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Quote from the Carrara Sale email alert thread:
Well, it worked. As mentioned in the Carrara store page, Auto-fit for Genesis 2 is not fully compatible so she still has a hard time wearing V4 clothing - but I have my G1 version for that! Now she can wear all the stuff I bought for G2!
Like my Genesis 1 Rosie character, before I loaded her copy of Genesis 2 Female into Carrara, I emptied the morph data from the Daz Library of anything I knew I didn't want her to have as a shape slider, and made sure that I had all the stuff from other generations added via Genesis Generation X2. Not sure if that brings the file size down, but it sure does make it more convenient for me when it comes to animating those sliders - although 8.5's addition of the search field helps even more with that! ;)
I'm still using the character-specific light rigs I've explained over the years, and now I'm using Carrara Dynamic Hair with my own custom proxies for collisions, so I started by opening my Rosie 5 Carrara file, hide the clothing and dragged Rosie off to one side. Then loaded in the Genesis 2 Female base figure.
The V4 for G2F product has a single user-facing file in the G2F Materials library which gives G2F (no matter which preset was used to load her) the UV Mapping to work with Victoria 4 maps, which is exactly what I wanted.
So right in the Assemble room, I select Actor and, in the Shading tab place all of Rosie 5's shaders in the appropriate slots. For any newcomers, we cannot just make a full-body shader preset from Genesis 1 to some other figure because the order of material zones are not the same. In this case, the number of material zones aren't the same either. But that doesn't matter. You know how Daz3d figures have special names for material zones that begin with a number, right? So I name my shaders to match these, kind of. Since there are 3 main skin shaders for all of the various skin covered material zones, I just give those main shaders the most recognizeable name, like 001_R6_Face, 002_R6_Torso, 003_R6_Limbs, for example. I used to just use the single place number ("1" instead of "001"), but my DigiVault collection (very nicely) uses numbers in material zones as well - which makes it a LOT easier for editing all of the various shaders. So with the three digits, it's more common for my actress' shaders to rise to the top of the list.
Wow. It wasn't long at all and I had twins in front of me! When I was happy with Rosie 6, I slid Rosie 5 back to her zeroed position and Rosie 6 was only slightly too short. One quick change and they occupied the same space! It was so cool!
So then I just selected everything I had parented to Rosie 5, grouped it and dragged it out of her animation group, which I then deleted. Now open the group and parent everything where it belongs on the new actress and she was ready to rock with Dynamic hair and everything!
This experiment was also really cool to see how well the G2F shapes converted over to Genesis 1 via Genesis Generation X2. There are anomolies that occur for joint rotation and such, since Daz3d puts a LOT of effort into making JCMs (Joint Controlled Morphs) for every situation they come across while developing a figure. That's one of the many reasons that they are so good at this.
Anyway, I have some cool stuff for Genesis 2 Female, so I'm glad to have her on board now! I still love my Generation 3 and 4 clothing for all of the various morphs they came with compared to Genesis clothing. For this character (Rosie 5) in particular, it's been a lot easier for me to work with auto-fit clothing from a previous generation that to use clothing made for Genesis, simply because of the lack of morphs built in to the latter. Being an action figure, she often needs to have a bit of plastic wrap fitting, which she just doesn't get from the more modern products.
I haven't tried the Genesis 2 aniBlocks (or PZ2s!!!) on Genesis 1 yet, but the Genesis ones I got from PoserMoCap are phenominal! I love the collection!!! I have most if not all of the Generation 4 stuff made by PoserMoCap, and I love that with Genesis!
Okay, with this amazing sale going on (I love Daz3d, and I love being a PC+ member!!!) Rosie let me buy some more animation packs - bless her incredibly wonderful heart!
I couldn't help myself. After applying a few of the new animations I got from PoserMoCap for Genesis, I was so incredibly pleased with the purchase that I had to create a "Thank You" thread. I started to make it here. in the Carrara forum, but decided that Commons would be a better Thank You to these incredible animation pack providers - and they certainly deserve my gratitude.
So I also included a brief description of how I tear apart the data to make my own, custom creations.
