How to go from Carrara8.5 to Daz Studio4.5?

Erik Heyninck

Hi all,

Here I am with the next problem. I tried the manual, google, YT,... but I don't seem to be able to find an answer.

- I opened S6HD in carrara with a clay shader from the latest DazStudio.Worked fine.
- I used the parameters to shape the figure.
- I wanted to save the figure as a duf file that would add it to my library but couldn't. So I saved the result as a .car file because there was no other option that looked interesting.
- I reopened the .car file and everything was ok. I could move arms, legs,...you name it.
- I tried to add a pose from the library and after some trial and error it worked with dragging the pose unto the second level of the hierarchy.
( Double clicking or dragging into the scene or unto the figure didn't work. )

- I tweaked the pose to my liking and wanted to save it as a pose because then it would appear in the library. I wouldn't know how to do this, and as far as I know this is not documented.
Also, Studio doesn't open .car files, and I guess I'd have to get the parameter-tweaked figure and the pose into studio to add them to the library.

So my questions are:

1/ How can I get that parameter-tweaked figure back into Studio so I can add it to the library?
2/ How can I save a pose so I can open it in Studio so I can add it to the library?

3DAGE

Hi Erik

I have to ask,.. Why are you doing this in carrara, ?

if you want to work in Daz Studio,. Use Daz Studio. ..

It seems that what you've done so far,. is adjust a few sliders, such as the figures shape, and pose, but all of that can be done in Daz Studio,. and saved as DS Poses, or DS Scenes or any other scene item.

If you want to add a bunch of saved poses to your DS library,. then it makes sense to use that program to do it.
Equally,. if you want to go further than Daz Studio, where you can model paint texture build shaders, add oceans and Landscapes with forests etc,.. than you'd use Carrara.

Although you can use Daz3d Figures in Carrara ,.. That's not what carrara is all about. It's a fully functioning 3D suite of animation modelling texturing and rendering tools

Don't expect to be able to load Cararra scenes inrto Daz Studio,,.. the two programs are completely different fish

You can import scenes or scene assets in DUF from DS to Carrara,. but that's an "Import" of a file, and it took a long time to get that to work.

There is No "Save as DUF" or Save for Daz Studio,. from Carrara.

Hope it helps. :)

Erik Heyninck

Thanks for your reply.
Which is in a way what I feared.

I got Carrara for modeling, shaders and rendering. I do have some experience with these from years ago when I used Cinema4D (version 8 or 9 if I remember well). Upgrading C4D is beyond my budget and needs, and Carrara offers many options my older version of C4D doesn't have. But had(s) some modeling options Carrara misses (I think), mostly in the creating of a mesh starting with one vertex.

Carrara also has the advantage that fully rigged and posed characters can be imported. I wrongly thought this would also work the other way around.

I also assumed that Carrara could completely 'overlap' Studio. That it was, like some publicity says ' Studio on steroids'.
This is not true. Which is a pity because I prefer Carrara's workflow to Studio's.

The simplest thing to do now is to write down all changes I made to the parameters and redo the same job in studio, and then save as a file I can open in Carrara after eventual posing. In Carrara I can then tweak the pose to fint exactly.

Call it beginner's mistakes... there's a lot to learn, mostly from mistakes. And if it isn't something worse than this...

Thanks!

evilproducer

Andy makes some very good points. As far as using exporting poses, Fenric has a product that may help for the Millennium figures, such as V4, M4 and earlier.

http://www.daz3d.com/bvh-pz2-exporter-for-carrara

3DAGE

HI Erik

The simplest thing to do now is to write down all changes I made to the parameters and redo the same job in studio, and then save as a file I can open in Carrara after eventual posing. In Carrara I can then tweak the pose to fint exactly.

You can adjust as many settings as you need to build your "Character" (for use in Carrara) then simply save the figure into your browser in carrara,. (drag n drop) .. then your figure is saved (it can also save the poses an animations within the file) or , You can save Poses and animation clips in Carrara's NLA format by selecting the figure, and going to the NLA tab, choose Create Master clip (for animation) or Master Pose,.. for poses.
both of those can be saved to your Carrara browser, (they cannot be used in DS)

There's no need to go into DS to create and save pose or figures or animations for Carrara,.. as you can save the whole figure, or individual poses or animations, and custom shaders into Carrara's browser,
...but DS can't load Carrara scenes.

There's no need to use carrara to create DS poses, characters, or animation for use in Carrara, Use DS to do that.

Hope it helps :)

Erik Heyninck

Perfect!
You saved me hours of work!

thanks!

3DAGE

I'm glad it helped Erik :)

You're right, there's a lot to learn,.

