High-End Answer to the Lack of Carrara Development
Dartanbeck
Posts: 21,623
So Carrara is no longer actively (as far as the world knows) developed, so the high-end studio and software developers take matters into their own hands.
Daz 3d could inter-mine on this and produce an affordable answer to all of this with Carrara Next (or whatever it's called) if they jump onboard and act!
Post edited by Dartanbeck on
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what does it all mean?
Do you think folks in our tier (Carrara/DS/Poser, and maybe Iclone/Blender) would do *anything* that's only served in the cloud?
I know Carrara could be tasked to render like this (see 'grid'), and probably front-ended (web or remote-connect) to scale like this, but ... how much would *we* pay and would we be willing to rely on everything remote?
I wouldn't do it w/ Carrara/DS/Blender available as they are - with particle and video effects sets like houdini/hitfilm/resolve/etc. that we can get decent effects with already.
Not trying to be a naysayer at all, as it's really intriguing to see the potential of these kinds of collaborations - especially if I were starting out today, an 'indie' subscription model might work for me - and will probably be the direction it all goes... See autodesk/adobe... The content model (mesh, audio, etc.) will change too along with the tools, I would wager.
Again, intrigued, but personally I don't see my dreams drawing me to the advantages of this cloud-based (remote) biz-model, but I'd probably 'play' if it paid my bills, heh.
I really hold a strong preference for autonomy and independence in my workflows, although that gets harder with each release of all of my tools...
(or am I reading this all wrong? sorry, if so)
cheers,
--ms
it would of course be great if Carrara could be further developed.
For the beginning it would be enough for me if the program is adapted to Mac OS Catalina so that the import works again, etc. Then the jump forward, i.e. a new rendering engine, etc. would be possible. I'm just afraid this will remain a dream.
theres nothing wrong with carrara if you dont care about buying new daz content. i'd rather spend my moola on cores and rams anyhows.
Stezza's wacky models show how well carrara is still alive and able to meet needs.
and now Vyusur has started releasing figures ready for carrara.
i just wish there was a better solution to the twinklies. my dragon flyovers arent what i want due to twinklies.
Again, I feel So misunderstood! LOL
All I was trying to say is that the professional CG world is trying their damnedest to create their own, more modern Carrara! ;)
In Carrara, we can do much of the accomplishments without having to leave Carrara. More of a godsend to Daz Studio, Carrara is greatly enhanced with the help of their most beloved, yet still mostly incomplete Studio.
Currently Carrara has become a bit incomplete by not inheriting some of the more modern advancements, yet I see "New Features" on other more modern apps that have been working quite well in Carrara for many years now.
I know that a lot of Die Hard Carrara enthusiasts could care less whether or not the latest Daz 3d Figures were compatible or not. I am kind of the opposite.
For one, Daz Figure compatibility brings the rest of Carrara forward into the direction we'd really like to see Carrara go. For another, it gives Daz 3d a very good reason to love it.
Give Fenric, Sparrowhawke, Eric W, Inagoni, VWD, Philemo and Alberto a nice check (each) and incorporate their amazing plugins directly into the software and it's already well on its way to being a real Monster in the industry.
Add to that some good ol' Daz 3d developmental lovin' and we're talkin' the covers of popular 3D magazines!
Is Daz 3d's Carrara Studio Pro 2022 the next contender as the new Heavyweight Champion of affordable CG studio Apps?
We Think So!!!
This just in - while the rest of the world drains the monthly life out of artists around the world with costly subscriptions that require the support of other costly subscriptions, and on and on and on... Daz 3d's newest Carrara Studio Pro has just leapt into a whole new era of CG development at a price tag that we All can afford - and it's compatible with their World-Class CG articulated Humans, Animals, Creatures, Environments and Props!
With the further enhancements of the Bullet Physics Library along with the powerful inclusion of the incredible Virtual World Dynamics and FluidOs simulators, the need to export to other apps is a thing of the past! The addition of Iray and Filament render options bolster our workflow while the already powerful Photo Real Ray Trace Engine gets a massive upgrade with better, more advanced SubSurface Scattering, Pore Excretions, MicroDisplacement and more!!!
Carrara's amazing Dynamic Hair now includes an incredible Simulation Editor, where we may manually adjust simulated results dynamically from d=frame to frame, or tweened across a whole section of the timeline!
