Back on the bandwagon!

WsCG

Hello all...

So, I've had an on-again/off-again, somewhat turbulent relationship with Carrara. I start on stuff with it, and then get distracted (shiny object syndrome, basically) and end up falling away; usually because I get stuck on something in Carrara, and go back to the familiar territory of Blender3D. Well, Blender is getting a major update "soon" that's going to completely overhaul its entire interface and make it very dfiferent to work with. So.. if I'm going to have to become familiar with a new interface anyway, I might as well learn one that has a better content supply. I've been kinda getting annoyed by all the stuff being crammed into Blender in the past few years anyway. They seem to be just throwing stuff into it "because they can", even when perfectly good functionality already exists. It's becoming too much of "everything and the kitchen sink".

Lately, though, I've had a number of scenes and ideas that keep popping into my head (usually when I'm drifting off to sleep), many of which I know can be done via Daz products.

So, just rejoined the Platinum Club and picked up a couple necessary items. Dragons! I have an idea for a 'series of events" type set of scenes involving a dragon, so that was my first purchase.

I was curious, though, are there any "must have" deals going on in the DAZ store currently that folks would recommend? There's so much stuff in there, I don't know where to start looking.

Is Octane Renderer a recommended addon? Are there other/better alternatives? I know Carrara's built-in renderer is a bit behind the times. Maybe just rendering stuff out in DAZ3D is ideal?

Also, how's the Carrara community doing these days, what with DAZ throwing support fully behind Hexagon, but seemingly leaving Carrara out in the weeds? I see a lot of familiar names. Curious if many new faces have come along?

Anyway, nice random salad of questions there lol

Thanks!



 

3drendero

-Hexagon was updated to 64bit and exports to Carrara. It import obj files better than Carrara someone mentioned in another thread, so basically an updated Carrara plugin by DAZ. -DCG plugins are now free and open source http://www.digitalcarversguild.com/carraraplugins.php

3drendero

Octane and Carrara plugin was just updated to V4, still pricey. Luxus for Carrara plugin has not been updated, but luxrender itself was rebooted to V2.

Diomede

Welcome back to the band wagon.  

 

Good news and bad news. 

 

Bad news first.    Daz's customer service has reportedly told people that Daz does not have the resources to support further development of Carrara at this time, and reportedly Daz has encouraged vendors who had created content that is Carrara-only (landscape sets that use Carrara replicated plants, hair products that use Carrara's strand-based dynamics, etc.) to create content for Studio instead.  Daz is not currently updating Carrara to take advantage of the newest figure rigging and high definition morphs.   

 

Good news.    Incredibly talented Carrara folks have continued to make Carrara a better-and-better creative program.  First, Mystara has identified some of the issues that have obstructed use of newer figure rigging in Carrara. If you go to that other site that rhymes with monstrosity, you wil find free G8F and G8M character sets by Misty that allow the Genesis 8 figure meshes to be used in Carrara.  G8M and G8F content in the Daz store can be used in Carrara with Misty's G8 characters if the items are converted to "blended" rigging (just a one step process).  Similarly, Misty created characters for Genesis 3 figures.  Those cost a nominal fee, but are well wrth it if you wish to use G3 content in Carrara.

 

Second,   the plugin folks continue to add functionality to Carrara. An example includes a plugin to add dynamic draping to Carrara (VWD by Gerald can be used with a Carrara plugin bridge by Philemo).  Again, see that other site that rhymes with monstrosity.  Several incredible new plugins are free!    Other free plugins include a shader randomizer for replicated objects, a fluid simulation plugin (FLUIDOS), a hair-to-mesh plugin, a phong plugin to improve bump to displacement, and more.  A couple are Windows.

 

Regarding content, my primary generation is genesis 2.  I have to do some minimal adjustment to shaders, but the G2 stuff works very well in Carrara.  I know that several other people have built large libraries of Victoria 4 / Michael 4 content and continue to use those.  UnifiedBrain even entered a Victoria 1 image in a recent challenge, and it was most excellent.  EDIT:  SteveK enters 48 hour film festivals relying on Carrara and his library of V4/M4 content.

Diomede

FREE PLUGINS

 

Several DCG plugins for Carrara that used to be commercial are now free.  More information here.  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3899136/#Comment_3899136

 

 

3drendero

Too slow Diomede, DCG plugins already mentioned above. Some more plugin news here http://carraracafe.com

3drendero

Come to think of it, installing all new free plugins would be good enough for an inofficial Carrara 8.6 and with the commercial plugins like Octane, VWD and G3, an unofficial Carrara 9.

Headwax

3drendero said:

Come to think of it, installing all new free plugins would be good enough for an inofficial Carrara 8.6 and with the commercial plugins like Octane, VWD and G3, an unofficial Carrara 9.

i like how you are thinking

Retro Lad

TCY  Do you know when Blender is going to make their big changes to their inerface? Just a few months ago I was learning how to use it. What about bforartist?

Sometimes working with computer graphics feels like being stuck in one of Dante's circles of Hell.

3drendero

The free 2.80 beta has been released. Supposed to have an option for a simpler 101 GUI.