Learning Carrara 8.5
EmotionalOutlet3D
Posts: 243
Can anyone give an opinion on the Learning Carrara 8.5 course from Infinite Skills? I think I could really learn to love Carrara but I'm having some problems with the basics and it keeps taking me days to figure out one thing or another by searching forums, etc. At the moment I'm just about to give up and go back to just using DS :(
Since tutorials are currently on sale I'm considering going that way if it would get me going faster. Any replies appreciated - PM me you prefer to answer that way.
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I have watched all of the PhilW tutorials from infinite skills for Carrara. They are fantastic. If you are new to carrara, get them while they are on sale. I still go back and watch them over again be aide they are that good.
There are also short free tutorials by cripeman. Each just focuses on a single tool or feature. Excellent resources, but if you are just learning the interface of carrara, get PhilW now. Then, when you get more comfortable, watch PhilW's advanced tutorials. Buy them now while they are on sale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Learning Carrara and Advanced Techniques are awesome courses.
Much more than just tutorials.
I still watch them too. They're fun.
Plus they come with helpful content in the Working Files. We can load up those when we want to get a first-hand look at how stuff is done.
I just bought them yesterday and being new to Carrara thtought it would be a good way to learn.
I have read good things about them so thought I might as well get all three while they are on sale.
I had watched some of the free preview videos for his trainings (and they were excellent), but the trainings themselves were just a little too pricey for me up until a couple of weeks back when he released the Realism training, which was just too too good for me to pass up. Discovered that I could purchase a monthly membership over at Infinite Skills website very inexpensively and I devoured his Realism training immediately (cannot recommend them highly enough to anyone who is serious about getting great renders in Carrara). I've realized that my monthly membership also gives me access to all his other stuff, so I'm surely going to be watching the other trainings as well. Very very worthwhile training, and he's an excellent teacher too.
Dart is being humble! He's set up a stickied thread at the top of the Carrara Discussion forum with links to lots of valuable tutorials and resources:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15970/
There is also the Carrara Cafe, which has links to a couple hundred+ tutorials. Some of them are hosted there as well.
http://carraracafe.com/
Another great resource for those new to Carrara is this compilation of links to past Carrara Challenge WIP threads. It's a great way to see how to use some tools in Carrara that maybe a new user wasn't aware of or maybe just provide some inspiration.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45254/
Then there's the WIP thread for our current challenge:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45561/
Pop on in and ask a few questions. Heck, maybe work on an image for the challenge if you want. I know everybody there is more than willing to help another artist succeed!
Thanks everyone! I've just bought both the beginner's and advanced tutorials since the price was really too good to pass up if the videos are worthwhile. Can't wait to start on them ... just need to spare up some time. Sadly people always want me to work .... that whole paycheck thing you know! ;-)
Glad to hear it! I hope you enjoy them!
Remember, if you have questions that aren't covered in the series, or maybe need a bit more explaining, don't hesitate to ask! We're here to help, or at least try to help. ;-)
As my old pappy used to say:
Info - thanks for buying them, I hope you will get a lot out of them. And if you have any questions, just feel free to ask, there are lots of very experienced Carrara users around here who are more than happy to share their knowledge.
Thanks PhilW. I've just unzipped and starting to watch the 1st video. You've got quite the "support staff" here and they convinced me. I did watch a couple of your videos on the Carrara Cafe site which I thought good and to the point. So hopefully I'll be able "to get" Carrara quickly. :-)
evilproducer,
Your old pappy was a wise man. I would be out of work if people didn't want to learn. I am a writer and magazine editor. It is amazing how many "dumb" questions can lead to brilliant articles for a writer. I never disdain them. I'm also more than happy to ask my share of "dumb" questions. If you don't ask you can't learn. You may not always get helpful answers but for the most part I find people like to help teach others; particularly if they are passionate about the subject.
So true. The day you stop learning is the day they plant you in the ground, so you may as well enjoy it!
Asking questions is one thing. And this forum is nearly immediate with outstanding results towards solving any darned conundrum that we might dream up! Absolutely outstanding!
The cool thing is, with Carrara there are many ways to do pretty much everything. Each of us seem to have different favorite default methods regarding what to try or do first to solve various tasks. So when we ask a 'How to' type of question, it can often turn into a multi-page discussion, when the first few posts may have already solved the initial issue... but we have a hard time leaving it at just that... "Solved". No, we have to improve upon the initial result and totally conquer the thing! Really... it happens all the time!
But what about those times (I have had these all the time) when you don't realize that you have a question? What about when the question is so complex that even the answers aren't going to help much, because what we really need is a thorough 'teaching'?
This is where having the Infinite Skills Carrara training courses, taught by Phil Wilkes, truly shine and become the ultimate resource - not just for starting out, but for our entire journey within our use of Carrara.
Phil doesn't just set you down and answer a topical question. He treats these courses (notice how I call them "Courses"... here's why) as if he's a professor teaching a class. He begins with helpful toolkit informational tips with which our experience immediately begins at a point where we can literally follow along during the rest of the voyage. Layer upon layer you'll learn more about the "How-To" as the course progresses. And if something seems to be a bit too much to swallow, first try finishing out that lesson, as he will often have you straightened out before the end. If not, stay after school and ask him to repeat the lesson. He never complains or refuses!
