Future of Carrara
KenSingleton
Posts: 0
I purchased Carrara 8.5 pro recently, in part to get the bundled V5 and M5 content.
However, I am finding it to be an exceptionally powerful package.
Nevertheless, I am unsure whether to invest time learning it as it seems to be a dead product.
Is this impression correct?
Is there a future for Carrara with Daz, or is Studio Daz's only real commitment?
Like I said, this is purely for information to help make a decision regarding investment of time.
Thanks
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I don't think it's "dead" at all. You are not new to DAZ like me (per your join date), but I am puzzled (and not in a snarky way at all) as to why you have decided that having just recently purchased it?
It's not easy to learn, not out-of-the-box like DS, but it does so many things. I feel it could do more as well and hope the developers continue to work with it to get it to function better with all DS products. It's also good with Poser and I have also bought a lot of content from Renderosity and downloaded many ShareCG items as well.
Most importantly though, I can now create some of my own content using VM in Carrara...especially scenery and props! And, there are forum members here who make their own clothes from scratch. For now I am limited to modifying pre-made clothing and making new textures to go along with my characters' needs. Forum members have been lobbying for better VM modelling tools and hope they are coming in the next release. I do not animate so I cannot comment on that, but it's a huge part of the package.
Hope you will give it a chance... there are lots of good tuts out there per the stickies at the top of the forum.
Give it a go!
:) Silene
ETA: I looked up the History of Carrara and posted it in this thread http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/48102/#704524
Scroll around in the rest of the thread started by a new purchasers and see some of the things that Diomene64 has done making quick VM'd pants in screenshots. Even I can do that now!
Hi Silene. Appreciate the reply and the links.
I joined Daz a looong time ago but have never been an active member or user of the software until now.
The current release of Daz is excellent and very easy to get into, but I think it would be difficult (but not impossible) to do things other than still images using pre-existing content.
Carrara, however, seems to provide the whole workflow, allowing creation of content, professional animation and pretty much anything you could imagine, yet the learning curve is huge compared to Studio.
The reason I thought it may be dead is because, according to some on the Daz forum, Carrara 9 was supposed to be released at the end of 2013 and it has never materialised. Also I was trying to find out what render engine Carrara used, which took me to the Reality plugin for Daz, and the author of that plugin is not going to create one for Carrara because he thinks it is a stagnant product, though he is writing version 3 of Reality for Studio.
I know there is an enthusiastic user base for Carrara and one can do an awful lot with the existing package, but future potential is also important. I used to use Truespace and after version 7 it died and is no longer developed. My fear is that Carrara will go the same way.
Hope this explains things a little better.
Regards,
Ken
Hi Ken,
DAZ launched a new website, and Carrara is not mentioned in a place that people can find it.
If you don't know it exists and intentionally look for it - you won't see it. That says a lot.
As for Reality plugin: there is a similar product for Carrara which is called Luxus:
http://www.daz3d.com/luxus-for-carrara
Both Reality and Luxsus connect to Lux render, which does the actual render.
Hi! Glad to have you here! If you are willing to invest the time, there's a lot you can do in Carrara. Carrara does have a learning curve, but mostly it is uncovering things you didn't know it could do. The animation capabilities are far superior to Studio. Studio's can be enhanced with plugins, but not everything is available. If you want details on animation, myself or others can go into that in future posts.
There's lots of FUD out there regarding Carrara. Partly DAZ 3D is to blame, but I certainly don't think it is dead.
The Reality developer is certainly entitled to his opinion, in the meantime, another Lux plugin has been developed for Carrara and an Octane plugin is actively being developed and is in an open beta cycle I believe, which initially will be better than Lux for un-biased GPU rendering.