Carrara's Terrain Editor now has Multi-Layer Mesh possibilities for inclusion of water, snow, grass, sediment, etc., even the all new Booleans Cut feature, where we can dig lakes and riverbeds directly into the mesh, cut terrain to any height and any angle, even burrow caves and tunnels into the side of any terrain feature! Add to this the new Village, Town and City generators and you're looking at the brand new Carrara 2022 Terrain Editor!!!
Carrara's Ocean can now flow according to a specified path, using a standard motion path thanks to the new Path-To Motion controller!
Bring your favorite Daz 3d characters, animals and creatures into Carrara Studio Pro 2022 to apply dynamic musculature to the skeleton within giving natural, realistic simulations to the skin. Using the overhauled 3D Paint feature, paint the areas of fatty tissue and other variable to further enhance the outcome of an already amazing default dynamic simulation of your animated characters - and like all Carrara animations, fine-tune what ends up happening in the final render using Carrara's wealth of amazing tweeners, graph editor and other pro-level animation tools!
Modeling objects has always been fun and powerful within Carrara, including producing new morphs and shapes for existing content. With the new Procedural Modeling features and updated UV Unwrap algorithms and tools, modeling and tweaking in Carrara has never been better!
We've been impressed with Carrara Studio before, but Daz 3d's new release has literally turned this industry of "Starve the Starving Artists" upside-down as Carrara Studio Pro 2022 takes #1 in our list of most loved CG tools!
I have to say I'm confused right now.
Does that mean Carrara is still being developed? That would of course be the sensation.
Take into account that DAZ is relatively small company and their programmers are working on DS5 at the moment, and I suspect they have been doing that for quite some years already (maybe since DS4.5?), hence the lack of progress with Carrara/Bryce/Hexagon.
The thought also comes to mind... As they have those three, are they going to bring some ideas into DS5 from them?...
Confused -? Me Too - I conclude the topic is wishful thinking ?
I may be confused but FRUSTRATED is more accurate.
My perspective is that of hobbyist with particular interest in animation and lipsinc .Some will be aware of my forum http://www.bond3d.byethost18.com/index.php Hobyist doesn't mean I haven't dollars to spend. Daz has missed out on retrieving much of my pocket money because without PROPER support for Genesis I began to exsplore alternatives and I'm ashamed to say I have spent hundreds of dollars [ with thousands to follow ] buying Iclone AND Character Creator. Now IC has some very very good things going for it mainly in the animation dept but THAT interface ?? [ not unlike Daz Studio by the way ] Its endless opening and closing of panels and endless scrolling to find what you want amongst a complicated set of tools and content management is further fraught with the need to purchase more and more features like curve editor and particles not to mention the restrictions on import/exporting content due to its propriotory format all solvable of course by purchasing more plugins.
Despite it falling behind in many areas Carrara is STILL .very desirable because of its many features andl logical , consistant interface that stands out as best in my book compared to Daz,Iclone,Lightwave, Maya and others I have dabbled with .
Unfortunately all this dabbling has turned me into the LEASTproductive animator around with frequent periods of lost of interest . Then I spend my Daz dollars on other interests. Eventually though I come back to Carrara - time and time again.
Maybe a crowd funding effort to buy it from Daz is needed ??.
Indeed, and I am not interested in new DS format content since I can't get it to work in Carrara, gave up long ago. But I do purchase a lot of new Poser format content that works fine in Carrara, about $200 in the last month alone, most of that not here at DAZ but on sale elsewhere. As far as features, I am happy with programs like Particle Illusion which overlays any images/videos with impressive particle FX, providing hundreds of presets. I can't think of any animation features I'm missing (I'm not a modeler), I know there are some but ignorance is bliss.
Yo Dart, sorry!
To your broader point, yeah, Carrara is pretty much *still* the 'one-stop-shop' solution to our obsession. Much like the Palm Newton and today's typical tablet...
Add a little love, and it still arguably stands up to these high-end players. Beats the heck out of them in price/performance!
And no subscription or remote access/accounts required - which was the essence of my concerns as well.
Blender may be a path as it has a lot of full-featured capabilities being built into its fabric, but not as well integrated from the start, to my observations.
As long as Carrara is fun and has 10 times the capabilities as I can even understand, I'll agree that DAZ Inc is missing the golden goose that's sitting right in their henhouse.
