Carrara modeling vs Hexagon modeling
GarrettDR
Posts: 229
Hello,
I purchased Carrara 8.5 Pro at a great price, Now I got to figure out how to use it. I am curious about several things:
1) How is Carrara's modeling compared to Hexagon.
2) Is Carrara's learning curve easier than Blender?
I am not into animation, not yet, and I really am getting pretty decent in Hexagon although I spend half my time saving in fear of a crash.
I always thought of Carrara as a DAZ app to do larger scenes, and landscapes like Bryce. I have always had a hard time with Bryce and never could get the results that it can produce.
Anyway, Thanks!
Garrett
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Comments
Stirring trouble? Just kidding.
If you are already familiar with Hexagon and comfortable with it, you will probably feel most at home continuing to model in Hexagon. It integrates very well with Carrara.
If for some reason (stability) you don't want to continue modeling in Hexagon, Carrara can model anything Hexagon can. However, expect to be frustrated when the name of a tool is different, or in a different location, or operates in a different way. Furthermore, there are some tools that Hexagon has that Carrara does not. You will be frustrated. On the other hand, there are entire specialty modeler functions that Carrara has that Hexagon does not (eg. a dedicated plant modeler).
Welcome aboard and I hope you ask questions in the forum if you get frustrated.
I enjoy both modelers and use both Hexagon and Carrara. Hexagon has some functions Carrara does not and vice versa.
Other than being a dedicated modeler, the one thing they should employ in Carrara that is in Hexagon is the ability to see back faces when modeling. See image. (at least it's not obvious to me in Carrara if it has this feature).
I'm not very good a modeling, but I think what you learn in is most likely what you'll be more comfortable with. For me I vastly prefer modeling in Carrara to Hex, but this is because Hex crashes on me so much it's nearly unusable, and also because what little I know of modeling I learned in Carrara. I've heard many who are very good at modeling mention that they prefer modeling in Hex, and while the toolset is similar there are a few tools in Hex that are not in Carrara, and also vice versa. There are a few folks in the forums here (Diomede springs to mind immediately) who model in Carrara all the time and can churn out some really good stuff quickly, however if you're already good and familiar with Hex, you'll probably still prefer Hex, and no reason in the world you can't continue using Hex anyway. The advantages of modeling in Carrara is you're working in the same app you may be making scenes and renders with, so no need to export, re-import, etc, and also stability. But I suspect you'll probably want to stick with Hex as your primary modeler if that's what you're comfortable with.
As for your 2nd question, about ease of use Carrara vs Blender, that really is very very subjective. I found Carrara extremely easy to use and learn, though there is so much to learn that's included in Carrara that years later I still feel like I've only scratched the surface of it's capabilities. Some apps are just more 'natural' for ease of use in learning, and I took to Carrara right away and really prefer using it to any other app. I know tons of people will talk about how counterintuitive and hard to learn Blender is, but really I think it varies person by person. I found Carrara much easier to learn, but I don't find Blender to be so labyrinthine as the common legend might have it. Carrara does many things much better than Blender, but then again Blender does some things better than Carrara. Doesn't have to be an either/or choice though since Blender is free, so I recommend working with both and see what feels most natural to use as your primary and then use the other as a plugin. As much as I loathe Daz Studio, it's free, so I certainly have Studio and use it on occasion (I'd be kind of foolish not to have it in my toolkit).
Thanks for your responses!
I guess I am in limbo because I don't know the future of Carrara and it seems the future of Hexagon, is done. I am just curious because I really want to stick with a modeler that is going to be around and receive upgrades / updates. I plan on staying with Hexagon until I get comfortable with Carrara. I appreciate the support and each of your opinions!
I take it would be ok for me to post models I create here with Carrara and some of you nice people wouldn't mind checking them out and letting me know what I can do to make them better? One thing I would really like to do is give away models that is worth the download. I know I spent many , many years downloading free stuff from sites. I would like to be able to give back!
Thanks diomede64, Design Acrobat, and Jonstark!
I gave up on Blender as it seemed to be trying to make my head explode with its complexity. I don't know much about Hexagon, since it won't run on my Mac, but this render is from something I've been working on in Carrara. It uses the vertex modeller, tree modeller, terrain, and a whole bunch of replicators.
