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mschack Tuts

mschackmschack Posts: 337
edited March 2021 in Carrara Discussion

This will be a repository of links to my planned Carrara video tutorials on odysee/lbry.  Hopefully some of you can get something out of them.

 

Tut 1: Making Realistic Carrara Terrain Scenes

https://odysee.com/@mschack:c/tut1:d

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Comments

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987

    That’s terrific, thank you, cant wait to get access to a desktop so i can enjoy them!

     

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,165

    Very generous to make these and provide the links.  Much appreciated.  Well done terrain tutorial.

  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198

    Thank you for the tutorials and congrats on choosing ODYSEE.COM over Youtube, I signed up last year - watched and subbed to your channel.

     

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    Very beautiful tutorial, I'm amazed. Thank you for sharing!

  • Steve KSteve K Posts: 3,233

    Looking good ... 

  • UnifiedBrainUnifiedBrain Posts: 3,588

    Very nicely done, congratulations.  Easy to follow, and short enough to watch the whole thing.  While the workflow is not exactly like mine, it is very similar.  Moreover, it is fun and instructive to see the differences. :)

    In a similar way, Stezza did a terrific modeling tutorial a few weeks ago.

    Looking forward to more from both of you!

  • mschackmschack Posts: 337

    Thanks all!  Just gotta figure out what to do next :)

  • Bunyip02Bunyip02 Posts: 8,582

    Nice tute !!!

  • Persona Non GrataPersona Non Grata Posts: 1,365

    Lovely demo

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543

    Very nicely done, mschack! So nice to see more Carrara videos!!!

    In my opinion, the answer to your question about "why do they use this as the default terrain shader" is that it's a good color-only representation of what a terrain shader tree can do at the most basic level.

    For example, we can look through the shader tree for the one that's returning a gray color and investigate how and where that gray is being applied according to the shader tree.

    I really love how you explain the importance of using the Large magnitude scale for vast landscapes. We don't see much explanation of that being covered.

    Tip: When using Large magnitude, it can be difficult to get normal-scale content into view of the camera. Not only is the scale of the scene large, but also the sensitivity of the camera and more. A trick that I learned a long time ago through experimenting is to load any content we want into the scene. We can't really see it most of the time, but just keep loading in everything we want.

    Next,

    1. from the menu Insert and Target Helper Object (bottom of Insert menu) and, in the instances tray drag all of the loaded content into that helper object.
    2. select the camera in the instances tray, then Ctrl (Cmd) select the helper object and Ctrl (Cmd) K to align the target helper object to the camera
    3. We still won't see much, so use the director camera to drag the target helper object (and everything within) away from the camera into the scene
    4. look through the camera now to make final adjustents to how far away, and how high or low to place the helper object
    5. finally, move the content around how you want it to be in the scene

    These sorts of things sound more complicated in text than they are in practice, so dig in and have fun!

     

    I tend to work with "Content" more than I do imaging grand vistas, so I mostly work in Medium magnitude and, for this, I use a slightly different approach, but only slightly. It's basically the same but at a smaller scale.

    If you'd like to see some example of my earlier work in this, all of my previous Carrara EnvironKits products from Daz 3d are now free.

    I set them up differently than how I normally work to be a bit more user-friendly and easier to explain. For example, the artificial global illumination I created for them is quite a bit different than how I set mine up, since I mostly do something custom for every scene I do, particular to the animation I'm working on.

    Here is where you can get (or read more about) my EnvironKits for Carrara

     

    I really like your video. You have a great tone and do a great job of concisely presenting the point, and in an enjoyable to watch and listen to manner. I love the tips and explanations... very, Very cool!!!

    Thanks!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543

    In laughable contrast, here's Part 2 of my tutorial videos for the first EnvironKit - Woodlands.

    I was new to making videos of any kind and didn't know a thing about editing, pacing, keeping to the point... (LOL)

    ...and then there's that darned music! Argh!!!

  • mschackmschack Posts: 337

    Thanks @Dartanbeck, I have watched all your Carrara vids and enjoy them and hope to see more, even with the music haha.  It took me a long time to figure out the large scene thing with fog, and was probably by accident.  I have also found that depth of field is best on small scene size.  I guess this kinda makes sense in hindsight but can cause some hair pulling.  Not sure if it's in the manual but I only read that in dire emergencies.

    I was pondering writing a Carrara Tips and Tricks manual and start a thread here for people to submit what they have found out but thats alot of work...  It would be nice to have this all collated somewhere.  I am still figuring stuff out after more than a decade...  Maybe someone can start a Wiki, that would be cool :)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543

    An interesting thing to know about the realistic sky's fog is that it even works on interior scenes when we can't see the sky!

    This works great for adding depth and volume to a scene!

     

    The hardest thing for me in doing Tips and Tricks links, etc., is, as you say - time.

    I had great intentions when starting the Carrara Information Manual thread, and then incorporated the Forum Help Links section. This had taken a LOT of time to compile and keep up with back then. Then Daz switched forum software that made all of the links invalid. That was a real heartbreaker.

    I worked long and hard to fix it as best I could with the help of chohole and her resources (Thanks chohole!!!)

    Now I notice that the latest Daz 3d.com reboot messed up all of the image links in my "Thanks Daz 3d" thread, making it feel ever more difficult to rely on this forum for creating such "Tips and Tricks" in the form of links and/or images.

     

    I started Dartanbeck.com as a means of being able to openly write these sorts of things, but that came with its own set of difficulties. But I'm still going to push forward with that endeavor as time allows to at least cover my end of supporting Carrara fandom.

    More videos are coming - that's actually what I want to do... forever! So I've been busy rendering out animations for use in these videos using literally all of the spare time I have - so thank goodness for the time it takes to render animations, otherwise I'd have absolutely no time left for... well... anything!!! ;)

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