Carrara Pre-Purchase Questions
tscott_bally
Posts: 0
I have Daz3D and was looking at purchasing various plugins such as Autofit, animate2, Keyframer, Mimic live, etc. Basically, to get the tool up to where I need it for what I am doing. I was even considering Reality 2 for LuxRender. Then, I found out that Daz3D doesn't have physics and no dynamic hair, etc. I found a thread saying they probably don't have those things because then there'd be no reason to upgrade to Carrara.
So, I said "wait, what?" Then started looking at Carrara and seeing that it's basically Daz3D with all the bells and whistles. Is that true? Can I do everything in Carrara that I could do in Daz3D, but with more features?
Bottom line are the following questions.
1. What won't I be able to do in Carrara that I can do in Daz3D?
2. Is all Daz3D content usable in Carrara?
3. Does Carrara use the same render engine or is it better?
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Comments
You won't be able to use Optitex dynamic cloth in Carrara. There are ways to freeze the simulation that you run in DAZ Studio into animated morphs, but I don't know the process. There are issues with the Genesis 2 figures at the moment. These may be fixed when C9 is released DAZ soon. ;-)
Carrara uses its own render engine. I think it is superior right out of the box. It is faster than DAZ Studio's renderer. There is a plugin for Luxrender and I understand Octane has plugin in beta at the moment.
Carrara is entirely different from DAZ Studio.It has a different lineage and a different UI. It is true that Carrara has many features that you would need a plugin in D|S to do (if it at all).
Carrara can use Poser and DAZ figures mostly just fine (see caveat about Gen2 above).
Some of the features I'm about to go into are for Pro only, but I can't recall which exactly.
Carrara has its own physics engine as well as Bullet which can do soft body physics. There is no rag doll physics though.
For environments, Carrara has a terrain generator, atmosphere/sky editor, volumetric clouds, plant generator, ocean primitive, and a surface replicator (to grow a forest fr example)
For modeling, Carrara has a vertex modeler, spline modeler, metaball modeler and the above mentioned terrain generator. In the, Not Quite Modeling category, there is the dynamic hair editor, the volumetric cloud editor, and the plant editor.
Additional features include a rigging system and weight painting, a very powerful shading system, 3D paint where you can paint directly on your object, deformers and modifiers, shadowcatcher (a lighting model in the shader system), fire and fog primitives, shape lights, volumetric lights that can use real-world IES profiles, multiple camera types such as conical, zoom and wide angle, but also including isometric and spherical, special effects such 3D light sphere, DOF, lens flares, toon render options and non-photoreal renderer, editable keyframes, multiple tweener types, graph editor, etc. etc.
There are some things to be aware of. Carrara, DAZ Studio, Poser and pretty much all 3D software uses its own shader and texture system. Carrara can open Poser files natively, but sometimes there is a shader function that is used in Poser that is done differently than Carrara. Carrara translates the best it can, but inevitably you will come across a shader or texture that will need to be fixed. It's not hard, and one of our Carrara gurus, Fenric, has some inexpensive plugins that can help automate some of the fixes.
Thanks for the information. It was very helpful. I've found a version 8 trial and am giving it a shot. Looks like a winner to me.
Tommy
You won't be able to use Optitex dynamic cloth in Carrara. There are ways to freeze the simulation that you run in DAZ Studio into animated morphs, but I don't know the process. There are issues with the Genesis 2 figures at the moment. These may be fixed when C9 is released DAZ soon. ;-)
Carrara uses its own render engine. I think it is superior right out of the box. It is faster than DAZ Studio's renderer. There is a plugin for Luxrender and I understand Octane has plugin in beta at the moment.
Carrara is entirely different from DAZ Studio.It has a different lineage and a different UI. It is true that Carrara has many features that you would need a plugin in D|S to do (if it at all).
Carrara can use Poser and DAZ figures mostly just fine (see caveat about Gen2 above).
Some of the features I'm about to go into are for Pro only, but I can't recall which exactly.
Carrara has its own physics engine as well as Bullet which can do soft body physics. There is no rag doll physics though.