I said earlier that many of us have different ways of doing things, and that Carrara has many ways to achieve the same result. Well that has, more than once, been an ideal reason for me to revisit Phil's lessons over and over again long after learning the stuff the first time. He really gets deep into things. So it is beneficial to go through the whole course, even if what is to come seems beyond what we want right now. The reason being that it plants that seed in our minds of what Carrara can do, and even more... how easily it can be done! So much later, when all of a sudden we decide that we need to make some smoke with a particles emitter (for example), we can go back to that lesson from Advanced Carrara Techniques and run the lesson again! But even more... we can also load in his example scene from the awesome working files folder that comes with each course! Using my "Your Custom Browser" article, I have added the entirety of each course to my browser by simply dragging the whole "Working Files" folder from each course into a specific part of my setup! So Sweet!
"Hmmm... Phil made that whole city from a single, simple plane by using a fairly simple displacement shader. Then he made a shader to color it into a city! Something about wires? Hmmm... Bricks mode? Hmmmm... I'd better chack and see what he's done again!"
So I first go to my browser and look through the chapters to find the file(s) I want and load it up and have a look. Totally impressed with the result, I'll refer to that chapter and watch the lesson again. Sure... what I'm doing is different. It was the memory that such a lesson exists that led me to a quick way to learn an advanced and efficient method to solve my own problem, even though Phil made a city and I'm making a Death Star!
Dart - that's what it is all about. I don't really want people to just copy what I am doing in the videos, I want them to understand the "how" and the "why" of what I have shown so that they can apply that to their own projects. I have seen some training that takes you through a complex series of steps to achieve a particular result, but without explaining why you are doing each step, so when you come to do something on your own project, you are basically no wiser! I hope that my training avoids that approach and gets people to understand all the great things that Carrara is capable of doing.
You got that spot on. I simply watched the first lesson....then went back and fired up C and started "playing along" as you did things. I didn't have the dress you had, but I had another one and it fit Vicky just the way you said. So I kept doing it that way and built the little spiral stairs around the pillar. By then I felt invincible! I had tried to learn Blender and was all over the place. Your presentation in a logical progression of using included content and then progressing to scene setup, then modelling was well-ordered. I lost the urge to want to skip all over the place as with other tuts and stuck with your serial presentation. And it stays with you... you really get stuck in!
3D is so different from my career as a 2D business graphic artist/designer. This is so much more FUN!
Because it's a professional production, you have smoothed out all the hesitations and there's no waffling about. Not that I fault for one second any volunteers who take the time to share their immense knowledge with their own videos; however, as we pay for I-Skills -- I say you definitely get what you pay for.
Erm..... plus, for the ladies, your sexy Northern English accent! Am so glad you aren't from Bristol, oooo-errrrr! ;)
Hope you make many more... there is so much merit in learning something new properly from the start!
:cheese: xx Silene
Silene - thanks for the endorsement! I have made a conscious effort in each of the training sets to structure the chapters in a logical sequence. If you follow the order as set out in the manual (remember that?!), then you are tackling complex modelling tasks before you have even rendered anything, which didn't make sense to me! I wanted people to be able to put a simple scene together quickly and render the results, to build some confidence, and then to start being able to expand on that with each of the many features that Carrara offers.
I agree Phil, Carrara and 3D software in general, is so complex it's important to show a new user that they can get a nice render completed without having to have a degree in the field. If they have a success and furthermore you have an inkling of why it works it can really build the confidence and enthusiasm. It's a much better way to teach than brow-beating or grouching at someone.
Have grabbed both the 8.5 & Advanced tutorials with the sale. Nearly half-way through the 8.5 tutorials, and very happy with them.
Looking forward to getting my teeth into Carrara now that I have finished my DAZ newbie August contest entry.
Yes I'm also looking at buying those tutorials soon. I've learned a bit about using Carrara lately through arsing around with it .. But frankly I still can't do anything useful with it.
Just an FYI that there are a number of Carrara-related tutorials and resources on sale today. This includes a PhilW training tutorial, a vertex modeling tutorial by MMoir, and the entire Tim Payne store (great realistic sky presets, among other stuff).
I have watched all of the PhilW tutorials from infinite skills for Carrara. They are fantastic. If you are new to carrara, get them while they are on sale. I still go back and watch them over again be aide they are that good.
There are also short free tutorials by cripeman. Each just focuses on a single tool or feature. Excellent resources, but if you are just learning the interface of carrara, get PhilW now. Then, when you get more comfortable, watch PhilW's advanced tutorials. Buy them now while they are on sale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where can we find these tuts?
You can find the Cripeman tutorials on the sticky thread at the top of the Carrara forum by Dartanbeck for Carrara information. Here Is the link to his index of cripeman, or you could search youtube for cripeman and carrara.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15970/#233895
There are also Carrara tutorials in the Daz store by PhilW and by MMoir. You should be able to find them under shop by vendor on the daz store.
Today there are some tutorial on sale. If you g to the store sales and promotions page, scroll down to the bottom where there are "elated items," and you will find sale tutorials by MMoir and PhilW.