Carrara's render engine is its own animal. It is a biased renderer that is very fast and looks good. Here's a raw render straight out of Carrara's renderer with no postwork. This uses no Global Illumination, it's just the standard renderer with well placed lights. Here's a link to the final postworked image in our last challenge. There are many links to the WIPs that detail the steps I went through.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47729/#698951
While you're there, look at some of the other entries and their WIPs. They're all gorgeous and they all have links to WIPs describing the artists' progress to get to the final images.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47729/
Thanks for the replies and the renders. Very impressive.
I do intend to stick with Carrara. It can do so much more than DS, and I want to create my own stuff.
I have just purchased some of the Wilkes training videos and the Carrara 7 manual is very good, even if outdated.
Fingers crossed and Daz will surprise us in a pleasant way over Carrara.
Hi Ken and welcome to the Carrara forums. I think you are right that Carrara sometimes gets overlooked, even by DAZ, but I am pretty sure that it is not dead and there will be future releases and developments. That said, it is a very powerful package as it stands and you could spend years learning and playing with all its features. Sure it is not perfect and would benefit from a little TLC, but for my own 3D purposes, it fits the bill and I would not change to another package. Enjoy!
P.S. I think you posted while I was writing my response - thanks for buying some of the training, I hope you will get a lot out of it and shorten your learning curve!
I agree...on the new site, if you go from their main domain, it lands you on their SHOP page of content. The PRODUCT/SOFTWARE page buttons or tabs seems to be hiding from me. I only see a TECHNOLOGY selection. Amend that... see further down under THIRD try.
http://www.daz3d.com/
OK....I found a way to navigate to it via Google where they give you the sections most visited. Once on the products page, you can find Carrara, Bryce and Hexagon. BUT if I click on Carrara there from the bottom navigation list...(note no product shows if owned, it, so you have to untick that to see it unless you haven't bought it.) Bryce is there to buy, Hex is there to download (not easy to see, though).
http://www.daz3d.com/products
MORE.... I put "Carrara" in search and got a page with the software and Car products.
http://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Carrara
The price is rock bottom (but I am PC and logged in). It's showing $65.00 for me! Why so cheap right now? Are they going to release Version 9? ETA: It come up as $171.00 for pro when not logged in.
http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-8-5-pro
THIRD TRY You can click on RESOUCRES ADDONS next to last on the ALL menu, then SOFTWARE PROGRAMS and you must have what you own unticked to see purchased items... then you only have the option to sort/filter a few ways. None of them alphabetical. If I choose Most popular, up come Bryce and Hex. Sill looking for Carrara through almost 500 items..... hmmmm.
NEVER FOUND IT under SOFTWARE PROGRAMS and I unticked owning anything and there is NO Carrara. Bryce, Hex and Vue along with other programmes are there. Lots of Carrara plugins and tools, but no Carrara. Hmmm.
Is this just me or does the website need tweaking? Who to tell if so? Or am I hallucinating? Why is it so hard to find???
As was said it seems you must put Carrara into the SEARCH slot to even know it exists. This is way too much hard work for a new potential customer to find it.
ETA: FOUND IT!! For some reason it's been put under BUNDLES in the RESOURCES ADDONS line, not under SOFTWARE PROGRAMS which is where I'd think IMHO it should be!
Anyways...
I just got Luxus and am looking forward to getting my head around it. I don't have a meaty enough Nvidia card to have Octane. :down:
:) Silene
It will, it will! :-) Silene
Carrara is one of those things you dont know you need till you have it. There are limitations to DS that sometimes can not be over come, but in Carrara it is always an easy fix.
The big thing is DAZ makes tons of dough on content, so they concentrate on that, but I dont think they will stop updating Carrara. As people actually will pay for it unlike DS. DAZ spent alot of effort adding the Gen 2 content tab to Carrara so I cant believe they would just dump it after that.
Anyway it is worth learning.
Ken, I think Carrara is a wonderful program and surly worth learning. I tried the latest Lightwave, Blender and a bit 3DS Max, but keep coming back to Carrara. It's a joy to use, and the plentiful content is a HUGE plus. I hope DAZ will continue updating it once in a while (we are always worrying that they won't, but they always do after wrecking our nerves...).