But it all started with a simple cube (okay, a 100ft high stretched cube with windows, but still a cube...) and apart from the ivy (IvyGen), it's 100% Carrara.
So your saying you can't do ivy? ;-) Just kidding. Love your sets. Great work, as always.
Beautiful! Something for me to aspire to!
Thanks Tim_A!
Wow Tim, that's phenomenal work!
Great job! But who needs Ivy Gen?
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/42599/P90/#632813
Wow! that is so making me want to plant something! These scenes are awesome! And there is Laura Crofts cousin in the scene! jk! I went back to look at Tim_A's pic to see if I could see anybody I didn't notice before. Nope, Just pretty trees, and pretty leaves, and pretty grass! I did imagine seeing Rapunzel's long braided hair coming out one of the windows in that 100 ft high stretched cube! Great Pics! Roughly guys, how long have you spent on these respected scenes? Sometimes I can spend what seems like hours adjusting the smallest of things, but in general, the biggest chuck of time you spent creating these beautiful scenes.
Hey Evilproducer,
Just got through looking at the link on how you did your Ivy and the techniques you used! Thanks for posting that! So freaking cool, I want to go build something so I can cover it up in vines! I honestly have never been more excited to do landscapes, or scenes until now.
I spent about an hour last night in Carrara messing with the tutorial from cripeman,"Making and Animating Gears"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biqcCFP6CZ8&feature=youtu.be
A problem I have understanding is that with a new scene in Carrara, I have to drop a vertex modeler into the scene before I adding an object to model? In Hexagon, you open the app, and then drag your sphere, box, cylinder, etc into the scene to start modeling.
What is giving me problems is moving around the "Rooms". Going from the "Assemble Room", to the "Model Room", I couldn't find the object I was working on.Also, I had a hard time working the light. I could never get it to give me a decent render. I guess, I am spoiled by DAZ Studio since its default light, for me, gives good results, in my opinion.
I know these things will come in time and while I am in between art projects, spending a little time each day that I can will help!
I am starting here:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15970/
I am printing out the Carrara 8 Basic User Guide and then working my way down the forum listing.
Thanks!
Hiya Tim,
That looks like Cabot Tower on Brandon Hill in Bristol, or an impression of it! Do you live near me? :)
http://www.southvillerunningclub.co.uk/news/brandon-blitz-2014 (edited to change link)
I am trying to rebuild my Carrara files which got really mangled when I tried to load the beta build. :down:
Work is busy right now but hope to get back to C soon. I also would like to do more modelling and as Garrett said, crashing is a problem with Hex but I thought there was a fix that some kind poster pointed me to a while back. Anyone remember?
I also tried Blender before meeting DAZ and was doing well but it was limiting, so moved on to Hex, then to DS then to Carrara. Each has it's good and poor features as has been said.
I still read the forum and am saving many tips and suggestions by copying and pasting into word docs to catalogue them.
;) SileneUK
Tough to answer both of those questions....it all depends on you and your experience and what you like and how you operate. Personally, I really don't like the Carrara modeller, and I've used many different modelling apps over the years. I find it confusing, the UV mapping is, IMO, horrendous, and I just don't like it. Others like it a lot.
As far as Blender vs. Carrara, again, it all depends on you. Most 3D apps have similar functionality, so it's just a matter of the different layouts and how you arrange it to make it easy and efficient with stuff like keyboard shortcuts and stuff like that. Blender is getting much more intuitive, IMO, but I think Carrara is relatively easy to use. Feature-wise, it's 25 years behind the times, but if that doesn't matter then it's fine. Blender is awesome feature-wise, so it's nice to use both depending on what you're doing. That's what I do. Blender even has node compositing which is great, and the cloth and smoke and fire and water is really pretty great. Carrara's is, IMO, laughable. But that's just me...
You really have to sit down and try them out.
@EP: I'll try your creeper technique next time :)
@ Garrett, I've been poking at it off an on for a few months, but as with a lot of things, that final 10% of "polish" takes up 90% of the time! An early version of the tower interior came 2nd in the September render challenge - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/46190/#681390 (it looks much better than that now) and in October, I started playing with terrains and trees http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/47729/#700338 (the range rover is on the same bit of track as the picture above, I just added a water plane over the intersection)
I wasn't entirely happy with the below render, but I added some horses and a figure (Stephanie 6) leaning on the fence. And dropped one of Predatron's Poppies props http://www.daz3d.com/pred-pack-poppies into my tall grass replicator.