For environments, Carrara has a terrain generator, atmosphere/sky editor, volumetric clouds, plant generator, ocean primitive, and a surface replicator (to grow a forest fr example)
For modeling, Carrara has a vertex modeler, spline modeler, metaball modeler and the above mentioned terrain generator. In the, Not Quite Modeling category, there is the dynamic hair editor, the volumetric cloud editor, and the plant editor.
Additional features include a rigging system and weight painting, a very powerful shading system, 3D paint where you can paint directly on your object, deformers and modifiers, shadowcatcher (a lighting model in the shader system), fire and fog primitives, shape lights, volumetric lights that can use real-world IES profiles, multiple camera types such as conical, zoom and wide angle, but also including isometric and spherical, special effects such 3D light sphere, DOF, lens flares, toon render options and non-photoreal renderer, editable keyframes, multiple tweener types, graph editor, etc. etc.
There are some things to be aware of. Carrara, DAZ Studio, Poser and pretty much all 3D software uses its own shader and texture system. Carrara can open Poser files natively, but sometimes there is a shader function that is used in Poser that is done differently than Carrara. Carrara translates the best it can, but inevitably you will come across a shader or texture that will need to be fixed. It's not hard, and one of our Carrara gurus, Fenric, has some inexpensive plugins that can help automate some of the fixes.
Just so you don't get any unwanted surprises, C8 does not support Genesis at all. The Gen 4 figures and earlier (I've heard as early as Gen 2) will work. Genesis support was added in C8.5.
If you would like a free scene to experiment with, here's a link to one I put out as a thank you to members of the Carrara community for all the help they've given me and others over the years.
The Dropbox link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7370483/Fantasy-terrain1.7.zip
Or, if you prefer, I have it on ShareCG where you can look at some promo images. I also have other Carrara specific freebies. Some are better than others, while some were just learning exercises.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/69697/view/5/3D-Model/Fantasy-Village-terrain
Tscott---- do not feel like its you. Trying sometimes to understand Daz's grand plan with their products (if there is one) is well beyond mere mortals. Evilproducer has given a pretty good summary however.
I understand your predicament and it is confusing to choose as these two are pretty similiar in many ways and different in many ways. I will just say --there are many Carrara peoples who never use daz studio, and a like amount who use it together. I am one of those who never really got into Daz Studio.
rich
Thanks for the input. I'm almost certain I'll move to Carrara. I'm trying the v8 trial and so far liking it. Still so much more to try before I'm sure, but feature-wise alone it has so much more than Daz3D. I was going to have to buy a bunch of plugins for Daz3D and still wouldn't have all the features of Carrara.
While getting your feet wet in Carrara, please don't forget to treat yourself to what our resident super-hero has to say about it! I have compiled a helpful index of links to help find the subject you need most:
Cripeman’s Carrara Video Tutorials Index
Cripeman is a Carrara optimist and has some wonderful insights to share with the world.
Awesome. Thanks for the link. I'm sure those will help tremendously!
Thanks for the input. I'm almost certain I'll move to Carrara. I'm trying the v8 trial and so far liking it. Still so much more to try before I'm sure, but feature-wise alone it has so much more than Daz3D. I was going to have to buy a bunch of plugins for Daz3D and still wouldn't have all the features of Carrara.
Many people use DAZ Studio as almost a plugin for Carrara. With the way the CMS and Genesis is set up, you almost have to. That part I am honestly not thrilled with.
Other people use Poser as kind of plugin.
I am really getting to love DAZ Studio but it will never (as far as I can see) be able to replace Carrara for me. I got into all of this to animate fantasy characters. Even more, to make movies with those animated clips. Carrara helps me beyond any other software on the market, as far as I can tell. It's render engine has a fairly robust setting by default, as far as ray tracing is concerned, while keeping the actual object and shadow accuracy levels, and anti-aliasing at their near-minimum ratings. After seeing how quickly it renders this way, especially compared to how slow DS and Poser render using ray tracing, I have decided to try and optimize characters and scenes to make the most out of using these lower settings, while still looking decent. If you even see one of my renders, and you know it's mine, you can be fairly sure that it was done using those basic settings.
Sure enough! Messing around with shaders and lights, I found myself having the ability to use Carrara's wonderful Batch Queue rendering to render as I sleep and then work the next day. Often times my renders are done before work the next day - simply because it renders really fast using those settings.