One can't help getting worried all the same, Carrara is great as it is, no doubt, but when you peep in on the eye candy kind of stuff iClone (for example) is offering with their upcoming version 6, you can't help saying to yourself: "How I wish that was Carrara announcing a major revamp that would make an awesome tool even 'awesomer'. I'm too happy Daz has made a powerful tool like Carrara available, to someone like me, to question their model, but one wonders all the same if a bit more of previews and sneek peeks and even outright rumours on what's going on under the hood won't help everybody, including the developers who surely should get a kick out of having people salivate over whatever they choose to expose of what they've got cooking. The silence is definitely nerve wracking, which is why the developers had better deliver a whopping game changing update in version 9. Without that, they lose all bragging rights, and should just leave us to wallow in contentment with our V8.5.
EP, this is actually my favourite of your two entries in the contest, sublime in it's own way yet reminiscent of some of the qualities of your winning entry in the August challenge. When I saw more people voting for the War of the Worlds render instead, I actually wanted to scream "Y'all need to take another look at the other one!" (lol!) Keep making great art sir!
EP, this is actually my favourite of your two entries in the contest, sublime in it's own way yet reminiscent of some of the qualities of your winning entry in the August challenge. When I saw more people voting for the War of the Worlds render instead, I actually wanted to scream "Y'all need to take another look at the other one!" (lol!) Keep making great art sir!
Thank you DADA!
I kind of felt that way as well. Not that I don't think the War of the Worlds render was cool, but I spent so much more time on the Pandora image. Like the pulp covers, I think the War of the Worlds image grabbed people on a more visceral level.
of course for you it must be like being asked to choose a favourite between two children of yours
Ken, Daz hopefully is making a mozza selling content.
The smartest thing they ever did was to give studio away.
On a hunch I'd say their giving Studio away dried up severely the bunch of new Carrara users drifting in.
That's why Carrara is still 'on special' after so many years (has it been years).
But that doesn't mean Carrara in it's present form isnt absolutely terrific.
The last update we got 8.1 to 8.5 seemed purely made so that we can buy more content from Daz.
A few of us bought it that still use 8.1.
I bought it to support Daz in the hope they would continue to develop Carrara, but I still use 8.1.
In short, Carrara works wonderfully just as it is. so don't worry if daz supports it or not. It's well worth the time you put into it.
And think of all the wonderful support you'll get on this forum :)
What he said. :) Also, the various plugins available for Carrara extend its capabilties beyond the out of the box Carrara. Great stuff out there for Carrara.
Thanks for all the great replies and encouragement.
I have made my decision to go with Carrara.
As much as I love Studio's ease and simplicity for creating scenes, when it comes to doing anything else Carrara beats it in my opinion.
Carrara gives me so much more freedom to create unique art, and I am enjoying the learning process.
Phil's videos are very good and I am excited at what they teach. I will get more when I have "worn out" the ones I have!
If any of the Daz staff read this, I would really love to see a bridge from Daz to Carrara and back, like there is for Bryce, Hexagon and Zbrush.
So, once again, thanks for all the encouragement to go with Carrara.
Regards,
Ken
The shaders from everything I did before owning Carrara needed tweaking, so I've spent a lot of time getting to know the Texture Room in Carrara, and have grown to love it.
Once I've tweaked my shaders and set my scenes, I'm still in awe at how quickly I can render my animations.
Now that I know enough about Carrara to do want I wanted to do in the first place, it will never be 'dead' for me. I doubt that it will ever truly die as a developmental product, but even if they stopped right now, I know that it has what it takes to do all of my animations, composting, special effects to last me the rest of my life - and I'm only half-way through the long episode of being a living, breathing human being.