BTW, regarding light I have the opposite problem. I've been spending some time in Studio lately, and I'm struggling to get any kind of remotely decent render, lighting-wise.
If you drop the vertex object onto the Instances panel (bottom right) instead of the main scene, it'll be located at 0,0,0 which'll make it easier to find. BTW if you select something in the instances pane and then press 0, the main view will focus in on it.
Also when editing a vertex object, if you click on the spanner (wrench) at top left instead of at top right, you'll edit the object in situ, in the assembly room.
The immense power of the way Carrara uses and handles objects it that it's incredibly efficient. You only need to make relatively simple objects, which you can duplicate, parent to other objects and so on. Just like lego bricks. Take the fences in my render above, there's just one simple vertex object made from 5 cylinders (two horizontal, one vertical and two shaped into nails). I just duplicated that object around to make the fences. (actually I made 2 different sections so it wouldn't look so obviously repeated). Same kind of thing with the tower. There's only one staircase section object, which is repeated around and around till it reaches the top. The walls are made up of inside and outside faces, window objects etc. I made the glass a separate object after seeing one of PhilW's tutorials where he showed some cool renders you could do by taking the glass out of the windows! The pic below shows how some of the component objects are grouped and parented.
@Silene: No, it's Faringdon Folly, near Oxford - http://www.faringdonfolly.org.uk
Beautiful duplication of the setting... the renders you have created are wonderful. Aren't you glad there's not a monkey puzzle tree to model! :lol:
;) Silene
LOL! I had a go at the Scots Pines, but couldn't get them to look very realistic!
Thanks for the images, links and help! I spent part of my morning watching the videos from:
http://www.infiniteskills.com/training/learning-carrara-8.html
I had to stop at section 3 but watched all of 1 and 2. (I hate when work gets in the way of fun). I have to say that so far, I got a good grasp and was able to answer some of my own questions. About the lights in Studio, I don't mean to laugh, I understand. It took me awhile to get lights the way that I wanted but I am definitely no master. I bought the Tutorials for Dreamlights "Light Master" tutorial and then just spent a lot of time focusing lights on a cone, sphere, and cube.
Dreamlights Tutorial:
http://www.daz3d.com/3d-light-master
I just posted my first Image ever to a website, here in the DAZ Forums. The January 2015 New Users Contest:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/50731/#753602
Not to get away from the topic of this thread, so, you mentioned a big plus for me Tim_A, in that Carrara is 'efficient'. I have been wanting to for years create a massive landscape with a large overview of various terrains with multiple villages.
There are certain advantages of using Carrara's way of dropping a vertex model into the scene where objects already exist. One, it's easier to visualize the environment where one is modeling and two, perspective on how something may fit into a scene can be adapted 'on the fly'.
For Hexagon, there are five series of tutorials that came be found here:
http://www.geekatplay.com/hexagon-tutorials.php
Nice work over in the new users contest. I used to stop in there from time to time, but folks rarely used Carrara, and although many of the principles are software agnostic, finding the controls to do certain things is not.
I can't really recall how long it took to make the scene, but the building took me the longest to do as the VM is not my area of expertise.
The vine was actually relatively quick, and like was mentioned above, I inserted a vertex object, it opened the Vertex modeler, and instead I went back into the Assembly room, selected the vertex object in the Scene Instances palette and then wrench icon at the top left of the screen to enable modeling in the Assembly room. Doing so made it very easy to see the scale of what I was modeling, and where it was in relation to the building.
When you model in the Assembly room, only the object you have selected in editable, so I could fuss around with the vine without worrying about accidently changing something on my building.
As to terrains, I made a relatively simple terrain designed for a little fantasy renaissance village that is free to download from ShareCG. No usage restrictions except that if it is redistributed it must remain free and the manual must remain with it.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/69697/view/5/3D-Model/Fantasy-Village-terrain
The terrain is built with three elevations, with each joined by a gradual slope. The three elevations are flat for easily placing buildings and figures in each zone. The highest elevation was built to hold a tournament ground with jousting fence thingy, and posts with rings held by rigged ropes. The middle elevation I built to hold the village proper, and the lowest elevation could be a continuation of the village, a little farm or church and churchyard. The buildings in the promo images are not included, but the manual has links to them. They're by dryjack and free on ShareCG.
