third party developer who is considering putting work and time into developing a Studio plugin to provide a new feature, you've got to worry about how long your window is before DAZ development makes your product obsolete. Imagine if Studio 5 comes out and they tout the new feature they've added for generating terrains. Whoops, the poor guy who poured so much time and effort into creating the Infinito plugin just had his product made obsolete. No more sales for him... and by the way this hurts DAZ too, as they lose out the content sales of Infinito that would have sold through their store previously.
There will probably always be people who are dedicated to only using Studio (same for Poser). While many Studio and Poser users do eventually move on to using different software apps when they bump up against the limits of what Studio/Poser can do, there's no reason to think that they would suddenly stop using content. My own path to this point was that I started with Poser, was dissatisfied with how slow the renders were and how difficult to work in it was, researched to find a new and more professional app that could do more and discovered Carrara (after first considering Vue) and moved into Carrara. I wanted an unbiased rendering solution as well, so I also eventually added Thea to the software that I used (my computer could not have run Octane and Lux was just too slow to render). Even though I'm currently learning to model in Carrara and I'm even learning how to create an organic human and getting not-too-awful results, there's no way I'm suddenly going to stop using content, as it makes no sense for me to spend hours and hours and hours building something that I can spend $10 bucks or less and buy from the DAZ store in less than a minute. I don't imagine it would be any different if I was running Vue, C4D, 3DS, Modo, Maya, Houdini, etc. I just don't believe that content sales would suddenly vanish if DAZ suddenly halted Studio development.
Tsarist, I 1000% agree! (probably not surprisingly :) )
Dynamic cloth! Dynamic Cloth, dynamic cloth, dynamic cloth... DAZ, are you listening? Lol, IMO this is the one feature that DAZ absolutely *has* to add in Carrara 9. We need a workable dynamic cloth solution, period, and if this isn't part of Carrara 9 then not only will that make the 9 release a disaster, but I'll have to start believing we'll never get it... But I actually do believe we'll get dynamic cloth in 9 (I'm optimistic about it, at least).
Also since 8.5 was supposed to be all about making Carrara Genesis-friendly, there's some weird basic stuff about Genesis that does seem very hit or miss, I agree. Someone already posted that the geo-grafted genitalia don't work, so I loaded it up to see, sure enough they seem to go on fine but the textures are all screwed up, and nothing I do in the texture room seems to remedy this, making them basically unusable. This isn't a big deal for me personally, but come on DAZ this seems like something basic, what's the deal? Also it seems that while the Genesis 2 figure is included in 8.5, auto fit doesn't work for her. After playing with Genesis a bit I am starting to see the appeal, seems like it would be an ideal concept for animation work, even if I think that maybe V4/M4 is more detailed for still images.
As for making a weight-mapped V4, maybe we should just go ahead and do it? I'm still barely learning modeling (but having fun at it) and I've never rigged anything or used the weight-mapping features, my only exposure to weight-mapping is a tutorial vid I watched once from DimensionTheory, but since we already have the weight-mapping tools couldn't we just go ahead and make one that's weight-mapped specifically in, and for, Carrara? Don't know if there's some technical limitation that prevents this. As for the perfect V4 fixes, I have them and use them all the time. Fenric had a cool forum thread in the old Carrara forums about how to make them work in Carrara, and they all seem to work pretty well (with the exception that I still get some weird bending in the thighs, though nowhere near what it was with the old un-perfect V4).
I also agree that the terrain generator should be upgraded to have the same functionality that can be found in Bryce. I understand if it's impossible to marry the Bryce code into Carrara, but I think the same features and functionality should be made available in Carrara. I also want to see the atmosphere and realistic sky tools enhanced, let's give Vue a real run for it's money, we already know from Howie Farkes that Carrara is capable of this, now lets make the controls more user-friendly.
And absolutely yes, let's bring the tools that Hex has that Carrara is missing up til now, into Carrara. I'm loving learning to model in Carrara, and even though I've heard from multiple sources that I trust Hex has better tools, I'm finding that I can do a lot in Carrara, pretty much everything I've tried to do so far. I tried to use Hex a couple of years back, and it crashed and crashed and crashed... I was left very frustrated, and from what I hear that's a common failing of Hex, so if DAZ isn't going to put the development time into Hex to make it stable, then it's a no-brainer they should put in a little development time to add the Hex toolset into Carrara. It seems to me that one of the greatest strengths of Carrara is the potential to do everything in Carrara without leaving the program, from modeling, rigging, uv-mapping, assembling, posing, texturing, animating etc, to the finished render.