(not expecting any changes in their attention to our gem, but that means they won't break it either!)
best,
--ms
nicely put - I echo many of these frustrations, behaviors, and 'investment' decisions as well.
the good news is that I can still have fun with these tools, and I really enjoy watching my mentor/masters in here re-proving the infinite potential of a good tool when mixed with clever and creative minds.
best,
--ms
Hmmm... thinking about that whole 'musculature' thing I threw into the hype text of the imaginary Carrara Studio Pro 2022 headline.
Unlike in Daz Studio, VWD in Carrara can be ran over and over again without dropping what was done before with one exception: If we run VWD on the same item a second time, we must rename the item first or the new result will replace the original. But the point is, we can just keep layering simulated items over and over. In DS, we get one chance. Beyond that, we'd have to include a VWD result as an additional Collision object if we want to keep it from being dropped as a simulated result - this makes VWD entirely different between the two apps the way I originally started using the tool.
Anyway...
I wonder what it would be like to create three characters. One for the under-lying skeletal/musclulature structure, the next for a 'tweener' mesh and the third being the outer layer - the skin.
Begin by animating the main skeletal character, including applying bulging of muscles where necessary (I know, Weta Digital's method lets the computer do this part - but we're using really inexpensive tools here!)
Next run the mid layer onto that figure using VWD. Define certain parts to flow a bit while leaving the rest tied tightly to the source figure.
Finally run VWD on the outer skin layer with the previous layer as the collision object.
Let's say we're doing this with Genesis 1. We could apply V4/M4 Muscle Maps to the middle layer with some IoR and translucency, while the skeletal layer would be some sort of gooey looking surface. Then apply a skin texture to the outer layer, again with some translucency - even just a touch of transparency - both controlled in intensity using maps.
Just a wild though I had.
Better yet, put the Musle Maps on the skeletal figure, then also onto the second layer but with a lot of transparency and translucency - possibly even blend the muscle mpas with the skin maps, latered over with a vein map(?)
Make this second layer a 'fluid' layer with veins, etc.,
Then apply the skin maps to the outer layer with the translucency, Index of Refraction, a touch of mapped transparency, etc.,
That Weta-h thing looks like you'd need a super computer lol. Looks beautiful.
Probably a whole farm of them.
What she said!
Silene
@Dartanbeck :
Love your Carrara Studio Pro 2022 idea, but there are still missing tools for me to abandon my working software to devote most/all my creative time to use it (why I barely use Carrara now).
Could you, please, add vertex/edge slide to the Vertex Modeller, and spline paint stroking to the 3D Paint engine.
Then Carrara can steal my time away from Blender as Blender once did from Wings3D.
Also, as owner of the full VWD suite (Poser, Carrara, DS), and only used it once in Carrara Pro 8.5 (DS is my go to), would you be willing to elaborate more on your post in a separate thread for use in Carrara?
I am interested in the differences you noted, and if Carrara will better suit my clothing morphs work-flow with VWD in DS.
A few years back (when everyone was swearing you couldn't use VWD to make morphs) I created a tut for both Poser and DS, and it was always in my future plans to create a DS script to automate the process (including the duplicates/renames) while in a single VWD session (static sessions for now -- will look into animated later).
Well, two things lit a fire under my azz to do just that; One, R.S.A's DS addon for the same thing with D-Force, and two, stumbling blocks while coding the DS/Blender morph work-flow bridge.
Using some of my code from the bridge, I am about half-way done (but back to coding in Blender Python as of late) with good results from alpha testing (morph creation successful sans all the needed bells-n-whistles still needing implementation).
If I had Philemo's coding chops, I would be done already, but I will trudge along uphill until it is done. Do you think it might be feasible for something like that as an plugin for Carrara/VWD with Python? Am I right to believe the plugins are written in Python against the Carrara SDK?
When we tried VWD-specific threads before, they got deleted since it's all sold elsewhere.
I certainly don't know the answers to all of your questions, so let's bgin with what I do know.
VWD in DS saves the results to a VWD file (in the VWD temp folder) and, unless we rename the file, it gets overwritten each time we Delete (argh, forgetting off-hand what we delete, though I do it everyday! I'll edit this with the correcet wording), while VWD Bridge for Carrara writes the OBJ information for each frame's deformation directly into the Carrara scene, which is a HUGE difference!
This allows us to run as many VWD simulations as we like within the same Carrara scene.
For example:
I could VWD a shirt. Then start again with VWD for the pants, then again for the necklace, then earrings, etc.,
We can do this in Daz Studio too, but in orrder to do so, we have to include any previous VWD sim items as a collision object to each subsequent run of VWD, or we lose the previous VWD simulation entirely. The problem that I've had is that the extra collision object will sometimes make the new needed simulation fail. Blows apart or similar disaster.