As for modelling,. there are three different modellers in carrara,. Vertex, Spline and meta-ball.
In the vertex modeller, you can use vertices and join them with edges, but using a single vertex to start building a figure would be the "old school" method,. it's easier to start with a poly-line, shape, or a simple primitive like a cube, and then extrude and model that to create a figure.

or even easier, use something like RealHuman to make a figure from a bunch of options, then import that basic model into carrara, where you can edit it.

Dartanbeck

You probably already know about this, but just in case you don't, DAZ 3D has a wonder wiki going for making content for Genesis, meant to help people become Published Artists.
Although the information is general, for any software, and then finishing off in DAZ Studio, it works beautifully in Carrara 8.5 Pro!

I bought Carrara so that I had modeling tools to use. I had no interest in making landscapes or skies.
Turns out to be a huge Win, because Carrara can out render anything I've tried so far. I love this suite!
Since then, just poking around and also getting inspired in the forums and whatnot... I ended up acquiring a love to do anything and everything that I can create in Carrara!

My point is, use it how you like.

Also, there is a real beauty about the new Carrara 8.5 that I really have to share all the time with everyone:

Using Carrara to make things for Genesis and Genesis 2 figures is an absolute dream! Check it out:

- Load the Genesis (1 or 2M or F) base figure in the base pose

- Insert Vertex Object, and then close out the model room and go back to the assembly room

- With Vertex Object selected, click the tool icon in the upper left corner - this puts the object into edit mode, and you now have all of the modeling tools in the Assembly Room interface

- Construct > 3D Cube and start modeling directly onto and/or around your Genesis figure and any other elements that you might have in the scene!

I know that this strays from what you were asking, but this process is the first phase of me opening my eyes towards using DAZ Studio - no.. wait... the New DAZ Studio Pro along with Carrara to achieve a power that no Jedi could... oh... did I fall asleep to Star Wars again?!!!

Once the modeling is complete, and we have saved a copy of the scene, we need to select the object and scale it uniformly to 1.042, which will effectively make it disappear in the scene for now, and then export it as an obj, using Poser export options. Then use Poser import options when importing the obj into DAZ Studio. This is where we can follow the instructions on the page I've linked to earlier to use DS Pro to help us turn the piece into conforming cloth that automatically follows Genesis shapes. The DAZ 3D YouTube page has some nice, earlier tutorials made when Genesis was still beta, and called "Unimesh", but the tricks are nearly the same - just better now. Still some fun videos to watch.

Unfortunately Carrara does not yet have the ability to export duf.
I think that the possibility was there, during the development of C8.5, but it could provide a massive amount of frustration, as folks try to output duf things that in no way could be attempted to open in DS, like 3dage said.

We can save poses.
Like I said, I basically bought Carrara to be a Poser/DAZ Studio with modeling capabilities. And that's how I used it for at least the first few months, maybe a couple years. Anyways, for Genesis we would need to save poses as NLA Clips. Either and animation clip or a master pose. With M4 and V4 and earlier, along with other Poser-style figures, we can use Fenric's BVH/PZ2 Exporter for Carrara to export Poser PZ2 files that load like normal poses do from the library. That exporter can also export animated PZ2 files as well.

NLA files are a Carrara-only file. So again, like 3dage said, if you want to make and save a bunch of poses for use in any app, you might want to do that in DS. NLA files need to be stored into the browser to gain access to them in other figures later. Using the same philosophy I've illustrated in my article regarding Your Custom Browser, I make special folders for storing many different NLA Clips for all manner of different uses. You'll see in time that we are limited to how much we can type in a clip name and still read it in the Clips tray in Carrara. Hovering over the file name will show everything though... but I still like to try to keep my names short and to the point. So I use folder names to help create the major identifiers like: "RT Walk NoHeadArm" is a folder where I keep all of my saved walking clips made for RT(Initials of a main character I use all the time) that have no stored data for head or arm posing - which gives me the freedom to keyframe those motions according to the scene quickly and efficiently.

Hope that helps you out a bit more.

Dartanbeck

Also, Fenric is working on a way to export poses for Genesis (triax rigged) models, I think. I hope he's successful! ;)
Fenric tools really help my Carrara to be the way it is - as I often find myself turning to their use. Often.

Erik Heyninck

Very interesting things you tell there. The Force must be strong in you. Lots of midi-chlorians mmm...
I'll use this info. First save it, then try it out...

This said: my solution is in fact quite simple: I prefer working in Carrara. All I need are poses I can tweak to perfection.

These poses I can create in Studio. I do not have to be able to load my tweaked G2 meshes into Studio. I can work from the basics and pose, save the pose and use it in Carrara on the parameter-tweaked mesh.

those plugins (and some others) will have to wait a while now becausemoney has been spent. Luckily Daz did one of their sales for C8.5 and I had enough to add the InfinitySkills course for 8 plus expansion for 8.5.
Good teacher indeed!

Dartanbeck

The truth
it is
that you speak...

A good teacher
Master Phil
is