Anyway, here's a link to the thread if you're interested: Rocking it with MoCap!!!
Holy smokes, Age of Armour does a fine video tutorial!
I've just found this on his site. This is exactly how I used to blend my skin maps from dry to wet right in the same animated sequence. In my new workflow, I have just switched to instead using the new-to-8.5 Multi-Layer so that I can control each individual aspect on the fly during the time of an animation. But it also makes for a great default shader for characters, because even for a still, the actor can get wet or dry off or anywhere in between with the sliding of a few dials. Sweet!
Wow! That was very deep, but also very clear.
Thanks for finding and posting this, Dart!
Yeah! He does an amazing tutorial, doesn't he? Yikes!
While there are clearly some brilliant folks in this DAZ/forum neighborhood, my instincts lead me to believe AoA would be one fascinating neighbor and friend. Everything he touches strikes some chord wi me.
Even a few moments of thought, and I realize that there truly are a large number of names in here that probably warrant that same sentiment.
bravo and thanks to all.
appreciated,
--ms
Like you... perhaps? :)
Thanks to you too, my friend!
I've come into all of this with a desire to animate stuff. I've been practicing for quite some time now and feel comfortable in my animation skills. Yeah... in many areas I need a lot of work - but that's animation: Experience wins! So the only way to improve is to push on, and keep doing it.
Well since I got my new computer built, that's almost all I've been doing with it - and before I even had the parts, I was struggling with this laptop, but I was still practicing.
So what did I get myself for Christmas? Yup! PhilW's Animation in Carrara Video Tutorial collection!!! Yaaay!!!
There's stuff in there that I can't wait to get Phil's take on, some stuff I probably haven't even explored yet (he's such an investigator!) and beyond that, I just like watch PhilW shows!
So Merry Christamas to me from me!
Immediately, I began learning new important information about animation tools in Carrara! Amazing.
There are some highly rated educational materials on animating that are quite beyond affordability for me. I've even forgotten where many of those bookmarks are now - I've given up so completely, the idea of ever being able to afford them. So I've been gleaning what I can from free materials on the internet - there are a lot of wonderful articles and reports available - and then the VFX education I've been in also helped me to understand more as well.
I didn't really realize that I was still just a newbie to all of this when I finally broke down and bought Advanced Training Techniques, then sold at Daz3d through Infinite Skills, authored by Phil Wilkes. I learned so much that I decided to collect his entire series. The Basic Learning (I have the newer 8.5 version) taught me a LOT more than I was expecting to learn. I was already following what PhilW was publishing here on the forum regarding Linear Workflow before his Realistic Rendering (final course through Infinite Skills) was released - so buying that one was a no-brainer for me.
Looking back now - even just some of the tests that I've done recently, I have to concede that I am still a learner. Taking on this huge challenge with the little tidbits of time I get on a computer is vastly different than if I'd have pursued this as a career via college, etc., Picking things up along the way is a LOT different than following a structured curriculum!
Remembering back, I was thanking PhilW for his great work on his tutorial videos. There are a lot of folks out there making a lot of money on tutorials that aren't even close to being as comprehensive and complete and, especially... understandable. So I felt the urge to beg him to make a course on animation. I wanted to know more about the intricacies of NLA Clips and how to work with them in ways not so obvious. I also knew that PhilW knows a lot more about the animation controls and tools in Carrara than what I was aware, and that is certainly still very true.
Boom... I begin the animation course from the beginning - as I should - and like expected it starts off nice and gradual - as it should. Almost immediately, even in that early gradual learning part I'm already learning something that I wasn't keen on before. Incredible! So glad I got this thing!
I'm still very early-on in this many-hour course, and I'm just loving it. Even if it ended up that I only learned a few things, I knew I'd still be happy, because I love watching Carrara TV, hosted by Phil Wilkes! After watching them many times over, I still enjoy plating through all of the Carrara courses he's made. I really do!
It's truly unfortunate that Infinite Skills has sold, and that the new publishers didn't keep everything 'alive' so that these awesome courses were once again easy to come by. But for those looking, I recall seeing some of them available at Amazon!