Things that the DS VWD does that Carrara doesn't:
Softbody simulation of the collision object (Breast jiggle)
Hair Assitant (VWD V2) portion of VWD does not work in Carrara VWD.
However, softbody simulations in DS are actually driving morphs rather than a cloth simulation, so those do get written to the DS timeline within the scene file, and can be exported as animated (or not) pose files (aniBlock, PZ2, DUF, BVH, etc.,)
I have never (not even once) tried using VWD for static draping aside from manually draping before a simulation within the simulation portion of VWD. But I think that either version, Carrara or DS of VWD would work equally as well for morph creation, in my workflow of creating/importing morphs.
So if we had a 120 frame animation, for example. We could create a morph for each simulated frame from either app. If we save the animated pose file for the character, and created all 120 morphs for the clothing, we could make an aniBlock or other animated Pose file to play back the simulated result over the animated pose. I'm not sure if it would still work across more characters than the one the original simulation results were created for - but it would likely work well for the same character shape.
But that would take a lot more time than simply running VWD every time I wanted to simulate the clothes for that animation - at least on my computer. Still, the idea seems sound, since that's basically how the VWD bridge for Carrara works: it makes a morph for each frame, and turns each morph on/off each frame with the recommended option to use discrete tweeners between them if we're running 30 FPS or greater. The morphs are simply named (if I remember correctly - sorry... rendering) "Frame 001", "Frame 002", etc., and the switching between them in the timeline is handled by the plugin.
Carrara nor DS forces work against a VWD simulation, however, we can have force affect something else in the scene (up to three or four, I think?) which can be used as additional collision objects for the cloth or hair.
VWD Tutorials YouTube channel has some cool info, and Gerald, the author, has another VirtualWorldDynamics channel, that can be a bit more difficult to follow at times, but can help show what to do in certain situations nonetheless. V2 features a nicely written users manual too. Not sure if V1's was updated like that, but it's packed with great info that easily goes over my head since I'm spending more time in practice than I am reading. One day....
I like this Demo from VWD Tutorials
Also, there can often be a difference in the simulated results sepending upon whether we use the cpu or gpu - even when everything else is equal. Not sure why, but let's say that something just isn't simualting properly with the gpu. Try running it using cpu instead. Don't forget to turn on (or leave on) the multi-thread option!
In my Workflow demo (below), we see me VWD a jumpsuit, then a jacket over the top of it without even selecting the jumpsuit as an additional collision object. In DS, we'd have to. Since that would possibly throw off the simulation for the jacket, I'd probably either not run VWD on the jumpsuit or not use the jacket if I were using DS. Bummer - either option.
I just think that the jumpsuit looks better and follows better using VWD as opposed to relying on the conformity - especially since it's a V4 suit fit onto Genesis.
What you could try is start a negotiation with DAZ Productions, on the worth of Carrera to DAZ. Perhaps with the proper crowdfunding or angel investor, you could buy the ownership or a license to develop it further.
Sent you a PM
Sent you a PM
@ Philemo_Carrara :
Got it, thank you. Sent reply...
@ Dartanbeck :
Thank you, for all the information. Now, I will have to play with VWD in Carrara. I have only attempted a couple of animated drapes, but your awesome tutorial has convinced me to try some more.
I have Fusion 7, but have never used it yet, and I see they are up to version 17 now. Thank you for including that part in your tut. Now, I believe I will be able to put it to use.
Also, loved the guitar playing at the end. You are multi-talented!
That built-in Fusion within DaVinci Resolve seems a lot easer for me than Fusion 7. But like you, I didn't get a lot of practice in 7, but I still have it - just not installed.
There was a fear amongst Pro Fusion users that this would mean the end of standalone Fusion. While they don't (?) offer a free standalone Fusion anymore, they still do make the amazing Fusion Studio.
As a 'do everything' studio kind of person, I'm more than happy with the free version of Resolve and the Fusion within. Very powerful.
Here's a bit of a demo of DaVinci Resolve (and Fusion)
Here is my page for DaVinci Resolve, with links to some of the learning materials I'm using
DaVinci Resolve - by Blackmagic Design
and this one for Fusion
And if you haven't seen it, this is the video I'm talking about in the above DaVinci Resolve video - Introducing Rosie 5