I still have a lot to learn about Carrara, and I take a little time, here and there, to practice things I've not tried before, just to get my feet wet. But after learning what I already have, I still go back and use sky domes and back-planes for some of my animations, where that's all that is needed, but I've discovered that I can put real geometry back there, surrounding my image, and Carrara will blaze through the distant objects almost as if they were pixels on a backdrop image... simply stunning... truly endless in possibilities!
So, for me... Carrara shall never ever die! ;)
Yo Ken,
I agree that DAZ Studio is an awesome thing! It works well with Carrara 8.5 for doing various things, so I am now beginning to learn my way into Studio! Sort of feels backwards, right?
I was pretty adept at DS before I got into Carrara, but now - with the newer DS/Genesis system, I've found myself truly intrigued with the simple back-and-forth that we can do between Carrara and DS for making things for Genesis! I still can't stand rendering in DS after being so comfortable in Carrara... but to each their own, in that regard. I love the default render engine of Carrara, and I love the simplicity-meets-unlimited possibilities of the Texture Room!
Future of Carrara. As long as it is in the store, Carrara is alive and well. Though I would say it appears to be on a very unusual limbo atm. Hope someone from DAZ steps in with some official news.
This ^
I believe DAZ is missing many opportunities to make easy money with Carrara/content in both professional and hobbiest markets. Hope all these new restructuring or changes help Carrara development.
I have the conviction that the future development of Carrara must inevitably pass by the perfect integration of Genesis and all these stuffs in this program.
According to what I can read on this forum, the goal is almost reached and I believe personally that we should have good hopes to see C9 soon…
nice renders dart
Thx HW
I just think that: "a picture here and there" looks better than just plain text ;)
Hence the challenges.
Headwax, I think you have a render to share along those lines... ;-)
yes, I think that the text is there just to split up the pikturse
;)
this image comes in variations
"Vote or Else", 'Give us Carrara 9 or the Pirate gets it " etc
Hi Ken, I asked me a year ago - is carrara worth to spend more time with it, or should I use another 3d package? Is carrara dead or has it a future?
Not that I be misunderstood, I like carrara, it is relatively easy to learn and I spend a lot of time with it - but in my opinion carrara is dead and it's not worth to spend more time with it. Carrara is outdated! No bug fixes since final release. The geografted feature still doesn't work!
Today I'm using Daz studio, Hexagon and Blender (exporting Daz scenes to Blender with mcjTeleblender2).
Blender is free and VERY powerful, I think it is worth a look!
Regards
Sorry you feel that way. Needless to say I disagree. ;-)
I can almost see mikomoda's point about Carrara being a bit 'outdated' from the modern 3d technical aspects. That is, until I saw the solution mentioned. Sure, Genesis geografting is not (yet) supported, and Carrara is not the first priority for the DAZ 3D development department. But I would far rather do without geografting on Genesis and use Carrara than to mess around with DS exports in Blender... but to each their own, as they say.
Part of what I love about Carrara is that it is a bit more on the side lines. If it wasn't, I cannot imagine it costing a tenth of what it might actually be worth! Sure, Blender is free, and is an amazingly awesome app, if you master the keyboard shortcuts required to do anything. Frankly, if it wasn't for Carrara, I might be a Blender user too... but would likely go with LightWave instead. I like having an understandable interface, rather than a notebook full of commands.
Carrara is incredibly easy to use,because of the genius interface and the thoroughness of automated helpers for the user to easily grasp. Granted, these are simply my opinions and rebuttals to the DS to (anything else) option. With the small exception of some Genesis/Genesis-age products, Carrara can simply open things, use the morph dials, and render out with wonderful ease!
(BTW, the second image below was made using one of the super-low resolution models that comes as an example object file in Carrara Native Content, Carrara terrain, sky, and volumetric clouds and some lights)
This ^
I believe DAZ is missing many opportunities to make easy money with Carrara/content in both professional and hobbiest markets. Hope all these new restructuring or changes help Carrara development.
Its not well, stuff still is broke and unfixed and we are almost 2 years overdue being charged for.. Carrara 8.75