But much more than that, Carrara offered me the opportunity to tweak the mesh of any model. I went searching for a way to do that, while I was using Poser. After totally giving up my search, news reached my ears that an app called Carrara 5 Pro is a modeler that can import Poser figures, like Victoria 3, etc., so I started looking into it. By then it was on Carrara 6, and I finally saved up enough just before 8 came out to buy it for myself.
Carrara really is a modeler, and in more ways than one, or two... or....
I wasn't even looking at the fact that it has all of the plant-making and landscaping abilities - I was in the habit of building up scenes from content.
After owning Carrara, however, I started to find that all of its abilities are very handy - constantly. I have also found it to be the easiest way for me to animate using the timeline and manipulating the figure joints myself, creating keyframes along the way. Somehow, even though the tool icons look pretty much the same, Carrara just seems to allow me to work freely without getting a horrible headache.
After owning Carrara for a few years, I doubt I could be happy doing this stuff without it.
After playing with various version numbers of DAZ Studio, since the 4.0 release, I've been gaining a lot of interest in its beautiful content creation tools. DAZ 3D has a wonderful bit of information Right Here on This Site regarding how to use the tools to create content for Genesis, and some great info videos In This Playlist I've found on their YouTube channel, mainly regarding the Content Creation Tools. So I've been part-time experimenting with clothing creation and rigging. Now that Carrara 8.5 allows for native DUF file use, even though this part is still in its infancy, this whole Carrara > DS > Carrara thing is getting interesting and powerful.
Personally, it feels to me like DAZ 3D software is on the verge of something majorly cool - and I want to help them push forward that new horizon. Genesis blows my mind. My main heroes already designed and optimized using V4 and M4, I haven't been focusing my attention towards using Genesis for them, too much. But I have been using it to make monsters!
Anyways, longer story a bit less long... DAZ Studio really seems to be advancing beautifully as a Genesis Prep tool for me while Carrara is the place where I go to relax while getting some real work done! :)
Sounds like you use the tools in the same way I'm going to be using them. Thanks for all the information.
It's always a pleasure to share how much I enjoy using Carrara! :)
At the end of the Day ....I think if you find needing to buy things for Daz studio to do what you need --you will find Carrara out of the box has most everything you need.
If you come over to Carrara ........you will not be disappointed.
rich
I'll probably be using both, but if I can do everything in Carrara and better then I might just use it exclusively.
before you buy check out iClone - does so much more then Carrara 8.5
I believe that if we are on a dedicated forum to Carrara, it is to encourage everyone to use it most deeply possible and not to encourage them to buy another software.
I tested iClone, it is true that it makes some other things very but there are so much more possibilities in Carrara and a quite higher quality of renders.
If it is wanted that DAZ continues the evolution of Carrara, potentials users should not be discouraged…
I believe that if we are on a dedicated forum to Carrara, it is to encourage everyone to use it most deeply possible and not to encourage them to buy another software.
I tested iClone, it is true that it makes some other things very but there are so much more possibilities in Carrara and a quite higher quality of renders.
If it is wanted that DAZ continues the evolution of Carrara, potentials users should not be discouraged…
Daz sells iClone - so they make money no mater what some ones buys
Funny you should say that. I'm a long time iClone user. And it's precisely why I'm looking at Carrara. iClone is great for some things, but just doesn't give me the quality renders that I want. Sure iClone 6 promises software rendering, but it's still a long ways off. I'll be checking it out again when v6 comes out, but not holding my breath. Each version has promised to me to be thee one that will give me what I want, but then it just falls short of expectations.
A mechanic just doesn't have single wrench in his toolbox. He has a selection of wrenches, and sockets, and ratchets, and screw drivers.... etc. etc.
It's great that you love iClone bigh. People also feel just as passionately about Carrara, or DAZ Studio, or Poser. Just because you have Carrara on your computer doesn't mean you can't have iClone. Just ask Wendy. All the software I mentioned has one thing in common (and I don't mean the ability to use Content), they're tools in your toolbox. When a job calls for a specific tool, that's what you use.
I could not have said it better .
I've decided to just stick with iClone. After messing with Daz3D and Carrara for a while, I find iClone is the better choice for me. Especially with version 6 coming out with all the enhanced features and rendering. I'll have to wait a little bit longer for my dream tool, but it'll be worth it.