+++
always time-well-spent!
good content, good 'data rate', and never condescending - obviously the kind of fellow you'd like to have a pint with down the street - sharing his hard-learned lessons so we can avoid the scrapes.
hear! hear!
--ms
Well Said! :)
@Dartanbeck
So, what add-ons would be good to get with Carrara if I wanted to use it for animation? That tutorial looks good that you shared up above. Anything else, I'm pretty sure I don't have any Carrara specific add-ons.
I'm not really going for realistic, would love to get a more graphic novel quality to my renders/animation.
Thanks for any advice and keep on with they updates!
It's a bummer that you don't have any of Fenric's plugins, because I think Daz3d dropped his store and I'm not sure if those will become available again, but I use his all the time for helping with various tasks in preparation and throughout the animation process - that a whole other discussion. But maybe see if there's a way to find plugins from Fenric. His site used to be Fox's Den, I think. Awesome stuff.
All of our tastes vary immensely - especially mine. I think I tend to do things a lot different than most Carrara artists I know. So I'm just going to list some plugins here and let you have a look at them - see what you like.
Jay Nola made this awesome Index/FAQ of Carrara plugins at the time of his writing. He also inspired me to by Jeremy Birn's amazing book, Digital Lighting and Rendering. Just keep in mind that many of the plugins mentioned are now unavailable through the links provided by him. Whether you can find them now, I'm not sure. DCG plugins are now Open Source, so no need for trial versions as mentioned in Jay's article, and below this link I'll continue on, because we have new plugins that ARE available that I know about.
► Carrara Plugins FAQ & Information - By Jay_NOLA
Jay compilled and organized a great measure of info regarding Plugins specific to our
beloved Carrara. FAQ, Information and Links to help you determine which are right for you. Thank You Jay_NOLA!
Alvin Bémar and Philemo have now joined our ranks in developing new plugins for Carrara - and as far as I can tell... they're still working on creating more(?) and Sparrowhawke has added stuff not mentioned in Jay's article.
I don't have much time, so you'll have to search for info on these plugins. I think it might be easier to search using a search engine than to use the forum search. Google will lead you to specific threads within the forum about what you're searching for, where I haven't had that same experience using the forum's search. Maybe it's better now... just saying.
Alvin Bémar makes plugins like Fluidos (fluid simulation), LightX (new light/shadow features) and Genesis Morph Eraser (remove unused morphs before you save). His are Free and available at his ShareCG Gallery
Philemo makes plugins like (just to name a few) HD Morph Support for Carrara, PBR Lighting, Hair Convertor and much more. His Phong Tesselation plugin, for example, is for adding microdisplacement (I think?) instead of just using Bump or Displacement. GMIC is a collection of post effect filters like you'd expect to use in an image editor - directly in Carrara during the render process. His plugins are Free and available at his Carrara Time Savers shop.
Sparrowhawke3d has his own site with brief descriptions, some video tutorials, example... even an experimental lab for trying other fun plugins. His are Free too, but he also has a well-deserved Patreon Project going to help fund more in the future. He has really cool plugins like Belt drives, extra primitive shapes, dynamic cloth, jiggle deformer and a whole lot more.
Digital Carver's Guild (DCG) is now Open Source! These plugins have been highly sought after as long as I've known Carrara to exist! DCG Carrara Plugins
Argh... I type too slowly and I'm out of time. I'll try to get back with more - especially if you have specific questions about any of these.
So with my time limited right now, I've found a list of links to threads in the forum you might find interesting, but I haven't visited some of these for quite some time, so I can't recall what's in them anymore:
Plugins
* How does one learn to be a Carrara programmer?
* texture from camera (solved using DCG Shader Ops 2 and Inagoni's Baker)
* Sparrowhawke3D Plugins for Carrara 8/8.5 for Mac (and some updates)
* After Effects plugin still work?
* PySwarm for PyCarrara
* PyCarrara question
* aniBlock importer failed to load (in Carrara 8)
* Oh yea. Octane for Carrara
* Skin Settings for Luxus for Carrara
* Simulating Realistic Flocking Behavior in Carrara using PyCarrara
* Exploration into PyCarrara Plug-In
* soundwaves and py Carrara
* Want fluids for Carrara? Try PyCloid!!! If you like it, please don't forget to Donate!