The terrain also has two ponds with a dam and race between the two. Additionally, there are custom trees and other objects included including a customized atmosphere and a light rig to simulate GI.
I've gotten better at designing terrain since then, so if I were to do it again, there would be some changes. However, one of the things I did do, that I think worked out great is the surface replicators. I divided my terrains in sections and placed my replicators in those sections, so that if a replicator is not in view, it can be easily hidden or deleted, thus saving resources and render time. The manual explains how to do so.
That's one of the better Studio renders I've seen, not just among new users either. I wouldn't be surprised if you win that contest, good work.
evilproducer,
Thanks for the compliment on the artwork and I appreciate the explanation of your work. I have copied and pasted your explanations into my reference folder. I read it several times scratching my head but once I get into Carrara, and get familiar with it, I'll figure it out. I also plan on downloading the free Fantasy Village. Thanks for that!
The last pic, With the knight on the horse and the Dragon on the tower? Wow! I love everything about that pic!
I am going to keep going through Carrara Cafe website, learning while I am in between projects. I do have an unfinished pic of an Egyptian Queen and her "Body Guards" roaming through the streets where the Queen in is giving a bowing peasant a gold coin. I really want to use the replicator for the people in the streets as that is the reason I haven't finished the pic. So you have given me the motivation to learn Carrara, examine your Fantasy village scene, and study up on the replicator.
Any more homework?!? JK Thanks again!
Jonstark,
Thank you! Your comment really floored me. Thank you so much!
I would say you would want to use at least three figures in the replicator. Here's two M4s replicated 100 times. You can see that if I had another one or two with different poses it would have looked more random.
Replicators are fun!
Edited to add that all 100 are not in frame.
Yeah, and next time think about weight distribution...when people run their weight is forward...they lean into the direction they're running. The poses you have there look more like they're skiing, with their weight distribution centered over the skis, rather than leaning into the run.
Yeah, and next time think about weight distribution...when people run their weight is forward...they lean into the direction they're running. The poses you have there look more like they're skiing, with their weight distribution centered over the skis, rather than leaning into the run.
You are correct. The poses aren't that great.
They were actually canned poses. I recall I did this one to demonstrate scale and replicators. The only changes I made to the poses were positioning the hands on the gun grips.
I would start out with at least 3 people then when I decide the final camera angle, drop in maybe 2 more and then add 1 or 2 'real' models in. It would be nice if I could have some sort of randomization in the cloth color and poses. A process like:
Take a figure and pose it and then save as a key frame, change the models pose again, save as a key frame repeat. Then inside the replicator you could tell it random key frames and as it replicated, it would randomly select a key frame and pose your figure.
Replicating plants, grass, trees; I can see getting away with but with people, unless its done correctly, a duplicate pose sticks out like a sore thumb in MY eyes. My OCD would kick in, my eye will start twitching, and the next thing you know, I will find myself 12 hours later posing another set of 5 models for the replicator! lol
Yes. A "hero" figure or two that you focus on is best. Replicated figures are best for the background. My example was just demonstrating that it can be done.
BTW, since this is a thread about Carrara vs. Hexagon modelling...
I HATE THE CARRARA UV MAPPER !!!!!
Geez, even the simplest things are so difficult to get what you want, or even find out what you have.
Arrrgggghhh....
Me too. I now use unwrap for pretty much everything, because even though it doesn't do quite what I want, at least what it does is predictable. Annoying often and in need of much tweaking, but predictable.
Me too. I now use unwrap for pretty much everything, because even though it doesn't do quite what I want, at least what it does is predictable. Annoying often and in need of much tweaking, but predictable.
And I was hoping to get you to do more examples (I think Roygee had some also) in that uvmapping thread. Yes, I'd like more consistency from the uvmapping tools. Although I have been improving with the unwrap function, I am unfortunately still struggling,
Yes. A "hero" figure or two that you focus on is best. Replicated figures are best for the background. My example was just demonstrating that it can be done.
My Bad! I didn't explain myself, evilproducer. I was referring to my picture of the Queen and her two bodyguards. I would replicated crowds and still want to add a person or two outside the replicator to break up the crowd repetition. This has nothing to do with the focus of the Queen and her bodyguards.