Carrara - Specific Shader Help Needed

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First, a little background on me and my use of Carrrara: I purchased Carrara 8.5 Pro several months ago and have been enjoying the program immensely. I quickly realized I was in over my head and purchased the online tutorials created by Phil Wilkes. They have been a tremendous help in learning this program. Now, on to my problem...

I've noticed an issue with some of the included shaders. Namely, the ivy and flower textures (among others) included with the 'Shaded Haven" files. These work perfectly in DAZ, but when I bring them into a scene in Carrara they vanish during a quick render, "full texture" view, and presumably final rendering. I have not attempted a final render since I can not see the textures in the quick render.

I have tried everything I can think of to get the texture to appear on the ivy properly to no avail.
- I tried loading the scene from the DAZ Studio Tutorials folder, Scene Builder folder, and even built it piece by piece from the Environments folder. I get color to the ivy and flowers just not in the quick render or full texture view.
- I have tried dragging the .MAT files from the browser folders directly onto the scene. This will either create an instance of the .MAT file in the Instances tab that just appears as a little yellow square on my work space grid or if I place the .MAT file on the pergola in the scene to use the "smart texturing" it shows a loading box in the top center of the program, but nothing changes. The ivy and flowers still do not render.
- I have tried dragging and dropping the .MAT file directly onto the Instances tab in every conceivable location dealing with the Shaded Haven scene. This only adds an instance of the .MAT file with a default shader.
- I have tried directly loading just the ivy model into the scene. It appears as a solid white model until I apply the ivy and flower textures through the Shader tab, then the ivy and flowers disappear leaving me with just the branches.
- I have tried changing the default Alpha mask in the Shader room for the ivy leaves, but this changed nothing with the final product.
- I have eliminated the Alpha mask in the Shader room for the ivy leaves, no change.
- I have applied the ivy texture to other objects. The object vanishes from the screen but is still able to be manipulated.
- I have turned on light through transparency. All this seems to do is increase the quick render time with no change to the created image.
- I have tried dragging the ivy leaf shader directly from the Shader tab onto the ivy object in the scene and the leaves vanish.
- I have looked at the ivy in the Modeling room. Not sure what I was looking for there... I'm admittedly getting a little desperate...

I also can not seem to make use of any of the other included ivy and flower .MAT files for the Shaded Haven scene within Carrara and do not know for certain if they work with DAZ. Although, since the default textures work there, I assume the others do as well. The only .MAT files that appear to work properly are those of the ivy branch. I can switch between the two provided options using the drag and drop on the scene method and they work perfectly every time.

Admittedly I am having a similar problem with other textures as well, I can not get the shaders for the benches within the Secret Haven scene to work (thankfully, they don't disappear) , nor can I get the default female face texture for the Genisis 2 to change to any of the different makeup options (no disappearing here either). I've tried all the things above with these as well and ended up with the same results. No change in the image.

Is there something I'm missing somewhere? A setting? A different way to load shaders? Do I need to do a full re-install? Do I need to re-install the Shaded Haven Files?

I've had this issue from the beginning and played with a lot of other tools within Carrara to keep my mind occupied. For some reason I just got a wild idea to try something with some of the included materials, after all I paid for them, might as well play with them...

I could set up the Shaded Haven scene in DAZ the way I want it, and then attempt to somehow match camera angles and lighting options within Carrara for the background and sky then mix the two renders in photoshop, but that sounds like a LOT of extra work just to get a similar product with properly working shaders... sigh...

Thanks in advance for any and all help provided.

-PX-

(edited slightly for grammar and spelling)

[email protected]

Confirmed: The ivy does not show up in a final render either... :down:

Totte

My first thought is that those shaders are 3Delight Shaders and those wont work in Carrara. Try to load the Poser version of the set, might work better.

[email protected]

Thanks Totte! I uninstalled the Poser stuff to save space on my machine... I'll re-install them and give it a go tonight. Hopefully your idea is correct!

Is there any way to find out what shaders are 3Delight so that I can avoid frustration in the future?

Totte

If you check the shader (surface) in DS you might see that it's not the usual one, but it's hard to see as some do look different but still import correctly in Carrara.

[email protected]

Ok, so I tried to find the files for the "Barefoot Dancer" scene in my DAZ Installer and I don't have them. I presume that the scene came with either DAZ 4.6 or Carrara 8.5 Pro native files, as I don't remember purchasing the required components for the scene from the shop. I looked through the native files included from within the installer and couldn't find them. There are A LOT of files in those packages. so I could have easily missed them. They may also not be named the same, but that seems far less likely.

I spent the better part of three hours trying different shaders on the leaves and flowers. I discovered that any shader with an Alpha channel will cause the leaves and the flowers to disappear during a render or in textured view. For example: The standard "Moss" shader shows up for a render, but even a custom made texture (spent 5 minutes in MSPaint making a green star and an alpha map as a stand in for the ivy) disappears in a render.

I was able to figure up a work around (for my ivy issue at least) by locating the ivy and flower shaders on my hard drive and applying them as a Texture Map and Alpha Map to small planes. I then added a surface replicator to the ivy model and placed the newly textured planes into it. It doesn't look as pretty as the original design, but it is functional. And I'm sure if I spent enough time tweaking it I could get a satisfactory result.

I may just give up on trying to get the Carrara 8.5 included content to work and purchase the necessary files from the shop. It'll probably be expensive, but some of the included files don't interest me much.

Thanks Totte for the tips on what shaders won't work in Carrara! I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to spot the differences you mentioned, but at least now I know why some of the included shaders don't work!