* Luxus for Carrara released!
* Luxus: IBL and Background
* Genesis 2 basic female Mimic lipsync tute
* soundwaves and py Carrara
That was just copied and pasted from my ► Forum Help Links - The Plugins area. I want to work on this when/if I get the chance. How it was supposed to work is that we could visit threads that were already created, so that anyone following the thread would get notified of something new (comment, answer, question, etc.,) and check it out, so that each one could grow with more info, etc.,
Frederick Ribble (links in Jay's article above) has toiled away and brought to us the wonderful PyCarrara and PyCloid. With his permission, I've compiled a playlist of his brief and wonderful demo videos. Enjoy!
Here's the first video in the list, just as a teaser
With all respect, f1oat3d, I love you man!
Finally before I go, I made this thing to help folks as much as I can. It began with the indexing of (the late
) Cripeman's tutorial videos (Awesome!!!). I'm sure that a lot of it is feeling its age - I had quite a long period of no communication with this forum, and just recently got back home. But it does have some fun stuff:
►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄
It should also be said that I am a Huge fan of PD Howler (Project Dogwaffle Pro), which allows me to work with my animated renders in ways I just haven't been able to using anything else.
Here is a thread I started back when I was considering buying it. I kept seeing it at Daz3d as a crazy and fun new way to work with image editing, including animations. After getting it I've found out that the developer, Dan Ritchie, is a VFX artist and has been putting a lot of amazing animation tools into it. He's still (yup, even right this very minute, I'm sure) constantly working on it. It's awesome!
Project Dogwaffle Howler Thread
I mentioned to him (Dan Ritchie) that I wish that the Oilify filter had the Animate option (applies current setting across the entire timeline). He uploaded an update the next day with my wish come true!
The YouTube channel is immense. I made a playlist of some of the very earliest of their videos - The Daily Dose - so that I could get to grips with saying goodbye to Adobe forever and learn how to operate this different way of image manipulation. It really is different than PS by design since day one (he felt there were enough PS clones coming) but I really love the differences. For those times that I really need that PS feel in a workflow, I use Affinity Photo. I simply refuse to use subscription-ware!
The fellow in most of these videos is Dan's partner, Philip Staiger, who actually used to be in the development team for Carrara when Eovia still had it! He makes a cool and entertaining video!
Here's a video that was just uploaded 7 hours before I wrote this - it's Dan giving us a friendly reminder of some of the many ways to work with Gradients in Howler. When he gets to the part about using the Curve tool, just know that the Curve tool in Howler is a full-blown rotoscope animateable selection tool. I use it to fix things in animated renders that would otherwise require rendering all over again.
Another recent video by Philip demonstrating just a glimpse of the power behind Howler's Particle Modeler. Howler also has a rather amazing particles brush system, which is also available in the Artist edition of Dogwaffle, as well as it's own, stand-alone app. But that's not this. This is the Howler-only Particle modeler:
Especially for non-realistic motion graphics, I really enjoy this playlist that I've made. It's a fairly complete list of the behind-the-scenes videos of the CLone Wars series hosted by the host you see for each of the videos. He has everything season by season and for a lot more than just The Clone Wars.
Inspiration via The Clone Wars YouTube Playlist
It helps that I'm really into the show. Watching these featurettes gives incredible looks inside how they were able to pull off such an amazing show under a tight schedule - and the inventive techniques... I love it.
"I knew right away that the last thing we want to use is a sim. We needed to come up with a system that's easy for our artists to use..." Joel Arron
Here is another playlist I've made regarding Intro Steps for VFX in PD Howler
Hmmm... another couple of months and I can take "Almost" off the thread title.
Okay, I just had to make mention of how happy I am with my new computer. That said, I'm still using the same tower case that I bought over six years ago for my previous build, and I Love this thing!
In the image on the right, check out the deep cavity between the motherboad tray and the side panel behind it. I'm referring to the big rectangular hole just to the right of the fan that we can see in the back. That's an oversized cutout for the CPU! Sweet!
If you look at the floor of the inside of the case, right in the back, we can see a filter where the PSU (power supply) draws its air in. I love filtered intakes! Speaking of... that whole front panel opens, and it has a full sized filter behind it as well, along with installation holes for two more 120mm fans, which I have filled. I also put a filter on the fan that I installed in the side window, which isn't shown here.
The entire metal tower is nicely constructed with professionally rounded edges, so no cutting one's self during the build process. All of the expansion bays in the front (HDD, SSD, etc.,) are tool-less with nice little rails for installing without a fuss.
My last build featured the lowest end of AMD's first eight core processor line - Zambezi. That was different than what they call Zambezi now, I think. I got mine and DAZ_Spooky got the highest end one. We were both very pleased with our builds!
This baby computes like crazy. It comes with AMD's Wraithspire cooling tower, so I just stuck with that. My Zambezi came with a really nice cooler that held up even during Batch Queue render sessions that would last entire days or longer.
Mine is the 2700 which has a standard speed of 3.2GHz, which is fine for me. It's all unlocked, and the motherboard makes over-clocking a simple affair, but I'm not interested in pushing beyond spec. Leave that for those with more disposeable income. Nah... this thing is plenty fast for this fellow.
With this thing and 64GB of RAM (and I didn't seek out spending more for the fastest RAM either), I'm rendering Rosie 5 animation with her simulated hair and soft shadows all around at 16 seconds per frame at mid-long shots, and still under 1 min per frame for mid-closeups (see the whole head and upper torso). I haven't recorded dialog yet, so I haven't been rendering closeups yet.
NM are now
nVidia GPUs get much higher than this, but the 1408 cuda cores in this, along with the 6GB 192-bit GDDR5 graphics memory is a real boon to my build. I haven't played games except for the intros just to get a feel for this part of my system, since I'm not using Octane. The Witcher 3 runs smoothly with everything at Full including using nVidia dynamic hair. Mass Effect Andromeda and Dragon Age Inquisition can still drag it down a bit if I crank everything up to Utra, but lowering it back down a bit didn't seem to make a visual difference to me on my 24" wide screen monitor.
I wasn't expecting to find an improvement to OpenGL in Carrara, but there certainly is one!
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 VENTUS XS 6G OC
? Wendy?
oh your render baby pics were not showing
are now
Luvs my Ryzen!!!
Another fun thing I did on my laptop when my main machine was down. This is Inagoni's PrimiVol set up to work as engine fire.
Forgive the tiny resolution. Laptop can only take so much!~ LOL
Okay... gif didn't work. Guess I have to use YouTube
It's really subtle - but engine fire should be subtle. Well... unless it's blowing up or malfunctioning.
Hmmm... it's been a while!
One of my coworkers is 72 with health issues, so we're paying him to stay home. That meant that the rest of our tiny crew has been covering his hours, so yeah... exhausted.
Anyway, a while back I promised to take a break from my main project to do a little demonstration of what I've been doing - that's still coming, it's just been slowed down a bit more. Got some cool things to show you!
When I came here to type this, I noticed the post just above this one - with the PrimiVol fire. Well I've also been using PrimiVol for all manner of things since we last spoke. You know when you get a scene that has trans-mapped fire? We have to put the color map in the glow channel, etc., etc.,
Being into animation, I've used stock footage of real fire, brought that into Howler to create the animated tras-maps and put hose in place of what comes with the product. Works pretty cool.
Well I'm not doing that anymore. Now it's all PrimiVol!
Strange, I've had that for so long but was always putting off learning to use it. I'd still love to get my hands on some tutorials for it but, for now I'm enjoying just making it work on my own!
Cheers all - see you again soon!
cheers
i'll toast to 10 years
been over 10 years for me too, I decade
FWIW, the stuff you guys are doing and know are mind-blowing for 10 years. bravo!
Per
I'll see you, and raise you: A toast to the next ten - may they be healthy, creative, and rich with renders for all!
(that's a great little image - saved it for future toasts!)
--ms